It is not a right, for sure. However, there are historical reasons why they are county wide quotas. Before the 1965 INA (Hart-Celler Act, which JFK wanted), they had a national-origins quota system: each country's quota was based on the existing immigrant population of that national origin already in the United States, using data from the 1890 census. Because the U.S. population in 1890 was overwhelmingly from Northern and Western Europe (especially Protestants), this formula strongly favored those groups. Immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe was heavily restricted because most of them are Catholics. Once Catholics got political power, thanks to JFK, this is reformed in favor of what we see country based caps.
The national-origins formula was explicitly designed to maintain the existing ethnic composition of the U.S.--in other words, preserve what policymakers at the time considered the “traditional” American demographic makeup.
In fact it's the opposite. We used to have a system that promoted western european, and we decided to change that. So we split them up in a way that encourages diversity. People from populous nations think this isn't fare. American's think it is explicitly fair, that our system makes sure people from all over the world come and join us, not just immigration dominated by the highest populous countries.
I understand the diversity is good, and that immigration can create that take. But I don't understand that 'immigration good, policies for diversity bad' take?
> American's think it is explicitly fair, that our system makes sure people from all over the world come and join us, not just immigration dominated by the highest populous countries.
I'm an American, and I don't understand how it is explicitly fair that India and China with areas of very large and populations of very large have the same immigration caps as Belize. Especially when something happens and Sudan becomes Sudan and South Sudan and the same people and the same area now have twice the cap; how is that explicitly fair? If India reorganized as the Union of Indian Republics (which I hope is not an offensive hypothetical name), where each state became a full country with an ISO-2 code and an ITU country code, would it be fair that each of the 36 member states have the same cap as any other country? Also, I'm not sure why the overall caps haven't changed since 1990. It feels like they should be indexed to something.
I think this version of quotas/caps is better than the previous version, but that doesn't make it explicitly fair.
I would be interested in knowing what the priority dates would look like if we adjusted the overall caps every ten years after the census to some percentage of overall US population (the 1990 cap was set at approximately 0.3%) or annually based on estimates works too, and also adjusting up the per country caps a bit too.
Basically the idea is that foreign nationals can only have as much leverage as the quota. This is based partly on old fears that European powers would recolonize the US.
Whether or not is necessary or not, I can’t say but if India separated into 500 different counties, then the US would only be catering to 500 micronations, maybe even divided on ethnic lines, and not a single powerful one which could get cultural dominance.
For a historical case, look at the British Empire. If given a large quota, most immigrants would be from the original isles because that’s who have the financial means to cross the ocean, while the billion plus people living in colonies like India wouldn’t have a chance until the Empire breaks.
No, this policy is currently kept based on our reason for immigration, to encourage diversity. We would lose that, and make immigration be basically for highly populous countries. That isn't why the USA has immigration. We don't have a system purely to get bodies in the country.
The USA is not the British Empire. The USA did away with preference for western Europeans and replaced it with a system for everyone. It pisses me off we are told we are being racist by... making sure all races get a chance to come here?
Refugee programs are separate from the immigration caps already.
If it was free for all, because of the way math works, you would get mainly immigrants from the higher populous countries. We have as our reason for high immigration being diversity, and we would lose that, and replace it with 'immigration is for Chinese/Indians/other populous countries'. That isn't why we have our immigration system, nor why people support it.
Is it fair that Bugatti Chiron has to obey the same speed limit as Geo Metro?
The country cap is the limit on the speed of immigration from that country. If we establish such a limit for any reason, why does it have to be proportional to the size of the country? If anything, it should be lower for the bigger countries if we consider this a safety measure against a country gaining too much influence, similar to trucks having lower speed limit than cars on some roads.
I have no problem with your notion of diversity. The whole EU population is 450 million, and there are 27 countries within the EU. So, the question: is China/India less diverse than the whole EU? Some say "yes"; others, "no". Both provide good reasons for their answers.
However, one can't deny the original immigration template with a variable. Original value for this variable: "national-origins". That value is replaced with "country wide quotas". The other value is f(diversity): another formula f based on the variable 'diversity'.
American citizens and their politicians have total freedom to replace the template, or change the current value for one of the variables, or replace with another variable.
Policies encouraging diversity aren't necessarily good or bad on their own. It may be that it is time to readjust those quotas based on the current needs.
