reply to #51, Oct 21
Shopping for lower-cost labor is part of the solution.
It's not that the jobs aren't there, but rather that there's a shortage of workers taking the jobs available.
Only a shortage of workers to do the jobs at the current market price.
Not if the supply of labor increases, which would benefit all consumers and be a normal part of the market system. (And driving up the wage level artificially would mean higher cost = higher price and reduced output.) It's only government interference which holds down the free-market labor supply. Allowing the market to do its function requires the government to decrease its interference and allow the supply of labor to flow as needed, as a normal process historically, to overcome artificial border obstructions and allow production to serve the need of people. Obstructing commerce and labor is not a legitimate function of borders.
Serving the need of the country is more important than protecting certain xenophobes who feel threatened by foreigners, or preserving nativist hostility against outsiders because they're not "our kind." The legitimate need for borders and restrictions can be moderated in order to promote supply and allow legitimate commercial traffic so that the nation gets maximum efficient production to serve consumers.
Raise the wage and there will be a shortage of jobs for workers . . .
But the market already does raise the wage automatically when it's appropriate, to meet the demand. Some wages have increased, but also higher supply of labor is needed, to address the labor shortage. Excluding immigrant labor is based on prejudice only, not economics. Higher wages are not necessarily best for consumers, because it necessarily also means higher prices they must pay, whereas increased labor supply is better for consumers. It's best to let the free market address the need, allowing higher wages but also higher supply of labor. Increased labor supply = lower production cost and higher output and lower prices, all of which are needed currently. There is never any reason to choose a lower living standard out of prejudice against immigrant workers who could do some of the needed work = increased supply plus cost savings.
Yes, meaning artificially higher labor cost = less production and higher prices, making us all worse off. Any lower cost that is possible always benefits the economy. I.e., like using machines to do production is beneficial if it does the same work at lower cost. Such cost savings is always good for the economy. Without the increased labor supply to fill the need (if the shortage continues), there are necessarily higher production costs = lower living standard for all Americans.
Sometimes higher cost is unavoidable, but when it can be avoided there's no legitimate reason to force it up higher than necessary. With an increased labor supply made possible, that higher cost can be avoided and the production continued at the earlier higher levels = higher living standard. Though the pandemic is driving up costs artificially higher, other factors, like increased labor supply, can offset that and minimize the damage.
Maybe this is due mostly to the pandemic, which isn't over, and which is making employment less attractive.
Companies are even cutting back production for lack of needed workers. Who's to blame for this? And why basically is this bad?
What's wrong is not high unemployment, but that needed work is not getting done. There's a need for more truck drivers, dock workers at the ports, and some skilled workers like plumbers and electricians. Also firefighters, and many other kinds of workers -- but job-seekers are staying home rather than taking the jobs that are open.
President Biden brushed off a second month of disappointing jobs-growth figures, claiming “monthly totals bounce around” before walking off.
nypost.com
Either pay more wages or automate.
No, allow ALL legitimate market choices, which includes shopping for cheaper labor. What's wrong with letting people make their own individual choices for their own lives and to improve their performance in the economy? Why the need to suppress free choice and impose your own ultimatums onto others?
There's nothing wrong with lower-cost labor. Jobs don't all need to be replaced by technology. There is no gain in suppressing any free choice, whether it's to increase the wage or find lower-cost labor or to find lower-cost technology. The best course is always whatever does best to improve the production, the performance of the business, the service to consumers, which is what the business is for. Its function is not to provide incomes or job slots for needy jobseekers, but to get the needed production done best for the consumers.
In the very near future, Elon Musk claims we will have driver less trucking. That will make some pretty low costs for trucking if you do not even need a truck driver.
It's fine to replace them when the driverless technology can do it better and cheaper. But it's also fine to employ drivers in cases where they can do it cheaper or better. New technology is the means, not the end. We should not make a religion out of new technology. Rather the "highest" good is serving the consumers better, and the producers and their machines are the means to that end, as also is lower-cost labor.
So both Reds and Blues think it's better to let the economy suffer, let the production be lower, so less wealth is created, and so American consumers -- ALL Americans -- must have their living standard reduced, because of our need to pander to the crybabies who feel threatened by competition from immigrants.
All of this country loses big time when all the costs of exploiting labor are not included.
