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Well you see, they are coming here to steal all our jobs but they are also jobless losers stealing all our welfare
Reagan was an evil genius with the “welfare queen” branding.
Hateful branding is always easier than inclusive branding. Just think about how many different words Americans have historically used for black people: all “they” have to do to turn a positive term into a slur is to say it with a sneer.
These are the same people who were simultaneously protesting “Stop the count” and “count the votes” on election day in 2020.
Decades of talkings heads offering an explanation for rural decline, that’s how. Look back to Rush Limbaugh and his predecessors.
The irony is rampant immigration (and our tolerance to it) was an economic miracle for the US, an envy of the world. We’d be facing a population cliff like S Korea, Japan, China or Russia without it. But now that’s coming for us too :(
Definitely a misdirect from the corporate takeover of everything.
I grew up in a shitty small rural town, but while I was in high school I watched the shitty “mom and pop” stores slowly disappear and the local factory vote against unionization only to be closed a few years after I moved away. You know what immediately moved in to fill the void? Wal-Mart and Dollar General.
My dad was so focused on immigrants taking his job and other insane republican economic talking points that he lost that job when the company decided it wasn’t cost effective to operate in the US anymore.
The “population cliff” is a made up boogeyman for capitalists. That’s because they’ve relied on population growth for market growth. What’s the harm in population stagnation or even decline?
And I don’t want to hear about young people supporting aging populations. That’s a man-made problem that has solutions. Just not the kind of solutions capitalists can abide. (and if you think about it, it’s a temporary issue anyway).
And I don’t want to hear about young people supporting aging populations. That’s a man-made problem that has solutions.
Well, okay. I have a bridge to sell you.
Look. Everything is a “man made” issue with solutions.
It doesn’t matter what economic system we want or have; fact is something has to put a ton of work into taking care of old folks, unless you kill them off or let them rot. Hope and ideology isn’t going to fix one’s body/mind, and that has nothing to do with capitalism.
…Will we automate the problem away some day, WallE/Star Trek style? Sure. That’s the goal. But we aren’t close to there yet. Overloading the young taking care of the old IS our short term problem, and we have plenty of land to support a growing population with room for expanding conservation, as long as we don’t do stupid shit like ranch excessively and expand oil. Then we can level off the population. But we can’t do any of that if entire counties collapse from the pressure/burden of support.
But okay. Let’s say tomorrow, every country on the planet rises up, abandons capitalism, and embraces cooperative economics, with a magic snap of the fingers. That’d be great.
But we continue to let populations in developed countries age.
Then what?
How does that change the needs of elderly folks at all? How does that change the math of young people needing to devote more and more of their energy to them?
Reducing overconsumption and overproduction will help a ton. We do not need nearly as much stuff as we are currently consuming. In addition, there are a lot of jobs these days that are just… not necessary. Take advertising for example, or all the job positions that are all about how to fuck over the consumers the most, then all the energy and work into fixing it or counteracting it, everything that is done not because it’s efficient, but because it’s profitable
We are far far more productive today than we ever were before in human history. It’s all about prioritization
I wouldn’t make that generalization.
We aren’t even close to post-scarcity in, say, healthcare. Keeping people alive and healthy is expensive and labor/education intense, even without the current structural inefficiencies.
Distributing healthy food is not trivial either, which ties into that.
You also shouldn’t overlook just how much is done because it’s profitable, and not efficient, though
The simple example is of course enshittifying services. But it’s also things like making 30 different versions of chips and candy and so on while putting lots of resources into preventing local homeless people from stealing any of the food they need for survival. Investing lots of research in making hyper-palatable foods that are addicting instead of how to make more efficient logistics towards everyone.
And then there’s of course the part where it being a competitive system means stopping others from making use of your research/effort and sharing things, because that means more and stronger competition, which leads to doubling of efforts and so on…
And I mean, I could go on, but the point is that, if you look closely enough, you’ll start seeing this everywhere. Inefficiencies made in the name of competition and profit seeking, not what is actually good for society and would be considered a job done well. A restructuring of society would help massively. From paying medical specialists more and making their jobs more tolerable instead of squeezing as much profit as possible, to opening up more human resources from other areas of society which could in theory help out more either directly or in the peripherals
We are massively massively more productive today than in the past. There is no excuse
And yeah, of course it isn’t the be-all end-all. But I would argue it would help more than it might seem on the surface. Directing resources towards where they are needed, and not just where they are profitable
Keeping people alive and providing healthy food is not as expensive as it’s made out to be. Socialism for the wealthy, now that’s expensive! Elon Musk could feed the entire world three times over! And there are lots of solutions, money just doesn’t back them.
