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You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > Political/War Lounge > Trump 47: Billionaire Techbros, Oligarchies, and Unchecked Power

Trump 47: Billionaire Techbros, Oligarchies, and Unchecked Power
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andi*pandi
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Jan 21, 2025, 05:18 PM
 
So yay for the "peaceful transfer of power" but...

Day 1:
Withdraw from paris peace accord, world health, tell trans they can't be in military, and pardon 1500 insurrectionists.

Day 2:
Remove consititution from website:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the...-constitution/

OMG the whole homepage just has a huge video (there's no spew emoticon, ffs)
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 21, 2025, 06:33 PM
 
Has taken reproductiverights.gov offline.

Has rescinded an executive order that allowed Medicare/Medicaid to negotiate drug prices.
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 21, 2025, 06:53 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Has rescinded an executive order that allowed Medicare/Medicaid to negotiate drug prices.
I wonder how his geriatric Florida base will feel about this one? Oh, who am I kidding? He’ll blame it on Biden and these idiots will nod and agree.

Ars Technica with a rundown of some of this asshole’s declarations so far.

There are sooooooo many things I want to say about this guy, but I’m not in the mood to have the secret service kick my door down.
     
subego
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Jan 21, 2025, 07:48 PM
 
The fedposting division of the Secret Service is going to have a busy four years in Minecraft.
     
OreoCookie
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Jan 22, 2025, 04:43 AM
 
Flooding the zone with shit … let's hope all the media training has paid off and we are a tad better at focussing on what is truly important.
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Thorzdad
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Jan 22, 2025, 07:27 AM
 
What media training? Or, did you forget to add /s to that?
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 22, 2025, 08:51 AM
 
( Last edited by Thorzdad; Jan 22, 2025 at 09:09 AM. )
     
OreoCookie
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Jan 22, 2025, 09:16 AM
 
Originally Posted by Thorzdad View Post
What media training? Or, did you forget to add /s to that?
/s was missing

The same strategy was used for the confirmation hearings, I think 6 were being held in one week.
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andi*pandi  (op)
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Jan 22, 2025, 12:20 PM
 
The police union endorsed him and some are rightly upset that he pardoned people who attacked them.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 23, 2025, 05:17 AM
 
White House Disabilities statement is gone.

So is the Spanish-language website.
     
MacNNFamous
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Jan 24, 2025, 01:42 PM
 
What a fucking joke. 4 years of absolutely NOTHING from the dems or justice department, and now we have this. Fucking pathetic.
     
Laminar
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Jan 24, 2025, 05:15 PM
 
Might be time to lose Facebook altogether. The entirety of my feed (the flash of it that I see on my way to Marketplace to look at broken cars to buy) is the four people I haven't yet blocked reposting anti-Trump posts.
     
subego
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Jan 25, 2025, 04:01 AM
 
I’ve been lucky. With Reddit, the subs I care about are all pretty much “no politics”.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 25, 2025, 08:52 AM
 
PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), a program helping educate about and fight HIV globally, has been frozen.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 25, 2025, 09:42 AM
 
Republican Rep. Andy Ogles has brought to the House an amendment to the 22nd Amendment allowing a third term for the presidency.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 25, 2025, 09:46 AM
 
And Pete Hegseth, hardcore alcoholic, accused in an affidavit of being "abusive" toward his second wife and allegedly screaming "Kill all Muslims! Kill all Muslims!", who was pulled off the National Guard assignment protecting Biden's inauguration ceremony as a potential security risk due to his tattoos (slogans and symbols of the "American Crusade", harkening back to the first Crusade in the 11th century), has been confirmed as the US Defense Secretary.

It's like full-on popcorn cinema, except real people actually die.
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 25, 2025, 11:57 AM
 
Re: Hegseth...I keep looking toward the military for clues as to how bad things are going to get. There’s no doubt that Trump/Hegseth are itching to deploy active-duty troops into US cities, ostensibly to round-up bodies for deportation. If the Pentagon and/or non-trumpist military personnel sufficiently balk at deployment, there may be some hope.

