6 ms·

Hate to play devil's advocate. But there just might be a reason or two to explain Trump's supporter base without using phrases like "white supremacist" and "rac

by punazj 10y ago

Hate to play devil's advocate. But there just might be a reason or two to explain Trump's supporter base without using phrases like "white supremacist" and "racist xenophobe"... http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440334/immigration-national-academies-sciences-report-fiscal-economic-impact-native-born http://www.nationalreview.com/article/440334/immigration-nat... Bottom section is the critical point, about native born workers having 500 bn in wealth transferred from the labor class to the ownership class as a result of immigration. We live in a very comfortable echo chamber where we usually don't actually compete with illegal immigrants for jobs. Not everyone is so lucky. And those people deserve to be heard instead of being shouted down and drowned out with negative "-ist" arguments designed to censor them.

croon 10y ago
Sure. I actually agree with what you write... up to the conclusion. Why does this reasoning end up blaming people that by circumstance was born elsewhere for competing by doing a better/cheaper job, instead of blaming the system for allowing that transfer of resources between classes? Why not use $100bn of those 500 for betterment/education/job creation/etc for those less "lucky"?
- punazj 10y ago
  Because of capitalism I think, you can't just appropriate someone's profits, that's not capitalism. There are two basic ideas to solve this though, you can put more and more taxes on the capital owning class to "make them pay their fair share" for, from what I gather the humanists want, an unlimited number of economic migrants because it's the human thing to do. Now an important thing to note, might be Trump's comments in the second debate, that while everyone is going on about how he legally avoided paying maximal amounts of taxes (which I would do as well, I think most everyone pays as little tax as they legally can), Hillary's donors also use those loopholes. It takes a lot more research into the respective tax plans to see if "making the rich pay their fair share" is a campaign line or an actual plan, so that takes checking. I gather that the arguments against this are that if people can't be rich in the USA, they will go be rich somewhere else. The USA, from Trump's rhetoric, I haven't checked this, has some of the higher corporate tax rates in the world, and seeing as how manufacturing has already spread outside the USA, is it really crazy to assume the capital will as well (especially when selling the goods to America is facilitated by free trade deals that are in place, making it less costly to move your business to another country). This is the Democratic party tack to deal with wealth inequality. The second plan is to cause a shortage of labor, which would increase it's value, which would make wages go up. The common ways to do this would be: to make it expensive to import goods into America (which lessens the effect of labor in foreign factories which export into the USA) by getting rid of free trade agreements; and to lower the number of people in the USA competing for that labor. We attempt to do this by having an immigration procedure, with quotas, so that we can accept as immigrants into our labor force the number of people needed at various skill levels (this would be why it's easier for a doctor to get in than a farmer, say). Trump's "wall" is basically just a way to say "we should enforce the quotas that our immigration experts are setting so that our labor force isn't glutted by excess supply in any relative tier". This is the republican tack to tackle wealth disparity. The arguments against this are mostly humanitarian, from what I gather. A significant portion of the population consider's it America's duty and legacy to be the harbor for the indigent. There's also arguments for cultural enrichment etc. I think that's why so much emotion is involved in opposing it, and why so much backlash is rightfully indignant and angry. One side is hurt by this betrayal of the American identity by building a wall to oppress the poor and keep them from the upward path -- and then begins to call the other side hateful things... When the other side tried to start an economic conversation. This is just my interpretation of the situation.
  - eveningcoffee 10y ago
    It does not help if population of poor multiplies itself faster than the capital can crow or there are resources on Earth. :( I think that it is foremost important thing to get the population gains under control. If this has happened then we have plenty of time of to figure out how to actually fairly share our home we call Earth. Current trends do show that things are moving to towards normalization, but it is not yet conclusive.
    - speeder 10y ago
      Your idea is and old, and dangerous one. Many countries trying to reduce population are succeeding, even Brazil that is not developed already has 1.8 child per woman on average. The problem is that the poor remain reproducing faster always. So how you enforce it? Pull a China and remove rights of poor people that ended with multiple kids and end with murderous parents? Murder children yourself, Sparta style? Force sterilize women and then give out reproduction licenses like a dystopian scifi movie? "Education" and "career" is not a solution, by definition the elite will have always more of that, and all else equal, will reproduce slower.
      - eveningcoffee 10y ago
        I think that, in principle if it could be arranged such that the exploitation of the children is not beneficial for the family then the problem would solve itself. If children are only burden and not the source of the income (by direct workforce during the young age or by sending money to the family when older) and contraceptives are accepted and accessible then there is no initiative to have too many children. Well, at least it looks to be the case.
        speeder 10y ago
