High rents will continue, and probabaly increase for a while. Workers in North American don't know how good they have it. No where else on the planet practically do average workers get to live with 3 or 4 people in a 2500 square foot house, with each kid having their own bedroom, etc.
In most of the planet, average working people: nurses, cops, pharmacists, small business owners, teachers, etc, live in concrete cinder-block apartment buildings with plastic furniture, and a Moped if they're lucky.
Working-class people: factory workers, office support staff, etc, live in the slums, or 20 people to a 1-bedroom apartment.
I attended an Economic Development meeting last week, and the former president of one of our local banks was on the presentation panel, and he was talking about how all the new immigrants are making them (the banking industry) change their loan requirements, because immigrant home-buyers often have many people on the mortgage, and don't have the ability to prove where their cash came from.
My sister is a letter carrier, and she said it is real common to see 6 or 8 working-age people in a house, with a bunch of kids, and a granma that doesn't speak English taking care of them.
An article in the Wall Street Journal about six months ago talked about how difficult it would be in a Washington DC suburb being profiled, to kick out all the people who were living with more people in the unit that the zoning laws allowed - what a massive increase in homelessness that would create.
Mom and Dad may have trouble making a $3000 a month mortgage payment, but if you've got 8 people (NOT an exageration!) working, it's doable, and it's happening all over the country.
We are on the cusp of open borders, the rush is about to take place, and I predict the situation will get like it is in Europe or Asia, where the only way a working class person can own their own apartment (forget actually owning the land!) will be if they inherit it.
Things have been out of balance in this country for several decades, and they are about to swing back.
They don't need to push it through, it's already through. I was reading an article in my local paper, interviewing a hospital administrator who had just come back from the Philippines with 80 nurses.
US nurses have been complaining for a decade or more about low wages, understaffing, and poor working conditions. I guess the answer is to bring in $300 / month workers from some Third World country. Just hope you aren't ever in the hospital, and have to talk to your nurse to tell her about a medical emergency.
The talk around the trade agreements is called "harmonization", and it means that if a person is licensed anywhere in the world, that license will be good everywhere in the world.
If you go to www.zazona.com, where he's got a database of h1-b jobs, many many many of them are medical and/or nursing.
The point is that a four-year degree that costs $4k is practically free. You can pay that off in your first year with the H1-b job.
If you have to pay for that degree with money you earn in India, you would be on a parity with American workers.
What is unreasonable is to take the American job to pay off the Indian education.
By the way, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, etc, have not spent hundreds of millions of dollars subsidizing US workers' training, which is another reason why American workers need to receive a higher salary -they have to pay for their own unsubsidized education.
The EU has spent many years making sure there is some congruency in the economies of the various countries, and it has not been a pretty picture.
The economies between the different economies is too great to meld. The US has strong worker protection laws, strict laws against discrimination, union organizing rights, etc.
We would have to either loose those laws in the US (is that your real agenda?) or else the other countries would have to get rid of their petty dictators, death squads, and local kleptocrats, and allow a more open economy, and I don't really see that happening, either. Otherwise, it won't work.
You say that if fewer people come to the US, pay 40-50% tax, we will be worse off? How come? The job will still be there, just that it will be done by an American, who will keep the money in the community, instead of sending it overseas.
Well, it depends on whether you make your money by buying and using other people's labor, or selling your own.
It's kind of like a peaked roof, most people fall down on one side or the other.
If you support your family by going out there in the market, and selling your labor, you want to see a healthy job market, with strong demand, and good working conditions. This is generally the picture of healthy, First World economies, which have strong middle classes and standards of living.
If you primarily support your family by taking advantage of other peoples' labor, you want to see a weak work force, with poor working conditions, and a surplus of labor. This is the condition of most Third World countries, where a handful of people own everthing, there is a sub-set of minions looking out for their bosses' interests, or counting or insuring or investing their bosses' money, and the large bulk of people struggling to get by. If you are in this camp, take heart, the US of A heading your way.
The US has already lost the family-wage manufacturing sector. That resulted in homelessness like we hadn't seen since the Great Depression. The IT sector is well on it's way out the door. Soon, there will be no family-wage jobs left. That may be your idea of a healthy economy, but it sure isn't mine.
