Injury in a pill

I’ve been letting a lot of dumb shit slide by recently, but this is just too bluntly moronic to repel comment. The gist of the article:

Dr. Evans and his team found that PPAR-delta remodels the muscle, producing more of the high endurance type of fiber. They genetically engineered a strain of mice whose muscles produced extra amounts of PPAR-delta. These mice grew more Type 1 fibers and could run twice as far as on a treadmill as ordinary mice before collapsing.

Given that people cannot be improved in this way, Dr. Evans wondered if levels of the gene-controlling protein could be raised by drugs. Pharmaceutical companies have long tried to manipulate the protein because of its role in fat metabolism, and Dr. Evans found several drugs were already available, although they had been tested for different purposes.

The original tagline blares that this is the advent of getting a “workout in a pill” - a dangerously imprecise interpretation. The drugs, if they work, function by stimulating muscle growth in the absence of a stimulus from actual training (or non-recreational exertion). Now, there are at least two problems with this process, both of which should be sufficient reasons to reject a “workout-replacement” role for the drugs. First, at least according to Steven Vogel, the endurance gains humans achieve in performing aerobic activity are associated with muscle growth only with respect to the heart muscle. As a glance at any cross-country team will confirm, endurance sports do not require and do not develop much growth in fibers of any kind in skeletal muscle. Even if drugs can induce growth in human skeletal muscle, it is not clear that significant gains in endurance will follow.

It is one thing to say a drug won’t work; a much louder alert should be sounded when a drug carries the risk of imparting serious injury to its user. That, I believe, would be the case with any “muscle-growth-in-a-pill” regimen. Even doped-up bodybuilders, “roided out to their mutant gills,” combine the assisting chemicals with actual training, which - pay attention - stimulates the central nervous system as well as any muscles involved. When nothing is done to attune the CNS to handling an increased muscle mass (and with it, increased force), the potential for injury grows. The point is familiar to anyone who has stuck with a weight training program long enough to experience so-called “beginner gains,” increases in strength coming from CNS adaptation and preceding any significant muscle growth. In a hypothetical example, an untrained and sedentary adult will move more weight on any exercise (or the same weight for additional repetitions) after four weeks of progressive training; the same person put on a (theoretically effective) drug regimen and barred from exercising will not only probably move the same amount of weight four weeks in, but would also be more likely to sustain an injury, given the higher forces operating at an untrained level of coordination on muscles, tendons, and other tissue. Medication for muscle growth, viewed in this light, may be not only undesirable for untrained patients, but even counterproductive. A complete “workout in a pill” should include, at minimum, effects on muscle composition and neural development paralleling those of an actual exercise routine. It is the latter component, every bit as important as the former, that has been omitted by the researchers profiled in the linked article.

Fat Acceptance and strength training

It is an article of faith of the Fat Acceptance movement that “diets don’t work.” It is equally dogmatic among opponents of FA that controlling calorie intake and macronutrient ratio, in addition to progressive strength training, has worked time and time again (this is hard fact) and can work for just about anyone without a crippling medical condition (this is apparently a point of dispute). I commend both sides when, occasionally, they back up their vitriol with authoritative journal articles. The problem is that sometimes, in the heat of the serious business that is the internet, articles of limited generality are read as if they are the last word on the topic. A FA blogger, for example, cites this article as evidence that building muscle to lose weight doesn’t work (closely paraphrased). But there is something very problematic with using this article (and many like it) for evidence:

Women randomized to resistance training exercised on 3 nonconsecutive days during the week (e.g. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) under the supervision of a personal trainer. Because of the need for test specificity, one-repetition maximum (1-RM) evaluations of certain exercises used in the training program provided the most direct evaluation of the training gains made over the 6-month period. The 1-RM is defined as the maximum amount of resistance that can be moved through the full range of motion of an exercise for no more than one repetition. To determine the 1-RM, each subject initially performed three to five repetitions with the lightest weight possible to be sure proper technique is used. The trainer then selected a weight and asked the subject to perform the lift. After 3–4 min of rest, the next heaviest weight was selected, and the attempt was repeated until the subject could not complete the full lift. The same number of trials, time between trials, and order of exercises were used before and after training for the 1-RM test. Tests were administered before the start of the training program, midway through the program, and after the exercise program. The following exercises were evaluated for 1-RMs: leg press, bench press, shoulder press, and seated rows. Training was approximately 60–80% of 1-RM at the beginning with the goal of having all subjects train at 80% 1-RM by the second week of the program. Each training session included a warm-up of low intensity cycling for 5 min, followed by 10 min of static stretching of all the major muscle groups used in training. The resistance program consisted of the following exercises: 1) leg press, 2) bench press, 3) leg extensions, 4) shoulder press, 5) sit-ups, 6) seated rows, 7) tricep extensions, 8 ) arm curls, and 9) leg curls. The exercises provided a total body resistance training program for all of the major muscle groups of the body. The volunteer was given a target load range and attempted to keep each set within the target range by adjusting the load to allow the prescribed number (n = 10) of repetitions. Rest periods were 1–1.5 min between sets.

