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>2.7 million illegal border crossings have zero to do with 1.6 million housing units Only if you assume all 2.7 million people are now homeless. Price is a fu

>2.7 million illegal border crossings have zero to do with 1.6 million housing units Only if you assume all 2.7 million people are now homeless. Price is a function of supply and demand. Obviously, increasing the number of people within a system without commensurately increasing housing will result in upward pressure on housing prices. You could argue that the system-wide effect is minimal, but you would need data to do that, which you haven't provided.

johnklos 3y ago
[flagged]
- mech987987 3y ago
  You two are talking past eachother. You did not address his argument.
- idopmstuff 3y ago
  > The issue is that the person to whom I responded was trying to imply that the number of illegal border crossings being larger than the number of new housing units is somehow a gotcha. It's not. It's not a "gotcha" - it's a significant amount of additional demand, which, given how supply and demand work, drives up prices. > You fail basic common sense, too. Does every household have one person? How many people per household affects the degree of the problem, but it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. If you have 2.7m people coming in and you assume that for this population you average five people to a household, that's still roughly 1/3 of the new housing units being generated that are needed to house them. That's an enormous increase in demand, which pushes housing costs up. To be clear, I think this is a problem of too little housing supply more than too much immigration (though I do oppose illegal immigration and have a strong preference for it ceasing entirely), but either way the problems suggested by the post that you're replying to are very clearly real.
pydry 3y ago
>Obviously, increasing the number of people within a system without commensurately increasing housing will result in upward pressure on housing prices. That was the explicit intent of prop 13. Triggering the NIMBYtastrophe and privatizing commensurate increases in rents and land values was an entirely deliberate and cynical wealth grab that drove millions into poverty in California. I get that we're supposed to be more angry at immigrants than Howard Jarvis and his friends though. Just as we're supposed to be upset at "AI taking jobs" rather than deliberate trade policy. Scapegoats have gotta goat.
jodrellblank 3y ago
One person ferrying drugs over the border weekly would be 52 illegal border crossings a year, and no change in population.
- Auracle 3y ago
  From the article I linked: "For the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2022, CBP stopped migrants more than 2,766,582 times, compared to 1.72 million times for fiscal 2021, the previous yearly high. " Those are 2.7 million STOPS. It's not an estimate. The means the number of people actually crossing is higher. Those stopped are generally given a court date and released into the country. Someone transporting drugs wouldn't be.
bumby 3y ago
Like most large systems, economies are complicated. A counter-point is that unskilled immigration also drives down many essential costs, like food and construction. Immigrants tend to work for less and are disproportionately represented in the agriculture, construction, and meat-packing industries. So in some ways they may increase demand costs while also bringing down supply costs.
- Auracle 3y ago
  Again, the flip side of that is that they depress wages - not only for unskilled jobs. You probably wouldn't be happy if you're an accountant on one side of the building and in the other side the people working in the meat packing plant are making as much as you.
  - bumby 3y ago
    That’s a bit of a strawman position. I don’t think anyone is claiming there should be absolute equality. What they are saying is a particular group should not be scapegoated, particularly when that group is taken advantage of to subsidize the quality of life of those that are demonizing them. It comes down to having a nuanced understanding of the issue and rejecting overly simplistic (and wrong) mental models.
    - Auracle 3y ago
      Again, I'm not blaming the people. If I were in their shoes I'd probably do the same thing. I'm blaming immigration policy. You shouldn't have politicians acting like they care about the price of housing while opposing doing anything to stem the tide of uncontrolled immigration.
      - bumby 3y ago
        Except when you talk to people who care about the cost of construction and food. You know what industries tend to lobby politicians for more lax immigration policies? Agricultural, food production, and construction. Why isn't the same argument being made about food? More people equals more demand, right? Shouldn't there be a commensurate increase in food costs? But people are able to mentally understand that immigrants are disproportionately providing the food supply. Not only are they more willing to do that work than native born Americans, they are also more productive in terms of both output and cost. If we were to employ only native born Americans in agriculture and meat-packing, costs are likely to go up, not down. The same relationship holds for construction, especially in the south. Over 60% of housing costs are construction. Labor is a big part of that. Immigrants provide a disproportionate amount of that labor and they generally do so at lower cost. So by reducing immigration, you are going to increase the largest input to building homes in the hopes that you can bring down overall costs through reduction in demand. Where that all balances in overall costs, I'm not sure. But I do know that overly simplistic models like "less immigration = lower housing costs" tend to miss those competing dynamics.
constantcrying 3y ago
Completely absurd what reactions you get when you point up obvious facts, like immigration increasing demand for housing. This is especially true for cities, as that is where migrants obviously want to go and where new construction is much harder. Pretending that it is somehow not the case, is making things just worse and worse.

