“Americans won’t do those jobs” is the worst argument for mass immigration ever

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let’s be real, cheap labor has always played a big role in how countries industrialize. Capitalism kind of runs on it. All the major economies we know today got to where they are by relying on low-cost labor, and honestly, they still do.

If you want to survive in a competitive capitalist system, you need access to cheap labor. If it’s not available at home, businesses usually turn to outsourcing and find it elsewhere.

That’s just how the global economy works. It’s not exactly fair, and yeah, it can be pretty messed up. But it’s the reality we live in.
Capitalism tends to go hand-in-hand with inequality and some level of labor exploitation. It’s not ideal, but it’s part of the system.

So, you're saying if we implement tariffs, globalist capitalism will go away and take their money with them, and we'll be left with a fairer more equitable economic system?

Long live Trump and his tariffs! Lets' do it!

Look, when globalist capitalism pulls out and takes the money with it, our economy is going to take a serious hit. We’ll end up poorer. Our standard of living will drop. Maybe the system will be more equitable, but being equitable is not the same as being prosperous.

Fairer and more equitable systems like Socialism struggle to create real wealth or long-term prosperity. History has shown.

Capitalism isn’t perfect, it’s got plenty of issues. But at the end of the day, it’s still the best system for driving progress and lifting people up economically. You can’t win in capitalism without exploitable cheap labor.

By your own metrics some large number of people shouldn't see capitalism as beneficial. Let's be real here. I personally try to remove Google, Apple, Facebook, Netflix and Tesla from the companies I use. They could all ride off into the sunset for all I care.

You got it wrong. it's the opposite. People should see capitalism as beneficial. It has its flaws but it's the best.
Capitalism would fail without the big corporations.
You are trying to ditch big tech companies? You sound ridiculous because you are here enjoying an internet forum that wouldn't exist without those tech companies that you despise so much. If you are serious about what you just said, you should cut off your internet connection and go back to the dark age.

I had internet net before those companies; it was better then.

Haha. No, it wasn't. I have a love/hate relationship with the internet, but it was not better before Google, Netflix, Apple.

You sound like my old FIL who lamented how computers were taking over typewriters.

- 54 yr old in tech.

Ironic that you say it wasn't better while spending time on an archaic platform life this discussion forum...which were much more common 20-30 years ago than now. Netfix is crap. Apple hasn't created a decent new tech product in over a decade now.

Good point. I wish I thought of that when quipped back. Ironic none of the media outlets have comments on their news sections enabled anymore. They especially don't allow dissent on their "pro-immigration" propaganda, of which they have all labeled as hate speech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:California and the rest of the west coast have relied on Mexican labor for their crops since before they were part of the US. Just because the names of the countries changed doesn't make the traditional nature of this migratory farm worker population change. Pretending this is new or more predatory now or whatever is just rewriting history.

What is new is California's virtue signaling, like what they are doing is somehow more "humane". When in fact they are taking advantage of illegal immigration at an industrialized scale that we have never seen before.

I bet you complained about high grocery prices.

Not really, I buy in bulk and have a quarter cow and half a hog in the freezer. I pick my own berries, peaches, apples in the summer and freeze them, check out Larriland.

[Anonymous]

US 4th year CS students outperform peers in China, Russia and India by 0.75 SD. Even non-elite US students beat “elite” CN IN RU students.

Yet SV CEOs trash our own and lie about the system not producing talent to justify importing foreign workers and tampering with American wages.

And democrats suck up to SV ceos. Thank you Pelosi

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1814646116

[Anonymous]

You don’t understand systemic issues and it shows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:US 4th year CS students outperform peers in China, Russia and India by 0.75 SD. Even non-elite US students beat “elite” CN IN RU students.

Yet SV CEOs trash our own and lie about the system not producing talent to justify importing foreign workers and tampering with American wages.

And democrats suck up to SV ceos. Thank you Pelosi

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1814646116

Thanks for the article. I'm glad it's been published. In the field we've oft suspected. IIT isn't that good. In fact, many of the colleges don't even have computers for their "software engineering" students.

Not to mention the fact that there is clear double standard on proficiency in language.

[Anonymous]

We're all going to be doing these manual labor jobs soon if we keep allowing US companies to outsource and bring in H1B workers. And allow unrestricted AI.

The last company I worked for outsourced it's entire Finance department except for the CFO and Controller who remained state side.

The company I currently work for fired the entire Marketing Dept. except for 2 senior members and the company now uses AI for all the marketing tasks. The two senior workers are proofers and add humanizing touches. Our Technical Writing team? Pretty much gone. It's being done by AI and proofed by a few humans. Our HR department was outsourced to a 3rd party last year. The HR Director left and her tasks were absorbed by the senior Operations person.

The company my brother works for let go of their US-based s/w developers in January in favor of cheaper H1B coders and some outsourced developers in the Ukraine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're all going to be doing these manual labor jobs soon if we keep allowing US companies to outsource and bring in H1B workers. And allow unrestricted AI.