Please bear with me as I nerd the fuck out. These women were doing (A) a bad routine with (B) no guarantee of intensity. Both of these points hamper the effectiveness of the program at building muscle even ignoring any shortfalls in the subjects’ diet. It is one thing for the researchers to say their shitty routine doesn’t work; it is another for the FA crowd to pick up this article and pass it as proof that progressive strength training doesn’t work. Now, for the nitty-gritty.

A. A bad routine starts with a bad choice of exercises. With the exception of bench press and perhaps shoulder press, isolation exercises predominate. In general, the routine looks nothing like usual well-respected beginner programs that focus on compound moves like squats and deadlifts. By using isolation exercises (and a compound exercise or two for a fairly small muscle group), the researchers denied their subjects the muscle-gaining advantage of heavy compound lifts. Now, bodyparts routines are associated with hitting muscle groups with multiple exercises once or twice per week, and with splitting training days by muscle groups. Simple routines utilizing the three powerlifts are associated with repeating the same full-body workout twice or three times a week. The researchers, for some mysterious reason, transplanted exercises from a bodyparts routine into the schedule of a routine based on compound lifts. I have never seen this course recommended to beginners, or, indeed, to anyone. Finally, and least significantly: Beginners’ lifting programs are typically designed with rep ranges from 5 to 8. It’s a matter of common sense: the more reps the subjects had to perform with a given weight, the harder it would have been for them to increase the weight substantially (and therefore stimulate muscle growth). A rep range of 10 is not that bad, but it seldom appears in actual lifting routines geared towards beginners, because it is not as effective.

B. Intensity. Training is hard fucking work, and it is always an option - especially for subjects randomly assigned to training - to go through the motions without actually exerting themselves. Who knows how the study might have turned out if every one of the subjects pushed herself to the limit and made a serious effort to get into the iron game? As it stands, nothing seems to indicate the subjects were pushed to train hard and get results. (In fact, this would probably run contrary to the methodology of a scientific article.) But in the real world, when people slack off at the gym, they can change that, and achieve results with all but the crappiest of routines. Of course, the secret ingredient of willpower is elusive - but it doesn’t mean the routine itself (or, indeed, strength training in general) doesn’t work.

Bottom line: I applaud those FA bloggers who attempt to educate themselves on strength training, but I cannot get behind overgeneralizing from a poorly conducted study to conclude that strength training “doesn’t work.” In the end, it’s every person’s own choice whether they want to get serious at the gym and get strong, or make excuses about how progressive strength training will never “work” for them. Still, it’s a bit funny how those who choose to do the latter also choose to shit on those who do the former.

P.S.: because no article on a touchy topic is complete without references:

Beginner’s page at EXRX.
Training resources at T-Nation.
Starting Strength - a real training program for beginners (compare to the experimental program above)

Monday-morning quarterbacking, a couple Mondays too late.

Mike Meginnis is a bit too eager to blame everything on a malevolent ruling class.

If you say things like “It’s in the interest of the ruling class, both in terms of those with money and those in government, to maintain a gelded and underpaid lower class desperate enough to fight in wars or work other shitty and hazardous jobs, and even to be grateful for the opportunity,” people will call you a crazy conspiracy theorist. They’ll really think you’re nuts if you suggest that these people not only have an interest in making this happen, but actively use every available lever of power to assure that it happens, including the immigration regime, trade law, international finance, domestic legislation, and the culture itself.

