More than 50 people have been killed in the US immigration truck. Who made the mistake?
This is a 10,000-word long article, and not many people will be able to finish it. After reading it to the end, you will fully understand the ins and outs, causes and consequences of the immigration issue. I will use multiple economic perspectives to analyze the real causes of the immigration tragedy.
The truck immigration tragedy has occurred again.
This time it was in the United States, and the people who died were Latin Americans. The causes of death were similar, overheating and lack of oxygen in a confined space.
The incident took place in Antonio, Texas, USA. U.S. law enforcement officials found a large number of immigrant remains in an abandoned truck, and the death toll has risen to 51. It is one of the deadliest immigrant deaths in the United States in recent years.
The previous similar incident was Vietnamese people immigrating to the UK.
In the early morning of October 23, 2019, the British police found 39 bodies in a container truck in an industrial park in Essex, southeast England. It was later confirmed that the victims were all Vietnamese citizens, and most of them were in their 20s. Between the ages of 40 and 40, 10 people are under 20 years old, and the youngest is only 15 years old.
This kind of immigration is simply an extremely dangerous journey, and tragedies often occur with dozens of deaths.
What is the truth behind the tragedy?
I have to talk about the most cold-blooded angle first.
1. The high mortality rate is the reason why they immigrated.
Yes, I am not wrong. What I said is:
It is precisely because the road to immigration is so difficult and dangerous, and even involves the risk of death, that people are flocking to smuggling immigrants. The key reason why.
Do ordinary people in poor countries have no place to work? Of course not. There are many wealthy countries in the world that welcome foreign workers.
For example, Japan has opened up a large number of work visas in the past two years, allowing foreigners to work in Japan. Another example is Dubai, which also has a large number of migrant workers, and Singapore, which also welcomes migrant workers with open arms.
But why do Vietnamese risk death in the UK? The last time a similar disaster happened to people in Fujian, China, why didn't they go to places like Singapore, Japan, and Dubai to work?
Because these places are too open, the more open they are, the less labor they have, so the price of labor is not very high.
On the contrary, the more regulated a place is and the less likely it is that foreign workers are allowed to work, the labor price in this place will be relatively high.
But any high price naturally involves high risks, because normal channels cannot enter, so people have to sneak into the country, and illegal crossing requires unconventional means, which will inevitably bring risks.
If there is no risk, hundreds of millions of people can go to the United States to work. Then these people may not go, because a large number of people rush to the United States, then they are not a scarce migrant labor force; The price just won't go up.
Therefore, from an economic point of view, this is a cold-blooded conclusion, that is, because smuggling involves life risks, it will bring higher labor prices and attract more people to participate.
If we go further to trace the cause, we can certainly conclude that it was strict border control that caused this tragedy.
Then the question arises, why do some countries welcome migrant workers, while others close their doors to resist them?
This issue is very complicated. If we talk about the United States, it can be said that both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are the initiators of this matter.
Wait, doesn’t it mean that the Democratic Party supports immigration, while conservatives oppose it?
If you listen to me, you will understand.
Let’s talk about conservatives first.
2. Conservatives have ruined the immigration tradition of the United States.
The words engraved under the Statue of Liberty in the United States are very beautiful and touching, attracting countless poor people to come to the United States.
You who are weary and needy,
You poor souls who have been pushed out from your homes,
You who are tossed by the storm, come to my arms:
I lift up my lamp beside this entrance.
The nineteenth century was a period of history in which people from all over the world immigrated to the United States, making the United States a melting pot of nations.
1920s: 143,439
1930s: 599,125
1940s: 1,713,251
1950s: 2,598,214
1960s: 2,314,825
1870s: 2,812,191 people
1980s: 5,246,613 people
19 1990s: 3,687,564 people
During the 19th century, more than 10 million people entered the United States. Are there any procedures to be done? No, just buy a boat ticket and go.
Is the United States the only place that welcomes immigrants? Of course not.
Before , there was no household registration certificate in this world.
Driven by the industrial revolution , large-scale immigration occurred throughout Europe.
Immigration, mostly from rural areas, comes to cities and industrialized areas in search of jobs and higher wages.
Many Poles came to work in the mines of northern France or the Ruhr region of Germany. Many mechanics left Scotland and went to England. Many Irish people with little or no skills left their homes and came to England's industrial cities to build roads, dig canals and build railways there.