johnklos 3y ago

[flagged]

mech987987 3y ago
You two are talking past eachother. You did not address his argument.
idopmstuff 3y ago
> The issue is that the person to whom I responded was trying to imply that the number of illegal border crossings being larger than the number of new housing units is somehow a gotcha. It's not. It's not a "gotcha" - it's a significant amount of additional demand, which, given how supply and demand work, drives up prices. > You fail basic common sense, too. Does every household have one person? How many people per household affects the degree of the problem, but it doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. If you have 2.7m people coming in and you assume that for this population you average five people to a household, that's still roughly 1/3 of the new housing units being generated that are needed to house them. That's an enormous increase in demand, which pushes housing costs up. To be clear, I think this is a problem of too little housing supply more than too much immigration (though I do oppose illegal immigration and have a strong preference for it ceasing entirely), but either way the problems suggested by the post that you're replying to are very clearly real.

pydry 3y ago

>Obviously, increasing the number of people within a system without commensurately increasing housing will result in upward pressure on housing prices. That was the explicit intent of prop 13. Triggering the NIMBYtastrophe and privatizing commensurate increases in rents and land values was an entirely deliberate and cynical wealth grab that drove millions into poverty in California. I get that we're supposed to be more angry at immigrants than Howard Jarvis and his friends though. Just as we're supposed to be upset at "AI taking jobs" rather than deliberate trade policy. Scapegoats have gotta goat.

jodrellblank 3y ago

One person ferrying drugs over the border weekly would be 52 illegal border crossings a year, and no change in population.

Auracle 3y ago
From the article I linked: "For the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2022, CBP stopped migrants more than 2,766,582 times, compared to 1.72 million times for fiscal 2021, the previous yearly high. " Those are 2.7 million STOPS. It's not an estimate. The means the number of people actually crossing is higher. Those stopped are generally given a court date and released into the country. Someone transporting drugs wouldn't be.

bumby 3y ago

Like most large systems, economies are complicated. A counter-point is that unskilled immigration also drives down many essential costs, like food and construction. Immigrants tend to work for less and are disproportionately represented in the agriculture, construction, and meat-packing industries. So in some ways they may increase demand costs while also bringing down supply costs.

Auracle 3y ago
Again, the flip side of that is that they depress wages - not only for unskilled jobs. You probably wouldn't be happy if you're an accountant on one side of the building and in the other side the people working in the meat packing plant are making as much as you.
- bumby 3y ago
  That’s a bit of a strawman position. I don’t think anyone is claiming there should be absolute equality. What they are saying is a particular group should not be scapegoated, particularly when that group is taken advantage of to subsidize the quality of life of those that are demonizing them. It comes down to having a nuanced understanding of the issue and rejecting overly simplistic (and wrong) mental models.
  - Auracle 3y ago
    Again, I'm not blaming the people. If I were in their shoes I'd probably do the same thing. I'm blaming immigration policy. You shouldn't have politicians acting like they care about the price of housing while opposing doing anything to stem the tide of uncontrolled immigration.
    - bumby 3y ago
      Except when you talk to people who care about the cost of construction and food. You know what industries tend to lobby politicians for more lax immigration policies? Agricultural, food production, and construction. Why isn't the same argument being made about food? More people equals more demand, right? Shouldn't there be a commensurate increase in food costs? But people are able to mentally understand that immigrants are disproportionately providing the food supply. Not only are they more willing to do that work than native born Americans, they are also more productive in terms of both output and cost. If we were to employ only native born Americans in agriculture and meat-packing, costs are likely to go up, not down. The same relationship holds for construction, especially in the south. Over 60% of housing costs are construction. Labor is a big part of that. Immigrants provide a disproportionate amount of that labor and they generally do so at lower cost. So by reducing immigration, you are going to increase the largest input to building homes in the hopes that you can bring down overall costs through reduction in demand. Where that all balances in overall costs, I'm not sure. But I do know that overly simplistic models like "less immigration = lower housing costs" tend to miss those competing dynamics.

constantcrying 3y ago

Completely absurd what reactions you get when you point up obvious facts, like immigration increasing demand for housing. This is especially true for cities, as that is where migrants obviously want to go and where new construction is much harder. Pretending that it is somehow not the case, is making things just worse and worse.