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
America has a pretty generous immigration cap. But we have chosen as a nation that we want diverse immigration. At one time we prioritized western europeans, and we decided that wasn't a great policy. So we switched to one that encourage people from everywhere. This is what American's want, diverse immigration. I don't get how that somehow is bad? I don't get how more populous nations should have greater representation. Again, we had larger groups from certain countries (western europe) and we decided we SPECIFICALLY don't want that, that that isn't fair immigration policy and isn't part of America's diversity. We aren't going back to that.
As time goes on, the rejection of the idea of US-born people being "natives" in the sense that the rest of the world uses the term, simply because we have another term, "Native Americans" (which, as you will notice, is a proper noun), with a different meaning, is getting more and more dishonest. Yes, language is funny. Yes, the origins of nations are tragic if you go back far enough, and future citizens inherit the distributed weight of that guilt (but not the responsibility). But now, we have 300 million living people whose practical reality we would like discuss, and on that topic you are free and encouraged to disagree with anybody.
It's an argument based on a value. The parent's position is ostensibly that the value does not currently survive contact with concrete reality in the US today.
This sneering oversimplification pushes people away from generosity. It's ok to see and have emotions about the very real negative side of immigration. Lumping all those people in with the theoretical "just racist with no other rationale" crowd is harmful.
"This sneering oversimplification pushes people away from generosity. "
If you don't like "sneering oversimplification" you're really not gonna like it when you find out what smug "I'm the adult in the room" rhetoric does to both how you're perceived by interlocutors and the limitations on your own ability to work out the logic of these situations.
No it didn't. Putting up a candidate that talked about the stars and the moonlight instead of real problems Americans have got you Orange Man 2.0. To think, that they played the same game they did with Hillary and thought they could get away with it should really get you angry with party leadership.
I don't see how this is a counterpoint to my opinion. You can cultivate the generosity of natives to be open to immigration to whatever degree you think is just (e.g. by declining to use mockery/hate as your default position toward anybody who thinks there is any problem with the state of immigration), and you can do that regardless of your generosity level toward a political party that on average is more conservative or more hateful on immigration than the other. But that seems obvious, so I'm not sure what you're saying.
Idk about US, but in Europe we are in dire need of migration. The shortage in for example health care is acute and alarming, at least in Germany.
Our cleaning women is just about to finish her three year training program. However she failed the final exam because of the complicated wording of the test. Her German is good enough but formal German is a different beast. She is allowed to redo the test a single time next week.
If she passes, she will have an official German degree but has to leave the country because her visa is based on the training program. She then has to reapply for another visa to be allowed to reenter Germany.
Completely dysfunctional in my opinion. The system should bring people in that will be a net positive for the country while filtering out criminals.
I think you just don't want to pay those professions adequately.
Additionally I believe non eu migration on average hasn't been a net positive in various western european without even taking into account a load of externalities.
Pragmatically: if you want to enforce the legality of a state-affirmed migration path, it has to be viable. Without a militarized border (which is impractical based on nation size and undesirable for fiscal and moral reasons) and a militarized interior (do you _like_ what ICE is becoming?), the best mitigation for illegal immigration is viable legal immigration.
Fiscally: immigrants have above-average entrepreneurial tendencies. It doesn't take a lot of enterprise creations and resulting tax payment and job creation to offset a _lot_ of social service consumption. Inbound migration also is what keeps the US from having a net-shrinking population, which until we can get away from late-stage capitalism is a death knell for the economy.
Morally and ethically: this is a nation of immigrants. If you claim to be a native, do you speak Navajo? Ute?
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
It's not a poem that _I_ wrote. That would be silly. You don't have to share _my_ feelings.
It's inscribed on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty and is taught in civics classes as a representation of American values. The idea is that, when you live in a society, you build upon a set of shared values and stories so that you can have something in common with your neighbor and something bigger than yourself to strive for.
All that said, there's a reason that comes last on my list of reasons. If you and I agree on the shared story, the other stuff doesn't matter so much. If we don't, having pragmatic and fiscal reasons to get on the same page lets us at least stay rational in our discourse.
> It's inscribed on a plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty and is taught in civics classes as a representation of American values
It was created by an activist looking to further Jewish and Georgian causes in the late 19th century. Id argue she wasn’t pushing for American causes and sought to redefine them to include her groups.
> The idea is that, when you live in a society, you build upon a set of shared values and stories so that you can have something in common with your neighbor and something bigger than yourself to strive for.
