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Google Chief: We Want The Feds To Import Consumers

Neil Munro White House Correspondent
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Women aren’t having enough babies to offset the normal expiration of old people, so the federal government should import huge numbers of new consumers for American companies, Google chairman Eric Schmidt stated at a Wednesday event in Washington D.C.

Around the world, “most stock markets assume modest growth, so how are you over a couple of decades to deal with the fact that one third of your customers are going to go away?”

“Well, one [way] is produce more customers through immigration,” he said at a March 18 event hosted by the American Enterprise Institute.

“I thank him for saying out loud what we all know — that there are people in the business community whose only goal is to increase profits no mater what, and they’re willing to absolutely destroy the quality life for individuals and the natural environment just to get more customers,” Roy Beck, the founder of NumbersUSA, told The Daily Caller.

“That’s what we’ve been saying for years,” said Beck, whose organization has opposed many efforts by business and progressive groups to raise immigration above the current rate of 1 million per year. There are two other alternatives to mass immigration, Schmidt admitted at the AEI event. The number of consumers could be increased “through greater reproductive performance … more children,” he said.

Without any change in immigration rules, the U.S. population is expected to grow by roughly 30 million people during the next 35 years, up to roughly 350 million. In 2013, business groups helped pass an immigration expansion through the Senate, which would have boosted the population up to roughly 436 million, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.  However, the immigration-boosting bill was defeated by public opposition.

Schmidt’s second baby-making option would win him friends among married voters, and among many social-conservative advocates who say the nation’s natural population growth would increase if federal programs were reformed to reduce the costs of raising children.

“An [third] alternative is … you can basically export” products and services to foreign customers, Schmidt acknowledged.

The policy of emphasizing exports would likely win Schmidt broad public support because it would raise Americans’ average wages and also minimize the economic and social cost of importing tens of millions of low-skill consumers into workplaces, neighborhoods and schools.

The export-first option would also bypass public opposition to large-scale immigration. Many polls shows that only a small portion of the public wants to increase immigration. Also, lopsided percentages of voters oppose any plan that would allow companies to import foreign workers to replace Americans.

In November 2014, one in every five U.S. jobs was held by a foreign-born worker, up from one of every six jobs in January 2010, according to federal data highlighted by the Center for Immigration Studies.

But the mass-immigration option is the most prominent approach, and it is already backed by a large swath of progressive and business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

President Barack Obama favors the mass-immigration option. Immigration “is good for the economy… But I understand some folks won’t agree with me,” Obama said March 18.

In November, Obama announced plans to provide work-permits and tax rebates to 5 million illegals.

However, Obama admitted in 2014 that mass immigration has hurt Americans’ wages. In various speeches, Obama has justified his support of even more migration with ideological, partisan and political reasons.

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