The last company I worked for outsourced it's entire Finance department except for the CFO and Controller who remained state side.

The company I currently work for fired the entire Marketing Dept. except for 2 senior members and the company now uses AI for all the marketing tasks. The two senior workers are proofers and add humanizing touches. Our Technical Writing team? Pretty much gone. It's being done by AI and proofed by a few humans. Our HR department was outsourced to a 3rd party last year. The HR Director left and her tasks were absorbed by the senior Operations person.

The company my brother works for let go of their US-based s/w developers in January in favor of cheaper H1B coders and some outsourced developers in the Ukraine.

Hey, I think I saw those people yesterday, they had a bunch of political signs standing at an intersection. They had called an ambulance because one of them looked like they had had a heat stroke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Meatpacking

Meatpacking used to be a stable, middle-class union job, with multiple generations of families working at the same plant. In 1960, the industry was 95% unionized, paying wages that were comparable to those in the auto and steel industries. Meatpacking was skilled labor. A meatpacker was trained like an old-fashioned butcher to take an animal from slaughter to final cuts.

In the 1960s, a company called IBP (Iowa Beef Packers) figured out that you didn't need skilled labor if you didn't care about your workers. Instead of workers doing a variety of jobs, IBP had workers do one cut all day long, maybe separate the hind quarter from the carcass, or slice a single cut of steak.

Meatpacking wages across the industry stayed high through the early 1980s, but then started to fall, as more companies adopted the IBP method. After all, anyone could be trained to do a single cut. By the mid-80s, wages had plunged and unions were disappearing. It was a race to the bottom and meatpacking was quickly becoming the worst job in America.

One reason it was now so awful, was that the IBP method resulted in a huge rise in repetitive stress injuries and debilitating knife cuts caused by inattention and fatigue. Doing one cut all day long on a speeding factory line was good for corporate profits but disastrously bad for actual humans.

Today, Places like Tyson Chicken and Smithfield Ham need an endless supply of 3rd world immigrants to keep wages low and unions busted, but also because it's a job that destroys the human body and spirit. Even if you're not injured, the work is so grueling that most immigrants can only do it for a couple of years before they move on. That's why you'll see that the ethnic composition of rural meatpacking towns goes through successive waves of foreigners-- Mexicans, Somalis, Sudanese, Guatemalans, Haitians-- as each group gets brought in and burned out, while management goes looking for another group of suckers.

Shutting down the immigration pipeline and deporting the illegals will go a long way to restoring the balance between workers and corporations. Likewise, we need to go back to a system with lots of small-scale regional meat processors staffed by skilled workers, something that will require breaking up these abusive corporations and overhauling the USDA inspection program.

Yes, prices of meat will certainly rise, but you already shouldn't be eating factory-farmed meat and you shouldn't be patronizing corporations that are actively wrecking America.

This is exactly the sunshine and rainbows BS the GOP wants you to believe is their plan and intention. "Get rid of all the illegal immigrants and all of a sudden corporations will stop being greedy and raise wages and improve conditions!" The reality is that it is utter nonsense.
...
...

You are 100% right.
Corporations didn't start being greedy today with the influx of immigrants. Getting rid of illegal immigrants doesn't mean that businesses will suddenly stop trying to seek cheap labor and exploit workers.
Businesses exist to make and maximize profit for its shareholder. When you are competing globally, you can't win unless you have access to cheap labor.
If labor cost rises, businesses will shut down or delocalize to places where they can have access to cheaper labor.
If you try to fight it by introducing tariffs, you are only going to weaken the economy.

If people don't want illegal immigrants because they don't like them, that's fine. But the notion that getting rid of illegal immigrants will improve the economy and make American workers better is a fallacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're all going to be doing these manual labor jobs soon if we keep allowing US companies to outsource and bring in H1B workers. And allow unrestricted AI.

The last company I worked for outsourced it's entire Finance department except for the CFO and Controller who remained state side.

The company I currently work for fired the entire Marketing Dept. except for 2 senior members and the company now uses AI for all the marketing tasks. The two senior workers are proofers and add humanizing touches. Our Technical Writing team? Pretty much gone. It's being done by AI and proofed by a few humans. Our HR department was outsourced to a 3rd party last year. The HR Director left and her tasks were absorbed by the senior Operations person.

The company my brother works for let go of their US-based s/w developers in January in favor of cheaper H1B coders and some outsourced developers in the Ukraine.

No, these manual labor jobs will be replaced by AI humanoid robots.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:California and the rest of the west coast have relied on Mexican labor for their crops since before they were part of the US. Just because the names of the countries changed doesn't make the traditional nature of this migratory farm worker population change. Pretending this is new or more predatory now or whatever is just rewriting history.

