| ▲ | monero-xmr 3 days ago |
| [flagged] |
|
| ▲ | kyralis 3 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Even in the most facile analysis: Reduced labor availability either (a) decreases supply due to failure to harvest or (b) increases prices due to increased labor costs and therefore drives inflation higher faster than bottom-tier wages can accommodate. |
| |
| ▲ | monero-xmr 3 days ago | parent [-] | | It increases automation and therefore productivity. It increases the demand for legal unskilled labor. Money earned is spent in America rather than sent to foreign countries as remittances | | |
| ▲ | hvb2 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Not every job can be automated. Picking crops for example or cleaning hotel rooms. The US will find out the hard way how much of their undesirable work is done by people that "steal their jobs". Jobs that no American wants to do. The UK already has seen this with Brexit
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44230865 | | |
| ▲ | nine_zeros 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Brexit is so funny because it is literally a real world example of how isolation reduces economic growth and causes poverty - and yet, America goes ahead with similar isolation. | |
| ▲ | Den_VR 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Picking crops or cleaning hotels rooms cannot be automated… for less than it costs to hire seasonal/migrant workers, today. Both farms and hotels have an increasing number of jobs being automated where it makes economic sense, or for pure novelty’s sake. https://www.farmprogress.com/technology/tethered-drones-can-... | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Right now, cleaning rooms cannot be fully automated at any price. The AI to control the robots just isn't good enough for how broad a term "unclean" can be. I don't want to comment about picking crops, that's rapidly changing and I don't expect to be up-to-date with this. I've seen people being confidently wrong about "cows won't milk themselves" decades after there were machines cows could operate by themselves to get milked. | | |
| ▲ | Den_VR 3 days ago | parent [-] | | When you get into the “ at any price ” range, then you should be up for engineering the room to support fully automated cleaning, and so I’d contend this is possible today. For certain situations. For example, automatic cleaning of a capsule hotel. I’ve just checked into one myself, nearly everything is self-service with an rfid band for access. How about automatic cleaning of a clean room? | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Sure, but "For certain situations" is a strong barrier here. So, the example with most saliency for me (which may not be the hardest to deal with) is: Imagine a hotel that is hosting a convention, and is fully occupied for five days. On day one, a norovirus infection event gets everyone, on day four everyone's digestive tracts are voided from both ends with about 40 seconds' warning. How well do the automation systems cope? This example is probably quite close to the top of the list of things I expect cleaning staff to be hoping someone can automate/has already automated, because noro is hella infectious like that and who on earth would actually want to be the one who has to clean up after such incidents, but has this kind of cleanup actually been fully automated yet? I had to clean up after a relative (which is why it's salient for me), and I think I caught it from them because I'd missed the inside of a cupboard door handle before removing my gloves. > How about automatic cleaning of a clean room? Positive air pressure, air filters, and requiring occupants to wear stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanroom#/media/File:Cleanroo... Would be one of the easier cases, given they are work environments and by extension there's an expectation of reduced scope of things for the automation to be doing, though even then I'd expect some unplanned incidents require human intervention. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Reduced labor by executive power doesn't increase automation, it introduces a labor shortage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortage Increased capacity utilizing automation would introduce automation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_capacity Increasing demand doesn't magically necessitate that technological resources sprout from nothing to replace human resources. An introductory macroeconomics source instructs one on this https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/core-fi... | |
| ▲ | margalabargala 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Still, none of that outweighs the inflationary pressure. Increasing automation and therefore productivity means an increase in profits to the owners, not a drop in prices, except in the most competitive industries. Unemployment is already extremely low. There aren't tons of Americans waiting to step into these jobs. If unemployment were 10% that would be a different story, but we're close to full employment. So instead of the jobs going to Americans, the produce rots in the fields, and prices go up. | | |
| ▲ | bluefirebrand 3 days ago | parent [-] | | High unemployment would mean companies would have to offer more money to attract people They want unemployment to be low so they can keep wages and salaries suppressed | | |
| ▲ | kergonath 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Except, of course, that this is completely backwards. Low unemployment shifts the balance of negociating power towards workers as companies have to compete to get them. See the massive growth in AI engineers’ wages for a nice illustration of this. High unemployment helps employers because they can put pressure on the workers, who are less likely to find a job with better conditions or at all. The fact that low unemployment is associated with stagnating wages these days is a massive failure of the capitalist system. It means that the situation is deteriorating and some of the levers cannot be used. There is no way out without pain. | | |
| ▲ | bluefirebrand 3 days ago | parent [-] | | This is my bad. For some reason I got "unemployment rate" twisted in my head and thought it was related to the number of unfilled jobs So my reasoning was "if there are not many unfilled jobs, it makes it tougher for people to find work, meaning the unemployment rate is low" which of course does not logically follow My mistake | | |
| ▲ | kergonath 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Then we agree :) There are signs of upwards wage pressure in the last couple of years, we’ll see how sustainable that is. |
|
| |
| ▲ | margalabargala 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | What? That makes no sense, did you mix up your high/low words? Or could you elaborate on your opinion that is perfectly opposite all accepted economic understanding? |
|
