Immigration Does Suppress Wages

[Cloud_Strife]

"I don't like being outbid for stuff by rich people, that's why I vote Republican"
-like 90% of US rural people

There comes a point where you lose sympathy with these people. They're literally voting against their own interests and any attempt to convince them requires you to pander to the same crap they swallow.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, take your pick, you could be a superstitious irrational religious person. Like the kind that actually prays or something weird.

Either way, the settlers change by era and they always have rich sponsors. Some of them are great and improve almost everything. And some of them are absolutely awful. The ones from closer nearby usually seem to be the latter.

Hispanics moving into regional towns and cities seem really rather grand. They seem to go to church, have families, work, volunteer, etc. Some suburban engineer with a usually empty summer house sprawling over some ridiculous amount of space, less useful. By a lot. Don't even get started on crap quality construction McMansions.

 

[Samson]

Well, take your pick, you could be a superstitious irrational religious person. Like the kind that actually prays or something weird.

I cannot figure out how many christians feel it is appropriate to vote for republicans. I have to suspect they do not think very hard about what Jesus was trying to teach us, in the context of this thread I think the good samaritan is highly appropriate.

 

[Farm Boy]

I think they're operating on an entirely different scale than you are. You want to vote for local offices in Chicago, you vote in the Democratic primaries. You want to vote for the local offices that matter in my county, you vote in the Republican primaries. The great state of Illinois(often Democratic supermajority or at least riding the line) makes you choose. You can then do whatever you want in the general. I will tell you that statewide and national and local are all very different things once you tease them out, but I actually find this sort of thing kind of interesting. And I don't think that interest actually makes me a better person in totality.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

There's a pretty big consensus that immigration increases native born wages. OP cites "common sense" economics but doesn't look at the economic data behind this in that immigrants don't really compete with native born people for similar jobs nor have skill overlap.

Anyways, if common sense economics posited in the OP were correct, wages would have been rising for years now, because unemployment is low and slack is disappearing, but they aren't, so maybe the common sense economics in the OP are missing something.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well yes, the problem with capitalism is that money is the be end and end all.

I should probably write an actual essay on the topic. I think that the farm family is the best example of the risks of capitalism. There are certain trend lines under which capitalism pushes us towards. One of those is increasing efficiency, which we tend to often like.

But built into that efficiency is the idea that if you fail to improve performance, Capital eventually forces you to sell your productive assets. It is very hard to just set up a steady-state system where you are coasting on your own assets and your own labor. Despite the fact that this is absolutely possible in any natural setting. If you have enough farm, and enough family, you should be able to set up a self-sustaining system. But you won't be, because eventually Capital forces you to sell your farm if you don't advance.

Farmers have the intuition that it should be possible, and so that's why there's so much psychic pain from the facts that it seems to be impossible based on the way the system is.

it allows creative destruction. But it also shows how one of the end-game scenarios are thoroughly unpleasant. And family farms are probably the best example. Because they are under some of the most pressure to reduce their producer Surplus. And because access to cheaper capital allows others to outbid them, merely because they have access to cheaper capital.

If either party has an idea that requires a loan to get 3% growth, the person who can borrow at 2% or cheaper will end up owning the property. And the other party loses the farm.

 

[Bamspeedy]

I was listening to a podcast called Planet Money from NPR where they got a letter from a listener who was arguing that cities are super overrated in the US and rural life is much better.

So they dug into it and found an economist who is making the argument that if you aren't a skilled worker (doctor, engineer, whatever), that cities have become so expensive and wages have been so suppressed that it no longer makes sense to go to a city. This economist had been a diehard supporter of the notion that upward mobility is only really possible in cities until he did some research on it and found that this stopped being true for most workers by the early 2000's.

Anyways, they interviewed the listener who sent the comment which inspired the episode and he was raving about how much land he has on his property, all the golf courses around him and how much cheaper his house was than in cities. His whole argument was how cheap things are in the country and how there are less problems.

Then they asked him what he did and it turns out he owns a leading IT company in Georgia. Yes, I'm sure the quality of life in the country is amazing when you're a millionaire. I wonder if the people living in the trailer parks on the edge of town feel differently? I haven't gone and checked on the research done by the economist showing that cities are now overrated, mostly because I was butthurt at how extremely disingenuous that particular episode was. I mean if you lead into the subject by interviewing a wealthy business owner about how great country life is and you don't bother to point that out, I'm not taking the episode seriously.

