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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

If you do this, you'll have unintended consequences:

- You don't allow the US to import skilled workers anymore, and rather than hire locally from a non-existent labor pool they simply move the jobs abroad. What's worse, hiring someone from India on an H1B to work in your AI lab, or moving your AI lab to India?

- You don't allow importing unskilled workers and expect farmers to pay $30/hour to have Americans pick apples. Or maybe...they'll just figure out how to automate those jobs or go out of business since no one wants to pay $5 for an apple.

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How many minutes do you think it takes to pick an apple?

The claim is always made that if Americans have to do the work, food prices will skyrocket, but it's just not true. Labor is a portion of the wholescale cost of food, which is a portion of the retail cost. A lot goes to shipping, packaging, processing, marketing, etc. If all migrant workers were replaced by Americans being paid a competitive wage, food prices would go up a little, but you wouldn't pay double for apples, let alone several times more. Highly-processed foods like cereal and pasta wouldn't change noticeably.

HN hive mind…minimum wage for fast food workers should be $40 an hour.

Also HN hive mind…if we can’t import illegal immigrants working for subsistence wages, who will pick our crops?

> The claim is always made that if Americans have to do the work, food prices will skyrocket, but it's just not true

My claim isn't that "if Americans have to do the work", my claim is that "Americans don't want to do the work", even at $30-40/hour most Americans still don't want to pick apples, and that is already an unreasonable price.

It might be that (barring automation) we simply don't grow/pick apples in the USA anymore, for the same reason that other industries/jobs have become obsolete because the economics simply don't make sense anymore. Farmers will grow something else that is more economical to deal with given the labor costs they have to deal with, they simply won't grow apples anymore if it no longer makes sense.

> My claim isn't that "if Americans have to do the work", my claim is that "Americans don't want to do the work", even at $30-40/hour most Americans still don't want to pick apples, and that is already an unreasonable price.

There is no evidence that this is actually true. Decades of illegal immigrant labor has suppressed wages and supplanted American citizens, so you have no way of knowing that’s the case.

There are plenty of food and things that have gone out of production because the economics don’t make sense anymore, even with illegal immigration. Apples aren’t going to be different. Demand isn’t somehow magically going to be present at any price.

>- You don't allow importing unskilled workers and expect farmers to pay $30/hour to have Americans pick apples.

That's the same argument used against abolishment of slavery. "Who will pick all the cotton?"

Except today it's not slavery, it's indentured servitude.

No, it means the elevator operator just doesn't exist anymore. We didn't pay them more, we got rid of them. If agriculture workers don't exist anymore at the wages the market is willing to bear, we just won't bother with those foods anymore, or import them from somewhere else.

I'm uncomfortable with how racist HN has become. Because your ancestors were white they were permitted a chance to work from the bottom up, but because today's immigrants aren't white, you think its either slavery or exploitation, and they should just stay in poor countries accordingly (a situation that was not forced on your ancestors, for your benefit). Or if it isn’t racism, what is your reasoning for pulling up the ladder today?

> I'm uncomfortable with how racist HN has become.

You’re the one that’s bringing race into the argument. I don’t care what race they are, I don’t want any illegal immigrants in this country.

America’s obligation is to its own citizens first and foremost. This should not be a controversial opinion. Every country should put the interests of its own citizens first.

> If agriculture workers don't exist anymore at the wages the market is willing to bear, we just won't bother with those foods anymore, or import them from somewhere else.

Expand H-2A: Temporary Agricultural Worker visa then.

We shouldn't be encouraging black market activity. If as the US we want to have cheap imported labor pick apples then write it into law. If we as the US want to experience the Baumol effect [1] then don't. I think most people want to experience the Baumol effect as opposed to losing out gains to trade.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_effect

So ironic that your post full of racist name calling and wanting to support a perpetual underclass of people stuck in indentured servitude, masquerading as empathy, and then you're the one calling everyone who disagrees with you racist.

Pro tip: in case of actual racism, use the flag button.

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