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A 4.5M unit shortage wouldn't be present if the past several administrations hadn't allowed huge amounts of immigration in the past decade. Reality isn't constr

A 4.5M unit shortage wouldn't be present if the past several administrations hadn't allowed huge amounts of immigration in the past decade. Reality isn't constrained to "you have to build as fast as possible since your population is going to increase very quickly and there's nothing you can do about that". If every person who came to the US in the past ten years went home, there would be a colossal increase in housing availability and rent prices would crater.

butshouldyou 2y ago
So would the economy.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  There is some truth to their point. The economy in aggregate is receiving the benefit of immigration labor (through reduced labor costs and inflation) while socializing the harm on everyone who is competing for this housing (because, obviously, there are only so many affordable housing units available). There is probably a discussion to be had about governing immigration quotas according to available (not planned, available; hope is not a strategy) affordable housing. This would internalize the externalities currently being shifted around on the macro balance sheet. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/17/immigrants-help-economy-job-growth-inflation.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/17/immigrants-help-economy-job-...
  - quacked 2y ago
    A close relation of mine worked in a very, very high-up position in the Department of Agriculture. He has been farming-adjacent for his entire career, and years before he joined DoA he explained to me how meatpacking and butchery has slowly been taken over by a central set of massive corporate conglomerates who destroyed competition in the beef industry by pricing then out. All of these major central corporations are completely dependent on illegal labor, and if they hadn't been able to pay lower wages, their takeovers couldn't have occurred at the speed or scale they did. My relation talked about this issue in the DoA and many senior officials pushed back and said that since addressing this issue of illegal labor in the beef industry would cause a rise in beef prices, threatening the availability of the migrant labor base is a no-go. (Biden admin, not that it matters--I'm sure the answer would have been the same under any admin through at least GWB). That's where we are now, in US agriculture, residential construction, etc.. Prices must be kept low, and therefore the stream of low-skill desperate labor must not be turned off. Massive companies enjoy enduring near-monopolies because no one is willing to threaten the comfort of the American consumer.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      All excellent points, a fair assessment of the situation. But, I would also say corporate profits of these firms rely on this low skill desperate labor that cannot organize and will not speak up (versus being shipped back to whatever terrible place they fled from). ADM, Bunge, Tyson, Koch Industries, etc are what come to mind in the ag sector, but is certainly not all inclusive. I don't have a solution, but I hope smarter people than me with leverage figure it out, because it isn't sustainable.
      - bluefirebrand 2y ago
        The problem is the people running the show don't care if it's sustainable. They just want to get theirs and get out. Earn enough money and you can insulate yourself from consequences There's far too much of this happening across all sectors, including government
semiquaver 2y ago
And prices for much of what we buy would instantly double. The US is addicted to cheap immigrant labor for a huge number of jobs that Americans largely aren’t willing so do.
- quacked 2y ago
  Yes; the increase of prices alongside domestic labor cost is part of the necessary "immune system of capitalism" that is suppressed by immigrant labor. If a first-world business cannot survive without offering very low wages, it needs to die off and make way for new businesses, even if that lowers material product and service availability.
- PessimalDecimal 2y ago
  > The US is addicted to cheap immigrant labor for a huge number of jobs that Americans largely aren’t willing so do. Maybe more like "business owners are 'addicted' to paying cheaper wages that only immigrants from poor countries are willing to do at the offered rate."
  - semiquaver 2y ago
    For better or worse, US consumers are addicted to the low prices those low wages enable. Just look at how upset people are at the relatively modest inflation of the past four years. Thats nothing compared to the shock that ending immigration would create. Since we live in a democracy, such a plan would be swiftly reversed because of the pain it would cause.
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      > For better or worse, US consumers are addicted to the low prices those low wages enable You cannot convince me that low prices require low wages when companies are raking in record profits. We could have better wages, the same prices and lower profits. That is a sacrifice I would be happy to have businesses make
    - PessimalDecimal 2y ago
tacticalturtle 2y ago
> Reality isn't constrained to "you have to build as fast as possible since your population is going to increase very quickly and there's nothing you can do about that". If all of the job growth is happening in select metro areas around the country, the existing domestic population is going to move into those areas, regardless of the level of immigration
- nradov 2y ago
  Fortunately there is a lot of job growth outside the major metro areas. Look what's happening now with oil and gas extraction in North Dakota or plastics manufacturing in Ohio.
- quacked 2y ago
  This is true, but "Americans aren't able to move to major metropolitan areas because it's too expensive" is an easier problem to solve than "every year there are 800k-1.4M new people to house, and they tend to also want to go to the major metropolitan areas".
margalabargala 2y ago
I believe you are correct that if every immigrant of the last ten years left the US abruptly, rent prices would be among the things that would crater, yes. Are you suggesting that 10 years of immigrants going home would be a net positive for the US?
- quacked 2y ago
  It depends on what "net positive for the US" means. There would be immediate product and service shortages and lost intellectual capital, but a huge explosion in available housing, spots at universities, open jobs desperate for labor, etc. I use the dramatic case of "all immigrants going home" to illustrate that immigration affects the housing crunch and it's ridiculous to talk about it without mentioning the population increase. Personally I think the government should intensely crack down on illegal immigration, destroy business that use illegal labor (even if that's to the detriment of the consumer), and then make legal immigration tuned to attract high-skill immigrants easier.
beacon294 2y ago
Immigration has always been big and has gradually picked up speed. The idea of immigrants going home does not make any historical sense, neither does stopping immigration.
- quacked 2y ago
  What do you mean that it doesn't "make any historical sense"?
  - beacon294 2y ago
    We've never done it that way -- there's no historical precedent. America has done well, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to change that particular thing so radically after over 130 years of similar, but varying, immigration rates to today.
bryanlarsen 2y ago
Who do you think is building the houses that are being built? Without immigration we'd still have massive housing shortages because internal migration is much larger than external migration -- people moving from the hinterland to cities with jobs. But housing would be a lot more expensive because we would no longer have cheap labour to build & renovate our houses.
- quacked 2y ago
  This is the constant refrain of pro-illegal/poor/migrant immigration. My answer is: "in the first world, businesses should operate by offering competitive wages, and the lifestyle costs of first worlders should be balanced against those wages". I am uninterested in living in a materially wealthy society that can only operate on the back of a recently-arrived serf class, and it's bizarre to me that so many people defend this system as desirable and morally righteous.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    "serf class"? Immigrants to America come here because they choose to. They're not serfs, they're not locked to the land. They move freely, and at much higher rates than other Americans do.
    - quacked 2y ago
      Okay, "serf" was the wrong word, since they are indeed not bound to parcels of land under a feudal government. What do you think about the content of my point?
      - bryanlarsen 2y ago
        I think it only applies to illegal immigration, not legal immigration.
    - jazzyjackson 2y ago
      immigrants come because they have no better choice that's called exploitation

