The new world countries, (Canada, US, Australia, New Zealand) were all wealthier on average than those countries in Europe because they had abundant natural resources but a small population. Thus wages were quite high because labor was in high demand. Now, with massive immigration and dwindling natural resources, the ratio of natural resources to people is leveling off and even declining in the US which is why we have had stagnant wages for 50 years. Wages will continue to decline until US wages reach their European counterparts. Most jobs in the US still pay more than in Europe.

When the US ran out of arable land around 1875, the poor began to pile up in the inner cities and massive economic inequality emerged. It wasn't long after the US ran out of land, that unions started to form and began agitating for free handouts.

This is the worst take in human history. Seriously. You're denying our capability to innovate. Abundant natural resources can have an adverse effect on a nation's wealth (see Africa, South America, and Singapore). Small population is also not an advantage (see US immigration and growth in the late 1800s and China's growth today). If you believe this outdated nonsense that the world economy is a zero-sum game, let me introduce you to the Industrial Revolution. People are now capital, and contribute to economic production. Measuring wages has little value, because it's obvious that things get cheaper over-time (relative to inflation) due to innovation. However, your "stagnant wages for 50 years" is also non-sense because it compares one point to another without looking at anything in between. Here are the average weekly earnings of *workers*:

https://imgur.com/a/cVjVURC

For whatever reason, it's in 1984 dollars, but the point still goes: wages are rising (until coronavirus). Why did they fall from 1972 levels?

1. They fell in 1973 due to the oil embargo and following recession.
2. Automation of manufacturing jobs (supervisory jobs don't count on this graph).
3. See that little drop in 2008? That was the great financial collapse. Apparently we've stabilized somewhat.
4. Increased environmental regulation that took jobs of coal/steel workers.
5. A wage is not as important as it used to be. There are many ways to make money online or though other means now.

The point is, wages are up 20% from 1996 levels, so stop repeating the Sanders campaign nonsense :)

Edited 5/4/2020 14:16:58

Amash has no realistic path to win. Love the guy, but a vote for him is only a protest vote. IMO. A vote for Amash helps Trump.

Why does it help Trump? What if I told you I'm more likely to vote for Trump than Biden (even if that's not necessarily true)? Does that make it a helpful vote for Biden? A vote for Amash helps Amash.

Edited 5/4/2020 14:20:59

"The point is, wages are up 20% from 1996 levels, so stop repeating the Sanders campaign nonsense :)"

you dont factor in the cost of living rising way faster than wages bro

and the fact is 1996 dolars is worth more than 2020 dollars

Edited 5/4/2020 14:58:41

you dont factor in the cost of living rising way faster than wages bro

I said: "Measuring wages has little value, because it's obvious that things get cheaper over-time (relative to inflation) due to innovation".

Of course, things like housing costs increase faster than wages. But you'll find government as a barrier to this. Go to New York City or San Francisco, where you will see rent ceilings as a barrier to people building and buying new homes. This lowers the supply of homes in those areas, and then hopefully you get what happens next...

Another example of government raising prices is the other type of price control: a price floor. Pennsylvania has a price floor on milk to protect big dairy farms. https://ballotpedia.org/Milk_prices_by_state,_2018

Pennsylvania could be where Illinois is in terms of milk prices, but Harrisburg decided to quadruple it :)

dude i live in turkey how am i suppose go to american cities to buy houses to a place thats IN MY OPINION is worse than turkey

and innovation usually had a you know a lot of lay offs because now it was cheaper and easier to do more and need less to workers operate said equipment

but requires more skill argument fails when there is 80,000 workers and there are more people qualified to do than the job demanded which is 20,000 workers

Housing is way too overpriced and wages will never catch up to it unless the bubble bursts. Western countries need to stop bringing in so many immigrants. Not a racist argument, just to reduce housing costs and increase wages (especially for low skill work). People are moving out of Toronto because it's so expensive (Toronto gets the most amount of immigrants in Canada), and now the cost of housing in my city has gone up by a lot.

On top of that is government getting in the way like you mentioned. In Ontario, it takes roughly 2 years to approve a building's construction.

I'm never going to vote for Amash just because of this thread. Thanks to this thread, I will never cast a vote for Amash, whereas before I may have considered it.

Housing is way too overpriced and wages will never catch up to it unless the bubble bursts. Western countries need to stop bringing in so many immigrants. Not a racist argument, just to reduce housing costs and increase wages (especially for low skill work). People are moving out of Toronto because it's so expensive (Toronto gets the most amount of immigrants in Canada), and now the cost of housing in my city has gone up by a lot.

On top of that is government getting in the way like you mentioned. In Ontario, it takes roughly 2 years to approve a building's construction.