This is a relatively new idea (the inscription you described above came after the Statue of Liberty). Civic nationalism does not work with the entire world as opposed to immigrants of European descent, as they do not generally share the individualist egalitarian mindset that is unique to the west. There’s ample evidence of this in the US, but the conversation usually devolves into racism accusations at that point.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. We’d probably find a fair amount of disagreement in our points of view, but I appreciate your engaging in good faith.
It’s not a bad thing per se, but democratic action can produce cultural shift to something that was previously considered outside of the scope of your country’s way of life. What matters is what you want to achieve as a country, a society, a community and so on. This is something groups of people have to decide for themselves, and the worst form of disagreement is violence.
I am of the view that more than 10 countries in the world should be built on enlightenment ideals, have a rule of law, have systems and processes for providing a good quality of life, and have centers of education and productivity.
I don’t think it’s reasonable that we should shift billions of people to live in a handful of nations via immigration. If that’s the overall plan, then nations where those people are immigrating from should just become vassal states.
It isn’t necessarily, but it’s currently used in the US to allow the wealthy to avoid investing in Americans.
Instead of investing in Americans by lowering costs of necessities (food, housing, education, children) they chase short term profits for the benefits of shareholders (which is by and large the ultra rich). It’s much cheaper to import labor where the above costs were paid for by somebody else.
And it can also be a burden. If you are born on US soil to non-US nationals and therefore become an accidental American you are subject to US tax laws on worldwide income.
In the UK at least banks will not sell you financial products with tax implications (pensions, tax exempt savings schemas (ISA's to the locals)) because of the US reporting requirements.
And getting your citizenship revoked requires lawyering so its a PITA.
I know some Americans will find it hard to believe but there are people who want out of this system and feel trapped in it.
Other people's right to a jury can actually invade YOUR freedoms when jury duty compels you to come hear their case under threats of fines/jail time, but we accept that right as a burden for others.
Hasn't the president signed an executive order that says birthright citizenship is not for children of non-citizens? I see that it's being challenged in court, but the order is currently valid, right?
Executive orders cannot overrule the Constitution.
14th Amendment:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
There are rumblings about "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" somehow excluding folks based on their immigration status, but frankly, the meaning is clear, and jurisprudence recognizes this. The jurisdiction carveout is for international diplomats, i.e. people who are literally not subject to US law. Immigrants, even illegal immigrants, are subject to US law. Stating otherwise would have vast repercussions.
> Executive orders cannot overrule the Constitution.
And I would hope this is a fairly universally held position, not so partisan. Today one side might cheer an executive order overriding the 14th amendment, but how will they feel if the next administration decides to pull the same stunt with the 2nd?
We don't want to go there. There are already some states experimenting with doing end-runs around the Constitution with their own civil laws, and for similar reasons I would expect rational people to want that effort to fail.
>> Executive orders cannot overrule the Constitution.
> I would hope this is a fairly universally held position, not so partisan.
I agree. I think the constitution limits both the executive and the legislative branches.
> how will they feel if the next administration decides to pull the same stunt with the 2nd?
The 2nd amendment has already been overridden by federal laws without a constutional amendment.
The 2nd used to mean that the states has a right to let their citizens arm themselves privately with military weapons. The federal government was forbidden by the 2nd to interfere with this.
I'm from Europe and fine with the very restrictive licensing we have here.
But it looks very shortsighted to wildly re-interpret the constitution far outside of the original meaning, instead of passing new amendments.
> The 2nd used to mean that the states has a right to let their citizens arm themselves privately with military weapons
In particular, at the time that it was written, it meant arm themselves with military weapons for the purposes of military action. That's what the contemporary use of the term "bear arms" was understood to mean. Try to find any mention of self-defense from back then. It wasn't what they were thinking about.
Or look at this earlier version: “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.”
That conscientious objector clause at the end certainly gives some context to the discussion.
The modern interpretation of the second amendment is very different.
> In particular, at the time that it was written, it meant arm themselves with military weapons for the purposes of military action. That's what the contemporary use of the term "bear arms" was understood to mean. Try to find any mention of self-defense from back then. It wasn't what they were thinking about.
That's what I meant too. I didn't bring up self-defense, did I?
The 2nd amendment protects the states' right to build up their own state militias by allowing their citizens to arm themselves with military weapons. It forbids the federal government from interfering with this.
> The modern interpretation of the second amendment is very different.
