joel kotkin

Joel Kotkin

Joel Kotkin is a demographer affiliated with Chapman College in Orange County, California who contributes to the Daily Beast.

Much of Kotkin's writing about California is deceptive because he has a habit of ignoring one of the chief causes of California's problems: massive low-skilled immigration.

When you encounter a Kotkin column on California, first do a find for words containing "migr". If you don't find any, or the only mentions are in a supportive sense, then you know without even having to read the column that Kotkin is trying to deceive you.

Because of his habit of misleading by omission about such a vital issue, Kotkin is a favorite of supposed-conservatives that want to ignore the immigration issue (or that support massive immigration). Smearing California in order to promote red states like Texas is a bit of a cottage industry among supposed-conservatives, and many of those same people support massive immigration. Linking to or interviewing Kotkin is a safe choice for them: he's only going to confirm their incorrect beliefs.

See also the Fiscal Con page for examples of others ignoring immigration's impact on California.

Last modified Sep 7, 2014
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):

Walter Russell Mead blames the victims of globalization, mass immigration (California, The American Interest, Kotkin) - 07/15/12

For a while I've been tracking the "Fiscal Con": examples of fiscal conservatives deflecting blame from the impacts of the policies they support or ignore. Now, Walter Russell Meade ("WRM") offers what might be called the "Global Con". From '"Green" Energy Bias Killing California' [1]:

Joel Kotkin, Allysia Finley grossly mislead yet again ("The Great California Exodus", Wall Street Journal) - 04/21/12

Allysia Finley offers "The Great California Exodus" (link) in which she and Chapman University urban studies professor Joel Kotkin grossly mislead about the problems that state faces.

Joel Kotkin grossly misleads about California's problems - 07/07/09

At Forbes, Joel Kotkin offers "Who Killed California's Economy? /There are five suspects, from the governor to the constituents themselves" (link).

Joel Kotkin /Mark Schill promote a "North American Energy Community" (how the EU started) - 01/04/09

Joel Kotkin and Mark Schill offer "Go north young man", a globalist screed calling for the creation of a "North American Energy Community" (link): ...A U.S.-Canada energy consortium - with the eventual involvement of Mexico - provides us out from our fundamental geopolitical dilemma: how to grow our economy while reducing our dependence on imported energy and, over time, carbon-emitting fuels. This could take the form of something like a North American Energy Community, which would help coordinate research, development and environmental resources across the continent... It goes on. I left...

Look, no one said not voting for Bush was going to be easy - 09/12/04

CalInsider ( peekURL.com/zJDsAzJ ) directs us to "Hey, Guys, the Action's Down There" ( peekURL.com/zFYzcAm ): Look at Kerry's chief supporters and you see a new kind of elite, a veritable "hip-ocracy" of high-tech tycoons, Hollywood moguls and celebrities, and a bevy of Wall Street financiers. This group is bolstered by Americans with graduate degrees and a growing number of college and university faculty members.