Universal Basic Income

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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Michael on Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:23 pm

everything wrote:People would rather blame (brown) immigrants or other brown people. They don't understand that raising living standards for all people (who are mostly brown) helps all economies.

Who blames brown people for what? For economic problems in general or that the main cause of economic problems is immigration by brown people?

Economically, immigration drives down wages and it can happen at different salary levels, whether low skill or H1B, but this economic consequence of immigration is not really about race, that part is coincidental to the economics. I'm basing this on supply and demand of labor affecting payment; I think that's well known.

They don't understand that raising living standards for all people (who are mostly brown) helps all economies.

Can you give an example or make this specific somehow?
Michael

 

Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Steve James on Mon Jul 15, 2019 10:17 pm

Economically, immigration drives down wages and it can happen at different salary levels, whether low skill or H1B, but this economic consequence of immigration


Melania came on an H1B (genius visa). In some grad schools, H1B holders make up the majority of the science grad students. Economically, I'm not sure how immigrants drive down wages. Actually, it's high unemployment that drives down wages. The more desperate people are for jobs, the less companies can pay them. In fact, I thought that immigrants --particularly unskilled workers and skilled laborers-- are paid less than US citizens who do the same work. I know this is true in the construction trades, and always has been.

Anyway, unemployment is still around 4%. I'd say anyone who wants to work who lives near relatively large communities can find a job. Otoh, I don't know any job that a US citizen with a high school diploma is less qualified for that a guy who's walked shoeless from Guatemala and can't speak English. The people who competing with that guy have other problems that have nothing to do with him. Probably better to blame the people who hire them at places like Mar a Lago, and hire them to walk their dogs and children, and work on their lawns.

Anyway, the prez's grandfather was kicked out of Germany and welcomed back into the US. Nowadays, though "immigrant" is a bad thing, particularly to the children of immigrants, whose parents and grandparents were migrants. You know. The ones who came here "with 5$ in his pocket and a dream." Yep, those are the people who liked to say "Go back to where you came from" and "the country is full."

Well, immigrants aren't a threat to me. Criminals are. So are those who have suggested that US workers are paid too much and are also against a higher minimum wage --and that's for Americans. Guess who said that. Anyway, I doubt that immigrants affect our economy negatively. I think saying they are bad as a group is odd in a nation of immigrants.

Afa automation taking away people's jobs, that'll be done for economic reasons. Machines are just cheap labor, just like immigrants. The difference is that machines don't take breaks, but they don't do well fixing the plumbing or door hinges. Moreover, there needs to be someone to design, build, and maintain every machine we have.

At any rate, evolve or perish. The way capitalism works, the idea is to make a profit. Whether it takes using immigrants and migrants or robots, the profit motive will be the motive. However, whoever thinks he deserves a job should just wait. There's a job some immigrant had that is now open.

And, pardon that I bring up the prez, but I don't hire anyone, let alone immigrants. I mean. I'd like to know why they work at his hotels and not red-blooded Americans who want those jobs.
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Michael on Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:08 am

No, it's a basic axiom of economics that an excess of labor decreases the value of that labor. Unemployment is related, but it's another topic. Therefore, if enough people are added to the labor pool it will drive down wages. When those people are immigrants then it becomes a question of the wisdom of letting so many of them in that it would adversely affect citizens who are already here.

You mention threat from criminals, but I'm just talking about economic consequences, or economic threat, because of large-scale immigration to wages. I think the threat from criminal activity from immigrants is a different part of the topic and more complex than the very obvious relationship between labor pool abundance and its effect on wages.
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Steve James on Tue Jul 16, 2019 8:55 am

Excess of labor? Obviously, "unemployment" has everything to do with that. What jobs are immigrants competing with citizens for? And, if there's competition, how come citizens aren't just taking those jobs?

High unemployment drives wages down because there is a fierce competition for jobs. This administration prides itself on its job creation. There is (and was) low unemployment: i.e., high employment. In fact, high employment makes the competition harder for employers. They struggle to find workers. However, workers have more choices and so currently there are a generation of young workers who "ghost" jobs where they've been hired --because they can walk down the block and get another one.

Anyway, it's true that immigrants on H1B visas are taking American jobs because Americans can't do them. So, yeah, they are a threat. But, my point was/is that what you say about immigrants was probably said about the grandparents of most of the people on this board.

And, of course I separate criminals from immigrants in general. I mean Bezos and Musk are from immigrant backgrounds. Oh wait, so is the prez. Let's not forget that almost every major immigrant group brought organized crime. I think it's reasonable to target criminals, immigrants or not.
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Steve James on Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:00 am

Btw, what's the gripe with wages anyway? Who wants peoples' wages to go up?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbZ-o1T6F5Y

Seems like the ideal result would be for American citizens to take the low-paying jobs that immigrants do --so that the US can compete with other countries (who pay their workers next to nothing, which is the ideal for capitalism: i.e., a race to the bottom by the unemployed).
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Michael on Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:01 am

Okay, I see your point now about unemployment. I think you're saying that if immigrants are added to the labor pool there would be a pretty close relationship to those numbers of new laborers and unemployment? Is that what you're saying?
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Michael on Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:06 am

Steve James wrote:Btw, what's the gripe with wages anyway? Who wants peoples' wages to go up?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbZ-o1T6F5Y

Seems like the ideal result would be for American citizens to take the low-paying jobs that immigrants do --so that the US can compete with other countries (who pay their workers next to nothing, which is the ideal for capitalism: i.e., a race to the bottom by the unemployed).

