Who the hell is an immigrant?

[Razgovory]

I never thought of "German" as cool.  I just say German because my last name is German.

[Valmy]

Two, people with mixed ethnic heritage(which is nearly all of us) are more likely to latch on to a "cool" ancestry like German or Irish.

I think it is usually because of their last name.  Nobody named 'Smith' claims to be German.

[grumbler]

Wow! 

I cannot believe there is still a nation whose educational system thinks Thomas Malthus was right! Two (at least) of our Swedes have an epic history fail.  So much for claims of Sweden being any kind of an advanced society!

[Eddie Teach]

I think it is usually because of their last name.  Nobody named 'Smith' claims to be German.

Well, the most common last names in the US are all British in origin. Smith, Jones, Williams, Johnson, Brown, Davis, Miller, etc.

[Slargos]

Wow! 

I cannot believe there is still a nation whose educational system thinks Thomas Malthus was right! Two (at least) of our Swedes have an epic history fail.  So much for claims of Sweden being any kind of an advanced society!

I find it very hard to argue with Malthus, and if you're going to be honest, so do probably you.

[Barrister]

I don't think the preponderance of Britishness in Americans is as low as surveys would indicate, for two reasons. One, the original immigrants frequently came here much longer ago and got forgotten. Two, people with mixed ethnic heritage(which is nearly all of us) are more likely to latch on to a "cool" ancestry like German or Irish.

But neither German nor Irish ancestry is cool.

[Valmy]

I think it is usually because of their last name.  Nobody named 'Smith' claims to be German.

Well, the most common last names in the US are all British in origin. Smith, Jones, Williams, Johnson, Brown, Davis, Miller, etc.

Not just British but English.  Looking at those lists I am actually pretty surprised at how English and Spanish last names dominate.  Maybe Germans and Italians and Scots and Irish have alot more variety in their last names...or maybe it splits people who anglicized their names and ones who did not.  One of the German families I am descended from are the Kepharts and there are literally no Kepharts anywhere in Germany except for one town in the Rhineland....called Kephart oddly enough.

[grumbler]

I find it very hard to argue with Malthus, and if you're going to be honest, so do probably you.

True; dead men are even less articulate than Swedes.

[Razgovory]

I think it is usually because of their last name.  Nobody named 'Smith' claims to be German.

Well, the most common last names in the US are all British in origin. Smith, Jones, Williams, Johnson, Brown, Davis, Miller, etc.

Not just British but English.  Looking at those lists I am actually pretty surprised at how English and Spanish last names dominate.  Maybe Germans and Italians and Scots and Irish have alot more variety in their last names...or maybe it splits people who anglicized their names and ones who did not.  One of the German families I am descended from are the Kepharts and there are literally no Kepharts anywhere in Germany except for one town in the Rhineland....called Kephart oddly enough.

I know some of my family changed their name during WWI.  It was something like Von Dreagi and they changed it to Dreager.  I'm surprised the ones  named "Hess" didn't change their names during WWII.

[Caliga]

But...German...ancestry is [not] cool.

[Razgovory]

But...German...ancestry is [not] cool.

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He's right.

[Slargos]

I find it very hard to argue with Malthus, and if you're going to be honest, so do probably you.

True; dead men are even less articulate than Swedes.

Well caught.

That quip aside, I think the basic foundation of Malthus' argument is self-evident even if some of the conclusions he draws are erroneous.

At any given level of technology, the theoretical capacity to produce food is finite and since ultimately all wealth is derived from the production of foodstuffs, wealth is also a finite resource which when stretched will mean those who have not will have their basic quality of life reduced as the population grows. This is averted by increasing the efficiency of the production but unless more resources or infinite efficiency in existing resources (where instead living space and power production will set the limit) can be developed there is a natural roof which when hit will produce the effects as described by Malthus.

It's not hard to see the results already in African nations.

[Eddie Teach]

Not just British but English. 

England and Wales have a lot of the same names. Probably because a lot of people didn't settle on surnames until after they were joined.

[grumbler]

That quip aside, I think the basic foundation of Malthus' argument is self-evident even if some of the conclusions he draws are erroneous.

No, because the foundation of his argument is that population grows exponentially and resource production grows linearly.  He failed to understand what the Industrial Revolution was doing to the production of resources and goods.  Not his fault; he had inadequate data.

Ditto for Ricardo.

The writings of these two created the motivations behind most social thinking of the Nineteenth century, though, so I can see why the Nineteenth Century Sweden of today would still teach this stuff as though it were accurate.

[The Brain]

Well majority British-descended Americans have long ceased to be a literal majority over here

Is this relevant?