We are fighting the last war . . . .

[Doublecluck]

Common misconception that non-citizen workers displace citizen workers. They don’t. They do jobs that citizens can’t or won’t do. Remove the 24 million non-citizens from the US and the economy halts.

Blue collar workers didn’t lose the ability to work. They lost the ability to earn a middle class wage, which has little to nothing to do with immigration.

Really? Idk try being a drywaller, painter, mechanic, electrician, framer, finish carpenter, tile setter, mason, roofer or about a thousand other formerly middle class jobs in California from oh idk at least 1980-present. Pretty common for businesses to exploit those people and the system. I’m a business , lemme think about this for a second, am I gonna hire the American who will want a good wage, safe working conditions, OT pay, benefits, retirement or this illegal who will work OT for straight wages, do it for cheaper, and I can treat like chit because he can’t do much about it? Not to mention I can pay him straight cash and rob the system of payroll, comp, and insurance taxes. Common misconception is those jobs Americans didn’t want to do, we just told our kids they would be losers if they did em. Idk why don’t you ask the electrician, plumber, roofer or framer in Bozeman Montana if they want an unlimited amount of people who will do their jobs for cheaper, live with multiple families in single family homes, send a portion of what they make to a foreign counties economy, take advantage of the local and federal systems designed to help people, to come do the jobs that are paying them 60k plus right now?

 

[Pucky Freak]

Now, we sit on the tipping point of genAI - how will we address the front end of the decimation of the day to day "white collar" worker. Sure the very top 1% of white collar won't be replaceable and will likely reap great economic benefits, but when the third of or workforce that benefited from decimation of the "blue collar" dreams over the last 30 years is now in the crosshairs how will this play out? Will they demand government protections? Will they demand better social safety net for themselves that they were so reluctant to provide the blue collar folks? Which party will they flow towards? Will skill labor replace them in the social/economic pecking order, as AI doesn't build roads or skyscrapers? Or will now 90% of our population feel left out? And if so does that lead to real revolution? And would that revolution be won by a right wing strongman to force "order" on the system without fixing it or would it be a leftist revolution that tries to redesign post-AI capitalism/socialism in a way to force the spread of the benefits across the whole?

Labor force participation is 61%. About 10% of the total population age 16+ are incapable of working, so that leaves approximately 29% or 77M people who elect not to work. In preindustrial society “not working”equated to “not eating” for everyone but the wealthy, so an idle work force is a relatively new phenomenon.

There are 25M unpaid family caregivers who have no additional paid job, so 77M is whittled down to 52M.

Collectively, we as a society get to choose the size of our “idle work force.” Right now it’s 52M, but we could just as easily set it at 25M or 75M via incentivizing/deincentivizing paid labor via how things like social security, food stamps, nationalized healthcare, etc. operate.

This is all to say that my personal opinion is that AI is less powerful than our ability to manipulate the national labor economy via our corporatocracy capitalist democracy.

Politically, our center-right voting population continues to voluntarily prop up a runaway Gini ratio, but that music only plays for so long. Some day, likely within my lifetime, we are going to vote for significant wealth redistribution and the ultra rich will spirit away to some other country along with their vast fortunes.

 

[Benfromalbuquerque]

 

[Pucky Freak]

So, if cheap illegal immigrant labor wasn’t abundant, you don’t think demand would necessitate an increase in wages for citizens to do these “undesirable” jobs?

Let’s play economy levers for a minute, and set cheap illegal immigrant labor to zero. Now nannying, housekeeping, roofing, siding, meatpacking, tourism, farming, ranching, hospitality, and construction cost 50% more for the employer and the consumer. Proportionally, the jobs also pay 50% more, creating a living wage for American workers. Taxes actually get paid and collected.

There are obvious upsides to the above - my concern is can the economy can keep plugging away and stay globally competitive? I’m all in trying to find a way to make that work.

The one exception, and it’s a big exception because it has more illegal labor than anything else, is farm work. Unlike most everything else on the above industry list, farm work makes for high food prices that huge swaths of our population can’t pay for. Ag products also compete globally, so it essentially shuts down the US ag economy and we move to importing our food instead.

Cheap farm labor is the only thing keeping the US ag economy from being insanely subsidized. We need something along the lines of a seasonal alien guest worker program (I know it already exists but it competes with illegal labor). It’s still cheap foreign labor, but at least it’s regulated which goes a long way to ensure worker safety, weeds out the foreign criminals, etc.

 

[Pucky Freak]

A couple years ago commercial AI software available for the individual consumer started popping up that mimics my professional service expertise. For a subscription fee, clients can use an app and talk w/ AI instead of interacting with a human being. Some clients (none of mine…I work in government) have made the switch already. The software is primitive and the service is low quality, but also low cost. For a client with a limited budget, it’s an option.

Give it ten years though and the AI will improve and gradually become more competitive.

On the professional’s side of the equation, accessible AI assisting technology is now available that could very easily cut the # of people at my agency w/ my same job by 1/3. In another 5 years you could replace another 1/3 of us who have graduate degrees with HS diploma technicians who complete a 40-hr AI training course.

Some industries, like mine, are slow beyond slow to adopt changes. 40 years from now they’ll start using technology that became available in 2022.

 

[D_Walt]

Let’s play economy levers for a minute, and set cheap illegal immigrant labor to zero. Now nannying, housekeeping, roofing, siding, meatpacking, tourism, farming, ranching, hospitality, and construction cost 50% more for the employer and the consumer. Proportionally, the jobs also pay 50% more, creating a living wage for American workers. Taxes actually get paid and collected.

There are obvious upsides to the above - my concern is can the economy can keep plugging away and stay globally competitive? I’m all in trying to find a way to make that work.

