As someone who makes the "raise wages" argument here on HN pretty often, I'm going to go ahead and partially agree with you. "Raise wages" shouldn't be a conversation ender. But I do think "raise wages" is a very reasonable conversation starter, and often holds up under scrutiny.

Another factor is that here on HN, aa lot of people are programmers who work in a field without an AMA or ABA controlling the number of people who are allowed to work in a field (under penalty of fines or imprisonment), nor does our field have a governing body that has greatly limited foreign competition (in fact, the US government has generally created immigration visas to increase the supply of programmers, even if not to the levels demanded by high tech employers).

On top of that, we constantly hear about companies being "unable to hire", with no mention of the salary. Like, not even a peep. Or open offices, or obnoxious white board exams on inverting binary trees, or open distain for anyone who has family obligations, or...

I remember, back during some of the earlier debates in the early 2000s about the H1B, a tech CEO testified in congress about a critical worker they were trying to hire. They wanted someone with a PhD in a genetics-related field, specialized programming ability, and unix sysadmin skills.

Feinstein asked "what are you offering?". The answer: "90k a year, "generous" options - and a lease on a new BMW!".

Feinstein answered "what was the name of your company again?" and everyone laughed (right, ultra wealthy Feinstein would consider 90k a year livable in Palo Alto). What she didn't say is: "uh, why do you think you can hire someone with a difficult doctoral degree that takes 7 years to complete with a 50% attrition rate, specialized programming skills that take years to develop, and unix sysadmin skills that would make someone highly employable without all that other stuff, for 75% of the salary you'd offer to 2 year MBA or 3 year law degree from programs with a 99% completion rate".

Raise wages. Or, even better, let the market work. Allow immigrants to come here without letting tech companies tell them what they have to study, where they have to live, or what jobs they're allowed to work. Allow all people, immigrant or born here, to choose their profession in response to their own interests and external market signals.

You know, "raise wages", compete, put up or shut up. No, it doesn't end discussion, but it's usually a very compelling argument.