The ruling class as a construct is a handy scapegoat for the left, because it is vaguely defined and vaguely related to its supposed misdeeds. I have no desire to engage in the sort of apologetics that holds that “the ruling class” doesn’t exist, or - more comically - isn’t important. Still, it is a hard fact that most people throwing the term around are manifestly unwilling to specify what they mean, and therefore are emptying their critiques of any substantial content. Take the passage above. The “ruling class” “actively use every available lever of power” - it doesn’t matter now to what end - and yet nowhere are we given a precise definition of who is being implicated. The problem is that if the ruling class is defined by its hard core (the old money, the big new money, the creme de la creme of the managerial professions, etc.), then too few suspects are brought to trial. What the quoted blogger is complaining about is a social structure reproduced deliberately and quasi-deliberately (with actions understood by their doers to reinforce standing norms) by a much bigger school than the one a narrow definition of “ruling class” can reel in. Unfortunately, if the net is cast too wide, and everyone in some position of power and/or privilege is implicated in the idea of a “ruling class,” then the accusation of “using every available lever of power” is violently deflated. The small of the big, the “ruling” agents in a society not quite powerful enough to make it into the narrowly defined “ruling class” do not by any stretch of the imagination mobilize all their power for anything. Though they might get a few small levers by virtue of managing people, money, or information, they do not have the sort of cohesion and organization to act in unison towards some deliberate goal. A “ruling class,” properly understood, is an aggregate that is; not an aggregate that does.*

* Internal strife within the so-called ruling class is, as I’ve commented at the original post, another reason for taking this view.

Judge Not, Denizens of Planet Tea Party

Saw this when it came out, meant to comment earlier, but got carried away with other things:

NYT article on Planet Fitness’ crackdown on grunting at the gym.

Key quotes:

Planet Fitness bills itself as “The Judgment Free Zone.” But in the weeks since Mr. Argibay was booted, a number of members have accused the gym of judging with extreme prejudice, saying the club humiliates members whose physiques are too chiseled and who take their workouts too seriously.
[...]
Rosemary Lavery, a spokeswoman for the Boston-based International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association, said she could only assume Planet Fitness was trying to discourage bodybuilders and others who are diligent about working out. Ms. Lavery cited statistics showing that baby boomers who exercise once or twice a week represent the fastest-growing segment of health club members. Many clubs are seeking ways to appeal to those groups, she said, but a ban on guttural noises is not the path most have taken.

The problem I see here is two-fold, and it has little to do with the sounds lifters or their weights make. First, any shred of mainstream physical culture has been obliterated by a glossy cult of “fitness.” Second, average gym-goers are stricken en masse with tall poppy syndrome, and resent anyone who breaks their law of never working hard at the gym. On the first point, it is blatantly obvious that no one, young or old, receives good training in the care and feeding of their own body unless they purposefully seek this out themselves. For striking evidence, go to the gym and observe the curl supersetters and the cardio hamsters; then try to stay in touch with any of these “fitness” aficionados long enough to watch them prepare a meal or shop for groceries. The result is that when somebody does a legitimate exercise with real weight (as the article’s subject), 83% of his or her fellow gym-goers (percentage made up) won’t perceive it as beneficial or even legitimate. However - and here we merge into the second line of the critique - when they see someone working hard and getting stronger, they resent the real lifter to no end because their own programs don’t work. I am referring, of course, to the extremes of the elliptical users burning more calories on reading their copy of Self than on doing the exercise; and of the bench bros who only train in teams of two or more, one struggling under the weight as the others deadlift it off his chest. But I am also referring, and more acridly, to the somewhat enlightened patrons (however many of those there are in a commercial gym) who know that their program sucks but still get offended when they see someone who is more built, or moving more weight, or even just doing a harder exercise. This is the judging that goes on every day in gyms, and in “judgment-free” zones like PF (and similar chains such as 24 Hr Fitness, etc.) it only gets worse. In my opinion, based as it is on absolutely nothing, I say that we should judge and be judged in all our pursuits, including the time we spend pursuing real strength or imaginary “fitness” at the gym. But let us be judged on good and constructive criteria, such as safety, efficacy, efficiency, and progress. That’s something you’re not going to find in the fitness rags any time soon.

NEDA follow-up

As promised , here’s some elaboration on my disagreement with the National Eating Disorder Assn.

In the previous episode, I wrote:

My impression from the broader text was that NEDA essentially went overboard and was trying to clinicize any attempt at breaking out of one’s “natural, genetically influenced size” and body shape, which is a message that condescends (a.) to people who want to alter either, and (b.) to people who have succeeded in doing (a).

