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Economics is generally not a zero sum game. At least according to what they taught me in Econ 101, on a macroeconomic scale skilled workers tend to increase job

Economics is generally not a zero sum game. At least according to what they taught me in Econ 101, on a macroeconomic scale skilled workers tend to increase job availability. They spend a larger portion of their income on services, which has a positive multiplier effect.

rbanffy 22d ago
> skilled workers tend to increase job availability Who'd imagine squeezing the middle class would backfire epically? Compensation hasn't reflected the GDP per capital increases for the majority of the workforce. I don't think even the productivity increases from personal computers in the end of the 1970's have trickled down.
- bpt3 22d ago
  > Who'd imagine squeezing the middle class would backfire epically? Compensation hasn't reflected the GDP per capital increases for the majority of the workforce. I don't think even the productivity increases from personal computers in the end of the 1970's have trickled down. Why would investments by employers result in higher compensation for employees? That said, median real individual income has increased substantially since the 1970s: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/mepainusa672n https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/mepainusa672n
- davidw 22d ago
  Most of the 'squeeze' comes from things like housing and health care. The former driven by NIMBYs pulling the ladder up after them in so many desirable places.
  - philipallstar 22d ago
    A huge amount of housing demand comes from immigration. You can't call people who like their neighbourhoods "NIMBYs" for not wanting their nice area to triple in population to solve a problem. They aren't the problem. The demand is the problem.
    - davidw 22d ago
      Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that. Actual immigration from outside the US is a vanishingly small part of our housing problems, just as immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs". Where I live in Oregon the conflict is almost entirely about other Americans moving here vs those pulling up the ladder - which doesn't, of course,stop anyone from moving here, it just means only the wealthy can, rather than teachers, nurses, firefighters and so on.
      - happytoexplain 22d ago
        >immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs" This is a pretty stark straw man. It's very normal to be critical of immigration policy without believing that immigrants will eat your pets, and it's petty to try to implicitly cast the person you're talking to into that camp.
      - philipallstar 19d ago
        > Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that. Of course you can - good point. It's just extremely misleading to. However, "throughout history" America is only about 400 years in total, and for a lot of that there was loads of free land available. And - more importantly - no benefits, so you came to the US to carve out a new life from the soil, not to join a successful nation and raise house prices. Land in America is now settled, and that means that historical time is over, and no more applicable to debates today than it would be in any other nation, for most of whom the first 400 years would also have been a time of settling and opportunity.
    - Ajedi32 22d ago
      So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)? I think if you want to be able to block your neighbors from building denser housing on their property then that should only be enforceable if it was agreed to by everybody in advance when they bought the place (e.g. via an HOA contract or some similar type of restriction on the property deed). Otherwise this is tantamount to allowing Walmart to get a vote on whether to allow Target to set up next door.
  - happytoexplain 22d ago
    The subcategory of NIMBY hate regarding overdevelopment of existing communities (as opposed to things like datacenters, multi-home owners concerned about investment, etc etc) is mostly hatred of the average citizen, which is not a great category of people to decide to hate. 90% of people would react the same ways in the same situations. The obvious problem is that you can only develop a "desirable" area so much before you have fundamentally altered it. When there is a perception that the demand is driven in large part by people moving into the country, rather than by being born, that naturally engenders bitterness. When there is a perception that there are plenty of other areas available for development, which would then become desirable over time, but the developers want money and the government is focused on short-term goals, that further engenders bitterness. This is all very natural, and doesn't necessitate people to be unreasonably NIMBY to oppose it. Again, most people would.
    - davidw 22d ago
      It's not hate, it's just something that changed in the US in about the 1970ies. In the past, you'd have a booming area and people would build homes as a result and things weren't perfect, but kind of balanced out in terms of housing. Then we stopped doing that, with devastating consequences for many people wishing to move to places with better opportunities: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 - as well as the economy as a whole. You can read about it in books like Arbitrary Lines https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781642832549/arbitrary-lines https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781642832549/ar... or Zoning Rules https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/books/zoning-rules/ https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/books/zoning-rules/
davidw 22d ago
It's really dismaying how many people on this site seem to think immigration and the job market are a zero sum game... and that hasn't changed 12 years after I wrote this: https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-jobs/ https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-job...
- bijowo1676 22d ago
  also known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
- happytoexplain 22d ago
  It's an oversimplification to portray the "other argument" as asserting that everything in society is strictly a zero-sum game. In some important ways, it is; and in some important ways, it isn't. People may be wrong about those details, but that's not the same thing as the common quip "it's not a zero-sum game", which essentially portrays the other side of the argument as dunderheads (a trap that well-meaning people who believe they are on the "right" or "moral" side of an argument very easily fall into). I.e. no, it's not a zero sum game, but it is a complex system with inputs, outputs, some finite resources, and lots of human subjectivity and desires. Concrete harm easily comes from bad immigration policy (regardless of the "direction" of the policy's badness).
happytoexplain 22d ago
>Economics is generally not a zero sum game This is true in the literal sense in which you are using the phrase, but the context is not realistic. This sentiment is used a lot in defense of bad policy. Economics is a zero sum game, just not a static one. People are variables in the equation, which makes it non-trivial (after all, people are the entities splitting the sum, which is normally not part of the system of a "zero sum game"). The point is that the implication that "more people === better" is an oversimplification, to be point of being meaningless. In some contexts, more people makes everything better for everybody. In some contexts, more people makes everything worse for everybody. In most contexts, it's somewhere in between. Where the sparks really fly is when more people makes things better for the new people and worse for the existing people.