The one exception, and it’s a big exception because it has more illegal labor than anything else, is farm work. Unlike most everything else on the above industry list, farm work makes for high food prices that huge swaths of our population can’t pay for. Ag products also compete globally, so it essentially shuts down the US ag economy and we move to importing our food instead.

Cheap farm labor is the only thing keeping the US ag economy from being insanely subsidized. We need something along the lines of a seasonal alien guest worker program (I know it already exists but it competes with illegal labor). It’s still cheap foreign labor, but at least it’s regulated which goes a long way to ensure worker safety, weeds out the foreign criminals,

Your points above are some of the reasons Ag is the most heavily subsidized industry, I don’t disagree with the “why”. Just curious when people start talking about a livable wage and then also advocate for unrestricted immigration. I’m not in ag, but If I was a scum bag I could shit-can 80% of my employees tomorrow and have illegals rehired by Monday afternoon at 2/3 the pay. Then those citizens I fired would have to go into a competitive job market at $12-$14/hour. Some folks on here would never sleep again knowing industrial products were produced at below a livable wage…

 

[Nick87]

Common misconception that non-citizen workers displace citizen workers. They don’t. They do jobs that citizens can’t or won’t do. Remove the 24 million non-citizens from the US and the economy halts.

Blue collar workers didn’t lose the ability to work. They lost the ability to earn a middle class wage, which has little to nothing to do with immigration.

Define non citizen worker...in terms of time they are here I'm the work force 6 months? a generation? Serious question.

 

[thebestusernamesaretaken]

View attachment 314539

worth repeating over and over again!

 

[thebestusernamesaretaken]

I wish the magic money tree would foot the bill for my taxes.

where do I get one of those? I'll plant 100 of them

 

[rjthehunter]

where do I get one of those? I'll plant 100 of them

Same... I'd start a tree farm!

 

[ismith]

Let’s play economy levers for a minute, and set cheap illegal immigrant labor to zero. Now nannying, housekeeping, roofing, siding, meatpacking, tourism, farming, ranching, hospitality, and construction cost 50% more for the employer and the consumer. Proportionally, the jobs also pay 50% more, creating a living wage for American workers. Taxes actually get paid and collected.

There are obvious upsides to the above - my concern is can the economy can keep plugging away and stay globally competitive? I’m all in trying to find a way to make that work.

The one exception, and it’s a big exception because it has more illegal labor than anything else, is farm work. Unlike most everything else on the above industry list, farm work makes for high food prices that huge swaths of our population can’t pay for. Ag products also compete globally, so it essentially shuts down the US ag economy and we move to importing our food instead.

Cheap farm labor is the only thing keeping the US ag economy from being insanely subsidized. We need something along the lines of a seasonal alien guest worker program (I know it already exists but it competes with illegal labor). It’s still cheap foreign labor, but at least it’s regulated which goes a long way to ensure worker safety, weeds out the foreign criminals, etc.

An economy built on cheap labor provided by brown people? WTF, y’all fixing to break out the stars and bars again here soon too?

 

[MTGomer]

So, if cheap illegal immigrant labor wasn’t abundant, you don’t think demand would necessitate an increase in wages for citizens to do these “undesirable” jobs?

It’s pretty hard in Arizona to get American citizens to show up on time, sober, and work hard for 40 hours a week for 80 or $90,000 a year. You ain’t going to get them to pick produce in Yuma for minimum wage.
And how do you pay that much more than that, when they can farm the same stuff right across the border?

 

[Nick87]

It’s pretty hard in Arizona to get American citizens to show up on time, sober, and work hard for 40 hours a week for 80 or $90,000 a year.

I think I'm getting screwed.

 

[ismith]

I think I'm getting screwed.

May as well start an only fans then.

 

[Dave N]

It’s pretty hard in Arizona to get American citizens to show up on time, sober, and work hard for 40 hours a week for 80 or $90,000 a year. You ain’t going to get them to pick produce in Yuma for minimum wage.
And how do you pay that much more than that, when they can farm the same stuff right across the border?

28 years at Caterpillar and even working tons of overtime I think I only broke into the 80K range twice! Can't remember, my brain is fried.

 

[ismith]

The right kind of Hispanic blood(Puerto Rican), mixed with the right kind of British blood( blend of English border and Scottish, with a touch of Irish and Dutch), makes for a wonderful looking human being. If I posted a picture of myself I’m sure you’d all agree.

 

[Nick87]

The right kind of Hispanic blood(Puerto Rican), mixed with the right kind of British blood( blend of English border and Scottish, with a touch of Irish and Dutch), makes for a wonderful looking human being. If I posted a picture of myself I’m sure you’d all agree.

You mean thats not you in your avatar?

 

[ismith]

You mean thats not you in your avatar?

No, that’s a picture of some failed musician I found online. He likes beaver though, so he’s cool.

 

[Benfromalbuquerque]

No, that’s a picture of some failed musician I found online. He likes beaver though, so he’s cool.

You take that back! Primus freakin rules!

 

[Pucky Freak]

Define non citizen worker...in terms of time they are here I'm the work force 6 months? a generation? Serious question.

It could be 1 day or 50 years. Of the 335M persons whose primary residence is in the US at this moment in time, 311M are US citizens, and 24M are noncitizens. 10M of the 24M are here illegally. Noncitizen labor force participation is about 70%, so that’s 16.8M noncitizen workers, 7M of whom are undocumented workers.

Next year on this date there might also be 16.8M noncitizen workers, but they will not be all the same people. Some died, some got deported, some left voluntarily, some became citizens, some quit working but didn’t leave the US, some newly arrived, etc. Counting the number of unique workers over a span of time, e.g. 1 year, is calculable only with documented workers.