But there is no cost of "exploiting labor" by allowing in more immigrant workers to fill the labor shortage. Everyone benefits by having the production rise back to normal levels, to serve consumers, while also benefiting the immigrant workers who are made better off than if they had remained where they were before.
It is the same kind of short sighted thinking that has allowed . . .
No, low-cost labor is
long-sighted. Low-cost labor is a
long-term solution which has helped build our prosperity up to today. It's ingrained in the history of economic success, both in the U.S. and in Europe, where today's high standard of living would never have been possible without the earlier period of low-cost labor to help get businesses started by keeping down its cost. Today the much higher labor cost actually prevents many small businesses from ever having a chance, so that the big corporate giants dominate = less competition.
It was allowing free choice for people to work at low wages which made possible the factories and the production and their expansion to create eventually the high standard of living. Allowing that freedom to individuals to decide whether to work and under what terms is what made possible the modern technology and higher living standard. The later labor union gains for workers are a product of the original cheap labor economy which created the new industries and prosperity without which today's labor unions would not be possible, because labor unions are a product of prosperity, not a cause of it.
. . . short sighted thinking that has allowed fossil fuels to dominate instead of cleaner energy.
So immigrant workers are a threat to civilization similar to fossil fuel carbon emissions? Do you want to see a summit conference on the elimination of all immigrants by the year 2050? How many years have immigration scientists given us before the excess immigrants will destroy civilization as we know it? Has Ziprhead demanded some "facts and figures" from you to document this threat to life as we know it?
If hiring immigrant workers is "short-sighted" thinking similar to slavery, what would be the long-sighted solution to address this or stop the threat? In the late 1800s the labor union movement had a solution which might have produced your desired long-term outcome:
On September 2, 1885, 150 white miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, brutally attack their Chinese coworkers, killing 28, wounding 15 others, and driving several
www.history.com
Inside History newsletter
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
SEPTEMBER 02 1885
Chinese miners are massacred in Wyoming Territory
On September 2, 1885, 150 white miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, brutally attack their Chinese coworkers, killing 28, wounding 15 others, and driving several hundred more out of town.
The miners working in the Union Pacific coal mine had been struggling to unionize and strike for better working conditions for years. But at every juncture the powerful railroad company had bested them. Searching for a scapegoat, the angry miners blamed the Chinese. The Chinese coal miners were hard workers, but the Union Pacific had initially brought many of them to Rock Springs as strikebreakers, and they showed little interest in the miners’ union.
Outraged by a company decision to allow Chinese miners to work the richest coal seams, a mob of white miners impulsively decided to strike back by attacking Rock Spring’s small Chinatown. When they saw the armed mob approaching, most of the Chinese abandoned their homes and businesses and fled for the hills. But those who failed to escape in time were brutally . . .
So you think these white miners understood the threat to America from these foreign workers, and so we need to heed their warning now, like we need to heed the warning of environmentalists about the similar threat from excess fossil fuel emissions? These are analogous -- the need to exclude immigrant labor and the need to reduce fossil fuel emissions? How is it "short-sighted" to hire immigrant labor like it's "short-sighted" to continue relying on fossil fuels? What do your scientists say is the threat posed to us by immigrants?
Even 200 years after the civil war, this country is still paying dearly for the last time producers exploited the black population from Africa.
To equate today's immigrant workers who came voluntarily to slaves kidnapped from Africa belongs in the Nutcase Economics category. The U.S. is not "still paying dearly" but has always benefited and still is benefiting from its large immigrant workforce going back many generations, including back to the 19th century when immigrants played a significant role in the industrial expansion.
It's an obscenity to equate immigrant workers with slaves, as if we'd be doing them a favor to "liberate" them all and send them back because they don't belong here.
The only solution to a better way of life (for all) is increased productivity through technology and automation.
But never through finding someone who will do the same job at lower cost? Why? There's the same benefit, whether a worker or a machine is used for the production. Nothing is gained by artificially ruling out either. All that matters is to get the cost down, for either, to maximize service to consumers.
It's not "slavery" to shop for a lower-cost gardener or truck driver or plumber or cook or solar panel installer or dockworker, and hire them for the cost-saving or other benefit we can derive from them, because it's good for us, and which they freely choose because it's good for them.