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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

So you're saying deepening the labor pool doesn't push wages down?

If you're going to advocate policies that reduce the compensation middle class workers can receive, don't be shocked when they vote for a candidate promising to stop free trade agreements. A government exists to protect the quality of life of its citizens.

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> So you're saying deepening the labor pool doesn't push wages down?

Do you know what the current population of the US is compared to 100 years ago? And yet, we're much better off now.

Economics is not a zero sum game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy

Here are a few companies founded by immigrants or their children:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2011/06/19/40-per...

You link a Wikipedia article about a highly contentious issue among economists and expect to be taken seriously?

It is almost universally the case that when someone says "economists think X" they actually refer to a group of academics belonging to a specific school of thought which defends that particular position. Not that scholarly consensus does not matter, just a reminder that in certain fields those questions become so highly ideological that you simply cannot treat them as a math question on which you can definitely rule one thesis or another.

Actually there are plenty of things - like rent control - that aren't much debated among economists. Economists almost universally reject the lump of labor fallacy.

In the overall economy it's considered a fallacy, but in the small or subset of the economy (like highly skilled IT people) there is not that consensus. Empirical evidence bears this out too.

You're putting the economic aggregate above the people left behind. If we had a solid safety net, it wouldn't be a problem, but there's a reason poverty and drug abuse leading to death is an epidemic across the US.

Opinions like this is what caused Brexit to occur, and what will probably get Donald Trump elected.

> economic aggregate above the people left behind.

Since it's a positive sum game, you could share the gains with the few people who lose out from immigration or trade, or automation (which is probably more important than the others) and still have some left over.

Or yeah, you could get all protectionist and watch the economy whither.

The US economy isn't going to suddenly whither if we stopped the import of immigrant labor, whether that be migrant farm hands or H1B visa holders.

And if it does whither, that's a choice the US citizenry might be satisfied with.

> The US economy isn't going to suddenly whither

Right, it'd take a while.

You have no idea how much of the value currently created by immigrants creating businesses would be lost. And if the answer is a big minus for the US, don't you think it's important that we talk about it? And not the "lump of labor" fallacy?

Fact check: Drumpf's not winning [1].

[1] http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2016/forecast/president

Let's hope you're right. I could use your crystal ball sometimes.

>Drumpf

Are you 12?

Of course it pushes wages down for people currently capturing rents. Similarly, ending Jim Crow pushed wages down for white workers. Was that a bad thing?

Wanting a middle class income in your own country is not capturing rents.

If the market price for a job is $X, but domestic workers get $Y > $X because men with guns stop domestic consumers from buying from foreign workers, then the domestic workers capture a rent of $Y - $X.

The rent is taken from domestic consumers.

In much the same way, Jim Crow/Davis Bacon/similar laws are also a form of rent seeking.

You're entitled to your (IMHO, warped) opinion on trade regulations and the labor market. Labor rights are more important than consumer rights.

So the thing is I'm currently in Bombay, not NY.

To you they are funny brown people who pull "our" wages down. To me, they are simply Kadambari, Ankur or even "that drunk lady from Bar Stock Exchange last night". Your faceless economic threat is for me a nice lady who loves her dog or the new office boy who is surprised when a firang speaks Hindi.

Perhaps that does warp my opinion.

Wanting better for my own countrymen doesn't make me a racist, it makes me a nationalist. At least slander me with the correct term.

I didn't say you were racist. I simply explained why your nationalism doesn't motivate me.

Jobs are not a zero-sum game. The more smart engineers we get in Silicon Valley, the more innovative companies get built. Many startups are led by immigrants.

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