If, on the other hand, the military goes all-in and invades cities, I think we can call the dream dead and gone. Armed troops dragging people from their homes and onto trucks? Gee...where have I seen that before?
     
andi*pandi  (op)
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Jan 25, 2025, 06:11 PM
 
As it is the news is full of ice raids being planned everywhere and although the usual "law and order" folks say it's only going after the worst criminals, so far they've rounded up a Puerto rican citizen, a veteran, and an 80yr old us citizen.
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 25, 2025, 10:55 PM
 
I mean, Trump once floated the idea that they’d deport US citizens as well as the undocumented, so that sounds like it’s working as planned.
     
christ
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Jan 26, 2025, 09:35 AM
 
Gruber had a take that I hadn't considered: [he says that, I haven't fact-checked him] all the ICE raids are being done in blue states/ cities, in order that the headlines show he is serious, but red states/ cities don't take any related economic hit.

https://daringfireball.net/2025/01/i...cold_civil_war
Chris. T.

"... in 6 months if WMD are found, I hope all clear-thinking people who opposed the war will say "You're right, we were wrong -- good job". Similarly, if after 6 months no WMD are found, people who supported the war should say the same thing -- and move to impeach Mr. Bush." - moki, 04/16/03
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 26, 2025, 09:50 AM
 
That wouldn’t be surprising, if true. It was kind of an open secret going-in that a Trump second term would include a quiet-ish war against ostensibly blue states, and especially California. For instance, Congresscritters are already declaring that any federal aid issued to help with the LA-area wildfires will come with serious provisions and catches.
     
OreoCookie
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Jan 26, 2025, 12:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by andi*pandi View Post
… so far they've rounded up a Puerto rican citizen, a veteran, and an 80yr old us citizen.
Small addendum: Puerto Ricans are American citizens. A statement like “Puerto Rican citizen” is akin to saying someone is a citizen of the state of New York or Utah.
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andi*pandi  (op)
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Jan 26, 2025, 07:05 PM
 
Oh I know that.
     
OreoCookie
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Jan 27, 2025, 08:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by andi*pandi View Post
Oh I know that.
I know that you know. But I have seen many videos where people with a shirt that had Puerto Rico on it were accosted by, well, white men.
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Thorzdad
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Jan 28, 2025, 02:50 PM
 
Hope you don’t depend on federal grants or loans.
“The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve,” wrote Matthew Vaeth, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget.
     
Laminar
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Jan 28, 2025, 03:49 PM
 
Yes, a friend working in medical research at a university has had all funding frozen, they're not sure what to do right now.

Chaos is the goal.
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 28, 2025, 05:10 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
Chaos is the goal.
With a side of cruelty.
     
andi*pandi  (op)
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Jan 28, 2025, 05:35 PM
 
Make them too confused to complain!
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 28, 2025, 06:23 PM
 
Student loans will not be disbursed because of this.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 28, 2025, 07:49 PM
 
https://www.whitehouse.gov/president...al-mutilation/

"Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children under the radical and false claim that adults can change a child’s sex through a series of irreversible medical interventions"

And it goes downhill from there.

First they came for the trans people.

But even beyond the Nazi fuckery: who the hell WRITES like that? In an official policy statement, no less? These guys have even given up any pretence of being decent, rational human beings.

This is terrifying. Stay safe, friends. They're coming for you, next.
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 29, 2025, 11:55 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
But even beyond the Nazi fuckery: who the hell WRITES like that? In an official policy statement, no less?
Fascists. Religious fundamentalists. White nationalists. Bigots. Transphobes. Homophobes. Etc. You know…the Basket of Deplorables Hillary warned the country about the first time through, and got pilloried for saying out loud.