Irish The largest immigration to the United States occurred in the 1940s, because the Great Famine was occurring in Ireland at that time. The Jews who were persecuted in Russia also immigrated to Western Europe and the United States to escape the atrocities of the Tsar. In the 1830s, approximately 10,000 European immigrants came to the United States each year, and by the end of the 19th century, they had increased to 1.5 million.
People cross national borders and move freely between countries to find work and make a living.
The United States, the beacon of the world at that time, was a holy land that countless people yearned for, attracting the largest number of immigrants in the world. A large number of elite talents from Europe immigrated to the United States amid the wave of immigration.
But the conservative forces in the United States began to gradually show their power at the end of the nineteenth century.
The first big thing is the familiar "Chinese Exclusion Act"
How was this Chinese Exclusion Act introduced?
What should white people do when they see Chinese people working hard to get job opportunities and doing 996 every day, which prevents their income from increasing?
was driven out through political power. How can I live if you are so hardworking?
The first time conservative forces exerted force on the immigration issue started with the Chinese Exclusion Act
The second major event was the establishment of an immigration inspection island
From 1892 to 1943, the United States established an immigration inspection station on Ellice Island. It is only 300 meters away from the "Statue of Liberty". Immigrants from abroad who came to the United States by boat had to pass here before reaching the mainland.
Ellice Island has very strict immigration medical examinations. Those with health problems are not allowed to enter, and there are even IQ tests. Some people even committed suicide by jumping into the sea because they could not pass the test.
The third major event was the implementation of the quota system
In 1918 in the United States, the "nativist" group declared that southern and eastern Europeans were "unassimilable" and posed a threat to public order and American values.
The U.S. Congress established an immigration quota system based on national origin in the form of legislation to prevent large-scale entry of immigrants, and it was implemented until the 1960s.
It can be said that in the world, the United States, from an immigration country that everyone yearns for, took the lead in imposing restrictions on the free movement of people.
The accompanying method was the Hawley Tariff Act introduced during the Great Depression, which blocked the flow of goods with the world. European countries also began to gradually restrict the cross-border movement of the labor force.
The world began to isolate itself from population exchanges. It was from this stage that the passport system and visa system we are familiar with today began to appear.
At that time, China was in the Republic of China, and there was no such restriction. Chiang Kai-shek went to Japan to study. When Japanese people came to China to do business, they did not need to go to any government department to go through the formalities. They could just come over by boat.
Therefore, these major things done by American conservatives have actually blocked the flow of people and trade around the world.
Although the United States is still accepting immigrants conditionally, the world has completely changed under the influence of the United States. The modern world is a situation where there are many checkpoints in various countries, and the flow of goods is relatively free, but the movement of people is seriously unfree. This situation was formed before and .
The isolation and isolation between countries will bring war. American conservatives were actually one of the biggest responsible persons in World War II.
Even today’s conservatives are still doing these two things.
Let’s talk about Mr. Sichuan. What is his campaign slogan?
Buy American products, hire Americans, a proper economic nationalist. Some people say that he can do economics. I really can't see how you came to this conclusion. Isn't this just a closed-door policy?
The biggest label is that there is a trade war. The whole world is setting fire to it, overturning the North American Free Trade Agreement , and imposing tariffs on China. Western allies are not sparing any of them, and they all come to negotiate again.
Trump The most famous label in China is building a wall.
Trump's most important political issue is the wall on the US-Mexico border. He wants to block Mexico and the low-end working population from Mexico and Central America from entering the United States.
This makes California people very angry. What are Californians angry about? If Beijing is full of programmers and , and there are no ordinary migrant workers, can you imagine what will happen?
Then programmers have to take care of their own children, clean their own rooms, fix their own light bulbs, and make their own breakfast. Is his productivity still there?
A large number of old and black workers provide a large number of low-cost services to the programmers of Silicon Valley , so that programmers can concentrate on their work and do not have to mow the lawn and repair the house after get off work.
If Trump builds the wall, the number of ordinary workers will become smaller and smaller, which will lead to another disaster, that is, any service industry will be extremely expensive.
In fact, such a disaster has already happened.
Many ordinary Americans mow their own lawns, maintain their own lawns, and cut their own hair at home because labor is too expensive.
If the United States had not continued to have a large number of so-called illegal immigrants and many elites entering the United States, the lives of Americans might have been getting worse day by day because the service industry was becoming more and more expensive.
What’s even more bizarre is that he actually targeted foreign students in the United States.