butshouldyou 2y ago

So would the economy.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
There is some truth to their point. The economy in aggregate is receiving the benefit of immigration labor (through reduced labor costs and inflation) while socializing the harm on everyone who is competing for this housing (because, obviously, there are only so many affordable housing units available). There is probably a discussion to be had about governing immigration quotas according to available (not planned, available; hope is not a strategy) affordable housing. This would internalize the externalities currently being shifted around on the macro balance sheet. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/17/immigrants-help-economy-job-growth-inflation.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/17/immigrants-help-economy-job-...
- quacked 2y ago
  A close relation of mine worked in a very, very high-up position in the Department of Agriculture. He has been farming-adjacent for his entire career, and years before he joined DoA he explained to me how meatpacking and butchery has slowly been taken over by a central set of massive corporate conglomerates who destroyed competition in the beef industry by pricing then out. All of these major central corporations are completely dependent on illegal labor, and if they hadn't been able to pay lower wages, their takeovers couldn't have occurred at the speed or scale they did. My relation talked about this issue in the DoA and many senior officials pushed back and said that since addressing this issue of illegal labor in the beef industry would cause a rise in beef prices, threatening the availability of the migrant labor base is a no-go. (Biden admin, not that it matters--I'm sure the answer would have been the same under any admin through at least GWB). That's where we are now, in US agriculture, residential construction, etc.. Prices must be kept low, and therefore the stream of low-skill desperate labor must not be turned off. Massive companies enjoy enduring near-monopolies because no one is willing to threaten the comfort of the American consumer.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    All excellent points, a fair assessment of the situation. But, I would also say corporate profits of these firms rely on this low skill desperate labor that cannot organize and will not speak up (versus being shipped back to whatever terrible place they fled from). ADM, Bunge, Tyson, Koch Industries, etc are what come to mind in the ag sector, but is certainly not all inclusive. I don't have a solution, but I hope smarter people than me with leverage figure it out, because it isn't sustainable.
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      The problem is the people running the show don't care if it's sustainable. They just want to get theirs and get out. Earn enough money and you can insulate yourself from consequences There's far too much of this happening across all sectors, including government

semiquaver 2y ago

And prices for much of what we buy would instantly double. The US is addicted to cheap immigrant labor for a huge number of jobs that Americans largely aren’t willing so do.

