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@dtluna
They are valid counterpoints, but counterpoints to straw men. Or, they should be straw men if politicians didn't spread them and voters didn't believe them. They aren't spread because they're good points, from a truth perspective, but because they are effective points.
In Sweden, a nuanced version of these may be true. Our immigrants are a larger part of our society, and our society and in particular our job market are more difficult to assimilate into, plus we (our government) actively sabotage assimilation through various aspects of our regulations. Also our government spends more on welfare, so the economical argument looks different.
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These may be good points for Sweden, but I only have two: U.S. labor force participation is at record lows, wages are down, debt is up, and things like Social Security, employer health insurance and bank bailouts have gone from iffy to dangerous. Even more strange, with H-1Bs we're importing people specifically to fill the one job market actually experiencing job market share growth and rising wages (gotta stop that). With even MORE insane irony, the H-1Bs allow businesses to employ "non-whites" (as legally required) while the African-American population "enjoys" record unemployment and labor participation collapse.
Point 1: The U.S. job market is entirely broken, and we're importing more people.
Point 2: Neither Libertarian nor Anarchist thought supports enforcement of one-way "crime." Now, at some point, the U.S. government decided that borders are evil. Not my choice at this time, but if you believe this.... then U.S. billionaires and corporations can buy up Central and South American property and companies and start strip-mining them, right? No limits on our domination of their markets, right? No matter what their laws say... right? @clacke @dtluna
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@somercet @dtluna
If there are job opportunities that are not being fulfilled, it is in any country's interest to remedy that. The availability of local people who do not meet the job requirements is irrelevant. In fact, if they need social services, it's a good thing to bring productive people in the right niche to the country to create more capital.
Point 2: I can't follow your train of thought. US companies are illegally buying property abroad? What's a one-way crime?
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>If there are job opportunities that are not being fulfilled, it is in any country's interest to remedy that.
Simplistic yet wrong. No one is arguing that jobs must go unfilled. I am arguing *how* they are filled.
America in the 1910s: formally trained people are a small core. (Small enough that the two military academies are significant sources of civil engineers.) Lots of people have technical experience but no formal qualifications. A minority, but still a large number (skills are a power law distribution) are "unskilled" workers.
Business A's response: the trained core is put in charge. They surround themselves with the experienced-but-uncredentialed, who act as foremen for the large group of technically unskilled people. Eventually, the business starts aptitude-testing workers and providing formal training ("hiring from within"). The unskilled force is able to make things they would be unable to alone. By and large, they show up, they don't complain, they get the job done, they refer corner cases to the foreman: all "negative virtues," yes, but even the absence of vice can be a virtue.
America in the 2010s: Skills are still power law distributed. Business aptitude-testing was outlawed by the US Supreme court (Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 1971). Expensive, land-grant (i.e., oligopoly), 85% public universities provide the "skills," but many of these are useless and entirely unrelated to actual jobs (e.g., waiters with English majors).
Business B's response: the trained core is put in charge. No pyramidal company structure is created. Instead, H-1Bs are now used to bring in workers from overseas, who live in the US entirely at the pleasure of the corporate "sponsor." Human Resources now exists to eliminate "mediocrity."
http://hrdusa.com/As_hire_As.html
Production is farmed out to third world countries. The culture barrier and lack of infrastructure is costly, but the business frees itself from the over-extended "job protections" in the U.S. put in place by unions (1870-1970):
http://cesspoolofhumanity.blogspot.com/2010/08/proud-racist-history-of-labor-unions.html
The "unskilled" pool is put on "social services," or "welfare" or "the dole" for those of us not addicted to "euphemisms." The ruling class tells them welfare is just as good as work. But welfare provides no sense of productivity or mastery (however low the job), just a constant awareness that your father or grandfather was a citizen, a worker and an asset, but you are merely a burden.
The world from 1910 is a healthy, organic society, *and* part of world trade. The society from 2010 is a dystopian hell hole, all thanks to your policies.
Point 2: I'm sorry you missed it entirely. It seems very simple to me. @clacke @dtluna
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@somercet @dtluna Scrap minimum wage and there is no reason to outsource physical production. Scrap intellectual monopolies and it becomes impossible to create wealthy companies that don't do anything.
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@somercet @dtluna These two problems are also the cause of increased cost of living.
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somercet
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