Seriously. If you voted for Trump (or didn’t vote at all) this what you were, de facto, ok with. You knew this was what was going to happen. You were told it was going to happen, and you gave it a big thumbs up.
     
subego
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Jan 29, 2025, 12:11 PM
 
I didn’t vote, which in Illinois amounted to a vote for Harris.
     
sek929
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Jan 29, 2025, 06:14 PM
 
It's time for the lefties, queers, and progressives to start arming themselves. Pretty sure I'll be getting my concealed carry within this year.

To be clear, I hate guns. If they are truly a check on tyranny then the wrong people have them currently.
     
OreoCookie
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Jan 30, 2025, 08:26 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
But even beyond the Nazi fuckery: who the hell WRITES like that? In an official policy statement, no less? These guys have even given up any pretence of being decent, rational human beings.

This is terrifying. Stay safe, friends. They're coming for you, next.
People around Trump no longer believe it necessary to add a veneer of normalcy, polity and civility. Trump 2.0. Ditto for granting a pardon or clemency to everyone involved in January 6, including violent offenders. This wasn't an oversight, it wasn't a but, it was a feature.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
Laminar
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Jan 30, 2025, 09:51 AM
 
It's just like my neighbor's flag says: "Trump 2024: No More Bullshit"

They had that hanging right next to their yard sign from the local church: "This home is filled with Hope"
     
MacNNFamous
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Jan 30, 2025, 01:32 PM
 
Originally Posted by sek929 View Post
It's time for the lefties, queers, and progressives to start arming themselves. Pretty sure I'll be getting my concealed carry within this year.

To be clear, I hate guns. If they are truly a check on tyranny then the wrong people have them currently.
It was time 10 years ago. How did you not notice an increasingly militarized police force, income inequality, and AI on the horizon to eliminate lower skilled jobs?

Future is going to be a shit show.
     
MacNNFamous
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Jan 30, 2025, 01:35 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
People around Trump no longer believe it necessary to add a veneer of normalcy, polity and civility. Trump 2.0. Ditto for granting a pardon or clemency to everyone involved in January 6, including violent offenders. This wasn't an oversight, it wasn't a but, it was a feature.
This is how I approach talking to my right wing friends, or even guys who are MAGA. I state that I own guns, I love powersports and going fast, but I don't support MAGA at all because Trump is so divisive/offensive. I really hammer on how rude he is, and he's normalized insults and "fuck your feelings", over conversation and debate. I also harp on the fact a good leader UNITES people from all walks of live, not insults half of them and sows division.

There are so many topics I actually agree with them about; 2A, immigration being a problem when the cost of living is skyrocketing, tarriffs/bringing back domestic manufacturing so companies can't bypass OSHA and EPA by getting shit made a few hours south or using slave labor on the other side of the world. And yes, the hardcore lefties ALSO insult on these topics, preventing conversation and debate. You literally can't say anything about immigration without getting labelled a bigot/racist/etc.

I also try to talk about healthcare, and how fucked it is, and TBH I've never come across a conservative that thinks our current healthcare system is good; pretty much everyone views it as trash.
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 31, 2025, 11:46 AM
 
The Trump White House Wants A Court Challenge Over Frozen Funds - An internal OMB document shows that it is official administration policy to block funding to provoke a constitutional challenge.
     
Laminar
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Jan 31, 2025, 04:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
I really hammer on how rude he is, and he's normalized insults and "fuck your feelings", over conversation and debate. I also harp on the fact a good leader UNITES people from all walks of live, not insults half of them and sows division.
Who's gonna say it?
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 31, 2025, 11:46 PM
 
*spit take*
     
OreoCookie
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Feb 1, 2025, 01:33 AM
 
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
There are so many topics I actually agree with them about; […] immigration being a problem when the cost of living is skyrocketing, […]
That’s mistaking correlation for causation and forgets all those (usually invisible) benefits you get with immigration to boot: Let me start with the obvious: who will build new housing? Who is working on US construction sites? What about retirement homes? Hospitals? Everywhere I have lived (US, Canada, Japan, Germany and Austria) immigrants were essential for those jobs. First, it starts with helpers, then nurses until eventually you arrive at doctors.

