NTDF9

I think you are missing the point. Wealth is almost only restricted by natural and human resources.

However, getting paid in a currency is directly limited by total currency in circulation. Of the total items of wealth in the world, if more and more currency is hoarded at the top 1%, only the top 1% can afford the wealth created by the rest.

In other worlds, wealth is increasing but the purchasing power of it is not reaching everyone proportional to the wealth they are creating.

If only the FED actually measured this in inflation numbers.

> In the 90s the H-1 program was made dual-intent, as in, intent to immigrate would not disqualify someone from entry, setting the stage for the present mass exploitation of H-1B workers.

Do you know why this was done? Because the bureaucracy went out of whack and caused massive delays in the real immigration steps aka green cards.

If anything, H-1 is the only way right now because US govt can't function like a developed country. The H-1s are not to blame. They are just like you and I. And they are the kind of immigrants I want to sustain our population and economy.

> But can we stop kidding ourselves that H-1B holders seeking permanent status are innocent victims? They're exploiting a loophole (dual-intent) to immigrate where they otherwise would have a difficult time qualifying for an immigration visa. They've willingly accepted the trade-offs.

It's a loophole? That's news to me. Outside of family and extraordinary abilities (think Nobel prize winners), what other way is there for someone to immigrate?

If there are any immigrants to be attracted, it is this pool of people. Well educated, speak english, no crime and not moochers. What other alternative people do you want to support your social security system?

I'm too young to know but I wonder if this is how global environment was during world war. Every single country is using humans as pawns.

I think this is all posturing. They are using Trump's own tactic against him.

Keep increasing stakes with more losses to be had before the next trade meeting

Too much time at work. Too less time building relationships. You know, run of the mill relationships with friends at bars, church, local park.

This is really unfortunate. The problem isn't law enforcement per se. The problem is selective disregard for humans under pressure.

Many government organizations under current administration are deliberately hemorrhaging law enforcement or bringing in policies through internal memos (without congressional approval) to prey on the vulnerable.

I would've hoped companies like Github would take a stand and call out these unfair enforcements. Once they do that, they can then continue on to serve the contract. However, keep highlighting how your customers are using perverted interpretations of law to treat humans badly.

Isn't that a good thing? Use less real resources folks.

Yep. I was not talking about racism. I'm talking fundamentally about systemic disenfranchisement that hasn't changed even today.

> Want to fix this? Sure, easy, just scrap the democracy and just don't ask people, send those who object, to "re-education" camps. Or scrap market economy: if all land is government-owned, it won't be an issue at all.

I'm just going to assume that you've never been to major Asian cities.

> I took the train once from Irvine to Los Angeles and felt I had gone back in time to 1980. This in one of the richest counties in the world (OC)

Have you considered that richness is not measured correctly? Since GDP is effectively consumption, the more a person consumes, the richer a country is. A thousand people driving 5 hours between LA and SF will make the country richer. Not the people, which China appears to be wanting to do.

This is the exact rules for voting when women and slaves were disenfranchised.

At its core, America has not changed one bit since.

Why would business formation be so difficult if the cost of production will be so low (because there is close to zero speculation?)

Why would capital requirements for capital intensive businesses be so high when the equipment they are trying to buy will be cheap?

If they need to buy lots and lots of equipment right now, they could issue a bond, investors looking to make a dime will lend. Since inflation is low because of no speculation, interest rates would be low as well.

The one big caveat I see is slow growth but that's exactly what I'm looking for. Slow sustainable growth directly proportional to labor.

So a world with lesser speculation? Economies that move steady in the first place so that recessions aren't these massive downturns causing so much grief?

No. More like a FED sponsored 401k match for wages. If a company thinks it can earn more by producing more goods, it will hire more people and give them wages. The FED will match it, effectively bringing money into circulation.

As company gets more and more efficient, they wouldn't need employees. But this would cause lesser money to be brought into circulation, thus eating up the companies earnings itself.

If the company wants more debt, they can go borrow from others (rich institutions, individuals etc) but this activity will not create new money. Thus, total money in circulation remains the same.

If an individual wants to buy a house, the house price will effectively be closer to the median affordable income of population. Thus, it will incentivize individual to produce more goods and services to reach median income at least. The only way to become richer is to produce more.The rich can try to buy more houses but it wouldn't be possible as much since leverage and speculation is much harder.