For example, Holland had two issues. College students didn’t have places to live or couldn’t afford places, and they didn’t have enough people taking care of the elderly. So they put them together, the students have a place to live and the elderly are being taken care of. It was just something they tried and the results were spectacular!
The problem in the states is that we don’t even TRY ANYTHING! We have more resources than smaller countries and we don’t even try. We could try 50 different solutions in 50 different states, use the scientific method to measure the results, and then implement the methods that worked. We could even try thousands of different solutions by trying different methods in different counties of each state. But instead, we CHOOSE to continue to argue and bicker between ourselves. What a waste of time and energy!
I agree that the capitalists economy is a complete scam. Americans are so used to having so much land, that we just continue to shit up as much as we want and then move on to shit up another area. The earth cannot support continued population growth, especially with climate change. And even America will eventually run out of land to shit on. Other smaller countries have to respect what land they have and how to use because it’s limited. We could learn a thing or two from these smaller countries.
Population decline has little to nothing to do with immigration. It’s just affordability. Anytime the lower and middle classes (most of the population) are doing well, people have more kids.
In France we have the “30 glorieuses”, 30 years of unprecedented economical growth. Guess who came and worked tirelessly to make it happen? And guess who waxes poetic about this blessed moment in time?
Of course the difference is that at the time, the immigrants lived in slums outside major cities, and they knew their place if you catch my drift.
Because any kind of minority is inferior to white straight people and they’re the reason for every ill in the world today.
It’s truly just racism. It’s worked for 4000 years, since the establishment of civilizations.
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” - LBJ
Easy.
There is a huge portion of the country, about 1/3, that knows they aren’t living the American dream, but they work hard and don’t understand why.
Then, someone tells them something slightly true. That there’s not enough pie to go around (semi-true), and that the reason there’s not enough pie is all the immigrants and freeloaders who aren’t working and are taking handouts (false).
What they aren’t told is there could be enough pie to go around, if the top 1% was willing to share. They aren’t. And they now control ~35% of wealth in the USA.
And then the top 1% uses that extra capital to tell that 1/3 of people that their Hispanic neighbor is the problem.
a big chunk of that bloc is first gen immigrants themselves.
all my 2nd gen immigrant friends have parents who hate new immigrants and support ICE type policies and are big Trump fans.
- They are willing to work for less than a normal American living wage. This reduces the amount that an American can work for for the same job. Globalists love this.
- They bring and establish a different culture eroding a way of life that is considered American.
Those are two things I think someone might say about immigrants. Additionally, there’s general disdain for the poor and many immigrants come here to escape worse poverty.
3- housing and rents go up in every city with more migrants because it’s workers who just want to rent now right here at any cost compared to a city where people settle in owned houses.
4- they sent most of their earnings outside to their countries to help their families there compared to citizens who pay it all on their local economy. and if they were illegal, not even pay taxes while using and benefiting from most your services. However, the true leechers who pay no taxes are in fact the super wealthy.
In a broader picture again, it’s actually corporations and property owners who benifit the most from illegals or cheap migrant B-visa workers, and crowded cities and higher rents and housings. So ironically the rich are the ones who benefit from immegrants the most specially in areas with high local unemployments and low wages. Then they use the narrative that these dirty unassimilated immigrants who dont speak your language or share your culture are ruining your city to distract the blame from them.
Yes, immigrants drive down wages is the biggest issue. The second is if you bring in a large enough glut of 1 type of immigrant all at once (like refugees for a real world example) they can establish an insulated community and not actually join “the mixing pot.”
There are obviously a lot of positives and neutral points as well, but everything has a give and take. The biggest positive is that children are a pure drain on society but an immigrant doesn’t need schooling or rearing. They can simply begin working (for that lowered wage).
there are several immigrants that made things worst: melania, THIEL, musk, cruz, . just not the ones that came with no money.
Really? They must not teach civics in school?
Impact on Electoral Representation (Apportionment and the Electoral College)
Racism
