7 ms·

If this was true, then US being the biggest immigrant-friendly country in the world, would do so in a heartbeat. But neither the government nor corporations ar

If this was true, then US being the biggest immigrant-friendly country in the world, would do so in a heartbeat. But neither the government nor corporations are advocating this. America currently has the biggest economy in the world, an average of $58,000 income, a low 3.9% unemployment rate while enjoying GDP growth rate of close to 5% in Q2, as well as close to 220,000 new jobs every month, and growth in wage increases. In some areas (like silicon valley), employees are offered 200k-300k salaries. It got to here by having a strong republic/democracy and rules and laws, support technologies in public and private sectors, limit immigration to skill-based, and recently choosing to lower corporate tax rate and reduce corporation regulations.

gloriousduke 8y ago
How does the rosiness of this assessment jive with the UN’s report that 40 million Americans live in poverty? Perhaps they are an ancillary component of such a Republic?
- joefranklinsr 8y ago
  if we look at this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentage_of_population_living_in_poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentag... it would appear US is in similar leagues with Canada, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, etc, of having close to 0-1% in poverty. Check out the other countries in Asia or Africa if you really think America has it bad.
  - setr 8y ago
    Theres only ~300 million people in the us, so the gp's source is claiming something like 10% poverty Something's clearly misaligned with the definition of poverty between your sources; you're differing by an order of magnitude
    - schoen 8y ago
      That's a huge difference. I assume different sources did use quite different measures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty#Measuring_poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty#Measuring_poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold
- ThomPete 8y ago
  Is that relative or absolute poverty you are talking about?
qaq 8y ago
"immigrant-friendly" thats very far from being accurate. edit: strong lang.
- joefranklinsr 8y ago
  Well, I guess it depends on each person's experience. but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_immigrant_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d..., US has the most immigrants at 46 million, next closest is Germany at 12 million and Russia at 11 million.
  - qaq 8y ago
    1) legal? 2) Historical laws vs current laws 3) Adjust for population size Even for say Software Eng. moving to US is a very f@#$up process, but pretty much any other country is trivial often with immediately being permanent resident or some visa that converts to PR in 1-2 years.
    - ThomPete 8y ago
      Its easier to get into the us than the eu so thats simply wrong. The us have way more ways too.
      - qaq 8y ago
        You've got be kidding the only realistic option for US is H1B majority of EU countries have simple visa's for Software Eng. with no quotas. My former employees from Ukraine are in Germany, Austria, Norway, Ireland, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic (and outside of EU Australia, Canada) the process was 2-3 month on avg. for EU countries and they become residents pretty quickly with no quotas.
        ThomPete 8y ago
        theres no quota on an O visa and you have L visas and a bunch of others on top of H1B plus the lottery plus 11 million illegal immigrants living and often working here even paying taxes. I can assure you IAm not kidding and that you should learn a little about just how open the US is compared to the EU.
themagician 8y ago
A lot of how we “got to here” has to do with being all the was left after WWII. Trying to pretend like all the things you advocate for are the reasons for prosperity is silly. Your statement is basically, “things are good now and they are good because <insert political platform>” There are other periods of time that have been as good or better with a different political platform. In the 1950s (when America was “great”) the top tax rate was 90%. Federal politics and the economy are linked, but not 1:1 and the net impact of changes to federal law often isn’t felt for years or decades (if at all).
- joefranklinsr 8y ago
  Sure, and we could have blown the lead in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 00s, the 10s, etc. But we didn't. We valued entrepreneurship, hard work, and being the best. 50s was an anomaly with a 36% growth rate, like you said, because we were all that were left. The economy currently is very stable, diversified, and fast growing still for its size, some 70 years later.
  - 18pfsmt 8y ago
    Where on the US Bureau of Economic Analysis' site do you find 5% GDP growth? https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease... I keep seeing these overly optimistic GDP growth numbers, but I can't find them.
    - joefranklinsr 8y ago
      4.8% https://www.fxstreet.com/news/atlanta-fed-q2-gdp-estimate-rises-to-48-from-46-201806141617 https://www.fxstreet.com/news/atlanta-fed-q2-gdp-estimate-ri... 4% https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/15/goldman-sachs-model-now-points-to-4-percent-second-quarter-gdp-growth.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/15/goldman-sachs-model-now-poin...
  - themagician 8y ago
    My point is that most of where we are today can be attributed to the post war advantage and not any specific policy decision. We are increasingly losing ground to China in terms of output and GDP growth and losing out massively to Europe in terms of quality of life.
temp-dude-87844 8y ago
Increased immigration of low-class workers is politically unpopular in the heartland. In fact, even importing certain skilled workers is unpopular among the rank-and-file, as casual criticism of H1-Bs shows. Instead, since the 1970s, US thought leaders and business leaders of both parties long pursued similar trade policies that embraced deregulation and open markets, which allowed similar gains to be realized by US businesses operating in a globalized world (e.g. outsourcing, offshoring, integrated supply chains). SV companies pay generously because dozens of companies flush with cash are all competing for the same pool of veterans of other companies. Any company that has less profit per employee (most small businesses) can scarcely afford to pay a premium for rank-and-file employees with domain experience; nor is there enough effortless mobility in specialty skilled manufacturing roles to make such escalating wages necessary.
Latteland 8y ago
The higher growth in q2 is temporary, because we juiced our economy with the tax cut for rich people and tax change to allow companies to bring money from overseas and pay it out to shareholders. In the 5-10 year period, we'll have significantly increased our national debt for this temporary cut.