I don't have any alternatives without rough edges. THat's for overpaid economists to figure out ;)

However, I'm thinking more along the lines of production. So if an individual/company produces more units of something, the FED could print that much money and put it into their accounts directly.

With expanding society, more money will be brought into circulation.

With lesser production, lesser money will be matched and produced by the FED.

The consequence of this would be that there is incentive to produce more with less. There will be more value for physical labor and that the rich would suffer as much as the poor. Hoarding money at the top will just result in lesser and lesser money being produced for the rich to earn.

Now you could go and take a loan if you wanted to. But not from a bank. Take it from any other party. It's between the two of you and you both go bust if the loan fails.

There are caveats here but what it removes is the creation of money by debt. Thus, to be richer as a civilization, we don't need more debt as a society. We need to produce more goods and services that are actually desired by others.

Good answer! Now imagine if there was a society where money supply did not increase because of more loans, but by something more of a function of labor.

What do you think would happen to the prices of materials, labor etc? Do you think tying money supply as a function of labor would make cost of necessities close to the median?

> How does one acquire the necessary funds for larger projects when one does not personally have the funds to do so?

Good point. As a thought experiment, can you answer why the larger project costs more that what an average person can already afford?

There is a place for debt in society. And that is: emergencies.

But why the hell does debt have to be the only way of creating money is totally beyond me.

As much as it seems so, it's not environmentally efficient.

This is because the same raw materials would have to be extracted at multiple places, more people would have to work at similar factories, producing similar goods.

Effectively, the world will be making the same 7 billion shoes except that shoe manufacturing infrastructure+supply chains+transportations will have to be made everywhere, thus expediting environmental degradation.

A lot of extra work will be done to find the same efficiencies everywhere.

Shipping for 7 billion people is actually very efficient.

How about not having a financial system based on debt and loans?

No more need to have a crisis

Something interesting to note is that these emigrants are all young people.

Which means, these motherlands are left with only old people. It's a gigantic demographic disaster.

I wonder what judges and people would think if Asians started an Asian majority/conscious university?

To me this seems like a slippery slope.

What an amazing script for a movie

But even then, you would think lobbying inside Germany would be crazy.

But it isn't. Why? Because people (rich people included) see society as something to be shared. Not something to be taken from others by hook or crook.

US used to be more sharing, like under FDR. But it is more and more like flawed democracies.

> I think this is overly simplistic. There's plenty of corruption in many European countries as well, it's just in a different form.

Not denying corruption doesn't exist in other countries, including EU.

However, if you look at it closely from a 3rd person perspective, you'll see that the laws in US are designed to snatch rights away from citizens vs laws in most other countries are designed to give rights to its citizens.

One may ask where it comes from? It seems comes from a place of profit for a lobby.

No payment for student athletes? NCAA and others suck in value of labor of young kids by denying right to earn money for their labor

No universal healthcare or clean competition in healthcare? Private insurance and healthcare institutions suck in value of humans by denying right to get basic healthcare as a service.

No cheap education? Lenders racketing on student's worth by denying students access to low cost capitalistic education.

No rights for private prisoners? Immigrants? Civil forfeiture? Every thing is designed as a system to take away rights for the benefit of a few.

The US govt and private industry are a nexus of money making for large lobbying groups.

This won't fly in another non-corrupt democracy, let alone in EU.

> It seems also deeply cultural. What would count as greedy and offputting behavior here, is seen as laudable and ambitious in the US

Yep, there's another way of looking at the fundamental difference. The govt exists to make money for a few at the expense of others.

Why are endowments so important for Professors? They're not seeing a dime from that anyway.

This is so true. The upper middle class in India would probably be lower middle class in the US.

However, let's not kid ourselves. Cost of living in India is equally or ever more cheap. $1-$2 for lunch a day? Rent is only $200/month? My god that's cheap for people earning $20,000/yr as opposed to someone even in Mississippi.

The real losers anywhere are the bottom quintile in a highly unequal society.

As is the answer with almost anything in the US, the answer is: "There are some who stand to make money from it at the expense of others."

US is fundamentally different from most other countries. In most countries, govt designs (or tries to design) laws and systems for the public good. Not so in the US.