rbanffy 22d ago

> skilled workers tend to increase job availability Who'd imagine squeezing the middle class would backfire epically? Compensation hasn't reflected the GDP per capital increases for the majority of the workforce. I don't think even the productivity increases from personal computers in the end of the 1970's have trickled down.

bpt3 22d ago
> Who'd imagine squeezing the middle class would backfire epically? Compensation hasn't reflected the GDP per capital increases for the majority of the workforce. I don't think even the productivity increases from personal computers in the end of the 1970's have trickled down. Why would investments by employers result in higher compensation for employees? That said, median real individual income has increased substantially since the 1970s: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/mepainusa672n https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/mepainusa672n
davidw 22d ago
Most of the 'squeeze' comes from things like housing and health care. The former driven by NIMBYs pulling the ladder up after them in so many desirable places.
- philipallstar 22d ago
  A huge amount of housing demand comes from immigration. You can't call people who like their neighbourhoods "NIMBYs" for not wanting their nice area to triple in population to solve a problem. They aren't the problem. The demand is the problem.
  - davidw 22d ago
    Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that. Actual immigration from outside the US is a vanishingly small part of our housing problems, just as immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs". Where I live in Oregon the conflict is almost entirely about other Americans moving here vs those pulling up the ladder - which doesn't, of course,stop anyone from moving here, it just means only the wealthy can, rather than teachers, nurses, firefighters and so on.
    - happytoexplain 22d ago
      >immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs" This is a pretty stark straw man. It's very normal to be critical of immigration policy without believing that immigrants will eat your pets, and it's petty to try to implicitly cast the person you're talking to into that camp.
    - philipallstar 19d ago
      > Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that. Of course you can - good point. It's just extremely misleading to. However, "throughout history" America is only about 400 years in total, and for a lot of that there was loads of free land available. And - more importantly - no benefits, so you came to the US to carve out a new life from the soil, not to join a successful nation and raise house prices. Land in America is now settled, and that means that historical time is over, and no more applicable to debates today than it would be in any other nation, for most of whom the first 400 years would also have been a time of settling and opportunity.
  - Ajedi32 22d ago
    So lack of supply isn't the problem, it's the people who want a place to live who are the problem? Would you make this same argument if the increased demand was from people being born rather than immigration (because it is both)? I think if you want to be able to block your neighbors from building denser housing on their property then that should only be enforceable if it was agreed to by everybody in advance when they bought the place (e.g. via an HOA contract or some similar type of restriction on the property deed). Otherwise this is tantamount to allowing Walmart to get a vote on whether to allow Target to set up next door.
- happytoexplain 22d ago
  The subcategory of NIMBY hate regarding overdevelopment of existing communities (as opposed to things like datacenters, multi-home owners concerned about investment, etc etc) is mostly hatred of the average citizen, which is not a great category of people to decide to hate. 90% of people would react the same ways in the same situations. The obvious problem is that you can only develop a "desirable" area so much before you have fundamentally altered it. When there is a perception that the demand is driven in large part by people moving into the country, rather than by being born, that naturally engenders bitterness. When there is a perception that there are plenty of other areas available for development, which would then become desirable over time, but the developers want money and the government is focused on short-term goals, that further engenders bitterness. This is all very natural, and doesn't necessitate people to be unreasonably NIMBY to oppose it. Again, most people would.
  - davidw 22d ago
    It's not hate, it's just something that changed in the US in about the 1970ies. In the past, you'd have a booming area and people would build homes as a result and things weren't perfect, but kind of balanced out in terms of housing. Then we stopped doing that, with devastating consequences for many people wishing to move to places with better opportunities: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 - as well as the economy as a whole. You can read about it in books like Arbitrary Lines https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781642832549/arbitrary-lines https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781642832549/ar... or Zoning Rules https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/books/zoning-rules/ https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/books/zoning-rules/

davidw 22d ago

It's really dismaying how many people on this site seem to think immigration and the job market are a zero sum game... and that hasn't changed 12 years after I wrote this: https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-jobs/ https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-job...

bijowo1676 22d ago
also known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy
happytoexplain 22d ago
It's an oversimplification to portray the "other argument" as asserting that everything in society is strictly a zero-sum game. In some important ways, it is; and in some important ways, it isn't. People may be wrong about those details, but that's not the same thing as the common quip "it's not a zero-sum game", which essentially portrays the other side of the argument as dunderheads (a trap that well-meaning people who believe they are on the "right" or "moral" side of an argument very easily fall into). I.e. no, it's not a zero sum game, but it is a complex system with inputs, outputs, some finite resources, and lots of human subjectivity and desires. Concrete harm easily comes from bad immigration policy (regardless of the "direction" of the policy's badness).

happytoexplain 22d ago

>Economics is generally not a zero sum game This is true in the literal sense in which you are using the phrase, but the context is not realistic. This sentiment is used a lot in defense of bad policy. Economics is a zero sum game, just not a static one. People are variables in the equation, which makes it non-trivial (after all, people are the entities splitting the sum, which is normally not part of the system of a "zero sum game"). The point is that the implication that "more people === better" is an oversimplification, to be point of being meaningless. In some contexts, more people makes everything better for everybody. In some contexts, more people makes everything worse for everybody. In most contexts, it's somewhere in between. Where the sparks really fly is when more people makes things better for the new people and worse for the existing people.