There are as many as 1 million international students studying in the United States, including more than 300,000 science and engineering talents. Only tens of thousands can be left each year, and the number must be further reduced. Is this how much disinfectant you drank?
Among the majors studied by mainland Chinese students in the United States, STEM majors account for 38%, with a total number of more than 125,000.
You must know that the total number of students studying in the United States from mainland China alone exceeds 360,000, and there are 180,000 from India.
Many of these talents graduated from prestigious domestic universities and then went to the United States to study. Many first-class college students go to the United States for further studies.
These first-class colleges and universities are often public, subsidized by the state, and supported by ordinary people's taxes. Tsinghua The average financial expenditure of a student is hundreds of thousands of yuan a year, and one or two million yuan for four years of study.
Chinese and Indian taxpayers spend so much money to train college students and send them to the United States to pay you taxes, but you don’t want them? So stupid.
Some people have to say, that’s not right. These are just foreign talents. Are there still a lot of talents in our country?
But the fact is that there are not many science and engineering talents in the United States. What do the children of middle-class and wealthy Americans like to send their children to study? The three major industries are finance, law and doctors.
Most of the talents in science and engineering are foreign students. The number and restrictions of H1B visa determine how many science and engineering students can stay in the United States.
And Silicon Valley’s dependence on foreign talents is extremely high. How high is it? More than half are foreigners. A large number of Indian and Chinese students work as engineers and executives in Silicon Valley.
However, after Trump came to power, FY’s visa rejection rate was as high as 32%, and the probability of being RFE was as high as 61%. During the 2020 epidemic, Trump requested the suspension of H1B visas, forcing the boss of Silicon Valley company to go to court to sue Trump.
In October, in order to canvass votes for the election, they significantly increased the salary standards for talents studying in the United States. This is to kill the American technology industry. Silicon Valley bosses can only madly support Biden who promises to increase work visas. Trump's behavior is beyond stupid.
Ancient kings knew that population is wealth, Trump doesn’t even know that talent is wealth, and he is one of the stupidest presidents in history.
The only secret to technological success is talent.
What is Trump’s reason for restricting H1B work visas?
In order to protect local employment opportunities.
can't complain, all he can say is, stupid stupid stupid!
Trump actually treats the United States as a big city and wants to drive out the low-end population, no! The high-end population is also in a hurry. Does he need to be able to do economics? Even sows can climb trees!
Of course, the Democratic Party is not a good thing.
3. How does the Democratic Party block immigration?
The Democratic Party, isn’t it the same party that talks about regularizing immigrants every day and calls not to build a wall? How can they be anti-immigration? No, it is their claims that are more thoroughly anti-immigration.
Because you have to understand the concept of immigration. What is immigration? Normally, immigration is just the movement of people, but the Democratic Party has given immigration a new connotation.
They said, not only can you move here, but I will also give you citizenship, give you votes, and give you benefits.
This is a big problem. In a relatively free area, if a group of people who do not support freedom come over, it will be troublesome to vote for them. They will support various control policies.
The social consensus will always be in an unstable state.
And this is what the Democratic Party wants. The more diverse it is, the more it likes it, because diversity can counter the culture of conservative white Protestants. To put it simply, the Democratic Party is not importing labor, but importing voters to fight against conservatives. power.
Of course, for many new immigrants, this temptation is not big enough. Is it meaningful to vote once every four years? It’s not affordable, so it’s easy to do it and provide benefits.
It doesn’t matter who you are, as long as you are an individual and as long as you live in the United States, we will provide you with free education first. At least your children can go to American schools.
If these people become citizens, they can also use white cards, which means free medical care. Medical care in the United States is so expensive, and this will eliminate all worries for these people. There are 70 million people in the United States using white cards. There are many poor new immigrants here.
can also receive various government subsidies. For example, during the epidemic, he can not work and receive thousands of dollars a month.
Isn’t this helpful in attracting immigrants? Why is it anti-immigration?
The direct consequence of such actions is to make conservatives more anti-immigration, which goes against the conservative concept of not engaging in welfare, so Trump accuses the Democratic Party of being socialists.
When the conservatives started their anti-immigration campaign, there was no welfare system, so the conservatives’ response was not too fierce. It was just a quota system and immigration inspections. However, when the Democratic Party started welfare immigration, the conservatives’ anti-immigration methods also upgraded step by step. The wall is starting to be built.
What is this called? Both sides use magic to fight magic.
But the anti-immigration effect created by the Democratic Party comes not only from conservative attacks, but also from the welfare system itself.