That clip of Trump is showing him supporting a pro-globalization economic theory, at least in part. He says we have to work harder and get into the upper stratum and is against higher wages because it would interfere with international competition. Not exactly an America First position.
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby windwalker on Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:13 am

There seems to be some confusion on this thread in the usage of the word immigrant, as opposed to illegal alien.

it is said that they number between 10 to 30 million people living or residing in the US illegally.

This has an impact on what are called low wage jobs and depresses wages. It creates a class of people that are not in the system and work basically under the table for lower wages then those who are citizens or legal residents.

The countries I've worked in overseas have strict rules and regulations regarding employment and work requirements.

For example in Thailand for an American company to work there every American that works there they have to hire five Thai Nationals.

In Malaysia if you are caught working illegally without a work permit, you're subject to jail and your company will be subject to a huge fine.
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby everything on Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:32 am

for the brown people part, it's about Trump's racist rhetoric to have elected officials go back "where they came from" and stopping "rapists and drug dealers" from entering

That is a "dog whistle (not really silent at all) racist tactic designed to stoke fear "someone else" is taking your job.

In reality with such low unemployment, no one is taking "your job".

It's more the underemployment where a good job making something got offshored (to China or Mexico for manufacturing or India for services, but to a lesser extent Europe) so both arguments are somewhat correct:

- "brown people took "your job" (if the racist scare tactic is used)
- automation also removes these jobs in the sense that "robots" can do most of the work of making things or replacing the middle class "paper pushing" of old.

The latter ultimately will affect Blue and white collar jobs but it's not clear what happens next.
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Steve James on Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:41 am

Michael wrote:Okay, I see your point now about unemployment. I think you're saying that if immigrants are added to the labor pool there would be a pretty close relationship to those numbers of new laborers and unemployment? Is that what you're saying?


That's right. There should be a corresponding spike in unemployment if new immigrants are affecting jobs. Now, where you are right is that if a company can hire an immigrant for 1/2 what it pays a citizen, it will prefer hiring an immigrant. However, if there were no immigrants, that company would still pay citizens as little as it could. If there are lots of competitors for that job, it will pay less. If there is no competition, it will pay what is necessary to attract workers.

At any rate, in hotels, restaurants, resorts, etc., employers get visas for immigrants to do menial jobs.
Wouldn't unemployment go even lower if these employers hired citizens?
https://money.cnn.com/2016/03/18/news/e ... index.html

Otoh, how many jobs for citizens have Bezos and Musk created?
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Steve James on Tue Jul 16, 2019 9:47 am

Afa "Brown" people, they are just the soupe du jour in terms of scapegoats. It has been directed at the Irish, Italians, Germans, Poles, and others in the past. Read https://exhibits.library.villanova.edu/ ... 4/nativism

It's the same old argument.
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Michael on Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:16 am

everything wrote:In reality with such low unemployment, no one is taking "your job".

It's more the underemployment where a good job making something got offshored (to China or Mexico for manufacturing or India for services, but to a lesser extent Europe) so both arguments are somewhat correct:

- "brown people took "your job" (if the racist scare tactic is used)
- automation also removes these jobs in the sense that "robots" can do most of the work of making things or replacing the middle class "paper pushing" of old.

The latter ultimately will affect Blue and white collar jobs but it's not clear what happens next.

You do not grant that immigration takes away jobs because low unemployment proves that it does not. And then you say that outsourcing, off-shoring, and automation cause unemployment. Wouldn't low unemployment prove no jobs are being lost in all cases? How could low unemployment numbers be separated into the various causes, especially when illegal immigration is difficult or impossible to quantify in its effects on the job market? I do not think your economic model has internal consistency.
Michael

 

Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Michael on Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:59 am

Steve James wrote:That's right. There should be a corresponding spike in unemployment if new immigrants are affecting jobs. Now, where you are right is that if a company can hire an immigrant for 1/2 what it pays a citizen, it will prefer hiring an immigrant. However, if there were no immigrants, that company would still pay citizens as little as it could. If there are lots of competitors for that job, it will pay less. If there is no competition, it will pay what is necessary to attract workers.

I think that's pretty much how it works.

The unemployment spike occurs in the specific time and region where an industry is impacted by significant changes to the labor pool. This may not be measured directly by national unemployment trends that have perhaps multiple years of periodicity. However, when we look at specific industries, like where you used to work in construction (did you not mention once this was the reason you changed jobs?), and recognize that the labor market for an industry like that has been taken over by immigrants, both legal and illegal, where previously citizens were doing the job, something major has happened to that labor pool.

