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U.S. has "certainly benefited enormously" by immigration

Buffett & Munger2004-05-01videoOpen original ↗

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SpeakersWarren1
WarrenI'm almost always glad to have very talented people come into the United States, and I'm almost never pleased when the very bottom of the mental barrel comes in. We may differ just a bit on that one. This country has certainly benefited enormously. over the decades, you know, by my immigration. We started out with 4 million people in 1790. China had 290 million at that time, just about what we have now. Europe had well over 75 million. So you had 70 times as many people in China. You had probably 20 times as many people in Europe. We had the same degree of intelligence in China or in Europe as we had here. We had similar natural resources, and now this country has well over 30%. percent of the GDP of the world. So it's a pretty remarkable story. And how to attribute, or how to quantify the various components that entered into that is very difficult. But we've certainly been a country characterized by lots of immigration and whether that is responsible in any way for the incredible record of this country, I don't know, but I suspect that it was. And I think what Charlie would like to do is, perhaps be the admitting officer and it would work pretty well for charlie was but in the absence of that i think i don't think net this company country has been hurt by immigration over time