gloriousduke 8y ago

How does the rosiness of this assessment jive with the UN’s report that 40 million Americans live in poverty? Perhaps they are an ancillary component of such a Republic?

joefranklinsr 8y ago
if we look at this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentage_of_population_living_in_poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentag... it would appear US is in similar leagues with Canada, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, etc, of having close to 0-1% in poverty. Check out the other countries in Asia or Africa if you really think America has it bad.
- setr 8y ago
  Theres only ~300 million people in the us, so the gp's source is claiming something like 10% poverty Something's clearly misaligned with the definition of poverty between your sources; you're differing by an order of magnitude
  - schoen 8y ago
    That's a huge difference. I assume different sources did use quite different measures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty#Measuring_poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty#Measuring_poverty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold
ThomPete 8y ago
Is that relative or absolute poverty you are talking about?

qaq 8y ago

"immigrant-friendly" thats very far from being accurate. edit: strong lang.

joefranklinsr 8y ago
Well, I guess it depends on each person's experience. but according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_immigrant_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d..., US has the most immigrants at 46 million, next closest is Germany at 12 million and Russia at 11 million.
- qaq 8y ago
  1) legal? 2) Historical laws vs current laws 3) Adjust for population size Even for say Software Eng. moving to US is a very f@#$up process, but pretty much any other country is trivial often with immediately being permanent resident or some visa that converts to PR in 1-2 years.
  - ThomPete 8y ago
    Its easier to get into the us than the eu so thats simply wrong. The us have way more ways too.
    - qaq 8y ago
      You've got be kidding the only realistic option for US is H1B majority of EU countries have simple visa's for Software Eng. with no quotas. My former employees from Ukraine are in Germany, Austria, Norway, Ireland, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic (and outside of EU Australia, Canada) the process was 2-3 month on avg. for EU countries and they become residents pretty quickly with no quotas.
      - ThomPete 8y ago
        theres no quota on an O visa and you have L visas and a bunch of others on top of H1B plus the lottery plus 11 million illegal immigrants living and often working here even paying taxes. I can assure you IAm not kidding and that you should learn a little about just how open the US is compared to the EU.

themagician 8y ago

A lot of how we “got to here” has to do with being all the was left after WWII. Trying to pretend like all the things you advocate for are the reasons for prosperity is silly. Your statement is basically, “things are good now and they are good because <insert political platform>” There are other periods of time that have been as good or better with a different political platform. In the 1950s (when America was “great”) the top tax rate was 90%. Federal politics and the economy are linked, but not 1:1 and the net impact of changes to federal law often isn’t felt for years or decades (if at all).

joefranklinsr 8y ago
Sure, and we could have blown the lead in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 00s, the 10s, etc. But we didn't. We valued entrepreneurship, hard work, and being the best. 50s was an anomaly with a 36% growth rate, like you said, because we were all that were left. The economy currently is very stable, diversified, and fast growing still for its size, some 70 years later.
- 18pfsmt 8y ago
  Where on the US Bureau of Economic Analysis' site do you find 5% GDP growth? https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease... I keep seeing these overly optimistic GDP growth numbers, but I can't find them.
  - joefranklinsr 8y ago
    4.8% https://www.fxstreet.com/news/atlanta-fed-q2-gdp-estimate-rises-to-48-from-46-201806141617 https://www.fxstreet.com/news/atlanta-fed-q2-gdp-estimate-ri... 4% https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/15/goldman-sachs-model-now-points-to-4-percent-second-quarter-gdp-growth.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/15/goldman-sachs-model-now-poin...
- themagician 8y ago
  My point is that most of where we are today can be attributed to the post war advantage and not any specific policy decision. We are increasingly losing ground to China in terms of output and GDP growth and losing out massively to Europe in terms of quality of life.

temp-dude-87844 8y ago

Increased immigration of low-class workers is politically unpopular in the heartland. In fact, even importing certain skilled workers is unpopular among the rank-and-file, as casual criticism of H1-Bs shows. Instead, since the 1970s, US thought leaders and business leaders of both parties long pursued similar trade policies that embraced deregulation and open markets, which allowed similar gains to be realized by US businesses operating in a globalized world (e.g. outsourcing, offshoring, integrated supply chains). SV companies pay generously because dozens of companies flush with cash are all competing for the same pool of veterans of other companies. Any company that has less profit per employee (most small businesses) can scarcely afford to pay a premium for rank-and-file employees with domain experience; nor is there enough effortless mobility in specialty skilled manufacturing roles to make such escalating wages necessary.

Latteland 8y ago

The higher growth in q2 is temporary, because we juiced our economy with the tax cut for rich people and tax change to allow companies to bring money from overseas and pay it out to shareholders. In the 5-10 year period, we'll have significantly increased our national debt for this temporary cut.