Immigrants are good for the economy. They create more jobs than they displace. They do a lot of work that others won’t, they start small businesses that employ people, and they pay taxes. Except for the occasional practice of businesses hiring H1b employees for less than they would have to pay a citizen, they aren’t actually displacing workers, and in those cases it makes more sense to go after the employers. With the aging population we need younger people coming in to keep the engine running.
I’m more worried about how much the prices on produce are going to go up without the farm workers at this point.
Also, the government regulations have little to do with the loss of mining jobs; that’s more down to automation, and the fact that natural gas from fracking is cheaper than coal. We need to find ways to bring other jobs into places that have lost jobs in mining, logging, manufacturing, and things like that, maybe in industries that won’t pollute our air and water while we’re at it.
Except that both of those things are miniscule to imaginary in terms of actual causes. Not having a job due to automation and offshoring, or because natural gas is so much cheaper than coal that the coal industry is currently extremely uncompetitive, is far more likely. But admitting that would require placing the blame on the wealthy rather than on immigrants and liberal do-gooders who want fancy things like “drinkable water”, and where’s the fun in that?
Well, wherever some fella isn’t sure the other fellas in the fella’s room were all born fellas, he’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop not beatin’ up a guy, he’ll be there. He be there in the ways guys yell “snowflake!” when their feelin’s are hurt bad and when people are takin’ Obamacare and sayin’ Obamacare is wrong, he’ll be there, too.
He don’t understand it, it’s just somethin’ he’s been thinkin’ about.
Why would automation and the uncompetitiveness of coal and offshoring lead people to hate the wealthy? Offshoring I sorta get, but that’s right there with trade and immigration, issues where people respond to incentives set up by the government.
Or is the answer always to blame the wealthy? Is the problem not that people hate, but they don’t hate the people who liberals want them to hate?
No, they aren’t the same, but “stupid” is such a vague term otherwise that you could conceivably just make it mean whatever you want to. Might as well just have said you don’t like poopyheads.
“Nothing to see here, it’s just business, but incidentally the reason you’ve lost your job isn’t because automation and offshoring increase our bottom line but because the mean old government is forcing us to maintain a safe working environment and to reduce pollution (which otherwise the taxpayer would have to pay to clean up). Oh, and something something immigrants.”
Qui bono? Who is making the money here while the workers lose their jobs? Who is benefiting from decreased regulation of coal and government support of fracking? Those jobs being “saved” in Indiana - the taxpayers are effectively subsidizing the automation of the Carrier plant, so who is benefiting from that money? Not the workers who will still be losing their jobs.
And finally - the big question - if it’s all “just business”, why do the Republicans persistently scapegoat immigrants and the government for the consequences? And why do you continue to repeat their lies? Could it be because “we cut your jobs because it means more money for us and the shareholders” isn’t a politically popular position?