The housing crises which exist in most countries I have lived in (exception, relatively speaking has been Japan, but most likely because I have never lived in or near Tokyo) has been decades in the making and is multi-faceted, but has little to do with immigration. Most cities have not built affordable housing in decades. In Toronto, companies built tons of upscale apartment units near the city center and you either need to find an increasingly rare older apartment building (which is what my wife and I did) or move farther out. They are just a better investment for companies. In most places (e. g. Munich) they have outdated building codes that want to maintain the look and feel of the city (tall buildings are frowned upon). The real estate market has been a sellers market for years and years in desirable areas, with property values of existing home owners skyrocketing over time of ownership.

Most of the countrysides haven’t developed either: I know a lot of people with kids who wouldn’t mind living somewhere rural (I did it for a little more than 6 months), but good jobs are rare as hen’s teeth. Companies still have problems with offering purely remote jobs.

Add to that the transfer of wealth from the middle class to the top 1 % and 0.1 %, which bites especially young people in the rear end. So they doubly can’t afford new homes. Is the transfer of wealth from young to older and rich people the fault of immigrants? Is it their fault that capital gains are taxed differently than income from labor?

Now people see or perceive an influx of immigrants and correlate that to their difficulty of finding a home to rent or buy. But they aren’t the cause of any of it. And even if you could snap your fingers and teleport them back to their countries of origin, things wouldn’t be any easier for the remaining population.

In Germany, where I currently live, the AfD (our far-right extremist party) also connects immigration to lack of teachers and the like. Also here (I’m involved in the education of teachers) the issue is that too few people want to become teachers, not that our schools are overrun by immigrants.
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
[…] tarriffs/bringing back domestic manufacturing so companies can't bypass OSHA and EPA by getting shit made a few hours south or using slave labor on the other side of the world.
I don’t think tariffs would lead to jobs being on shored again, especially tariffs that are bluntly imposed without thinking things through. This isn’t the 18th or 19th century anymore where you can produce stuff domestically after perhaps importing some raw materials. Supply chains of things like cars, phones and anything with electronics requires stuff from all around the globe. Local supply chains often cross borders so that parts get shipped from the US to Canada or Mexico and vice versa several times. With other parts the economies of scale are just so that there simply are just 1–3 companies in the world that can supply something as extremely specialized expertise is needed. Think of the pseudo-independent companies Spirit AeroSystems and Boeing.
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MacNNFamous
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Feb 1, 2025, 12:52 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
That’s mistaking correlation for causation and forgets all those (usually invisible) benefits you get with immigration to boot: Let me start with the obvious: who will build new housing? Who is working on US construction sites? What about retirement homes? Hospitals? Everywhere I have lived (US, Canada, Japan, Germany and Austria) immigrants were essential for those jobs. First, it starts with helpers, then nurses until eventually you arrive at doctors
American citizens should be working those jobs, and paid decent wages. A constant stream of people willing to work for less blows out the kneecaps that would raise the rest of the entire country's wages. For literally everything, there is supply and demand. If we put up impentrable walls and stopped immigration completly, we would still need people to do all those things; the demand would stay the same. But the supply? No longer could companies 'cheat' by hiring illegal labor, they would have to compete in wages to all other jobs. This means that shitty jobs, that nobody wants to do, would likely have to raise their wages significantly to provide an incentive from taking some whatever job paying minimum wage working a cash register.