What is the welfare system?
The welfare system implemented in the United States is actually a kind of collective ownership.
When collective ownership allocates property rights, it often allocates them based on head count, rather than dividing property rights based on purchase shares like residential properties.
As long as you are an individual, you can distribute benefits,
Therefore, the expectation of property rights under this system is extremely unstable.
For example, Hong Kong also has homestead land, which is a land welfare system. It adopts a per capita allocation, and it is allocated according to men.
This means that the share occupied by each family is actually uncertain. If you give birth to a girl, you will get less, and if you give birth to a boy, you will get more.
Collective ownership with unclear property rights will inevitably bring about resistance to the new population from outside.
Imagine that you are a member of collective ownership, and your share of property rights in the collective is unclear. If a large number of outsiders enter the collective, it means that the rights and interests you may have are reduced. Now you can understand why you can move your household registration to the city now, but it is very difficult to move from the city to a rural area where assets are distributed. You are taking away other people's assets.
Americans are the same.
For those who immigrated to the United States, are they all fans of the Democratic Party? No, after a few years, they began to oppose the Democratic Party's immigration policies.
The number of votes Trump received among new Americans is actually growing, and the reason is very simple. Those who build walls are blocking future people. I have already come in. It is good for me to block new people, and I will get more benefits. Yes, the salary I can get will be more. Why not support building the wall?
Therefore, the consequence of the Democratic Party's promotion of welfare is that the United States was originally a place that regarded immigration as a natural right, but now, more and more Americans tend to block immigrants because these people come to rob them of their welfare.
Some people say that the only countries in the world that implement the household registration system are China and Vietnam. Vietnam has abolished it, and now only China has it. This is the biggest misunderstanding about the household registration system.
Before, China and Vietnam were the only countries with household registration systems that restricted the movement of people within the country, but countries that implemented collective ownership household registration systems were all over the country. Because nationality is a household registration system! !
Migrant workers in Hong Kong cannot enjoy Hong Kong's public education, medical and other resources. What is the difference between the experiences of these migrant workers and the migrant workers in the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta.
If you want your children to go to school and seek medical treatment locally, you must become a permanent resident of Hong Kong, that is, obtain a Hong Kong household registration.
What is the essential difference between this and the household registration system in mainland China? No.
The more welfare is prevalent in a country, the harder it is for you to immigrate and the more repulsive it is to foreigners. If you don’t believe it, try to see if you can easily move to the Nordic countries. Can you easily immigrate to Canada?
The European and American countries with high welfare are the Chinese cities before the reform. The countries in the third world of and are rural China before the reform.
The world is still divided into another urban-rural dual structure by the household registration system. The reason for the division remains collective ownership.
All public welfare systems in the world are distributed on a per capita basis, which artificially sets up collective ownership in countless places around the world.
An important way to join collective ownership is to redeem it.
If you want to immigrate to a developed country, paying millions of dollars is also a fee to redeem your qualifications for collective benefits.When mainlanders buy a house in Hong Kong, the tax will be a little higher, which is also a kind of redemption. If you are young, knowledgeable, capable, or even a high-level talent, you can also be qualified to join the collective. This is also a kind of redemption, because the collective is interested in your ability to pay taxes and add to the collective welfare.
Major cities in China are desperately trying to rob people. Who are they robbing for? If you rob college students, you are young, and you will have to pay high welfare taxes for decades if you rob them. Of course you have to rob them. If you immigrate to Hong Kong and are a star high-level scientific and technological talent, you will be welcomed with both hands raised.
Immigrate to the United States. If you are a senior IT talent and are employed by a large company or a university, you are welcome to stay. What you need to redeem your collective qualifications is your lifetime of labor and foreseeable taxes.
Of course, more people believe that freedom of movement is necessary within the country, but not internationally, and that nationality is not a household registration. For people whose thinking is framed by the concept of an administrative region and the country, I am really speechless, because the country, state, and city are all The essence of artificially constructed administrative regions is the same.
Can a national boundary line and draw a line on your thoughts?
Drawing a line is easy. You can also draw a line on the floor of your home. Will your family be divided into two families? Won't.
But the magic is that countries will become two different countries by just drawing a line. People cannot interact with each other, and goods need to be inspected by customs. Some people who have been neighbors for hundreds of years suddenly become separated one day. When a road becomes a national boundary, there are two completely different kinds of people.