        Then why families in Brazillian favelas, where children are a burden and government give free contraceptive and contraceptive education, still have extremely poor families with 6+ kids?
- leereeves 10y ago
  There's a difference between blaming the immigrants and blaming the policy. Is there no way to improve the lives of immigrants in their home countries without transferring wealth to the rich in America?
  - punazj 10y ago
    I think this is a very good question. And I don't know how to answer it... Some good books address possible problems (at least tangentially) in Central and South America: "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" outlines alleged ways that state organized trade deals frequently enrich the political classes as the expense of the labor classes. (tinfoil hat territory; a free documentary is available on youtube I think) "Why Nations Fail" is a rebuttal to "Guns Germs and Steel" which addresses the affects of extractive economic policies (where legislation and leadership take more from the workers than they produce in profits) versus "inclusive economic policies" (where all are allowed to profit, not just the state). An example is made as to why one side of the Mexican border is incredibly poor compared to 50 miles away across the US border (rebutting the effect of geography). (I see no real conspiracy theory in this book) "Shock Doctrine" assesses the effects of social turmoil being frequently used to implement extractive economic policies which would not be easily accepted in times of peace. (tinfoil hat territory) All of these are basically opinion books, albeit written by people more knowledgable than we. I think to a certain extent economics is an opinion anyways.
awt 10y ago
Also consider that blacks are probably the group hardest hit by illegal immigration.
leereeves 10y ago
> 500 bn in wealth transferred from the labor class to the ownership class Yes, that might help explain Trump's support. It might also help explain the opposition to Trump from the ownership class.
- MollyR 10y ago
  It would also explain the extreme opposition hes also getting from inside the GOP. It's all very interesting.
whack 10y ago
One can be all in favor of liberal immigration rules, in order to attract the best & brightest, while also supporting tough preventative measures to crack down on illegal immigration. One can also be in favor of liberal immigration rules, coupled together with a more progressive tax system that compensates the lower-middle class for any loss of wealth they experience. If Trump came out with a nuanced plan for immigration reform like the above, I would be mightily impressed. But it's hard to respect someone who crassly labels Mexican immigrants as "drug dealers and rapists".
- blisterpeanuts 10y ago
  The dozen or so Trump speeches I've heard don't criticize legal immigrants from Latin America. Could you provide a link to substantiate the claim that he is blanket labeling immigrants?
- punazj 10y ago
  So, Trump didn't really do that in the actual speech, as far as I can tell. He said "they're sending us" drug dealers and rapists (or the illegal immigrants are drug dealers and rapists). Which was a blatant misunderstanding of a Fusion article that said something like 80% of illegal immigrant south American women are raped by the coyotes who get them across the border. Not in his defense, he later defended his misinterpretation solidifying his lack of understanding ("well, someone's doing the raping!" is the direct quote) -- but he didn't say what is portrayed in the media, which is a racist slur of an entire country. http://fusion.net/story/17321/is-rape-the-price-to-pay-for-migrant-women-chasing-the-american-dream/ http://fusion.net/story/17321/is-rape-the-price-to-pay-for-m... An thing I've been thinking about is that having bulletproof borders would stop this type of trafficking with this human cost, so maybe it would be good to a point. But then again, allegedly the women and girls are told to bring contraception with them for the crossing, so they are aware that this is a cost of getting transported into the USA... It is a horrific situation, and I feel that the best solution is somehow helping the countries of origin, I don't think that immigration is a sustainable solution... But it's super complex to me. For the tax thing, yeah, the two approaches are: To come a bit closer to a European style socialism to close the wage gap and simultaneously accept a portion of debt from poorer countries in the form of immigrants. Or to go back toward free market, but lower the wealth disparity gap by locking out labor, which would increase the cost/wages of labor already here. The cost of the first is possibly having wealthy owners flee the country and move business elsewhere where taxes are lower. The cost of the second is a loss of cultural infusion and national pride (to an extend). As I see it.
mcguire 10y ago
That's a fascinating article. The first section uses wage differences between natives and foreign born workers as a proxy for assimilation: "For example, the 1965–69 arrivals had a 23.5 percent wage disadvantage at the time of arrival, and this narrowed to a 12.0 percent disadvantage after ten years. But the 1995–99 arrivals had a 27.3 percent wage disadvantage at the time of arrival, and it was still 26.9 percent after ten years. As the report modestly puts it, “the process of economic integration appears to have slowed somewhat in recent decades." Wages have been doing some odd things in recent decades[1], so it may be a bit off to assign the difference to immigrants' failure to assimilate. [1] http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ Then there's: "[The increase in wealth accruing to the native population as a result of immigration] ignores all the externalities that immigrants create along the way. The externalities are both good and bad. The good: The entry of extremely high-skill immigrants surely accelerates innovation, makes us more productive, and has a beneficial impact on economic growth. The bad: The entry of some high-skill immigrants, such as those who enrolled in flight schools and learned to fly planes and then flew them on September 11, 2001, can make us all much worse off."