Now that the NEDA infosheets are back online, I can support this claim a little more thoroughly. The following are some excerpts from the NEDA site, numbered for ease of reference.

1. [From a questionnaire designed to detect "disordered eating."] Do you constantly calculate numbers of fat grams and calories? Do you weigh yourself often and find yourself obsessed with the number on the scale? Has weight loss, dieting, and/or control of food [em. added] become one of your major concerns?

2. [From a list of advice to men.] Magazines targeted at men tend to focus on articles and advertisements promoting weight lifting, body building or muscle toning. Do you know men who have muscular, athletic bodies but who are not happy? Are there dangers in spending too much time focusing on your body? Consider giving up your goal of achieving the “perfect” male body and work at accepting your body just the way it is.

3. [ibid.] Aim for lifestyle mastery, rather than mastery over your body

4. [From a list of general advice.] Think about all the things you could accomplish with the time and energy you currently spend worrying about your body and appearance. Try one!

5. [ibid.]Find a method of exercise that you enjoy and do it regularly. Don’t exercise to lose weight.

Before analyzing these claims, it bears restating that, in my opinion, NEDA’s materials and similar texts contain plenty of quality information. However, in some instances, the desire to shield their audience from unhealthy practices leads the authors to clinicize healthy and underutilized approaches to fitness. Here’s what I mean.

With respect to (1), anyone getting serious about nutrition, for any purpose, will want to keep at least a rough count of their calorie intake and macronutrient breakdown. Anyone interested in adjusting weight for athletic purposes will likewise be “obsessed” with the numbers on the scale. “Control of food,” inasmuch as it describes (after the Dead Milkmen) “giving a shit what I put into my mouth,” is again expected of anyone interested in nutrition. Broadly, these supposed symptoms of “disordered eating” have nothing “disordered” about them per se. That NEDA is willing to cast such a wide net for “disordered eating” places them in the company of those who label anyone with a double-digit BMI as overweight.

About (2), then. Do you know people who aren’t trying to lose weight and are still unhappy? Then does that mean NEDA should fold up shop? But it is the last part of the quote that really bothers me. Why is it wrong to work towards more muscle and less bodyfat? These two goals are perfectly healthy for just about anyone who isn’t a bodybuilder on the eve of a competition. Moreover, these two goals are perfectly attainable to some degree for most people, and it is idiotic of NEDA to dismiss them.

Number (3) gets this: tell Ronnie Coleman that he shouldn’t aim for body mastery. Yes, not everyone can look (or wants to look) like Mr. Coleman, but the average American would benefit from getting some real body mastery along with this nebulous lifestyle mastery.

On point (4), dear NEDA, think about all the things your readers could accomplish if they gave up the elusive quest for unconditionally loving their body like they gave up the fad diets, and used that time and energy to embark on a program of strength training and healthy nutrition.

Point (5) again makes no sense. Why is it bad to exercise to lose weight? Are bodybuilders on a cutting cycle disordered? Are athletes trying to get into a lower weight bracket in their sport? More importantly, if a total couch potato decides to get active, what’s wrong with him or her setting healthy fat loss (and correspondingly, more often than not, weight loss) as one of his or her goals?

In sum, while the vast majority of NEDA’s message is beyond reproach, the organization fails the people it means to help by neglecting to broadcast a message of positive change, and of real, healthy, and realistic “body mastery.”

Two variables, one model - Part 1

From the master narrative of my thesis, dealing with choice processes, or the mental manipulation of the matrix of perceived conditions and the matrix of preferences to yield a course of action:

No one in the business of deductive models of action can take seriously the four leading models of choice. To enumerate some of the most pertinent criticisms of this body of theories:

The difference between maximization and satisficing is one of degree, because “true” maximization is impossible given cognitive limits.

The difference between instrumental choice processes (i.e., the above two) and expressive rationality, supposedly focusing “on means and not ends,” is of uncertain relevance. If it didn’t matter whether choice processes were oriented towards “means” or “ends,” then expressive rationality would be merely instrumental rationality directed elsewhere.

Procedural rationality, in drawing on structuralist theory, is seldom clear in how much agency it assigns to actors. “Real” structuralist theory denies actors all agency, in which case theorizing choice processes is futile.

No single theory of the four seems to give a satisfying description of the choice process preceding any real action (especially any one of our own real actions).

No provision is made for overlapping or interaction of any sort among the four ideal-type choice processes.