Some people work and live in this place today, and then they go to live and work in another place. As long as there is a line in the middle, this person will be called a foreigner, and even be hated and scolded, while he is in China Living and working anywhere is considered normal.
Many people criticize restrictions on population mobility within the country, while taking it for granted that restrictions on labor mobility between countries are justified.
National boundaries are real, but people's cooperation and transactions never have national boundaries.
In addition to the two parties constantly polarizing each other's policies, which other force in the United States is anti-immigration?
4. Who is the most powerful anti-immigration force in the United States?
That is the American labor union .
TrumpGreat Lakes’s promise to labor unions and workers is that I will snatch back your employment opportunities, so why should we reduce the number of foreign students staying in the United States and prevent Lao Mo from coming in, because he wants to cater to the union forces.
Unions are inherently exclusive.
What is the purpose of a worker joining a union? , you want to get a higher salary, but as the number of people joining increases, the benefits will be diluted, and high wages will be impossible to achieve.
Therefore, if union members want to maintain their relatively high income, a key thing to do is to prevent too many outsiders from entering, and to set a threshold for joining the union, so that everyone cannot join.
How can we drive people out? In the United States, the simplest and crudest method, and certainly the cheapest method, was to look at skin color.
White people can form a white union, and the criteria for joining the union are very clear. If you are not white, you cannot join. Unions like
used to be able to organize blatantly. They even printed such a logo on the products they produced, saying Made by White Hands. These ghosts proudly claim that our products are made by white people. Made by hands, not by black hands, not by brown or yellow hands.
It is a fact that the union can increase workers' wages, but it can only increase the wages of some workers, and many other workers must be driven out of the market by violence before they can achieve this goal.
That is, the price he pays for raising wages is at the expense of other workers' unemployment.
If you have experienced the activities of various taxi drivers in China, you will understand.
In China, there have actually been autonomous trade union organizations, namely taxis in various places.
Taxi is a very united group.
They often organize resistance because the government promulgates regulations to increase the number of taxis. Why should they resist? If you increase the number, my income will decrease.
When Didi hit the road, the most powerful opposition force was traditional taxi drivers. It is not surprising that taxi drivers in many places reported Didi drivers and stopped and beat them on the road.
Of course they have their reasons. When they bought the taxi, they bought it under a monopoly license. Now that they no longer have a monopoly, what should I do? But they should target taxi companies and governments that sell monopolies, not their new entrants.
So if Meituan establishes a union, how to increase the income of the delivery boys?
That is to use violence to prevent others from becoming Meituan delivery riders.
When I order takeout, I often meet mothers with children and people with disabilities. Sometimes I exchange a few words with them. They all register on their mobile phones and they can immediately become takeout riders and deliver goods to you.
Meituan is saving these people, allowing many people without skills to register at home and immediately create income and change their lives.
If the Meituan union is established, they will find that there is no other way to increase their income except restricting supply. Then driving these part-time Meituan workers and those who are not very efficient out of the market is a good way to increase their income. .
In other words, they must use violence to treat those with disabilities and those mothers who have difficulties in life.
Just like white Americans using their skin color to drive black people out of unions, how can I increase my income without driving you away?
The trade union did not originate from the European Communist Movement, but from the ancient guilds in Europe.
What is a guild? It is a group of people in the industry who organize together to maintain the improvement of industry wage levels. In the European Middle Ages, there were many guilds, which often colluded with power to hold employment monopolies.
Henry II declared in the charter granted to the Rouen Tanners' Guild that no one except its members could engage in the tannery industry there.
According to the 17th-century customary law of Chester, if a person wanted to engage in a certain trade in the city, he had to be a citizen and a member of the guild.
The origin of the word monopoly actually comes from this form of business, called franchise exclusive management through power.
Unions are the origin of monopoly.
This form of trade union has been well inherited by the United States.
For example, it was the United Auto Workers union that killed General Motors , not General Motors' corporate union.
I will unite all workers in the industry. If you want to recruit more people, it will not be so easy. After all, there are always many types of work in different industries. It is a special type of work in and . You cannot recruit people outside the industry.
How do these people deal with GM?
They are not just talking about wages, they want to talk about it. GM, you can't close the factory, you can't go to Mexico to open a factory, we have to discuss how many people you need to recruit when you open the factory.
The trade union is no longer a simple organization that negotiates wages, but wants to control everything in the company. The purpose is to ensure that the workers are in a monopoly position and cannot allow new labor forces to steal my job. I face less competition. Wouldn’t the salary be higher?