(They didn't call out the rich guy for being rich and thus having a skewed viewpoint, it was just something that popped up over the course of the episode and made me think, Huh, yeah well he would be raving about how good his life is, he's a millionaire)

Someone living in a trailer in a rural area has more living space (and a yard, too!, maybe even a tool shed) than someone living in an efficiency apartment in an urban area. A camper is smaller I suppose, but double wide trailers are bigger than many apartments (14 feet x 56-70 feet). Double wide is the standard for 'trailer parks' nowadays.

That said, I get what you are saying, interviewing a millionaire was a poor choice.

Reminds me of an episode of Secret Millionaire, a show where millionaires pretend to be poor and lives briefly in the area to get to know an area before donating to various causes in that area.
White woman in Baltimore says everyone is looking at her because she's white, and the camera shows all these minorities staring at her. What the show doesn't say is they are not staring because she's white, they are staring because she has a camera crew following her!

 

[Farm Boy]

I should probably write an actual essay on the topic. I think that the farm family is the best example of the risks of capitalism. There are certain trend lines under which capitalism pushes us towards. One of those is increasing efficiency, which we tend to often like.

It's ****ed because the program is ****ed. Everything runs on a program. We just have one that's actually called "The Farm Program." ****stains "aren't rich" because they have a "walk up" in a gentrified neighborhood. It's the same crap. Locusts jump at the thing that makes them the most, not that which shapes a society that is good, and they call themselves all sorts of isms and ists while they're doing it. Efficiency is for suckers. Respect, health, and status are goals worth having. Even hard work isn't bad, but it's really bad without respect, health, or status.

 

[rah]

I cannot figure out how many christians feel it is appropriate to vote for republicans.

Abortions, gays, etc. that's all that matters.

 

[Perfection]

When I quit my last job all my tasks moved to an engineering team in india who are paid a quarter my wage. I compete with engineers worldwide not just in America. I don't worry about immigrants suppressing my wage, i worry about America not being the center if innovation anymore. We absolutely 100% need more immigration and especially skilled immigration and i find it absolutely astonishing that so many Americans are deluded into thinking more hard working Americans is a bad thing.

 

[Dekker]

When I quit my last job all my tasks moved to an engineering team in india who are paid a quarter my wage. I compete with engineers worldwide not just in America. I don't worry about immigrants suppressing my wage, i worry about America not being the center if innovation anymore. We absolutely 100% need more immigration and especially skilled im

I wonder what this says about the culture of those Indians.

 

[Perfection]

I wonder what this says about the culture of those Indians.

Probably says the opposite of whatever you think it does.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I cannot figure out how many christians feel it is appropriate to vote for republicans. I have to suspect they do not think very hard about what Jesus was trying to teach us, in the context of this thread I think the good samaritan is highly appropriate.

Abortions, gays, etc. that's all that matters.

For evangelicals, it's support for Israel and opposition to abortion, not necessarily in that order. I've seen multiple quotes from evangelicals who say they don't like Trump as a person, but they still support him and the Republican Party because of their opposition to abortion. I hadn't read much about evangelical opposition to gay marriage in recent years, until I read an article just the other day in which an evangelical said "we see that that ship has sailed." I suppose they might harbor a grudge against anyone who voted for same-sex marriage in the same way I harbor a grudge against anyone who voted for the invasion of Iraq, but it's just not a going concern anymore.

 

[civvver]

I was listening to a podcast called Planet Money from NPR where they got a letter from a listener who was arguing that cities are super overrated in the US and rural life is much better.

So they dug into it and found an economist who is making the argument that if you aren't a skilled worker (doctor, engineer, whatever), that cities have become so expensive and wages have been so suppressed that it no longer makes sense to go to a city. This economist had been a diehard supporter of the notion that upward mobility is only really possible in cities until he did some research on it and found that this stopped being true for most workers by the early 2000's.

Anyways, they interviewed the listener who sent the comment which inspired the episode and he was raving about how much land he has on his property, all the golf courses around him and how much cheaper his house was than in cities. His whole argument was how cheap things are in the country and how there are less problems.

Then they asked him what he did and it turns out he owns a leading IT company in Georgia. Yes, I'm sure the quality of life in the country is amazing when you're a millionaire. I wonder if the people living in the trailer parks on the edge of town feel differently? I haven't gone and checked on the research done by the economist showing that cities are now overrated, mostly because I was butthurt at how extremely disingenuous that particular episode was. I mean if you lead into the subject by interviewing a wealthy business owner about how great country life is and you don't bother to point that out, I'm not taking the episode seriously.

