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Comment by mrb | Hacker News Reader

The percentage of immigrants who start businesses is higher than the percentage of americans who start businesses.

Here is a data point: 40 Percent of Fortune 500 Companies Founded by Immigrants or Their Children: http://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/06/19/40-per... And because immigrants represent a minority of the people in america (12.6% as of 2007 [1]; and when adding their children this is likely still less than 40%), we can deduct they create more businesses per capita than americans.

[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=aaimTNHDzZYC&pg=PA32...

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Business creation is not a particularly useful metric. Note that I qualified with "innovative." That there are more restaurants and more people have their lawn professionally landscaped rather than cutting it themselves doesn't really create an argument for immigration.

The Fortune 500 stat smells pretty slippery and cherry picked. I mean, one co-founder had one parent born overseas and the company is counted as immigrant founded? This is meaningful? The vast majority of major companies were probably also founded by people who grew up in major urban centers. Immigrants are disproportionately likely to live in major cities. What happens when you control for that? I cast aspersions.

The link I provided is actually fairly rigorous in describing the effect of immigration as it is currently practiced in the USA: It drives down the wages of low earners and increases profits to the economic elite. It's probably a wash for the bulk of the middle class when measured in purely financial terms, but that ignores various psychic and ecological impacts. Did you know that current immigration rates projected out result in a USA population of over 600 million by the end of the century? Is it not obviously insane and ecologically criminal to allow that level of over population?

"Business creation is not a particularly useful metric"

Business creation is wealth creation. It is job creation. It is everything to the american economy.

"I mean, one co-founder had one parent born overseas and the company is counted as immigrant founded"

No it is not counted as immigrant-founded. The point of this statistic is to show that immigration has a positive effect on business creation. In other words, had the parent never immigrated, the child would not have founded a business (created wealth) in the USA.

I think the same is true in reverse: americans who emigrate are probably creating more businesses in countries they emigrate to, than citizens of these countries. Immigrants are risk-takers who want to take control of their working lives.

> Business creation is wealth creation. It is job creation. It is everything to the american economy.

Most new businesses are small businesses. The jobs associated with small business are significantly worse than those associated with larger business. You are oversimplifying this.

Are you saying the average immigrant founder creates small businesses of inferior quality than the average business?

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