I hire a ton of engineers in LATAM who have no interest in migrating to US. They get paid well in USD, they live in kings and queens in their respective low cost countries. In fact, looking at their live inspired me to make the decision to leave.
It's a great deal for them. It's not the best deal for us, though, since they're not part of our tax base, nor are they growing families and social networks here for us to benefit from. It's a great outcome morally (Latam, African, and Asian countries deserve greater participation in global industries), but the one thing it doesn't do is optimize for the interests of America.
I think the long term interests of ordinary Americans are better served by having a stable population and culture without significant immigration. I have a theory that America is so relatively libertarian and ungovernable because of the immigration of all these rootless people who are willing to leave everything behind for economic reasons, who feel relatively weaker affinity to other Americans. I think we’re seeing this play out in real time with Latinos shifting right just because of a little inflation.
If that means our tech and financial sectors look more like Europe, that would probably be a good thing too. The tax base thing is a trap. Having seen the influx of tech workers and rich immigrants move into Virginia, I don’t think it was a win for the median person who was already there.
1. America was built on people willing to leave everything behind for all sorts of reasons. America is great because of it.
2. American immigrants feel a very high amount of affinity with the US and the opportunities afford to them by the country, regardless of how much affinity they feel towards their neighbours. I think the main problem is that native born Americans feel a fairly low amount affinity towards each other - and that has little to do with immigration.
3. I think having a low immigration, stagnant tech and finance sectors is probably beneficial to the median person who is already in the US and doesn't really wanna work that hard and compete with immigrants. I agree with you there. If you go to Australia the ones who are getting the highest grades, becoming doctors and lawyers, buying expensive properties are all immigrants (usually East Asian / South Asian). If you want to relax and just enjoy life without working hard Europe is absolutely ideal for you.
> 1. America was built on people willing to leave everything behind for all sorts of reasons. America is great because of it.
America is great because it was founded by rule following British people with a long tradition of self governance. What’s come after that is debatable. It’s certainly made America rich, I’ll give you that.
> 2. American immigrants feel a very high amount of affinity with the US and the opportunities afford to them by the country, regardless of how much affinity they feel towards their neighbours.
Yes, but what is the “US” they feel affinity for? I think the “US” they have affinity for us a very shallow concept. It’s not like say the French or Chinese that have a thousand years of shared history they identify with. My whole family is immigrants. My parents just got back from visiting family in Canada and Australia and were complaining about how much better America is. But what is America to them? They don’t care about Appalachians, or the constitution, etc. They like that you can make a lot of money and live in much bigger houses than in Australia or Canada.
> I think the main problem is that native born Americans feel a fairly low amount affinity towards each other - and that has little to do with immigration.
I think the two things are directly correlated. The vast majority of people don’t want to leave their home countries. That means the ones that immigrate tend to be the ones that have weaker social ties. And I strongly suspect that persists for at least a couple of generations within family cultures—if only because it takes longer than that to really develop deep and broad family networks in the country. But most Americans are just a couple of generations away from those initial immigrants. (None of Donald Trump’s grandparents were born in America.)
> 3. I think having a low immigration, stagnant tech and finance sectors is probably beneficial to the median person who is already in the US and doesn't really wanna work that hard and compete with immigrants. I agree with you there. If you go to Australia the ones who are getting the highest grades, becoming doctors and lawyers, buying expensive properties are all immigrants (usually East Asian / South Asian).
I agree. So I think where we differ is on whether that’s a good thing or not. A bunch of my family is exactly that kind of immigrant to Australia. They’re doing well individually. But does that make the country better for the median Australian that’s already there?
by rule following British people with a long tradition of self governance.
Their love of rules and self-governance was so great they had to leave their rule-following, self-government-enjoyer country where they called them 'non-conformists'. This doesn't really add up.
>It's not the best deal for us, though, since they're not part of our tax base, nor are they growing families and social networks here for us to benefit from.
It's a fantastic deal for us because they're not immigrating here and therefore driving prices of housing, social services, etc. to the unsustainable levels we're seeing now. Outsourcing over the past decades has been a huge boon for the US. They're generating value for US companies and we're able to take advantage of that. The US needs to grow its own families and social networks organically. Every country should.
>but the one thing it doesn't do is optimize for the interests of America.
Generating wealth for US companies and providing stability to their home countries is a win/win. This is optimal for US interests.
Housing prices aren't unsustainable in the US; they are in a tiny subset of hotspots that elite buyers want to move into. The people we're talking about importing are the least fixated on buying in those particular markets.
Housing prices are a big problem, but the fix isn't depopulation; it's fixing zoning and building rules.