by punazj 10y ago

croon 10y ago

Sure. I actually agree with what you write... up to the conclusion. Why does this reasoning end up blaming people that by circumstance was born elsewhere for competing by doing a better/cheaper job, instead of blaming the system for allowing that transfer of resources between classes? Why not use $100bn of those 500 for betterment/education/job creation/etc for those less "lucky"?

punazj 10y ago
Because of capitalism I think, you can't just appropriate someone's profits, that's not capitalism. There are two basic ideas to solve this though, you can put more and more taxes on the capital owning class to "make them pay their fair share" for, from what I gather the humanists want, an unlimited number of economic migrants because it's the human thing to do. Now an important thing to note, might be Trump's comments in the second debate, that while everyone is going on about how he legally avoided paying maximal amounts of taxes (which I would do as well, I think most everyone pays as little tax as they legally can), Hillary's donors also use those loopholes. It takes a lot more research into the respective tax plans to see if "making the rich pay their fair share" is a campaign line or an actual plan, so that takes checking. I gather that the arguments against this are that if people can't be rich in the USA, they will go be rich somewhere else. The USA, from Trump's rhetoric, I haven't checked this, has some of the higher corporate tax rates in the world, and seeing as how manufacturing has already spread outside the USA, is it really crazy to assume the capital will as well (especially when selling the goods to America is facilitated by free trade deals that are in place, making it less costly to move your business to another country). This is the Democratic party tack to deal with wealth inequality. The second plan is to cause a shortage of labor, which would increase it's value, which would make wages go up. The common ways to do this would be: to make it expensive to import goods into America (which lessens the effect of labor in foreign factories which export into the USA) by getting rid of free trade agreements; and to lower the number of people in the USA competing for that labor. We attempt to do this by having an immigration procedure, with quotas, so that we can accept as immigrants into our labor force the number of people needed at various skill levels (this would be why it's easier for a doctor to get in than a farmer, say). Trump's "wall" is basically just a way to say "we should enforce the quotas that our immigration experts are setting so that our labor force isn't glutted by excess supply in any relative tier". This is the republican tack to tackle wealth disparity. The arguments against this are mostly humanitarian, from what I gather. A significant portion of the population consider's it America's duty and legacy to be the harbor for the indigent. There's also arguments for cultural enrichment etc. I think that's why so much emotion is involved in opposing it, and why so much backlash is rightfully indignant and angry. One side is hurt by this betrayal of the American identity by building a wall to oppress the poor and keep them from the upward path -- and then begins to call the other side hateful things... When the other side tried to start an economic conversation. This is just my interpretation of the situation.
- eveningcoffee 10y ago
  It does not help if population of poor multiplies itself faster than the capital can crow or there are resources on Earth. :( I think that it is foremost important thing to get the population gains under control. If this has happened then we have plenty of time of to figure out how to actually fairly share our home we call Earth. Current trends do show that things are moving to towards normalization, but it is not yet conclusive.
  - speeder 10y ago
    Your idea is and old, and dangerous one. Many countries trying to reduce population are succeeding, even Brazil that is not developed already has 1.8 child per woman on average. The problem is that the poor remain reproducing faster always. So how you enforce it? Pull a China and remove rights of poor people that ended with multiple kids and end with murderous parents? Murder children yourself, Sparta style? Force sterilize women and then give out reproduction licenses like a dystopian scifi movie? "Education" and "career" is not a solution, by definition the elite will have always more of that, and all else equal, will reproduce slower.
    - eveningcoffee 10y ago
      I think that, in principle if it could be arranged such that the exploitation of the children is not beneficial for the family then the problem would solve itself. If children are only burden and not the source of the income (by direct workforce during the young age or by sending money to the family when older) and contraceptives are accepted and accessible then there is no initiative to have too many children. Well, at least it looks to be the case.
      - speeder 10y ago
        Then why families in Brazillian favelas, where children are a burden and government give free contraceptive and contraceptive education, still have extremely poor families with 6+ kids?
leereeves 10y ago
There's a difference between blaming the immigrants and blaming the policy. Is there no way to improve the lives of immigrants in their home countries without transferring wealth to the rich in America?
- punazj 10y ago
  I think this is a very good question. And I don't know how to answer it... Some good books address possible problems (at least tangentially) in Central and South America: "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" outlines alleged ways that state organized trade deals frequently enrich the political classes as the expense of the labor classes. (tinfoil hat territory; a free documentary is available on youtube I think) "Why Nations Fail" is a rebuttal to "Guns Germs and Steel" which addresses the affects of extractive economic policies (where legislation and leadership take more from the workers than they produce in profits) versus "inclusive economic policies" (where all are allowed to profit, not just the state). An example is made as to why one side of the Mexican border is incredibly poor compared to 50 miles away across the US border (rebutting the effect of geography). (I see no real conspiracy theory in this book) "Shock Doctrine" assesses the effects of social turmoil being frequently used to implement extractive economic policies which would not be easily accepted in times of peace. (tinfoil hat territory) All of these are basically opinion books, albeit written by people more knowledgable than we. I think to a certain extent economics is an opinion anyways.