What is new is California's virtue signaling, like what they are doing is somehow more "humane". When in fact they are taking advantage of illegal immigration at an industrialized scale that we have never seen before.

I bet you complained about high grocery prices.

Not really, I buy in bulk and have a quarter cow and half a hog in the freezer. I pick my own berries, peaches, apples in the summer and freeze them, check out Larriland.

Hysterical. Next you will tell us that you have a chicken coop, and milk a cow for fresh milk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:California and the rest of the west coast have relied on Mexican labor for their crops since before they were part of the US. Just because the names of the countries changed doesn't make the traditional nature of this migratory farm worker population change. Pretending this is new or more predatory now or whatever is just rewriting history.

What is new is California's virtue signaling, like what they are doing is somehow more "humane". When in fact they are taking advantage of illegal immigration at an industrialized scale that we have never seen before.

I bet you complained about high grocery prices.

Not really, I buy in bulk and have a quarter cow and half a hog in the freezer. I pick my own berries, peaches, apples in the summer and freeze them, check out Larriland.

Hey, these farmers could use your help picking their fruit.

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/13/nx-s1-5431612/trump-ice-farm-raids-united-farm-workers-union

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:California and the rest of the west coast have relied on Mexican labor for their crops since before they were part of the US. Just because the names of the countries changed doesn't make the traditional nature of this migratory farm worker population change. Pretending this is new or more predatory now or whatever is just rewriting history.

What is new is California's virtue signaling, like what they are doing is somehow more "humane". When in fact they are taking advantage of illegal immigration at an industrialized scale that we have never seen before.

I bet you complained about high grocery prices.

Not really, I buy in bulk and have a quarter cow and half a hog in the freezer. I pick my own berries, peaches, apples in the summer and freeze them, check out Larriland.

Hey, these farmers could use your help picking their fruit.

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/13/nx-s1-5431612/trump-ice-farm-raids-united-farm-workers-union

I think that's where you miss the point of the statement. We need a Pick Your Strawberry (PYS) party, so we can tell people like you to go P. Y. S.

[Anonymous]

It's a cultural truth that Americans feel superior in ways that they shouldn't. They simply won't be picking fruit in 100 degree heat if they can collect unemployment. As poor as a poor American us you need to see what poor us like in India and around the world. Mississippi poor or whatever southern state poor is still not that poor.

Working in a steel mill or coal mining is not the same as washing dishes and farming in the heat. It's just culturally different I can't explain it. As an immigrant however, it's something I feel. Not sure that the question of labor by illegal immigrants is about the ability to substitute them out by mass American labor force when you understand this truth. Not suggesting poor won't work but that the kind of work they may accept simply is if a certain kind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you think wages is the end all to this decision. As someone who HAS cleaned hotel rooms and who HAS picked crops (briefly b/c it sucks), I'd never do these jobs again. Never.

I grew up pretty poor in a rural area where kids worked young and worked ALOT. So I've done jobs most people on here have not and would not. Those jobs are back breaking, disgusting jobs.

And here you are, missing the whole boat again.
Maybe you are in a position where you have enough financial security and other skills where can say you will NEVER do that job. Fine. But we can’t all be white collar workers, and our white collar job salaries only go as far as they do because other people are doing the nasty dirty work you do not want to do.

The fact is, if someone is hungry enough and able, they will do a job. We have tons of people who are both on welfare and overweight, while brown people are working and harvesting the crops. I mean, WTF?? And we have UMC DCUM people who have never done manual labor in their lives, because the brown people are doing it. Why is this good?

A lot of you really lack imagination and literally can’t imagine where labor and resources are distributed more equitably. I guess Larlo is just too special to work in a tire shop.

Except we know this is not true. There already people hungry and poor who won't do it. Or cannot due to childcare (which is unaffordable) or disabilities or whatever. I get the boat. I LIVED "the boat" and have had both sets of jobs in my life. And I can tell you there are a whole host of people in my rust belt town who are white and poor and still won't do those jobs.

If you want people to do those jobs- white or brown- there should be increased safety and health standards for them and they should be paid more. THAT'S how you get people to do it. Not "the brown people are not here to do it anymore so you have to do it now b/c I think you should."

And as for our kids being "too special" for work in a tire shop or other service industry, what does your kid do? And further, having worked in many, MANY service and blue collar jobs, yeah, no, I don't want my kid there. Not bc it's beneath me or DC. But because they are, generally speaking, rough careers, not paid well, and not always safe (esp. for women). I could tell you stories of how men treated me in those jobs that would make you blush.

Exactly. NP here. The fact that most Americans no matter how much they want a job won't take soul crushing jobs has to do with them never truly experiencing the kind of desperation and hunger that many who have experienced complete hopelessness have - you can only know this if you are either really well travelled (in which case you likely wouldn't be in the position to accept work that's this low) or lived in the US without means. If the latter, you've never been that desperate compared to a poor person from a much more poorer country than the US.