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | reliabilityguy 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Wouldn’t the deportations increase the demand for low-paying jobs resulting in increasing salaries? |
| |
| ▲ | fzeroracer 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | No, for two reasons. The first is that Americans often refuse to work those jobs (and for good reason, they pay incredibly poorly, have no benefits etc. It is generally a financial loss to do said jobs). We've tried multiple times to try and get Americans to work in the fields: it never works [1]. The second is that a large amount of our economy is heavily subsidized by said cheap immigrant labor and if you just straight up remove that labor, then the costs of everything goes up as many farms go out of business and die. That's just assuming that you somehow got Americans to go out and replace said jobs; suddenly removing 1+ million people from any labor pool would have drastic effects on the rest of the economy. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/wh... | | |
| ▲ | reliabilityguy 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > The first is that Americans often refuse to work those jobs (and for good reason, they pay incredibly poorly, have no benefits etc. It is generally a financial loss to do said jobs). Would Americans work those jobs if those jobs paid well? | | |
| ▲ | fzeroracer 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | You should define what 'paid well' means if you're going to ask that question, and then compare it to the current cost of labor. | |
| ▲ | PicassoCTs 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Those jobs can not pay well, because the basic living goods have to be artificially price dumped to remain affordable for the working poor. Otherwise all prices would have to be raised to include this, which will never happen. | | |
| ▲ | AnthonyMouse 3 days ago | parent [-] | | That seems to be inconsistent with the continued negligence with respect to housing prices. Maybe it would be fine if food cost more because agricultural workers got paid better but housing cost less because we stopped artificially constraining supply. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | hvb2 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Which would mean food gets more expensive, right? Regardless of the fact that a lot of poor people don't live in the areas where most of those jobs are but they do get their produce from there.. The top 4 counties in the US for agriculture production are all in the central valley in California. | | |
| ▲ | reliabilityguy 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > Which would mean food gets more expensive, right? Which in turn will create more pressure to increase the salaries until it reaches the equilibrium that satisfies everyone. The alternative is to use de-facto slave labor just for the sake of cheap food? | | |
| ▲ | hvb2 3 days ago | parent [-] | | You're missing an important piece here. The lower your income is, the bigger the % you spend on necessities like food. So when those go up, the lower incomes are again hit the hardest as they spend a higher percentage of their total income on it. And these are necessities not nice to haves | | |
| ▲ | reliabilityguy 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > You're missing an important piece here. I am not. You are confusing transient effects with the equilibrium state. Btw, for low wage employees everything is a significant % of their wage. The only meaningful way to increase their wages is to decrease the supply of cheap labor. This is exactly what happened during Covid where no one was willing to work for $8/hr and the wages went up. When people realize that their wage doesn’t guarantee good living they will look for a better job or demand a raise. | | |
| ▲ | hvb2 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Supply and demand aren't always in the same place... If a lot of the farm workers in California are gone how does that help the people in Nevada or Michigan that are unemployed... You think they're going to fill those positions? > When people realize that their wage doesn’t guarantee good living they will look for a better job or demand a raise Wow... When your job requires no education or training? I guess everyone who works 2 or more jobs in the us needs to talk to you. They're all missing this obvious point. |
|
|
|
| |
| ▲ | guywithahat 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes, countries that go through population declines without new immigration have often seen strong wage growth. Famously after the Irish great famine agricultural wages rose ~30%, and lower-skill jobs saw strong wage growth | | |
| ▲ | Hikikomori 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Serfs got slightly more after the Brits killed most of them? Sounds great. | | |
| ▲ | guywithahat 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Technically most of the Irish population emigrated Ireland, and I'm not sure I'd blame the brits for a famine but ok. Really what I'm looking at is the economic effect of decreasing population when it's not replaced by immigrants | | |
| ▲ | Hikikomori 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Still killed a million. It is clearly the fault of Britain as Ireland produced much more food than it needed itself but peasants mostly only got to eat potatoes as most of all good food was exported because Brits owned most of the land so peasants didn't own what they produced. When they didn't have acces to potatoes anymore they had no food, and free market advocates in Britain argued that they shouldn't even try to help them. |
|
|
| |
| ▲ | monero-xmr 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Uhhh yes precisely. That helps the poor and hurts Wall Street | | |
| ▲ | hvb2 3 days ago | parent [-] | | I genuinely wonder what you've done over the last few years. Rising salaries will lead to inflation. Expecting anything else is fantasy | | |
| ▲ | reliabilityguy 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > Rising salaries will lead to inflation. Expecting anything else is fantasy No. Riding salaries do not lead to inflation by themselves. What leads to inflation is the increase in money circulating on the market. In other words: printing money leads to inflation. | | |
| ▲ | hvb2 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Riding salaries do not lead to inflation by themselves. What leads to inflation is the increase in money circulating on the market Not necessarily, if price of product A goes up and I have to buy that it means I have less money to spend on product B. Meaning demand on product B goes down so its price goes down. If we go back to the point that we're talking about, being how it affects the lowest incomes, then you can see how an ever increasing % of their income is locked up in food/housing etc. By your logic
"What leads to inflation is the increase in money circulating on the market."
