| ▲ | charliea0 4 days ago | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I hire a programmer to code my app, SuperConnect++. I charge $0.99 to download the app. People buy the app if it's worth more than $0.99 to them. If 150,000 people buy the app, then I have ~$150,000 of revenue. I can pay a programmer $100,000 a year and have $50,000 left over. 150,000 people benefited from the app. Now say I have to pay an additional $100,000 visa fee for my programmer. My cost of $200,000 is less than my revenue of $150,000. I don't build the app. I don't get $50,000. 150,000 people who would have bought the app don't benefit from it. The biggest loss is to the Americans who don't get to buy the app. There are other possibilities, maybe I increase the price to $1.99 or I hire an American. We can see that those are both bad. The former extracts $150,000 extra dollars from American consumers. Since unemployment is low for Americans and an American programmer can't have two jobs at once, the later just means that some other project that the American programmer would have worked on is not completed. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | toomuchtodo 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Unemployment for tech workers is not currently low, and it is taking months, or even years to find a new role, therefore this argument doesn’t hold water. Wages > consumer excess and profits. The world will go on if you don’t build the app, and perhaps someone else will. The evidence is clear this visa is abused at scale, and this action has been overdue. https://www.epi.org/blog/tech-and-outsourcing-companies-cont... https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | charliea0 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
To make this concrete, suppose that Elon Musk never immigrated to the US. SpaceX and Tesla are never founded, or are founded in some other country. The American electric car market is never kickstarted, none of the American employees of SpaceX or Tesla are hired, there is no space renaissance. Keeping out Elon Musk is somewhat good for United Launch Alliance and for Ford, but it's worse for all the Americans who have to buy worse cars and pay more for satellite internet. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | ipaddr 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Those 150,000 spend a dollar on a different app. You are taking 150,000 away from another business. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||