The housing crises which exist in most countries I have lived in (exception, relatively speaking has been Japan, but most likely because I have never lived in or near Tokyo) has been decades in the making and is multi-faceted, but has little to do with immigration. Most cities have not built affordable housing in decades. In Toronto, companies built tons of upscale apartment units near the city center and you either need to find an increasingly rare older apartment building (which is what my wife and I did) or move farther out. They are just a better investment for companies. In most places (e. g. Munich) they have outdated building codes that want to maintain the look and feel of the city (tall buildings are frowned upon). The real estate market has been a sellers market for years and years in desirable areas, with property values of existing home owners skyrocketing over time of ownership.
Correct. Now let's talk about immigrants again, IN GENERAL, taking lower wages than most citizens. They can't afford luxury condos or nice houses, right? So this puts an additional demand on lower cost housing.... which again, hurts citizens. As you said, the supply is fixed; most cities don't want to put up lower cost housing, communities will push back against increasing density from fear of poorer people and how it would affect their property values. So the supply is fixed, but with MORE PEOPLE, comes more demand.

So really the immigration is hurting citizens on both ends; by lowering their wages, AND making housing more expensive. Again, I don't hate anyone, but immigration has been used/pushed by those in power for their best interest for over 100 years.
     
subego
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Feb 1, 2025, 04:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
the demand would stay the same
Demand is dependent on price. When the price goes up, demand goes down.
     
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Feb 2, 2025, 05:08 AM
 
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
American citizens should be working those jobs, and paid decent wages.
Let's even grant your “should”, what if there aren't enough Americans who are interested in such a job even at higher wages?

For perspective, when my mom started her last job as deputy head of an X-ray department before retiring, the hospital reached out to vocational schools in Poland (= EU country, automatic work permit, licensing carries over). When she retired, hospital administration was trying to recruit nurses, X-ray technicians and the like from Brazil. This was a private top-end hospital (featuring e. g. a high-security wing with bullet-proof glass, a separate kitchen for personal chefs for VVIPs (think heads of state) and being an official FIFA hospital).

So even if I give you the “should”, I doubt there is enough supply to satisfy demand even at higher wages. That's the way it is in most places I have been to. In Germany the easiest tell is to look at the company names of tradespeople.

What I think is worse is your misdiagnosis of the problem. Wealth isn't transferred from the middle class to hardworking immigrants, but to the top. Income at the top has consistently outpaced average income in companies (as well as inflation, obviously). Effective tax rates for high-income earners that have capital gains are much lower than that of people doing work.

Your argument also forgets about the economic activity due to immigrants as they are more likely to found and operate businesses and the like. The tide raises all boats.
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
If we put up impentrable walls and stopped immigration completly, we would still need people to do all those things;
This is another point of make-belief: show me an impenetrable wall and I'll show you someone who gets around it. The only way to reduce the influx is to improve the living conditions in the countries these people came from. Decades ago the EU was really good at this sort of thing, they handed out subsidies in the hundreds of millions to develop countries like the former Yugoslavian republics, Bulgaria, Romania and the like. They kept quiet about it and smart conservative politicians knew that they should keep their mouthes shut (and not claim “wasteful spending”).
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
the demand would stay the same.
No, if prices increase, then demand drops as there are less customers able or willing to pay higher prices.
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
Correct. Now let's talk about immigrants again, IN GENERAL, taking lower wages than most citizens. They can't afford luxury condos or nice houses, right? So this puts an additional demand on lower cost housing.... which again, hurts citizens.
But what are the actual numbers, how much additional pressure is due to illegal immigrants?

Don't you see the age-old mechanism? You blame an outgroup for home-made problems. You also conflate different types of immigrants, legal, illegal-in-terms-of-immigration and criminal.

When was the last time you had cheap housing built in cities? When was the last time smaller, rural cities were really welcoming to (even completely legal) immigrants? In 2016 after Trump was elected the first time, a friend of mine (her parents immigrated legally from India to rural Pennsylvania, she = their daughter earned a PhD in biology or biotech from Yale) told me her parents got accosted in their community for not being, well, white.