Yes. The federal "assault weapons ban" is completely incompatible with the 2nd amendment.
This was pushed through without a new amendment. Instead people used linguistic acrobatics to re-interpret the meaning of the 2nd amendment.
It would have been a lot easier today to shut down any attempts to re-interpret the 14th amendment if we hadn't started down this path with the 2nd.
Thanks for the detailed answer, I think that'll be a relief for many. However, would you say this still is a volatile situation for people who are facing this issue? Are the rulings _final_ on this? Or is there chance of people getting stuck in limbo?
> Thanks for the detailed answer, I think that'll be a relief for many. However, would you say this still is a volatile situation for people who are facing this issue? Are the rulings _final_ on this? Or is there chance of people getting stuck in limbo?
No, rulings are not final. SCOTUS could and very well may disagree with more than a hundred years of jurisprudence and overrule e.g. US v. Wong Kim Ark[1], enabling much easier denaturalization by the federal government. Here's an example article from a right-wing think tank about why they believe SCOTUS should overrule Ark[2].
That seems like a very good demonstration of the pitfalls of originalist interpretations of the Constitution. Even then, the argument comes off as extremely weak. And it doesn't even begin to try and address the consequences of reinterpreting the meaning of "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof".
Are conservatives envisioning a new class of slaves? People born on US soil who have none of the protections of the Constitution? Even if that is not the goal, it's not hard to imagine that there would be far-reaching consequences from deciding that the Constitution was not a limit on the behavior of government, but in fact only applied to citizens. What a massive bump in power for the bureaucrats in DC.
Heck, we could just snatch people off the street and declare they cannot prove they are a citizen therefore they have no Constitutional protections. No right to due process so they can prove they're a citizen, nothing like that. Better plan on carrying your passport at all times (and hope it doesn't get ... lost).
> Heck, we could just snatch people off the street and declare they cannot prove they are a citizen therefore they have no Constitutional protections.
I'm not sure if you intended this as a joke, but this is happening now, even if you do have proof of citizenship on you[1]:
> Congressman Bennie Thompson, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, reported that “ICE officials have told us that an apparent biometric match by Mobile Fortify is a “definitive” determination of a person’s status and that an ICE officer may ignore evidence of American citizenship—including a birth certificate” when the app says a person is undocumented.
> Hasn't the president signed an executive order that says birthright citizenship is not for children of non-citizens?
Executive orders have force to the extent that they exert powers that the President has directly under the Constitution or that are assigned to the President by Congress exercising the powers it has directly under the Constitution.
Amending the Constitution by altering the definition of citizenship in the Fourteenth Amendment (or overruling the Supreme Court's consistent reading of the language of the Fourteenth Amendment, if you prefer that characterization) is neither a power granted to the President directly by the Constitution, nor a power Congress has granted the President by statute, nor even within the power granted to the Congress by the Constitution to grant to the President if it was inclined to do so.
> I see that it's being challenged in court, but the order is currently valid, right?
“Currently valid” is a tricky concept. In one sense, its is valid only to the extent it is actually compliant with the Constitution and laws which have higher priority than executive orders. Or you can read the question as really being about whether it can currently be applied, in which case the answer is a more simple “no”, because after the Supreme Court made the usual recent route to a simple single interim resolution pending the full litigation by simply deciding that nationwide injunctions were not within the power of district courts, they could only issue orders against government actions applicable to the litigants before them, a class action was certified covering everyone who might be affected by the order [0], and a preliminary injunction in that case has blocked the order.
No, it is held up in court. The SCOTUS tried to make it valid by ruling against universal injunctions, but within days the challenges were refiled as class actions.
"We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is." NY Governor Charles Evans Hughes, 1907.
No English sentence is without ambiguity in its meaning. If a controversy over meaning arises on a matter as important as law, we cannot function as a nation on the basis of, "Aw, everyone knows what they meant...".
Whether the courts are currently too flexible is a matter of opinion, and unless you get nominated personally to the SCOTUS, an inconsequential one.
> The wording of the constitution indicates that this is only true if your parents were citizens.
The Constitution doesn't define it at all, first off. The Fourteenth Amendment does. All the original Constitution says is that a "natural-born Citizen" is a requirement for President; and that per Article I, Section 8 congress has the power to define the mechanics of citizenship.
The Fourteenth by contrast says plain text:
> All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
Amendments are amendments to the Constitution. They have the force of law.
