8 ms·

Supply side economics has been debunked over and over. To change the labour market you reduce the labour supply or increase demand. Demand is already high, so

Supply side economics has been debunked over and over. To change the labour market you reduce the labour supply or increase demand. Demand is already high, so tighten up labour supply. Or, in other words, limit immigration.

drup86 7y ago
> limit immigration I think at this point most smart members of HN should realize that the only reason immigration has much momentum is because the democratic party relies on it to win elections. All I see from Democrats is all talk about helping the poor but they don't do the most sensible and easiest thing to help the poor, simply limit the pool of labor by limiting immigration of low skilled workers. Which makes one realize, it's all about winning elections and all of the "*ist" allegations are insincere and fake.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > I think at this point most smart members of HN should realize that the only reason immigration has much momentum is because the democrat party relies on it to win elections. It's the “Democratic Party” and, no, they don't. > All I see from Democrats is all talk about helping the poor but they don't do the most sensible and easiest thing to help the poor, simply limit the pool of labor by limiting immigration of low skilled workers. Limiting immigration doesn't limit labor supply in a globalized market; it effects it's geography, but whether or not labor mobility is restricted capital and goods are largely free to move (and, no, Trump's tariff policies, while breaking with the neoliberal consensus, haven't been well designed to promote the interest of working Americans either. There was once a Democratic Party idea of “free and fair” trade that would have been good had it actually been substantially pursued, but in practice Bill Clinton pursued neoliberal free trade with only vestigial gestures to the kind of common, upward-moving standards they would prevent a race to the bottom.
  - drup86 7y ago
    So effectively you're saying: As far as democrats are concerned, a worker from Bangladesh is just as deserving of a given job as a worker from Florida. At that point, the party doesn't seem to be caring about American workers, but behaving more like a "global party". Thinking further, might as well normalize wages for all low skilled american workers across the 7 billion or so world population. I mean why have borders if they're not affording any labor protections already, right? I'm not surprised the term "globalist" took off in the last election cycle.
    - dllthomas 7y ago
      IIUC, he's saying that as far as capital is concerned, the worker in Florida is already competing with the worker in Bangladesh. Not weighing in, just trying to clarify.
      - drup86 7y ago
        The problem is that all the low hanging fruit of offshoring labor has already been picked, so to bring up that point again and again is disingenuous. We're talking about jobs that have not been able to be offshored for some reason or another. If amazon could offshore these jobs to some low cost country they'd do that in a heartbeat but these are residual low skilled jobs that simply couldn't be easily outsourced. And the poster above is arguing in favor of more low skilled immigration to dilute the power of the low skilled worker.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > As far as democrats are concerned, a worker from Bangladesh is just as deserving of a given job as a worker from Florida. Nope. I'm saying that Democrats realize that with relatively free movement of capital and goods, stopping a worker from Bangladesh from entering the US doesn't remove that worker from the pool of labor competing with US labor. I didn't say anything even remotely related to what anyone deserves, and deserving something more doesn't change the facts about what does and doesn't work to achieve it.
      - tekknik 7y ago

drup86 7y ago

> limit immigration I think at this point most smart members of HN should realize that the only reason immigration has much momentum is because the democratic party relies on it to win elections. All I see from Democrats is all talk about helping the poor but they don't do the most sensible and easiest thing to help the poor, simply limit the pool of labor by limiting immigration of low skilled workers. Which makes one realize, it's all about winning elections and all of the "*ist" allegations are insincere and fake.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> I think at this point most smart members of HN should realize that the only reason immigration has much momentum is because the democrat party relies on it to win elections. It's the “Democratic Party” and, no, they don't. > All I see from Democrats is all talk about helping the poor but they don't do the most sensible and easiest thing to help the poor, simply limit the pool of labor by limiting immigration of low skilled workers. Limiting immigration doesn't limit labor supply in a globalized market; it effects it's geography, but whether or not labor mobility is restricted capital and goods are largely free to move (and, no, Trump's tariff policies, while breaking with the neoliberal consensus, haven't been well designed to promote the interest of working Americans either. There was once a Democratic Party idea of “free and fair” trade that would have been good had it actually been substantially pursued, but in practice Bill Clinton pursued neoliberal free trade with only vestigial gestures to the kind of common, upward-moving standards they would prevent a race to the bottom.
- drup86 7y ago
  So effectively you're saying: As far as democrats are concerned, a worker from Bangladesh is just as deserving of a given job as a worker from Florida. At that point, the party doesn't seem to be caring about American workers, but behaving more like a "global party". Thinking further, might as well normalize wages for all low skilled american workers across the 7 billion or so world population. I mean why have borders if they're not affording any labor protections already, right? I'm not surprised the term "globalist" took off in the last election cycle.
  - dllthomas 7y ago
    IIUC, he's saying that as far as capital is concerned, the worker in Florida is already competing with the worker in Bangladesh. Not weighing in, just trying to clarify.
    - drup86 7y ago
      The problem is that all the low hanging fruit of offshoring labor has already been picked, so to bring up that point again and again is disingenuous. We're talking about jobs that have not been able to be offshored for some reason or another. If amazon could offshore these jobs to some low cost country they'd do that in a heartbeat but these are residual low skilled jobs that simply couldn't be easily outsourced. And the poster above is arguing in favor of more low skilled immigration to dilute the power of the low skilled worker.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > As far as democrats are concerned, a worker from Bangladesh is just as deserving of a given job as a worker from Florida. Nope. I'm saying that Democrats realize that with relatively free movement of capital and goods, stopping a worker from Bangladesh from entering the US doesn't remove that worker from the pool of labor competing with US labor. I didn't say anything even remotely related to what anyone deserves, and deserving something more doesn't change the facts about what does and doesn't work to achieve it.
    - tekknik 7y ago