In today's globalized world, capital has grown up, and ultimately you cannot tie it down.
This is how the labor unions turned the Great Lakes industrial region of the United States into a rust belt.
Trump was able to win the Great Lakes constituency back then because he made several promises. First, he promised to force manufacturing companies back to the United States. Second, he promised to build a wall to prevent migrant workers from competing with them. During Trump's second election, he also ordered a tightening of work visas for foreign students to ensure the employment monopoly of local Americans.
Some people say that if American labor unions are so powerful, why are many industries still doing well?
Because, for the industries that can stay, most unions cannot handle them.
For example, in the high-tech and financial industries, I only had an office building and a bunch of computer codes. I was so worried that I vacated the office building, copied the code, and opened a new company. What can you do to me? Manufacturing factories are not so easy to move.
Therefore, the technology industry and financial industry in the United States are still very developed.
Of course, there are right-wing unions in the United States that have achieved their goals, and that is the service industry that cannot be moved.
For example, doctors' unions have the final say on doctors' standards and how many doctors are allowed to enter this field.
Then as long as I control this entrance and supply exceeds demand, won’t my income keep rising? They did it. The United States is a place with very few doctors per capita and extremely high doctor income. This is one of the reasons why the United States has the highest medical expenses in the world.
Industrial unions in the United States have come up with many weird regulations.
For example, it is stipulated that barbers must have thousands of hours of study time, must pass complex examinations, and have an industry probation period before they can become a barber. But these barbers who have studied for thousands of hours are actually the worst barbers in the world. Most of them can only perform haircuts according to the specifications of a few heads. They charge expensive fees but their standards are low.
There are also painters who have to study for 3,000 hours before they can start working. Oh my god, after 3,000 hours of painting, you can paint oil paintings, and you can also use woolen paint.
But these rules have been legalized, that is, they are supported by violence. If you do not meet the standards, it is illegal for you to do it.
In other words, industry unions also use violent methods to forcibly prohibit others from entering. The euphemistic name is industry access for the sake of user consumption experience. In fact, behind the scenes, they want to monopolize revenue through violence.
These people are bastards. Their income has increased, but at the expense of prohibiting other workers from entering. They know that they can only increase their wages by completely banning other workers from entering. They know that it is the low quotes from other workers that prevent their incomes from increasing.
Why are black people poor? High unemployment rate? Many people say that black people are born lazy. In fact, in the 1950s and 1960s, the employment rate of black people was very high. The two parties in the United States joined forces to make them unemployed. The Democratic Party used welfare to lure black people to become poor. If you are not poor, you are not eligible to receive it. Welfare and minimum wage laws are used to keep uncompetitive black people out of the job market, while conservative unions use various industry qualifications to keep black people out of the industry.
The dock workers incident that made a big fuss last year is about being a monopolist who can work less and get more money. Do you want to be a monopolist? Sorry, there are entry requirements. If you are not allowed to work, you can work as a dock worker casually, and our income will drop.
Why do developed countries have high blue-collar incomes and respect workers at all levels? That’s bullshit!
The law protects them from monopoly, so they can get high income. Let competition go. Can blue-collar workers still have high incomes? Some people scold a certain country's companies for engaging in monopoly and driving up prices every day, but they give 10,000 thumbs up to this kind of union in the United States. Their heart is not about anti-monopoly, but why can't I have a monopoly?
So are American workers living a good life because of this? of course not!
5. Can using power to compete for interests bring benefits?
People have multiple identities in a society, but those who oppose migrant workers actually fall into a "single identity fallacy." What does
mean? That is, people often advocate a certain point of view based on the interests of one of their identities, but ignore the interests of another identity.
Almost all people have two identities at the same time. The first one is called supplier, that is, you are a seller, you are the boss, then you are selling goods to consumers, and you are an ordinary worker, then you are selling goods to consumers. The boss sells labor;
But at the same time, you are still a consumer, because you are not a working machine. You also have to buy a house, buy a car, and educate your children.
Then when you start from different identities, you will find that you have different interests.
If you are a supplier, of course you want as few competitors as possible.
The owner of the physical store shouts every day, "If Taobao doesn't fail, China will not be fine." Why? Because the merchants on Taobao are robbing their business, and the e-commerce merchants on Taobao looked at the owner of the physical store and said coldly: "Idiot, the business model of the physical store is too backward. You deserve to die. Who will let you?" You are expensive."