High rents will continue, and probabaly increase for a while. Workers in North American don't know how good they have it. No where else on the planet practically do average workers get to live with 3 or 4 people in a 2500 square foot house, with each kid having their own bedroom, etc.
In most of the planet, average working people: nurses, cops, pharmacists, small business owners, teachers, etc, live in concrete cinder-block apartment buildings with plastic furniture, and a Moped if they're lucky.
Working-class people: factory workers, office support staff, etc, live in the slums, or 20 people to a 1-bedroom apartment.
I attended an Economic Development meeting last week, and the former president of one of our local banks was on the presentation panel, and he was talking about how all the new immigrants are making them (the banking industry) change their loan requirements, because immigrant home-buyers often have many people on the mortgage, and don't have the ability to prove where their cash came from.
My sister is a letter carrier, and she said it is real common to see 6 or 8 working-age people in a house, with a bunch of kids, and a granma that doesn't speak English taking care of them.
An article in the Wall Street Journal about six months ago talked about how difficult it would be in a Washington DC suburb being profiled, to kick out all the people who were living with more people in the unit that the zoning laws allowed - what a massive increase in homelessness that would create.
Mom and Dad may have trouble making a $3000 a month mortgage payment, but if you've got 8 people (NOT an exageration!) working, it's doable, and it's happening all over the country.
We are on the cusp of open borders, the rush is about to take place, and I predict the situation will get like it is in Europe or Asia, where the only way a working class person can own their own apartment (forget actually owning the land!) will be if they inherit it.
Things have been out of balance in this country for several decades, and they are about to swing back.
They don't need to push it through, it's already through. I was reading an article in my local paper, interviewing a hospital administrator who had just come back from the Philippines with 80 nurses. US nurses have been complaining for a decade or more about low wages, understaffing, and poor working conditions. I guess the answer is to bring in $300 / month workers from some Third World country. Just hope you aren't ever in the hospital, and have to talk to your nurse to tell her about a medical emergency. The talk around the trade agreements is called "harmonization", and it means that if a person is licensed anywhere in the world, that license will be good everywhere in the world. If you go to www.zazona.com, where he's got a database of h1-b jobs, many many many of them are medical and/or nursing.
The point is that a four-year degree that costs $4k is practically free. You can pay that off in your first year with the H1-b job. If you have to pay for that degree with money you earn in India, you would be on a parity with American workers. What is unreasonable is to take the American job to pay off the Indian education. By the way, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, etc, have not spent hundreds of millions of dollars subsidizing US workers' training, which is another reason why American workers need to receive a higher salary -they have to pay for their own unsubsidized education.
The EU has spent many years making sure there is some congruency in the economies of the various countries, and it has not been a pretty picture. The economies between the different economies is too great to meld. The US has strong worker protection laws, strict laws against discrimination, union organizing rights, etc. We would have to either loose those laws in the US (is that your real agenda?) or else the other countries would have to get rid of their petty dictators, death squads, and local kleptocrats, and allow a more open economy, and I don't really see that happening, either. Otherwise, it won't work.
You say that if fewer people come to the US, pay 40-50% tax, we will be worse off? How come? The job will still be there, just that it will be done by an American, who will keep the money in the community, instead of sending it overseas.
Well, it depends on whether you make your money by buying and using other people's labor, or selling your own.
It's kind of like a peaked roof, most people fall down on one side or the other.
If you support your family by going out there in the market, and selling your labor, you want to see a healthy job market, with strong demand, and good working conditions. This is generally the picture of healthy, First World economies, which have strong middle classes and standards of living.
If you primarily support your family by taking advantage of other peoples' labor, you want to see a weak work force, with poor working conditions, and a surplus of labor. This is the condition of most Third World countries, where a handful of people own everthing, there is a sub-set of minions looking out for their bosses' interests, or counting or insuring or investing their bosses' money, and the large bulk of people struggling to get by. If you are in this camp, take heart, the US of A heading your way.
The US has already lost the family-wage manufacturing sector. That resulted in homelessness like we hadn't seen since the Great Depression. The IT sector is well on it's way out the door. Soon, there will be no family-wage jobs left. That may be your idea of a healthy economy, but it sure isn't mine.