Where I live, the numbers are just a drop in the bucket. I live in an area where it is particularly bad. I have a very high-paying government job (a tenured university professor in a STEM field) and 1/3 of my income goes towards rent. And we got lucky, because the apartment/house we found is less expensive than average. But then again, we only got one offer. I can tell you for a fact that immigrants wouldn't be able to afford such a house unless they worked in a comparable job. (The apartment/house is not a villa, we just have three kids and needed at least 4 rooms.)
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
As you said, the supply is fixed; most cities don't want to put up lower cost housing, communities will push back against increasing density from fear of poorer people and how it would affect their property values.
Skyrocketing property values is part of the problem: it means that people who bought property decades ago (e. g. baby boomers) got a great deal and are not sitting on a lot of wealth while young people are priced out of the market. That's a problem that has nothing to do with immigration and younger people should welcome falling property prices. You can imagine the reaction of older people with property to that, though.

Ditto for falling stock markets, these are opportunities for younger people to get into the game when prices are good.
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
Again, I don't hate anyone, but immigration has been used/pushed by those in power for their best interest for over 100 years.
Immigration has served as a pre-text for longer than that. Your argument forgets periods of wild prosperity especially post-WW2. Look at the conditions: way higher taxes, affordable (and state-subsidized-if-you-were-white) education, affordable medical care, affordable housing, etc. Yet the GOP clings to Chicago school teaching even though we should have collected enough historical evidence about its efficacy.
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subego
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Feb 2, 2025, 07:45 AM
 
Never mind.
     
MacNNFamous
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Feb 2, 2025, 11:57 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Let's even grant your “should”, what if there aren't enough Americans who are interested in such a job even at higher wages?
The comment above yours says higher price reduces demand. So raise the wages until you fill the positions.

What I think is worse is your misdiagnosis of the problem. Wealth isn't transferred from the middle class to hardworking immigrants, but to the top. Income at the top has consistently outpaced average income in companies (as well as inflation, obviously). Effective tax rates for high-income earners that have capital gains are much lower than that of people doing work.
Yeah I never said that. I said that it kneecaps wages. Having a steady stream of new people who will work for lower wages HURTS the wages of existing citizens. It's increasing supply, when the demand for jobs is fixed.

Your argument also forgets about the economic activity due to immigrants as they are more likely to found and operate businesses and the like. The tide raises all boats.
I find that real hard to believe, considering they are taking a lot of shitty labor jobs for poor wages.

This is another point of make-belief: show me an impenetrable wall and I'll show you someone who gets around it.
Undoubtedly. But for the sake of argument, if we had a magic wall/barrier to prevent any new people from coming here, we would see wages RISE, because we would not have a steady stream of people willing to work jobs for less.

No, if prices increase, then demand drops as there are less customers able or willing to pay higher prices.

But what are the actual numbers, how much additional pressure is due to illegal immigrants?
Dude I have no idea, but the basics of supply and demand don't change. We only have so many good jobs, so many okay jobs, and so many shitty jobs. We only have so much housing.

ADDING MORE PEOPLE DOES NOT HELP THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY HERE. I don't know why you're trying to make it more complicated than that.
     
reader50
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Feb 2, 2025, 02:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
... We only have so much housing.
We can build more housing. The problem is almost no one is building affordable starter homes. Everyone in the construction chain makes more money building McMansions, so that's what gets built. Governments should require a percentage of new housing be affordable in each market, or no building permits.
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
ADDING MORE PEOPLE DOES NOT HELP THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY HERE. I don't know why you're trying to make it more complicated than that.
Despite the yelling, this is false. More people adds demand for services, so it does increase jobs. Not sure if the added jobs balance the added population, but if adding people were always bad, having children would need to be penalized.

At a minimum, adding working-age people helps Social Security. We're draining the SS trust fund surplus today because the Baby Boomers retired. We went from 4 workers to every retiree, down to 3 workers for every retiree. We need about 3.5 workers per retiree to balance the system, which won't happen until enough Baby Boomers die - probably about a decade after the SS trust fund surplus runs out (estimated around 2032).