(They didn't call out the rich guy for being rich and thus having a skewed viewpoint, it was just something that popped up over the course of the episode and made me think, Huh, yeah well he would be raving about how good his life is, he's a millionaire)

There's some truth to that though, if you can find an in demand high paying job in a more rural area it can be worth it to go like living in Austin or Houston over San Francisco as an engineer, though I don't know if Austin and Houston as still cheap, some 5 years ago they were booming in tech jobs and cost of living hadn't nearly caught up. Or if you're a doctor, there are still hospitals all over rural areas. We had a friend who was finishing his residency as a urologist and he really want to move back to southern california where he grew up, but his pay was the same as some job offers he got in Tennessee and the cost of living was about double.

My sister lives in an apartment style condo she bought in Oakland. She's a manager in graphics design and makes at least double what I do, but her two bedroom 1300 sq foot condo she told me the mortgage + escrow is 4k a month. Comparatively my 2500 sq foot 4 bedroom house is only $1850. And then the taxes, higher federal bracket and much higher state rates, our take home is not that far apart when it's all said and done.

 

[civvver]

Probably says the opposite of whatever you think it does.

There's a time coming when AI will do all the innovation and write software, design new stuff. That's the day we're all screwed unless we can rise up and get the government to start distributing production gains evenly and not just based on ownership of capital or patents.

 

[EgonSpengler]

There's some truth to that though, if you can find an in demand high paying job in a more rural area it can be worth it to go like living in Austin or Houston over San Francisco as an engineer, though I don't know if Austin and Houston as still cheap, some 5 years ago they were booming in tech jobs and cost of living hadn't nearly caught up.

I read maybe a year ago that many of the people who'd left San Francisco in the 2000s because it was too expensive had gone to Austin, and some of those people were leaving Austin for the same reason. If you're looking for affordability over the next 10-20 years, I think you can already forget about America's "2nd tier" cities - Austin, Portland, San Diego, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh - and you need to start looking at the "3rd division." There was an article in the Washington Post this morning touting the virtues of downtown Des Moines, IA, so I wouldn't be surprised if Des Moines real estate agents and websites getting inundated with calls/visitors today. If it's in the Washington Post, the horse may have already left the barn. If you're looking for a city to settle down in these days, you might want to look at places like Missoula, MT, Madison, WI, Louisville, KY, or Omaha, NE. Heck, I've heard anecdotally that real estate in Portland, Maine is starting to heat up.

 

[civvver]

Madison is supposed to be a very nice city actually. San Diego has always been super expensive.

 

[Dekker]

There's a time coming when AI will do all the innovation and write software, design new stuff. That's the day we're all screwed unless we can rise up and get the government to start distributing production gains evenly and not just based on ownership of capital or patents.

Or stop blaming immigrants and focus on adjusting to the times.

 

[Farm Boy]

I read maybe a year ago that many of the people who'd left San Francisco in the 2000s because it was too expensive had gone to Austin, and some of those people were leaving Austin for the same reason. If you're looking for affordability over the next 10-20 years, I think you can already forget about America's "2nd tier" cities - Austin, Portland, San Diego, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh - and you need to start looking at the "3rd division." There was an article in the Washington Post this morning touting the virtues of downtown Des Moines, IA, so I wouldn't be surprised if Des Moines real estate agents and websites getting inundated with calls/visitors today. If it's in the Washington Post, the horse may have already left the barn. If you're looking for a city to settle down in these days, you might want to look at places like Missoula, MT, Madison, WI, Louisville, KY, or Omaha, NE. Heck, I've heard anecdotally that real estate in Portland, Maine is starting to heat up.

It'll slow down again in the next crash, but that will be when gains are solidified in the newly hot markets. Watch the markets that get "hot for the first time" because that's where people are going to get crushed and consolidated in the macro pump and dump. It would be an opportunity to get in on the ground floor, but usually the employment market guts out along with the prices.

Even longer term, it's not like the population is actually shrinking. We're up to 330 million, on farm population isn't increasing, so they're going somewhere, if they're priced out of renting in New York City, they'll be in the regional ones. There's usually pockets. Peoria has a nice Lebanese community last I checked, for all its "yesterday's city" river town problems.

Madison is supposed to be a very nice city actually.

Been that way longer than I can remember.

 

[Perfection]

There's a time coming when AI will do all the innovation and write software, design new stuff. That's the day we're all screwed unless we can rise up and get the government to start distributing production gains evenly and not just based on ownership of capital or patents.

Ummm.... What does that have to do with my post?

Anyways, I'm not too worried about AI taking over my engineering job, because even it does, I can gradually morph into a go between between engineering AI and less technically profescient humans. The good thing about humans is they inherently value the time of other humans, that doesn't mean we won't need to rethink the economy and wealth distribution in light of AI advances but I do think there will always be a role for humans.