Now, it is important to remember the criticism that cannot be made - that at least one of these choice processes is false. Direct and (more abundantly) implicit evidence on choice processes suggests that each of the four established modes has a kernel of truth. The problem is integrating the four into a coherent theory of choice processes; and the key to solving this problem is that the four extant theories may be mapped to a larger “process space.”

If being wrong is not elitist, then Clinton is not elitist

Reuters reports Sen. Clinton’s strategy for justifying her gas tax plan:

“I’m not going to put my lot in with economists,” Clinton said when asked to name an economist who backed her proposal.

“We’ve got to get out of this mind-set where somehow elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that really disadvantage the vast majority of Americans.”

This is ironic for two reasons, neither of them related to the constant drumbeat of “hurr, Clinton is rich.” First, Clinton’s gas tax plan is regressive, meaning its benefits increase with income. The poorest people obviously don’t drive and therefore reap nothing from the proposal; those slightly better off do drive, but can’t afford to spend much on gas, tax or no tax; and those who already tend to spend most on driving will benefit most from the repeal of the gas tax, since they’re the commodity’s prime consumers. To propose a regressive tax cut and then turn around and use “elitist” as a pejorative is ignorant at best, dishonest at worst.

More ironic, at least to me, is that in the original policy fight between Clinton and Obama, the one about health insurance, Clinton - and not Obama - literally put her lot in with mainstream economists in suggesting a Massachusetts-style mandate. In doing so, she affirmed her image as a competent bureaucrat, ready to pursue complicated policies that might not make sense in an idealistic poli sci lecture. I find it a shame she is taking a sledgehammer to that image these days; but if that’s what it takes to sell her to the public, so be it.

Obama is a professor of law, not sociology

Everyone’s been up in arms about Obama’s remarks that linked small-town voters’ values to their economic circumstances:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them,” Mr. Obama responded, according to a transcript of the fund-raiser published on Friday on The Huffington Post Web site.

“And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not,” Mr. Obama went on. “And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or antitrade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Now, I’m not going to get on the bandwagon that’s circling the Obama campaign, slinging accusations of insincerity and elitism. For what it’s worth, I’m willing to believe the O-spin that the Senator misspoke; and furthermore, that he does not consider “guns or religion” as values of less worth than his own. The remark itself should be the interesting thing here, as it represents a popular reincarnation of a methodology long discredited in the social sciences.

I speak, of course, of the fallacious aim to delegitimate (discredit, falsify, or just plain ridicule) a social fact by “discovering” its causes; and of the allied practice of seeking material explanations for cultural phenomena. Both can be readily inferred from the words Obama spoke (though I am not accusing the candidate of either). Small-town values, simplified as “guns or religion,” are “explained” by the material condition of small-town voters, with the seeming purpose of claiming these values to be false or irrelevant.

The explanation of values by material circumstances is an exemplary Marxist analysis, and like most Marxist theory is easily falsified. It might perhaps seem true that over time and in different places, poor people gravitate towards religion. (Assume for the moment this is true - despite historical counterexamples.) But the religion of small-town America is A.) highly specific, and B.) highly varied. Two dirt-poor rednecks can have very specific religious beliefs (e.g., belief in full-immersion baptism) that do not seem to be explainable by crude macroeconomic factors; and, moreover, could have very different religious beliefs - even if by some chance they attend the same church. If the economically-determined model of culture were true, then small-town religion would be uniform and vague, having for content only what might be directly caused by adherents’ income, wealth, position in the labor market, etc. This is obviously not the case in real life, and hence the explanation of a value-system by its material correlates cannot be given credence.

What of the other fallacy, that explaining a belief makes it illegitimate? If this were the case, then no belief would be legitimate, including the critic’s own (a classic critique of the original Marxist analysis). Suppose beliefs can be explained by material conditions. If so, every belief could be so explained, or the underlying theory becomes a morass of ad-hockery. If so, then every belief is false, according to the above proposition. If every belief is false, then it is meaningless to call any one belief false. The argument defeats itself.

It is always in style to fume how people today can’t read, can’t write, can’t do math, don’t pay attention to politics, and so forth. Obama’s remark suggests that another item should be added to this curmudgeonly litany: kids today just don’t know what they’re talking about when they talk about social life.

Clinton and Obama: partners in bellendry

The Dems’ darlings this election cycle are also shameless supporters of welfare reform, according to today’s NYT.