Adding immigrants of working age could theoretically fix the balance without cutting retiree benefits, or raising payroll taxes. But it's politically impossible. We'd need to let in tens of millions of extra workers to fix the ratio, proportionally more immigrants than the US has allowed in living memory. You have to go back about a century to the last time we allowed huge immigration. I can't picture it happening today.
     
OreoCookie
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Feb 2, 2025, 03:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
The comment above yours says higher price reduces demand. So raise the wages until you fill the positions.
Raise whose wages?
Your thesis is that immigrants compete at the low end, whereas the bulk of new buildings is for middle class and up. And even the middle class is priced out. Your math doesn't work. Higher prices would reduce demand as it will decrease the share of the population that can afford to build something new.
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
It's increasing supply, when the demand for jobs is fixed.
Why is demand fixed? If immigration grows the economy (on a per-capita basis and hence, also in aggregate), it would increase demand as well.
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
I find that real hard to believe, considering they are taking a lot of shitty labor jobs for poor wages.
No reason to believe, just look at the ample research on that subject.

But instead of pointing you to the details, let me point to a highly developed industrialized nation with an extremely low level of immigration (1–2 %), one that I happen to know really well, Japan. Japan still has not recovered from the crash and has been in stagnation for three decades.

Our generation and the ones that came after that are much more disillusioned, because companies no longer offer the benefits the previous generations have had for working hard. But the people in charge still keep the old guard and the old system up. Many young people forgo having families as that is just financial unobtainium. Another example is Italy, which also went from a very high living standard to what it is now. The countries that are doing best in Europe have had high levels of immigration (Germany, Austria, etc.).
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
Undoubtedly. But for the sake of argument, if we had a magic wall/barrier to prevent any new people from coming here, we would see wages RISE, because we would not have a steady stream of people willing to work jobs for less.
Even if I grant your point that lowering immigration would lead to higher wages and a better US economy (I don't think it will), such a wall will not and cannot exist, period. It is simply a fever dream, an impossibility. A wall is an empty promise, something that misguides people to believe that they can solve a complicated problem with something simple.
Originally Posted by MacNNFamous View Post
Dude I have no idea, but the basics of supply and demand don't change. We only have so many good jobs, so many okay jobs, and so many shitty jobs. We only have so much housing.
For someone who claims to have no idea, you seem pretty sure about some of the stuff. Overall, you seem convinced that a lot of this is a zero-sum game, meaning when immigrants “win” the native population “loses”.
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OreoCookie
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Feb 2, 2025, 03:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
We can build more housing. The problem is almost no one is building affordable starter homes. Everyone in the construction chain makes more money building McMansions, so that's what gets built. Governments should require a percentage of new housing be affordable in each market, or no building permits.
Yup. And the US has plenty of empty space left.
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
Adding immigrants of working age could theoretically fix the balance without cutting retiree benefits, or raising payroll taxes. But it's politically impossible. We'd need to let in tens of millions of extra workers to fix the ratio, proportionally more immigrants than the US has allowed in living memory. You have to go back about a century to the last time we allowed huge immigration. I can't picture it happening today.
There are tons of other factors: immigrants are more likely to have college degrees, be authors of patents, etc.
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MacNNFamous
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Feb 2, 2025, 10:31 PM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
We can build more housing. The problem is almost no one is building affordable starter homes. Everyone in the construction chain makes more money building McMansions, so that's what gets built. Governments should require a percentage of new housing be affordable in each market, or no building permits.
Correct! But companies like more profit than less profit, so they won't, because ROI is higher on higher priced homes. And since that isn't going to happen, it fucks over the working class.

Instead of bringing up other issues, please explain how adding a bunch more people helps the average working class citizen, given that they won't make new affordable housing, and we only have so many jobs. Until you can respond to that that I don't care what any of you say.
     
 
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