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> the current admin are working hard to destroy the U.S as if they're foreign agents The U.S. had a draconian restrictive immigration policy from 1921-1965. Th
by rayiner 2mo ago
> the current admin are working hard to destroy the U.S as if they're foreign agents
The U.S. had a draconian restrictive immigration policy from 1921-1965. That worked fine. How can you say with a straight face that someone must be a “foreign agent” to think doing the same thing again will have the same result? Surely the burden is on you to prove the opposite, right?
- adjejmxbdjdn 2mo agoAnd the U.S. has been doing even better since 1965. So really the question goes back to you. Either way, your whataboutism isn’t even relevant since those were congressional changes. This is the executive trying to undermine the law.
- unselect5917 2mo ago>And the U.S. has been doing even better since 1965. Better for whom? People are struggling to afford groceries largely because the dollar is worth 1/165th of its 1913 value and the minimum wage hasn't been raised in 17 years. I found a job that pays in BTC and I'm super hopeful about that one because my effective salary won't go down by 3-8% every year but instead will appreciate relative to what things are priced in.
- dgellow 2mo agoDo you pay your taxes in btc too?
- unselect5917 2mo agoWho cares when I can sell BTC to USD in seconds?
- dgellow 2mo agoSo, it really doesn’t matter that your job is paid in BTC, given that you could just convert your USD income to BTC whenever you want
- dasyatidprime 2mo agoThat doesn't follow. I'm pretty sure they're talking about the effect of nominal wage stickiness: you're not constantly renegotiating your rate, so when there's fluctuations in relative value, it matters what unit the original number is denominated in. Compare with the case of a US expat being paid a steady salary in USD and converting to the local currency to make purchases, if you want an example with a similar mechanic but very different intuitive feel and practicalities. (I'm not sure they're right about the overall effect though.)
- unselect5917 2mo agoYou basically nailed it. USD crashed in the 1970s after the Nixon shock, and is basically a shambling corpse losing 3-8% of its value every single year while BTC is 600x the value of a 1913 dollar... and trending up: https://i.imgur.com/PJT01T8.png https://i.imgur.com/PJT01T8.png Even if they don't give me a raise, I'll still have more purchasing power at the end of a year rather than less as the case with USD.
- mrguyorama 2mo agoYou understand why a deflationary currency kills economic activity, right?
- driverdan 2mo ago> Better for whom? Minorities and women, for a start.
- rayiner 2mo agoWe were able to make progress on those fronts in the 1960s because we had a culturally homogenized population after decades of immigration restriction. In the area of women’s rights, for example, the driving force was mainline protestants who wanted prohibition, in opposition to recent immigrants: https://www.wpbstv.org/prohibition-and-the-suffrage-movement-the-vote-american-experience-pbs https://www.wpbstv.org/prohibition-and-the-suffrage-movement.... If America had remained an Anglo-Protestant society, it likely would have developed on a similar trajectory as Canada, the UK, and Australia on issues like abortion. Remember, Roe v. Wade had five Nixon and Eisenhower Republicans in the majority. The party shifted positions on the issue with Reagan because it was a way to flip a large number of catholics, who had overwhelmingly voted democrat until then. Evangelical protestants plus religious Catholics was a big enough coalition to offset mainline protestants on the issue.
- unselect5917 2mo agoWhite people are a global minority at ~7%. "Minorities™" have their own countries where they are majorities. If they don't want to be Minorities™, they can stay home.
- dwaltrip 2mo agoSeriously? You don’t like non-white people?
- 0xDEAFBEAD 2mo ago[flagged]
- unselect5917 2mo agoNo more than they like white people. The only race in any study you can find shows that every racial group prefers themselves the most, other races less, and whites the least. Except white people. Who've been conditioned to get rid of their in-group bias. If HN supported images, I could show you the charts. I looked at that data and decided deliberately, out of rational self interest to be just like them and put my own race first exactly like they do. Equality!
- blfr 2mo agoThere is a whole site with various trends that diverged or changed since 1971. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ It's not exactly an unbiased selection but it is interesting.
- retvrn 2mo agoOh god I hope this lie is part of an attempt to get right-wingers on board with a “let’s roll immigration policy back to what we had in 1950!” push. I hope this because it’d be hilarious if they got what they wanted and realized that meant actual open borders with most or all of the Americas.
- profdevloper 2mo agoBefore Hart-Cellar we had national origin quotas, it wasn't a free-for-all.
- retvrn 2mo agoFor those outside the Americas, yes. Western hemisphere immigration had no meaningful restrictions until 1965.
- rayiner 2mo agoWe had little meaningful immigration pressure from the america at the time. The foreign born population dropped from 15% in 1921 to under 5% by 1970.
- retvrn 2mo agoWe’re backing away from: > The U.S. had a draconian restrictive immigration policy from 1921-1965. to “well ok not really but it didn’t matter”?
- rayiner 2mo agoIt did matter. It was restrictive in actual effect, in that it blocked immigration from the places it was mainly coming from, and dropped the foreign born population under 5% by 1970.
- tootie 2mo ago"Worked fine" is a pretty vague description for the year we had a Great Depression, world war, Jim Crow, Japanese internment to name a few.
- rayiner 2mo agoThe U.S. was at the apex of its power during those years. Those years are also why we remember earlier immigration waves as “working.” The foreign born population dropped from 15% to under 5% during that period. The Italian and Irish enclaves disappeared and so did the separate ethnic identity of those groups (to a large degree).
- Gud 2mo agoThe rest of the world was bombed to pieces while the USA had an untouched industrial output.
- rayiner 2mo agoThat’s a common misconception. The U.S. actually became the world’s largest industrial power before World War I. Germany had 60% of the US’s GDP per capita in 1910. It dipped during the war itself, but by 1960 it was closer to 70%. https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/us-gdp-per-capita https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/us-gdp-per-cap....
- sokoloff 2mo agoWhether or not what you say is correct, it does not at all contradict GP’s two claims.
- rayiner 2mo agoIt contradicts the conclusion he’s drawing from those two facts, which is that U.S. economic dominance results from European economies having been destroyed after WWII. The U.S. became a world power during its isolationist phase prior to WWI.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- sigmarule 2mo agoHow can you with a straight face equate “fine for 1921-1965” with “best for 2026”? Even odder: what makes you find it plausible that an understanding of the policies of this period and their effect on the economy were part of the decision-making process of this administration - especially when they have actively voiced opinions that fully explain this action? At some point bending backwards to provide some benefit of the doubt is saying more about the speaker than the topic - I am certainly of the opinion that we are well beyond that rubicon. I cannot fathom the reasoning at this point.
- rayiner 2mo ago> How can you with a straight face equate “fine for 1921-1965” with “best for 2026” It’s strong evidence that immigration restriction isn’t economically destructive. If you think economic circumstances have changed and the result would be different this time, then I think you have the burden to prove it.