If the US were to engage in long-term thinking, we might come to dangerous conclusions like, "Having a permanent racial underclass of perpetually-exploited and dissatisfied residents is a bad thing, and maybe we should train/pay the ones that are already here, inculcating them the righteousness of the American project, rather than constantly importing workers because their lack of direct experience with our country's institutions as they currently exist makes them easier marks." It would devastate the poverty-retail-financial-service complex.

The funniest part is our current admin's inadvertent exposure of this situation. Tinfoil hats on, but I hear tell of difficulties in the subprime auto-lending space because so many of immigrants who were targeted for those loans either stopped making payments because they're too afraid to go to work, or else self-deported with their cars. Lender bankruptcies are in-process, which is probably not good for all of the derivatives that are about to go to zero in sympathy. So much for consumer strength, and completely avoidable if not for our insistence on squeezing our least for every last cent.

I thought we were talking about rare earths?