Mrs. Clinton expressed no misgivings about the 1996 legislation, saying that it was a needed — and enormously successful — first step toward making poor families self-sufficient. “Welfare should have been a temporary way station for people who needed immediate assistance,” she said. “It should not be considered an anti-poverty program. It simply did not work.”

Mr. Change We Can Believe In joins in on the chorus:

Mr. Obama has supported the 1996 law. “Before welfare reform, you had, in the minds of most Americans, a stark separation between the deserving working poor and the undeserving welfare poor,” Mr. Obama said in an interview. “What welfare reform did was desegregate those two groups. Now, everybody was poor, and everybody had to work.”

I’d say I’m a wee bit pissed over this unbroken song of support for welfare reform - and you should be, too. Welfare reform has failed at providing or reforming welfare. As my term paper goes, the move from Aid to Families with Dependent Children to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (i.e., welfare reform), was senseless and unproductive:

TANF was meant to be a break from traditional NIT [negative income tax] welfare, a program chock-full of work incentives designed to end alleged dependency. [However,] TANF did not overhaul the fundamental NIT scheme, did not enroll significantly different persons than AFDC, and did not impart to its participants labor market outcomes superior to those of AFDC recipients. The “work incentives” of TANF can therefore be judged to have failed – as predicted by the general economic model, which holds that a NIT is a NIT, however many punitive rules are superimposed upon it. In Lein and colleagues’ words, “stricter time limits and sanction policies did not improve [TANF recipients'] chances of finding stable and sustainable employment” (2001:118). The change in the benefit reduction rate of the program did nothing to support recipients’ search for employment (Hotz et al., 2002; Wolfe, 2002), and the new work requirements and time limits did much more to push families off welfare than to help recipients find work. Fang and Keane (2004:9) report that these rules contributed to 68% of the decline in caseloads from 1993 to 2002, but only to 27% of the increase in labor supply of single mothers. Similarly, Corcoran et al. (2002:254) show Connecticut and Florida TANF leavers reported more dependence on some form of aid after exiting welfare, compared to respondents still receiving TANF. It should not therefore come as a surprise that the profiles and fates of TANF recipients are so similar to those of AFDC recipients. With work incentives, the centerpiece of welfare reform, having failed to actually reform anything, it can only be expected that TANF would be a NIT cut from the same cloth as its predecessor.

If you support welfare reform, given that all available evidence points to the failure of that initiative, you are economically illiterate. You’re also a bit of a bellend.

Lies, damn lies, and immigrants’ taxes

In a characteristically hysteric blog entry, Alex Cortes manages to get one thing right, proving that even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut.

Thirdly, Shirazi said illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes. This would be great news to the majority of them. Many file taxes in hope of speeding the process of their legalization, while many employers withhold money from their paychecks to pay both income and social security taxes. In fact, an April 2nd New York Times editorial discussed the 2008 annual report on social security, which said “taxes paid by other-than-legal immigrants will close 15 percent of the system’s projected long-term deficit. That’s equivalent to raising the payroll tax by .3 percentage points, starting today.”

I am legitimately impressed that someone like Cortes managed to keep his head above the storm of misinformation about undocumented immigrants and their relationship with the government. Immigrants, legal or otherwise, really do pay taxes, and even conservative economists such as George Borjas calculate that overall they contribute more to the U.S. economy than they draw in social programs and assistance. Why, then, is everyone up in arms about hard-working, tax-paying immigrants taking all their money? Part of it is pure misinformation (fueled by right-wing pundits, but not limited to them and their audience), but part of it represents the legitimate concern about the distribution of immigrants’ costs and contributions to the economy. The surplus value immigrants generate tends to accrue to the national economy, but nearly every government service they consume must be paid for at the local level. If those immigrants are undocumented, it is extremely hard, even given federally-administered interstate transfer programs, to allocate enough money to states with large undocumented populations. Thus, increased spending as a result of undocumented immigration tends to be seen as a crisis because, for the most part, it happens when local and state governments wake up one morning to a budget shortfall resulting from uncompensated spending.

All the “secure the borders” talk in the world isn’t going to save states with high proportions of undocumented immigrants from one financial crisis after another. The only solution is amnesty, which would allow both A. an accurate headcount of states’ populations for the purposes of federal tax revenue redistribution, and B. a fuller, above-ground participation of all residents in the payment of taxes and the reaping of their benefits.