Migration has been happening for millennia but it still elicits primal fear and mistrust, and not just on the part of the “receiving” society. Lately the reawakening of the old debate about migration in the new millennium, has evoked intense emotion particularly in the United States and Europe. Hopefully this discussion will help readers cut through the jungle of myth, falsehood and misrepresentation that dominates the debate in the United States and elsewhere, and clarify the causes and consequences of something that has been happening forever, for very similar reasons and with very similar results.

The U.S. economy made impressive gains in the 20th century, but this progress makes it easy to forget a harsh reality: Americans were also the victims of disastrous government policies that wasted resources, created mass unemployment, and kept millions of people in poverty who otherwise would have participated in the nation’s growing prosperity. Leading the list of causes is that government decision-makers, regardless of political party, tend to favor short-run benefits for friends while imposing costs on current and later generations. The ten worst blunders divide equally among Democrats and Republicans. The Terrible 10 also provides lessons to help us avoid repeating such policy mistakes in the future.