Why is the rate of inflation even a value that isn't known beforehand? Surely we control our own printers, no? | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Riding salaries do not lead to inflation by themselves. What leads to inflation is the increase in money circulating on the market This is nonsense. If an economy doubles and the money supply grows 10%, you get deflation. If the money supply is stable and half the country gets bombed, you get inflation. Price levels are a function of both money demand and money supply. Ignoring the demand side of the equation doesn’t work. | | |
| ▲ | reliabilityguy 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > This is nonsense. Nope. This is one of the reasons we had insane inflation after Covid: we printed too much. For example, here: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042015/how-does-mon... | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 3 days ago | parent [-] | | Nobody said printing money can’t cause inflation. Just that it’s not the only factor at play. You can have an economy with zero money printing that experiences inflation or deflation. | | |
| ▲ | reliabilityguy 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > Nobody said printing money can’t cause inflation. You said in the comment above. | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > You said in the comment above How do you read “price levels are a function of both money demand and money supply” and get that? Going back to the top, you claimed “riding [sic] salaries do not lead to inflation.” That is nonsense. Even if we ignore that rising salaries cause the money supply to increase through increased velocity, wealth effect and credit creation. (This is why when the economy is strong central banks raise rates to keep price levels stable. You have to destroy money to make up for the money being created by the private sector.) | | |
| ▲ | reliabilityguy 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > You have to destroy money to make up for the money being created by the private sector. In other words, to keep inflation at bay, one of the things you do, you restrict money supply. | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > to keep inflation at bay, one of the things you do, you restrict money supply Again, nobody said money supply doesn’t affect price levels. But in this example, rising wages caused the inflationary impetus without any money printing. To correct for that, the money supply must be reduced. If you’re piloting a plane, deflecting the control surfaces will move the plane. But so will winds. If winds buffet your plane you have to deflect control surfaces to get back to where you were. That doesn’t mean the wind doesn’t exist. Rising salaries can cause inflation all on their own. Even in an economy with a fixed money supply. (So can printing money, but nobody was debating that.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | niels8472 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Tfa mentions immigrant deportation as a reason exactly zero times. |
|
| ▲ | 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [deleted] |
|
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > hard for me to imagine how deporting a million illegal immigrants working under the table, or stealing a social security number, would hurt the minimum wage workers Immigration is a distraction. Trump is deporting fewer folks than Obama did [1], he’s just doing it while pumping tens of billions to his buddies via ICE contracts. Tariffs are a regressive tax. If food and metal is more expensive, service and manufacturing workers will be pinches. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-deportations-trump-six-mont... |
| |
| ▲ | monero-xmr 3 days ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > love the argument that deporting illegals is meaningless Red herring. Nobody said this. My point is Trump isn’t deporting that many people. His numbers are not economically meaningful compared to tariffs. To the extent there are labour pools that would benefit from deportation, they’re geographically concentrated along the border. If Trump wanted to remove illegals from the American labour pool, he’d target employers. He can’t [1]. [1] https://www.npr.org/2025/06/16/nx-s1-5430846/farming-industr... | | |
| ▲ | orionsbelt 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | The administration seems to be deliberately making the deportations as cruel and scary as possible (CECOT, Alligator Alcatraz, etc) as a means of deterring future illegal immigration and encouraging self deportation. I haven’t looked into the numbers to see how well that’s working or not, but focusing on deportations alone is missing two thirds of the picture. I’m not sure if this is accurate, but for example: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/31/migrant-crossings-darien... | | |
| ▲ | toast0 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | I expect the numbers will go the way they want. Perhaps because of the cruelty. Perhaps because tariff games make the economy uncertain. Having a recession is a proven way to reduce illegal immigration, and we're at least starting to see recessionary signals. | |
| ▲ | Hikikomori 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you come here we'll torture you, how very American. |
| |
| ▲ | monero-xmr 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It sounds like you support deporting illegals, as long as we also eliminate tariffs (?) | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 3 days ago | parent [-] | | > sounds like you support deporting illegals, as long as we also eliminate tariffs I’m saying irrespective of what you and I believe, the current administration isn’t meaningfully deporting anyone. (To the extent I have policy views on this, it’s for coherence. You can’t do disruptive deportations while ignoring criminals all while launching on again off again tariffs which preclude both long-term domestic investment and trade-barrier reductions.) | | |
| ▲ | watwut 3 days ago | parent [-] | | They are however meaningfully creating fear. The public cruelty and lawlessness will reduce immigration. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | anigbrowl 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Ah yes, blame a different group of poorly-paid workers - that always works so well! |
| |
| ▲ | reliabilityguy 3 days ago | parent [-] | | No one blames anyone. The more low skilled workers you have, the lower wage they get. the only group that benefits from illegal immigrants is the employers: they can get away with paying less. (Consumers benefit too, ofc). |
|