this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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You obviously haven't been in the job market in the last 15 years.
Ah, the old 'immigrants are taking our jobs!' argument, old as time itself.
"Last 15 years"
So it started in 2008?
2008 wasn't just a bad year. The job market never fully rebounded after 2008. A big part of this is that a lot of jobs were outsourced and not nearly enough real, lasting job creation occurred afterward. Haven't you heard about the Great Resignation and the Great Attrition? Do you know why two interconnected events occurred? Because ever since 2008, companies have been exploiting their workers by overworking, underpaying, and mistreating them. People got tired of accepting those conditions and the extra social spending allowed them to effectively strike. How were companies able to exploit their workers like that? By not having enough jobs. If there were more jobs, companies wouldn't be able to take advantage of their employees. Bringing in more potential workers would only serve to exacerbate the situation.
Jobs had been outsourced way before that, and the majority of jobs lost during the Great Recession were not the kind of jobs that it is economical to outsource. You're pulling shit out of your ass to justify your fear of 'furriners'.
Because an unprecedented public health crisis led to a reduction in the amount of work available? By your logic, COVID should have resulted in employees being more exploited. But I don't know why I'm expecting consistency from an anti-immigration crusader.
I got bad news for you. It goes back way before 2008.
That's not even close to true.
Which everything you just said is encompassed by one flaw that is almost impossible to fix. Our (at least in the US) profit driven mentality, and fuck you I got mine. We will cut off our nose to spite our face in the name of profit making. We will create social programs to essentially subsidize paychecks to help people who don't make enough to survive working 2 or 3 jobs (and then complain about those very same social programs impact on our taxes) because profits. Then we'll move these companies to other countries in the name of profits. Then we'll allow small businesses to get squashed by larger businesses because profits. Then we will gladly allow our retirements to be inextricably tied to the profits of these very same larger companies by giving our money back to them in our 401k's, IRAs which creates demand for ... more profits.
So no, it's not just a jobs issue. That's just a symptom of the larger issue. Now queue the "you're just a dirty communist/socialist" retorts.
His brain probably fried while trying to analyze a complex political/economic/cultural issue in a critical way instead of swallowing the nice and simple republican propaganda
Most welfare is for wealthy and corporations who privatize profit and socialized loss, but it’s seldom discussed with any real vigor.
Outsourcing jobs through NAFTA abs whatever iteration of international trade deals came after that is where jobs were lost, not because people from countries that were destabilized so other, “more free” countries could have overpriced crap was the problem. Corporations and shareholders saved on labor and pollution-disposal costs, prices went up and we demonized anyone who has a problem with these things as antiglobalists. The factions that do have a problem with these things largely have a problem with racism, sexism, globalism, and giving anything earned by anyone outside their personal in-group a modest living standard.
There are some of us who see that the ultrawealthy have declared this to be a zero-sum game, with stupidest of divisions, that are “real” in that they exist, but illusory in that they actually don’t matter to the survival of our preferred in-groups.
I posit that the real threat to our own survival is not questioning why it’sa zero-sum issue, when it’s nothing off the sort and get busy setting aside differences so we can work towards sustainable survival, of ourselves, our habitat, and others, including species, that share the same habitat.
I have, and I have no idea what you're talking about. Immigrants create jobs, because they need goods and services just like everybody else.
Look at what happened in the UK where they "solved" that "problem". Suddenly a lot of jobs are vacated because no local would do any of that shitty work under shitty conditions with shitty pay. The immigrants were the only people that kept that capitalistic exploiting machine running because they had lower standards. The whole country profited from that.
But it wasn't enough to exploit them, they also had to be painted as parasites so the right wing fascit fuckheads could spit on something. And now they have endless holes in their economy. Well done.
What do you think would happen if there weren’t any cheap foreign laborers and local folks refused to work until compensation and conditions improved?
For the record - I don’t hate immigrants. I hate companies for cutting way more jobs than necessary and then using cheap imported labor as an excuse to pay less.