The person I was responding to was discussing the "wording of the constitution" so the location of the wording absolutely matters. In this case the "wording of the [original] constitution" is ambiguous, but the wording of the 14th is clear. Thus my reply.
For reference, amendments are part of the constitution. This is specified in TITLE 1 CHAPTER 2 Sec. 106b. Of the US Code[1] which reads
> Whenever official notice is received at the National Archives and Records Administration that any amendment proposed to the Constitution of the United States has been adopted, according to the provisions of the Constitution, the Archivist of the United States shall forthwith cause the amendment to be published, with his certificate, specifying the States by which the same may have been adopted, and that the same has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States.
Amendments have the same force as the Constitution because they are a part of the constitution. They are not simply laws. Thank you for allowing me to clarify.
You either misread or were trying to mischaracterize something with your first reply. When the original comment was further clarified for you, instead of acknowledging your misread, you've decided to double down with this artificial "clarification" of essentially nothing. It isn't a good look.
Right, when you said, "The Constitution doesn't define it at all, first off. The Fourteenth Amendment does," is wrong. The Constitution does define it, in the 14th amendment.
Thank you again for allowing me to clarify so that you can correct your understanding of the constitution.
Well, the constitution didn't make any statements about who was a citizen, just the 14th ammendment has this:
> All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.
Of course, being part of the Constitution, few of the terms are defined. But, as I read it, if you're born here outside of diplomatic immunity, you're a citizen. And I'd need a well referenced argument to understand why 'subject to the jurisdiction therof' means something other than how I interpret it.
That is a total lie, the 14th amendment is absolutely clear and it was passed after the Civil War with the explicit point of granting citizenship to black slaves who, you'll notice, did not have citizen parents:
> Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
If illegal aliens are not "subject to the jurisdiction thereof," it's not possible to arrest them for a crime--that's what the phrase means.
The language excludes diplomats, foreign soldiers on US soil while they're fighting a war with the US, and (given the context of when the amendment was passed) Native Americans who hadn't yet been told that they were subjects of the US.
Yes, under current law, almost every baby born in the United States or its territories automatically becomes a US citizen at birth, regardless of the parents’ immigration status, except for certain children of foreign diplomats or enemy forces in hostile occupation.
Even if you're here without permission, you can be tried in our courts, and are subject to our jurisdiction. I'm willing to be swayed, but it has to be compelling. Diplomatic immunity or maybe recognized tribal member on recognized reservation when they were being disenfranchised are the only times I'm aware of where people are physically within the States and DC and not subject to the jurrisdiction thereof. Perhaps if a child is born in an internation vessel at port, or in a duty free shop or a customs free trade zone. Territories and such get squishy, it's usually not clearly stated when the term United States is meant to include those portions of the country that are not a State; but the 14th ammendment is understood not to apply to territories. Citizenship at birth is granted in some territories (at least Puerto Rico) by federal legislation.
That said, upthread you claimed:
> this is only true if your parents were citizens
And now you claim something about illegal aliens. There's a whole range of circumstances, some of which would have been uncontemplatable at the time of the 14th ammendment. If you are born in the US. You claim citizenship only if parentS are citizens. But if only one parent is a citizen, or both parents are permanent residents, or the parents are authorized visitors. For the historically impossible situation, what if the child is carried by a surrogate with authorized presence and the parents are non-citizens not present at birth ... that child is a US citizen by birth, and not included in your statement above.
Fantastic point, I assume you’re equally annoyed about how the right to bear arms has been removed from the contextual requirement that the armed be part of a well organized militia?
Something has been ignored by legislators for over a hundred years and just now you have discovered it’s true meaning which happens to perfectly align with your policy preferences.
Please, just be honest and say you want to enact a policy and use the US Supreme Court to do it, rather than gaslighting us into believing that words don’t mean what they do.
"No True Scotsman" is not accurate here. This would actually be an appeal to authority.
But the fact that it is one doesn't mean it has no merit. My implication is that the person I am responding to is ignorant of the state of the law, not that they must be wrong because others say they are.
There was no reply button. No it's definitely a True Scotsman. When you cherry pick what authority to quote, and therefore imply it's the only true position to have, it's a true Scotsman. Your next line affirms this.
"My implication is that the person I am responding to is ignorant of the state of the law, "
And now you've moved onto the Courtier's reply.
> So long as you're a citizen. If you are not a citizen, the rights afforded by the constitution don't apply to you.
