> It’s economic suicide for any other small-to-medium sized nation dependent on foreign labor.

This such a baffling statement, honestly: that the flourishing economy crucially depends on foreign labour. What happened with the role of the technological know-how, and vast material (and financial) capital? The institutions? All of that is still not enough for prosperity unless you can hire a paperless José for $7.40 per hour, with an implied threat of handing him off to ICE if he raises any stink?

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cm11 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm having a hard time following the thinking in many of these threads so I'm not sure if you're questioning it genuinely (or hypothetically or sarcastically), but I think essentially yes sadly.

Wealthier areas wonder why it costs so much for house renovations or for daycare or`for farmer's market produce. Or similarly folks move to less wealthy countries as "expats" and hire help, babysitters, tutors. Sense of prosperity seems tied to those things feeling inexpensive and them feeling cheap requires income inequality. There's I think a large amount of feeling poor (or average) when those things are eating your budget. Even though you have them. For example, you pay for expensive childcare so both parents can work, it takes a big bite out of your budget, and so you don't feel wealthy (but you're paying for childcare and your family has an employee). Similarly, you're paying for expensive private school, it eats your budget, you don't feel wealthy (but your child is going to private school).

For those doing well, the surplus goes to what's left—house, education, healthcare (I recall there being a fourth, but I'm blanking). Those things are expensive because they should be, you're wealthy. You're competing with the other wealthy people. I'm stealing this from somewhere, but they're essentially luxury goods—the more money you have, the more (and better quality) you consume. They don't decrease as percent of income as food does.

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dlisboa 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Most developed countries are quickly losing population. The ones that have a slight deviation from that trend is due to immigration.

Foreign labor is what will keep most of these countries afloat for the following 50 years.

Japan is a good example, they lose about 1 million every year.

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retinaros 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Most of developed economies dont need blue collar foreign labor in the future. Some dont even need it now. There are no industries in uk or france and this labor role is mostly to suppress wages (we ve seen it with brexit and english truck drivers) . For industrial nations like germany before they shot themselves you do need this labor until robots and automation makes them obsolete. Way before 50years and then being a nation with low immigration is becoming a key advantage for a country cohesion and future. Finally every country at 25% youth unemployment (like france and spain) shoould block all immigration beside highly skilled immigrants

	▲	dlisboa 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Robots and automation won’t replace health care workers. Aging countries will need more of those. And the unemployed youth would be working those low skilled jobs today if they wanted to, fact is they don’t pay enough for them and if those jobs are automated away they will still be unemployed. It obviously suppress wages, which is a necessary condition for capitalism. Any country where it costs 10x to build infrastructure because there is no cheap labor will be less competitive.

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carlosjobim 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

When a person migrates, I would believe that the origin country has one less population. So why is it good that this person props up population in the destination country instead of in the origin country?

And why does the destination country need that persons labour and expertise, but not the origin country?

If the native population is becoming exterminated with or without migration, what exactly is the "country" that needs to be kept "afloat"? Your stock portfolio? Your treasury bills? Your real estate investment?

	▲	dlisboa 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s definitely a possibility that a country dwindles away and is happy to do so in order to avoid immigration. We’ll probably see that with Japan and South Korea by the end of this century. Ultimately it’s their choice. Whether a country with high population composed of immigration is still the same country we can look to the Americas. Countries with extreme high degree of immigration and assimilation, yet still very much worthwhile countries. Maybe not the countries the natives from 500 years ago would have imagined, but their culture has survived more than 100 years and contribute significantly to the world still. New Zealand is also a good example of native culture not being wiped out even with assimilation.