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I've always respected your writing, but will have to disagree. The first line of your 'about me' section says: "Always Systems Thinking". However, I don't beli

I've always respected your writing, but will have to disagree. The first line of your 'about me' section says: "Always Systems Thinking". However, I don't believe you are thinking in terms of systems here. You are thinking in a single-loop fashion, by treating immigration as a one-way input (i.e. more workers -> fewer jobs for Americans) and as the gate for a massively multi-input system. You said we should wait for full employment first. The issue with that logic is that full employment isn't a finish line you reach and then "unlock" other labor sources. Even a hot economy has frictional unemployment, skills mismatch, geographic mismatch, and people moving between jobs. Using full employment as a policy trigger sounds clean but doesn't map to how labor markets actually function. Empirically, the US is not a long way away from full employment: we're at 4.4% unemployment (or were, as of September 2025) and JOLTS showed 7.7 job openings in October. That's a cooled market, but not mass desperation across the board. Jobs are not a fixed pie either. In a closed, fixed-input model (which is what underlies your thinking), adding foreign workers could mechanically reduce citizens' chances. But real economies are endogenous: Immigrants aren't just labor supply; they are also demand. They pay rent, they buy groceries, they need childcare, cars, you name it. That demand supports additional hiring. In addition, immigration can relieve bottleneck in sectors such as healthcare (which is suffering greatly at the moment, especially in rural areas), construction, logistics, agriculture, elder care, and so on. This is why high-quality syntheses generally find small aggregate impacts on native employment and wages, not the large scale negative effects the "hire Americans first" framing implies. A major National Academies consensus report [1] concluded that the long-run impact of hiring immigrants on wages and employment of native-born workers overall is very small, if not non-existent. And any negative impacts are most likely from prior immigrants or native-born high school dropouts. The report found that immigration as a whole has a positive impact on long-run economic growth. Many meta-analyses [2][3] have found similar results. The solution is not to restrict foreign workers, but to protect wages and working conditions by strictly enforcing labor standards and preventing exploitative hiring (across both the foreign and native labor forces), and to use targeted immigration that addresses genuine bottlenecks. Using a single unemployment threshold is not logical because labor markets are segmented and dynamic. [1] https://www.nationalacademies.org/projects/DBASSE-CNSTAT-13-03/publication/23550 https://www.nationalacademies.org/projects/DBASSE-CNSTAT-13-... [2] https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/2044/the-impact-of-immigration-on-the-employment-of-natives-in-regional-labour-markets-a-meta-analysis https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/2044/the-impact-of-immig... [3] https://www.cepii.fr/PDF_PUB/wp/2025/wp2025-07.pdf https://www.cepii.fr/PDF_PUB/wp/2025/wp2025-07.pdf

toomuchtodo 10mo ago
Appreciate the kind words. I respect the disagreement, I simply feel we are out of better options at this point in the timeline and cycle. It is not the best option, it is the least worst option when there are few options. > The solution is not to restrict foreign workers, but to protect wages and working conditions by strictly enforcing labor standards and preventing exploitative hiring (across both the foreign and native labor forces), and to use targeted immigration that addresses genuine bottlenecks. Using a single unemployment threshold is not logical because labor markets are segmented and dynamic. I strongly agree. But that is not on offer at the moment, only restricting immigration. It is a suboptimal mechanism, but still a mechanism available. If what you propose becomes possible, certainly, I would have a different policy opinion based on system inputs and probable outcomes. Systems thinking. I am an aggressive supporter of worker rights and labor protections, having seen first hand what corporations will do to workers (with workers having zero recourse), and I am willing to support substantial economic impairment to the US economy or individual corporations if that is required. We do not need an underclass or immigrant labor to do the work you enumerate (healthcare, construction, agriculture, childcare); we need living wages and strong worker protections for domestic workers first. There is no shortage of labor, only companies and a nation unwilling to pay living wages and provide reasonable working conditions, and that should be forced to change by any means necessary. If, in the short term, a component of that is constraining the immigration pipeline (to reduce labor supply), I support that if it is the only mechanism available. Can I be pro worker and pro immigrant? I can be, under the assumption of prioritizing domestic workers first (as a nation state should, that is its job, to protect its citizens), then immigrant workers with the same wage and working condition protections, up to the jobs available in the economy (+- to account for dynamics). Economic growth gains go primarily to the top 10% of the US by wealth, who hold 93% of US equities, so I do not value economic growth as a KPI to optimize for.
- enraged_camel 10mo ago
  >> I am willing to support substantial economic impairment to the US economy Okay, but people who hold these types of sentiments are usually financially secure and/or have relatively strong job prospects. You do realize, I hope, that the type of economic downturn that would result from a complete cessation of immigrant labor would greatly hurt the very people whose interests you want to protect and improve.

toomuchtodo 10mo ago

Appreciate the kind words. I respect the disagreement, I simply feel we are out of better options at this point in the timeline and cycle. It is not the best option, it is the least worst option when there are few options. > The solution is not to restrict foreign workers, but to protect wages and working conditions by strictly enforcing labor standards and preventing exploitative hiring (across both the foreign and native labor forces), and to use targeted immigration that addresses genuine bottlenecks. Using a single unemployment threshold is not logical because labor markets are segmented and dynamic. I strongly agree. But that is not on offer at the moment, only restricting immigration. It is a suboptimal mechanism, but still a mechanism available. If what you propose becomes possible, certainly, I would have a different policy opinion based on system inputs and probable outcomes. Systems thinking. I am an aggressive supporter of worker rights and labor protections, having seen first hand what corporations will do to workers (with workers having zero recourse), and I am willing to support substantial economic impairment to the US economy or individual corporations if that is required. We do not need an underclass or immigrant labor to do the work you enumerate (healthcare, construction, agriculture, childcare); we need living wages and strong worker protections for domestic workers first. There is no shortage of labor, only companies and a nation unwilling to pay living wages and provide reasonable working conditions, and that should be forced to change by any means necessary. If, in the short term, a component of that is constraining the immigration pipeline (to reduce labor supply), I support that if it is the only mechanism available. Can I be pro worker and pro immigrant? I can be, under the assumption of prioritizing domestic workers first (as a nation state should, that is its job, to protect its citizens), then immigrant workers with the same wage and working condition protections, up to the jobs available in the economy (+- to account for dynamics). Economic growth gains go primarily to the top 10% of the US by wealth, who hold 93% of US equities, so I do not value economic growth as a KPI to optimize for.

enraged_camel 10mo ago
>> I am willing to support substantial economic impairment to the US economy Okay, but people who hold these types of sentiments are usually financially secure and/or have relatively strong job prospects. You do realize, I hope, that the type of economic downturn that would result from a complete cessation of immigrant labor would greatly hurt the very people whose interests you want to protect and improve.