quacked 2y ago
Yes; the increase of prices alongside domestic labor cost is part of the necessary "immune system of capitalism" that is suppressed by immigrant labor. If a first-world business cannot survive without offering very low wages, it needs to die off and make way for new businesses, even if that lowers material product and service availability.
PessimalDecimal 2y ago
> The US is addicted to cheap immigrant labor for a huge number of jobs that Americans largely aren’t willing so do. Maybe more like "business owners are 'addicted' to paying cheaper wages that only immigrants from poor countries are willing to do at the offered rate."
- semiquaver 2y ago
  For better or worse, US consumers are addicted to the low prices those low wages enable. Just look at how upset people are at the relatively modest inflation of the past four years. Thats nothing compared to the shock that ending immigration would create. Since we live in a democracy, such a plan would be swiftly reversed because of the pain it would cause.
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    > For better or worse, US consumers are addicted to the low prices those low wages enable You cannot convince me that low prices require low wages when companies are raking in record profits. We could have better wages, the same prices and lower profits. That is a sacrifice I would be happy to have businesses make
  - PessimalDecimal 2y ago

tacticalturtle 2y ago

> Reality isn't constrained to "you have to build as fast as possible since your population is going to increase very quickly and there's nothing you can do about that". If all of the job growth is happening in select metro areas around the country, the existing domestic population is going to move into those areas, regardless of the level of immigration

nradov 2y ago
Fortunately there is a lot of job growth outside the major metro areas. Look what's happening now with oil and gas extraction in North Dakota or plastics manufacturing in Ohio.
quacked 2y ago
This is true, but "Americans aren't able to move to major metropolitan areas because it's too expensive" is an easier problem to solve than "every year there are 800k-1.4M new people to house, and they tend to also want to go to the major metropolitan areas".

margalabargala 2y ago

I believe you are correct that if every immigrant of the last ten years left the US abruptly, rent prices would be among the things that would crater, yes. Are you suggesting that 10 years of immigrants going home would be a net positive for the US?

quacked 2y ago
It depends on what "net positive for the US" means. There would be immediate product and service shortages and lost intellectual capital, but a huge explosion in available housing, spots at universities, open jobs desperate for labor, etc. I use the dramatic case of "all immigrants going home" to illustrate that immigration affects the housing crunch and it's ridiculous to talk about it without mentioning the population increase. Personally I think the government should intensely crack down on illegal immigration, destroy business that use illegal labor (even if that's to the detriment of the consumer), and then make legal immigration tuned to attract high-skill immigrants easier.

beacon294 2y ago

Immigration has always been big and has gradually picked up speed. The idea of immigrants going home does not make any historical sense, neither does stopping immigration.

quacked 2y ago
What do you mean that it doesn't "make any historical sense"?
- beacon294 2y ago
  We've never done it that way -- there's no historical precedent. America has done well, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to change that particular thing so radically after over 130 years of similar, but varying, immigration rates to today.

bryanlarsen 2y ago

Who do you think is building the houses that are being built? Without immigration we'd still have massive housing shortages because internal migration is much larger than external migration -- people moving from the hinterland to cities with jobs. But housing would be a lot more expensive because we would no longer have cheap labour to build & renovate our houses.

quacked 2y ago
This is the constant refrain of pro-illegal/poor/migrant immigration. My answer is: "in the first world, businesses should operate by offering competitive wages, and the lifestyle costs of first worlders should be balanced against those wages". I am uninterested in living in a materially wealthy society that can only operate on the back of a recently-arrived serf class, and it's bizarre to me that so many people defend this system as desirable and morally righteous.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  "serf class"? Immigrants to America come here because they choose to. They're not serfs, they're not locked to the land. They move freely, and at much higher rates than other Americans do.
  - quacked 2y ago
    Okay, "serf" was the wrong word, since they are indeed not bound to parcels of land under a feudal government. What do you think about the content of my point?
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      I think it only applies to illegal immigration, not legal immigration.
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    immigrants come because they have no better choice that's called exploitation