awt 10y ago

Also consider that blacks are probably the group hardest hit by illegal immigration.

leereeves 10y ago

> 500 bn in wealth transferred from the labor class to the ownership class Yes, that might help explain Trump's support. It might also help explain the opposition to Trump from the ownership class.

MollyR 10y ago
It would also explain the extreme opposition hes also getting from inside the GOP. It's all very interesting.

whack 10y ago

One can be all in favor of liberal immigration rules, in order to attract the best & brightest, while also supporting tough preventative measures to crack down on illegal immigration. One can also be in favor of liberal immigration rules, coupled together with a more progressive tax system that compensates the lower-middle class for any loss of wealth they experience. If Trump came out with a nuanced plan for immigration reform like the above, I would be mightily impressed. But it's hard to respect someone who crassly labels Mexican immigrants as "drug dealers and rapists".

blisterpeanuts 10y ago
The dozen or so Trump speeches I've heard don't criticize legal immigrants from Latin America. Could you provide a link to substantiate the claim that he is blanket labeling immigrants?
punazj 10y ago
So, Trump didn't really do that in the actual speech, as far as I can tell. He said "they're sending us" drug dealers and rapists (or the illegal immigrants are drug dealers and rapists). Which was a blatant misunderstanding of a Fusion article that said something like 80% of illegal immigrant south American women are raped by the coyotes who get them across the border. Not in his defense, he later defended his misinterpretation solidifying his lack of understanding ("well, someone's doing the raping!" is the direct quote) -- but he didn't say what is portrayed in the media, which is a racist slur of an entire country. http://fusion.net/story/17321/is-rape-the-price-to-pay-for-migrant-women-chasing-the-american-dream/ http://fusion.net/story/17321/is-rape-the-price-to-pay-for-m... An thing I've been thinking about is that having bulletproof borders would stop this type of trafficking with this human cost, so maybe it would be good to a point. But then again, allegedly the women and girls are told to bring contraception with them for the crossing, so they are aware that this is a cost of getting transported into the USA... It is a horrific situation, and I feel that the best solution is somehow helping the countries of origin, I don't think that immigration is a sustainable solution... But it's super complex to me. For the tax thing, yeah, the two approaches are: To come a bit closer to a European style socialism to close the wage gap and simultaneously accept a portion of debt from poorer countries in the form of immigrants. Or to go back toward free market, but lower the wealth disparity gap by locking out labor, which would increase the cost/wages of labor already here. The cost of the first is possibly having wealthy owners flee the country and move business elsewhere where taxes are lower. The cost of the second is a loss of cultural infusion and national pride (to an extend). As I see it.

mcguire 10y ago

That's a fascinating article. The first section uses wage differences between natives and foreign born workers as a proxy for assimilation: "For example, the 1965–69 arrivals had a 23.5 percent wage disadvantage at the time of arrival, and this narrowed to a 12.0 percent disadvantage after ten years. But the 1995–99 arrivals had a 27.3 percent wage disadvantage at the time of arrival, and it was still 26.9 percent after ten years. As the report modestly puts it, “the process of economic integration appears to have slowed somewhat in recent decades." Wages have been doing some odd things in recent decades[1], so it may be a bit off to assign the difference to immigrants' failure to assimilate. [1] http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/ Then there's: "[The increase in wealth accruing to the native population as a result of immigration] ignores all the externalities that immigrants create along the way. The externalities are both good and bad. The good: The entry of extremely high-skill immigrants surely accelerates innovation, makes us more productive, and has a beneficial impact on economic growth. The bad: The entry of some high-skill immigrants, such as those who enrolled in flight schools and learned to fly planes and then flew them on September 11, 2001, can make us all much worse off."