When the owner of the physical store returns home, he becomes a consumer. At this time, he is faced with a pair of leather shoes worth 500 yuan in the mall and a pair of 200 yuan in e-commerce. If they are the same product, he will How would you choose? If he only goes to the mall to buy and never goes to e-commerce, then he is a pure SB.
There is no such person. When he is a consumer, he will actively embrace e-commerce. Even if he does not praise e-commerce, the e-commerce industry has grown from zero to more than ten trillion in sales. It has already shown that consumption People are voting with their feet.
The interests of consumers are to buy better products with the same money. This action is in line with his interests.
So, is there a conflict of interest between these two identities? Of course
does not exist. If it exists, it means that people will never be able to distinguish their own interests, because people in any market have dual identities.
Where does the problem come from? Let’s return to the United States to analyze this issue.
Many workers in the United States, from the perspective of supplier status, support many policies, such as industrial unions, preventing immigration, and occupational licensing. Have these policies increased their income? certainly.
Not only in the United States, but also in developed countries, it is common for blue-collar workers to earn more than white-collar workers.
Let me list below some of the highest-paying blue-collar occupations in the United States.
The average annual salary for elevator installers and repairers in the United States is approximately $67,950, the average annual salary for substation and relay maintenance workers is approximately $61,700, the average annual salary for transportation inspectors is approximately $61,110, and the average annual salary for oil and gas drillers is approximately $59,560. , the average annual salary for oil pipeline transportation system and refinery workers is approximately $56,990, the average annual salary for boiler manufacturers and repairers is approximately $56,680, and the average annual salary for power line installers and repairers is approximately $58,860.
This is data from ten years ago, and it is higher now. You must know that the median personal income in the United States in 2017 was only $37,000. The median household income is $61,000.
These blue-collar workers are considered to be the proper middle class in the United States. One person can support a family.
Seeing this, can we make a judgment that I am wrong and the person who scolded me is right? You see, restricting the entry of labor will certainly help improve the income of local people. If electricians from all over the world go to the United States to find jobs, can American electricians have this level of income? of course not.
Am I really wrong?
We have to peel back the cocoons and return complex problems to simple ones, so that you can find out where the problem lies.
Suppose there are three people on an island, engaged in farming, textiles and fishing respectively.
Suddenly one day, three refugees from the sea came from outside. They were also engaged in farming, weaving and fishing respectively. At that time, double portions of fish, double portions of cloth, and double portions of food would appear on the market. food.
But the refugees just arrived on the island. They just wanted to survive, so their fish, cloth and food were sold cheaper than before. They also worked harder than the original people on the island because they had nothing. At this time, it turned out that The prices of the products sold by the three people must also drop accordingly, otherwise their products will not be sold.
is not wrong, their monetary income has decreased, but has their real wealth been damaged?
doesn’t, because he can still get the same amount of things in exchange for his daily output.
From the perspective of suppliers, they seem to be damaged, but don't forget that they are still consumers, and their consumer prices have been reduced.
Rising income does not necessarily mean rising wealth, because prices may rise at the same time.
If income falls or does not rise, it does not necessarily mean that wealth will not rise, because prices may fall at the same time.
So good, will the real living standards of blue-collar workers in the United States rise under this kind of control? Obviously not.
I am a truck driver. Because of the restrictions on truck driving, my income has increased, but when I consume electrician services, I have to spend more money to consume electrician services.
And the electrician's income has increased, and when he consumes the decoration services of the decoration workers, he has to pay a high price.
The apparent income has increased, but has the actual wealth increased? No.
It is well known that doctors in the United States have very high incomes, which makes medical treatment very expensive for all Americans. However, a considerable part of the income of doctors must be used to pay for medical malpractice liability insurance. The low ones have to pay 15% of the income, and the high ones have to pay 15% of the income. Have to pay 50%.
High legal fees will reduce the high income of doctors, and then doctors have to face high prices in various service industries, such as catering, takeaway, repair, cleaning and other workers' prices are very high.
Can the real wealth level of doctors increase a lot?
In terms of consumption levels in the service industry, many Chinese who have settled in the United States often say that they earn US dollars and spend US dollars, because when consuming products in the service industry in the United States, the US dollar is almost the same as the currency value of the RMB.
For example: if a child takes a tennis class, it costs 100 US dollars an hour. If you hire a repairman to come to your home, it will cost you a few hundred dollars.
