Thread for people to explain how immigrants take jobs

[C0ckney]

Yes, at the expense of everybody else. Especially noting that the people in all of those professions generally fall into the "better off than average" bucket.

Unonization and rent-seeking certification are negative sum games. They can only make insiders better off by making outsiders worse off. There is no free lunch here; there is only deadweight loss.

and yet if you asked people how much they think nurses, teachers and police officers should be paid, most would answer 'more than they are now'.

i know we've discussed this before but it bears repeating. unions are important when it comes to redistributing wealth downwards, not so much in the redistribution of wealth to their members, but in creating the political environment which allows redistribution to take place.

[Guynemer]

If you're not voting to relax the certification requirements applied by your local college of physicians you're part of the problem.

What in god's name makes you think I have any influence on that whatsoever?

[Dinner]

Also I was only speaking in this thread in the context of importing labor.
Also, what is rent seeking?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

[Kidlicious]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

So Goldman Sachs is a rent seeker.

[Aeson]

No, you useless idiot. Are you? If he is making a sacrifice by becoming a cop then it is because he's deliberately taken a job where he is compensated less than he would be in some other profession, including the danger premium and whatever other job-specific considerations there are. By complaining that he isn't paid enough HE IS COMPLAINING ABOUT THE VERY SACRIFICE YOU'RE CLAIMING HE'S MADE DELIBERATELY.

Learn to ****ing reason.

You're a moron. You got lost in the conversation and don't even know what you're talking about

You stated you value your life more because you wouldn't accept the increased pay he does for the increased risk. For your reasoning to hold true you have to assume that the only variable involved is how much you value your life. That clearly isn't the case though, as there are many other variables involved in whether to take a job or not. I pointed out one of the possibilities, the desire to serve. I did not attribute it to anyone in specific, though I did point out you were not allowing for it.

You were claiming you can determine the price a person places on their life solely by the wage they accept. This is clearly not the case. A person who values their life by X, but also wants to serve people to the same extent would ask no different than a person who values their life by 2X and wants to serve people twice as badly as the first person.

[Kidlicious]

Well, I haven't moved to create certification requirements for my profession, and would agitate against them. So yes.

Do you really expect people to believe that you would vote to reduce your own pay?

[Dinner]

Anything priceless is worthless.

You're ignoring a lot of externalities which aren't reflected in market prices but which do indeed end up costing a whole lot of people a whole lot of money in the end. For example pollution and the health costs people incure when they get sick because of it. Much of the environmental movement has been an attempt to either limit the externality costs bad actors attempt to dump onto everyone else or at least to figure out ways to force those externality costs to reflect in the final price of items. Yet in most places there still isn't a market mechanism for pricing them but it's hard to see how millions of people dying premature in China due to pollution is "worthless" or not having an economic impact on someone.

[KrazyHorse]

and yet if you asked people how much they think nurses, teachers and police officers should be paid, most would answer 'more than they are now'.

Now write a 250 word essay on precisely why paying people based on how much a poll of the general public suggests would be idiotic.

i know we've discussed this before but it bears repeating. unions are important when it comes to redistributing wealth downwards, not so much in the redistribution of wealth to their members, but in creating the political environment which allows redistribution to take place.

So in order to redistribute wealth downward we must first redistribute it upward? Great argument.

[Aeson]

Not to mention that your math in regards to how to figure how a person values their life was way, way, way off even if we assume it's the only variable.

[KrazyHorse]

What in god's name makes you think I have any influence on that whatsoever?

Who does, then?

[giblets]

I wonder how many people would agree to be killed right now for 8 million dollars if they could leave a will that says how to spend it.

[KrazyHorse]

Not to mention that your math in regards to how to figure how a person values their life was way, way, way off

Do tell.

[Dinner]

If you're not voting to relax the certification requirements applied by your local college of physicians you're part of the problem.

Yeah, that's what we need! Homeopathic idiots legally calling themselves doctors instead of a system where, you know, doctors are actually well trained and know what they're doing.

[KrazyHorse]

I wonder how many people would agree to be killed right now for 8 million dollars if they could leave a will that says how to spend it.

At no point have I claimed that the relevant utilities are linear that far. When you're talking about sums of a few hundred/thousand dollars however, they are.

[Pax]

Briefly reading it would make me a rent seeker if i was in a union. I'm not. Georgia is a so-called right to work state. I've already stated this several times.
So calling me the curse word "rent seeker" is also in error. In addition to making a false assumption(ass out of yourself)
Stating that I am whining when I'm not is also in error.
Could you possibly admit you are wrong. Could you possibly....apologize..