Also, wages for tha industry have remained stagnant during a time when inflation was on its normal rise, which is expected if the labor pool is increased and/or changed for people willing to accept less because of their standard of living or legal status, but this probably has multiple causes and proving a direct connection to local wages when and where the displacement took place needs some data. However, the change in the labor market proves there was displacement and therefore unemployment occurred for a time because large groups of people don't just jump from one industry to the next without interruption to their income stream.

Otoh, how many jobs for citizens have Bezos and Musk created?

I'm not sure what you're getting at, but I'll play. I think that Bezos is a net job destroyer, as well as a culture destroyer, just as is the case with Wal-Mart. Amazon (and Wal-Mart) completely destroy local businesses, such as book stores and fish bait shops, including their local supply chains. They then hire an overall much lower number of people for lower paying wages and make them uniformly obedient to the corporate agenda, as well as partially dependent on government services when they were previously independent and diverse.

Amazon is run by the richest man in the history of the planet, an oligo-technocrat who has shown himself to be intolerant and merciless towards his competitors and workers, just as the corporate logic, bereft of any morality demands. Are Amazon service centers not totalitarian work camps with inhuman conditions, enforced by sci-fi dystopian technologies, providing only subsistence wages? Amazon is not a net overall job creator, it is a net job destroyer, which it accomplishes through monopolistic capitalism that also destroys local culture and knowledge. Their symbol, the kindle, means book burning, which they are accomplishing now by banning ideological diversity after taking over the market.

Musk, I don't know as much about because one of his areas is actual production of goods, so he may be a net job creator. As a former CEO of the totalitarian enforcer of establishment orthodoxy ;D Paypal, he might be just as merciless and amoral as all the other oligo-technocrats. I guess we'll know for certain after he puts is into a re-education camp where we can earn green credits to buy his fancy cars and learn to be less carbon dependent or some shit. ::)
Michael

 

Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Steve James on Tue Jul 16, 2019 11:01 am

Wouldn't low unemployment prove no jobs are being lost in all cases? How could low unemployment numbers be separated into the various causes, especially when illegal immigration is difficult or impossible to quantify in its effects on the job market?


Ok, if it's difficult to quantify the effects of undocumented immigrant workers on the economy, then it's possible that they are actually a boon to it and not a deficit. Low unemployment figures do not suggest that that they undocumented workers are bad for the economy --especially when the economy is allegedly good.

Of course, the argument can be made that the economy would be better if ... what? If employers who hire undocumented workers pay them less? That would increase profits, no? Otoh, wouldn't paying citizens more decrease profits? When we're here talking about the "economy," aren't we really talking about corporate profits?

Yeah, the tax "decrease" gave the "economy" a boost, and it can be made to look good on paper. But, businesses exist to make money, not to pay good wages. Um, this entire anti-immigrant (with papers or without --btw, you might not recall the term Wop and to whom it was applied) is really just a way to pit workers against each other. That is diametrically opposed to the idea of worker unions that raise worker wages, and that corporatists have convinced people to hate. That's because if a strike is organized, there are always those who will take the same jobs for less pay. The inability to strike means that the employer can pay whatever he wants, regardless of what the worker needs. It's another reason people hire workers to whom they owe nothing, and who have no chance to argue about it.

So, workers in the WVa coal mines start to die from poor conditions and decide to strike. Then, the company hires strike breakers and finds people who are willing to work. Like I said, it's a race to the bottom. Anyway, when people are against a minimum wage because it's bad for the economy, it means that a maximum wage is out of the question. (Maybe that would be something like profit-sharing, but if the workers demanded it, people would call it socialism.
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Re: Universal Basic Income

Postby Michael on Tue Jul 16, 2019 11:14 am

Michael wrote:Wouldn't low unemployment prove no jobs are being lost in all cases? How could low unemployment numbers be separated into the various causes, especially when illegal immigration is difficult or impossible to quantify in its effects on the job market?


Steve wrote:Ok, if it's difficult to quantify the effects of undocumented immigrant workers on the economy, then it's possible that they are actually a boon to it and not a deficit.


My bad. I meant that because we have unregulated borders, it is difficult to count the total number of illegal immigrants and therefore difficult to quantify the total effect. Emphasis on total, but some effect is measurable. Whether or not illegal workers are a boon can be answered by looking at where they are and the local effects, such as California's decline since illegal immigration increased.

There is also the thought experiment of asking how economically beneficial it could be to have tens of millions of undocumented workers, some paying taxes with stolen papers, some not, when there is a known net drain on the economy for legal immigrants. There is obviously some benefit, it keeps wages low in some parts of agriculture or restaurants, and therefore prices low, but there is a cost as well. If there was a net economic gain in purely globalization defined monetary terms, then it would make sense to allow perhaps hundreds of millions of undocumented, low-skill workers into the USA, would it not?

But man can not live on bread alone; there may be other costs that techno-oligarchs can't measure.
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