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>It remains this way because Americans do not generally consider or believe Econ 101 ideas It's not at all clear this violates "Econ 101". Supply and demand se

>It remains this way because Americans do not generally consider or believe Econ 101 ideas It's not at all clear this violates "Econ 101". Supply and demand set prices, and wages are basically the price for labor. Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa. Imagine the extreme, worst case scenario. If the US opened it's borders completely, and imported every poor worker in the entire world into its borders. Do you really believe that average American worker would be better off? That they could compete with that, and be able to demand a decent wage? >trade necessarily benefits both sides of the exchange True, but extremely misleading. E.g. f you move factories overseas for cheaper labor, the local workers lose out, even though other classes may gain. The benefits of trade are not distributed among the entire population. >cheaper labor => cheaper goods and services Sure, but if everyone is making proportionally less money, they can't afford the cheaper services, and on net they are poorer.

ddeck 10y ago
>Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa. This assumes everyone is taking jobs and noone is creating them. America has a strong tradition of immigrants building businesses.
- ZoF 10y ago
  No, it assumes that less are created than are taken, not that none are created at all.
froogle 10y ago
> It's not at all clear this violates "Econ 101". Supply and demand set prices, and wages are basically the price for labor. Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa. Increasing the supply of labor also increases the demand for other goods. Workers have to eat! If you kick someone out of the country, you reduce demand for food, clothes, etc., eliminating the local jobs that would have gone towards satisfying that worker's needs. Not that I'm arguing against the possibility of more workers lowering wages. They might, to some degree (studies are unclear on to what degree they do), but it's not a zero-sum game, here.
- Houshalter 10y ago
  But does the benefit make up for the cost? It would be really unlikely if 100% of a workers wages went into the local economy, let alone local workers. Many products they buy may be from overseas, for instance.

ddeck 10y ago

>Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa. This assumes everyone is taking jobs and noone is creating them. America has a strong tradition of immigrants building businesses.

ZoF 10y ago
No, it assumes that less are created than are taken, not that none are created at all.

froogle 10y ago

> It's not at all clear this violates "Econ 101". Supply and demand set prices, and wages are basically the price for labor. Increasing the supply of labor should necessarily decrease wages, and vice versa. Increasing the supply of labor also increases the demand for other goods. Workers have to eat! If you kick someone out of the country, you reduce demand for food, clothes, etc., eliminating the local jobs that would have gone towards satisfying that worker's needs. Not that I'm arguing against the possibility of more workers lowering wages. They might, to some degree (studies are unclear on to what degree they do), but it's not a zero-sum game, here.

Houshalter 10y ago
But does the benefit make up for the cost? It would be really unlikely if 100% of a workers wages went into the local economy, let alone local workers. Many products they buy may be from overseas, for instance.