Wrong. The Constitution is very clear on which rights are limitations on the government no matter which people it is dealing with and which are particular to citizens, and there are very few of the latter. Exactly one, in fact: the right to vote, though its mentioned several times in terms of which things are prohibited as excuses for denying it.
I'm assuming good faith debate against my own judgment, but in case anyone is confused, here's your sign:
1st Amendment:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Read that carefully and note that the word "citizen" is nowhere to be found.
Next, some may argue that "the people" inherently represents only citizens. Jurisprudence has generally accepted that phrase to mean everyone, including illegal immigrants, but it depends on the surrounding context[1]. The idea that the Bill of Rights applies only to citizens, though, doesn't match any court interpretation of which I'm aware.
Again if you disagree, you'd better be prepared to produce birth certificates of all your ancestors to prove you're a "natural born citizen" born of citizens. That's where this leads.
Eventually, if they’re old stock European-American, that essentially means that they’re the descendants of invaders (i.e. illegal immigrants who never got the consent of the Native Americans to settle).
But if you welcome immigrants so as not to run out of labor or stagnate culturally, rather than simply dislike immigrants, you'd want to improve the bureaucracy.
Is it a hideous insult because you think it's not true, or because the wording feels offensive? Is there a more polite way to express the same sentiment, if you think it's true, or is it either true or insulting?
Cuba has had zero immigration for a long time but has an interesting culture.
Vietnam has basically zero immigration. Indonesia. Philippines. India. Honduras. Guatemala. Brazil. Jamaica. Mexico.
It's both insulting and untrue in a way that feels degrading to these nations' rich thriving cultures. That somehow only western, immigration heavy cultures are valid or are cultures of any worth.
I do think those nations have rich, thriving cultures. I also think that any culture, no matter how rich and thriving, can lead itself toward stagnation if it becomes overly insular. It's fair to point out that immigration isn't the only possible source of cultural diversity, but it's a powerful force for it, and I think the United States, being a huge cultural exporter, is at more risk than countries that are less dominant on the internet.
You’re jumping to the conclusion that there’s another reason they’d arbitrarily leave out such a segment. It’s either because there aren’t enough to merit an entry, or there’s some conspiracy afoot to make this obviously racist enforcement appear racist.
"so as not to run out of labor"
Beloved by the extreme right economically and now Trump. Low ball the labor market. Destroy the middle class and especially the working class. But at least CEOs will get their performance bonuses, and shareholders will see shares rise due to lower costs.
It's literally the current case. Our citizenry is incapable of meeting our labor needs. ("Why" is another discussion entirely.)
If you were to remove all the illegal immigrants right now from the US, our economy would be kneecapped. Granted, the harvest season is over in most of the US, but housing would be among the first markets to collapse functionally. If you are uncertain how important that market is, study the Great Recession of 2008.
"If you were to remove all the illegal immigrants right now from the US"
The wage levels and benefits would have to rise to meet the demand for labor. The US would also have to sort out its education and trades system too.
But if you think this is a skills shortage, I've got a bridge to sell you. And by the way, you are economically libertarian and on the same side as Trump. Bringing in an Indian to do the same job as an American citizen for half the wage is not a skill shortage, it's crony capitalism.
"housing would be among the first markets to collapse functionally"
Poe's Law. You'd have a massive supply in housing, and therefore a collapse in the prices to owning a house. It has nothing to do with '08.
"f you are uncertain how important that market is, study the Great Recession of 2008."
The great recession(It was a depression. I'd suggest studying definitions) was caused by three things:
President Clinton scrapping Glass-Steagall Act, the dam set up after the Great Depression of '29 to stop it happening again.
President Clinton signed the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Credit default swaps were the nukes of '08. Clinton exempted CDSs from regulation!!
President Clinton rewrote the Community Reinvestment Act forcing banks and lending institutions to give NINJA loans under the charge of racism(see commentator above) if they did not.
He also signed NAFTA allowing cheap labor and material into the US, and allowing companies to move South. (see Ross Perot great sucking sound)
He also brought China into the WTO devastating not just America, but the entire West.
I swear, it needs to amended so that natural born citizens should also have to pass citizenship questions like immigrants to retain their citizenship. How can you not know this? Have you never read or heard a recital of the bill of rights?
> The problem with the "war on drugs" is that it treats "supply" as the problem.
Well, that's because supply _is_ the actual problem.