Yeah I understand where anti-immigration sentiment comes from, I just think it is a misunderstanding, most of which I explained in response to RNK's post on the last page.

The main argument against immigration is a supply and demand argument. Supply of workers increases, so wages decrease. Demand for housing, food, etc increases, so prices increase. However, it neglects two things:

1. Immigrants do jobs most natives have no interest in. Just 27% of crop farm-workers in the US were born in the US (source: USDA). A lot of low-skill service jobs are held by immigrants, and these jobs would simply just disappear in large numbers if we expelled all (even illegal) immigrants.

2. Immigrants are better entrepreneurs than natives. 43% of Fortune 500 companies were created by immigrants or their children, while 25.7% of Americans are immigrants or children of immigrants (Pew Research).

I believe that pretty much anyone who wants to come to America to work or even become a citizen should be able to. Remember that anything you read in the media about stagnant wages, crimes by immigrants, or job stealing is all clickbait. Don't fall for it!

I'm never going to vote for Amash just because of this thread. Thanks to this thread, I will never cast a vote for Amash, whereas before I may have considered it.

Maybe vote for someone who is tough on Israel, since you're so concerned about the Israel lobby. Here's some who would be:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B._Spencer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_de_Blasio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lindbergh
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest

Edited 5/5/2020 03:03:17

I'm not opposed to immigration, my parents are immigrants... I'm opposed to mass immigration, which is what we have right now. 27% of Canada's immigrants are economic, the rest being reunification of families and refugees. If that number was closer to something like 80%, that would be fine. With the whole corona thing going on, we really shouldn't be taking in so many immigrants because a lot of people lost their jobs.

I'm never going to vote for Amash just because of this thread. Thanks to this thread, I will never cast a vote for Amash, whereas before I may have considered it.
Ah yes, warzone threads are the best places to decide on who to vote for.

Didn't read any of the comments, but I'm sorry, I don't buy the 'they're equally as bad' nonsense. Trump and Biden have hugely different policy positions, living in Penn and voting independent really is a huge waste of a vote and chance to actually make a meaningful impact.

Personally I think Trump has done a pretty decent job.

"Personally I think Trump has done a pretty decent job."

WHAT Dude You See Right Now How incompetent Trump is and as an example you say what is happening in the states right now is a "decent job" USA Has More Deaths than anywhere else in the world and you lost more people than you did at vietnam

No Trump Didnt do a "pretty decent job." he failed his people at the smallest way i can put it

Didn't read any of the comments, but I'm sorry, I don't buy the 'they're equally as bad' nonsense. Trump and Biden have hugely different policy positions, living in Penn and voting independent really is a huge waste of a vote and chance to actually make a meaningful impact.

Personally I think Trump has done a pretty decent job.

Republicans and Democrats are:
- Pro-war
- Anti-immigration (Google Deporter In Chief)
- Pro-crony bailouts
- Pro-surveillance state
- Pro-drug war
- Pro big federal government

On culture war issues that don't have a **huge** impact like abortion, minimum wage and trans-rights they will butt heads. But when COVID-19 came, they came together to pass $3T full of pork, bailouts, and very little to people who need it.

Edited 5/6/2020 13:00:45

On culture war issues that don't have a **huge** impact like abortion...

If the republican party cared about abortion, they'd make it illegal in 2016 when they controlled the house, senate, and presidency. It's just a talking point for them to get social conservative votes.

If the republican party cared about abortion, they'd make it illegal in 2016 when they controlled the house, senate, and presidency. It's just a talking point for them to get social conservative votes.

Yeah obviously. I am pro-choice, but even I can see that the Federal Government should not be funding Planned Parenthood.

What Is Planned Parenthood? I Dont Know What Is It

Restricting abortion would not mske sense from a Republican point of view cobsidering the demographic of people that abortion tends to eliminate, and I support that.

The immigration laws of this country since 1960 are already pro-immigration, so it doesn't matter if you enforce them or not because the flow of immigrants into this country will continue at an unprecedented level.

I Mean USA Claims They Are "THE LAND OF THE FREE" if they are anti-immigrants They Cant Claim That

Restricting abortion would not mske sense from a Republican point of view cobsidering the demographic of people that abortion tends to eliminate, and I support that.

Big shock, guy who thinks the Israel lobby elects all presidents wants to eliminate minorities through abortion.

It's interesting though, I did a study looking at all abortions in the US since Roe v Wade (62 million), and if none of those abortions occurred, Hillary Clinton would be our president (assuming everything else goes the same until 2016 election, the demographic change would be enough).

Israel is, in many ways, the political and social model we should strive for. Nobody said anything of course, when they sterilized immigrants as a condition of their immigrating to that country.