The real issue is that our government isn't attacking the supply side hard enough. Believe me, if we wanted dealers and cartels to "go away permanently", we could make it happen.
The issue is whether or not we have the will to make this kind of thing happen.
Do you understand what "winning" the drug war would entail?
Realistically, it would involve making anyone who was involved in importing or selling illegal drugs disappear instead of just imprisoning them for a while and then letting them out to do it again.
Or you could just end the war by declaring drugs as legal?
Encourage farmers to grow the source plants, and the pharmaceutical companies to make the end products. Sell them in pharmacies, and maybe licensed dealers (as is done with alcohol).
Not a lotto fan, but, in theory, the money collected by state lotteries goes to some sort of public good (scholarships, etc.). Don't get me wrong, I still see them as destructive, but they don't operate with the same intent.
These new sports books are operating purely to enrich the owners of the platform. Ban 'em.
> Not a lotto fan, but, in theory, the money collected by state lotteries goes to some sort of public good (scholarships, etc.).
Problem is, state funding for those public concerns are often reduced by the same (or more) amount lottery revenue generates. For example, Florida pitched their state lottery as funding education (amongst other "who could be against this?" programs), yet failed to inform voters that existing funding would ultimately be reduced in a compensatory fashion.
There's also a difference between people who buy lottery tickets religiously, and who buy them once in a while. I like to play once in a while when the jackpots are high, just in case. Unfortunately, the answer to it is really hard, like most issues society faces today.
Yeah I occasionally will buy a ticket or two. Not often, but sometimes on a whim I get them. I figure it is probably a slightly healthier version of buying the king size kitkat or snickers in the checkout line. The cost is the same, the satisfaction is just as transient, and I'm not jamming a bunch of sugar in my face.
I've been in an online community where some users do a group buy for certain lottos when the prize is big enough. Sending $2 by paypal/venmo is easier and lower friction that going to one of the stores near me where I can but a ticket myself. I still think it's kinda dumb, but I do plenty of dumb things and I buy one infrequently enough to be ok with it.
I don't think that's the case. Most of the expected value comes from the jackpot, and even if a large jackpot means you should expect to share with 1 or 2 other winners, but the large jackpots are easily more than 3x the small ones.
If true, that's definitely a US localized thing. The places I've lived in the big winners in the big lotteries are disproportionately often middle class compared to what you'd expect if the large majority of buyers were poor.
In terms of rates of smoking, it is going well. Australia has the second lowest smoking rate of any country where women smoking isn’t taboo. (I.e., the only countries with lower smoking rates are New Zealand and a short list of countries where it’s culturally unacceptable for women to smoke.
While the article you linked points out that illicit tobacco sales make up a large percentage of the market, it’s a much smaller market. You might as well tell us that most guns sold in Japan are illegal, and therefore Japan has a bigger problem with guns than America.
The article notes that according to wastewater testing, nicotine consumption in Australia is at an all-time high.
I'm no fan of tobacco, I think taxing it heavily is good, and Australia's policies were (IMHO) working well until quite recently. But, as the article explains at length, the price difference is now so extreme and the legal risk of illegal sales so low that drug dealers are muscling in and we're getting drug dealer competition tactics as a result.
The article is about gambling in the U.S., not cigarettes in Australia.
Also, these policies usually fail in getting existing users to quit, but they succeed in deterring prospective users. The idea that these policies are "not going very well" is an incredibly narrow-minded and short-sighted perspective.
Did you read the article? By effectively banning legal vape sales to all (including consenting adults), there's now an explosion of completely unregulated vapes in the illegal market catering to all and sundry including children.
There are countries that let people do fentanyl out in the middle of the road because they're unable to enforce basic laws. Then there are countries that give people the death penalty for having a few grams of a common herb. Whether laws are enforced and enforced predictably and equally to everyone determine the effectiveness of a ban.
Australia doesn't let you bring a bottle of water onto planes going into their country, even if you bought it inside the airport. Allowing people to bring in drugs like tobacco but strictly forbidding a 1 dollar bottle of water is a problem with enforcement. If tobacco were treated the same way dangerous, addictive substances like H2O are, things might work better.
Per TFA, the people of New Jersey voted in a referendum to make it legal by a 2/3 supermajority, for example. Why should it be illegal if most people don't want it to be?
I'd like to see how many would vote the same way again, now that they've seen the outcome. But they probably won't be given the opportunity to vote on it again, now that the commercial interests got what they want.
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