As long as the service products are relatively cheap, there must be a large number of illegal workers behind them, that is, the labor supply is sufficient, such as restaurants. The average per capita consumption of restaurants in the United States is only 20 US dollars, and American restaurants are one of the places with the most illegal workers.
At this time, we can draw a conclusion. People are afraid of new employment because people only see the monetary price of income and only care about their identity as suppliers, while ignoring their identity as consumers.
In essence, this is the same thing as fear machine production. Machines are increased labor force. An efficient machine can reduce countless labor forces in a certain production, but will it bring about a loss of wealth? of course not.
Machine production improves efficiency and reduces costs, ultimately allowing consumers to buy products at cheaper prices. The money saved by consumers can generate new demand, thus creating more jobs for more people. Because of the use of machines, suppliers' incomes have become higher, and their consumption power has increased.
Using this way of thinking to think about population migration, it will be simpler. The migrating population will also bring more consumer demand, thereby creating more jobs. The income of suppliers will not necessarily decline, but may continue to rise due to the increase in corporate investment.
Places that receive large numbers of immigrants usually experience rapid prosperity.
The United States is a typical example. Throughout history, the United States has accepted more than 50 million immigrants from all over the world. Has the life of Americans become poor because of this?
On the contrary, in the past 100 years, countless talents in the United States have been immigrants or their direct descendants. This shows that immigrants have brought infinite vitality to the United States.
The same is true for Hong Kong. After the end of World War II, a large number of people from Shanghai's industrial and commercial circles immigrated to Hong Kong. Then the wave of refugees from the mainland and the wave of refugees from Vietnam brought countless immigrants to Hong Kong. As a result, Hong Kong changed from an unknown city to Suddenly it became an international metropolis, and all Hong Kong people became rich.
Trump’s policy of buying American goods, hiring Americans, and preventing immigrants from entering the United States to work is bound to fail. In the end, Trump lost all the Great Lakes constituencies. The important reason was that he failed to fulfill his pre-election promises. , the actual living standards of workers in the Great Lakes Industrial Zone have not improved.
The monetary policy and immigration policy of the United States are actually driving companies out of the country. Companies have legs. If you don’t let me hire Mexicans in the United States, General Motors will go to Mexico to open factories, and a large number of American manufacturing industries will be lost. Set up factories abroad and move production lines out of the United States.
Trump wants to force all big companies back. What will happen if he does force them back? The income of American workers will definitely increase. With the increase of enterprises, labor force will be relatively scarce and wages will definitely increase. If the tariffs are increased several times, Americans will be very miserable.
Their nominal wages may still be tens of thousands of dollars, but if cheap industrial products from East Asia cannot enter the United States, their actual living standards will drop sharply.
The reason why Americans are still living well now is because although the service industry is expensive, industrial products are cheap because all industrial products are produced by foreign workers. Agricultural products are cheap because there are a large number of old and black workers on the farms.
What problems will arise if the labor force is driven beyond national borders for production? That is, these people also consume abroad, especially in the service industry, so local employment opportunities in the United States will decrease.
This is the misunderstanding caused by the single identity fallacy. It only starts from the perspective of producers and never considers the identity of its own consumers. The final result is a mutually harmful system between various professions.
This fallacy widely exists in many perceptions. For example, free medical care seems very good from the perspective of consumers. It is great to treat diseases without spending money, but from another perspective, the money for free medical care comes from the providers. If taxes are collected, the tax level of providers must continue to increase to meet the requirements for free medical care.
Corporate tax levels have increased, and wages for employees have to be reduced. Consumers seem to be getting free medical care, but when he is a provider, his income may be halved, even if he is young and strong and never goes to the hospital. His income was also cut in half.
Thinking of this, do you still support free medical care? This is called digging your own grave.
But this situation exists in Europe. If you look at the high monetary wages of Europeans, and then look at their taxes, and then look at their actual expenditures, and the prices of their consumer service products, you will instantly feel that they are ordinary people. Life is just average.
If the logic that preventing free migration can increase people's income is true, then all big cities should prevent others from entering, because this will make the city better. In other words, the dualization of urban and rural areas is right in terms of benefits. In fact, just the opposite is true. Shenzhen residents, who continue to absorb new immigrants, are earning higher and higher incomes.
Okay, what is the correct solution to the immigration problem?
6. The correct solution to the immigration problem
In fact, Singapore and Dubai have already set a new example for the world.
That is to say, immigrants should not be understood as voters or as people added to the welfare system.
Instead, they only need to be understood as work visas. It is best to have unrestricted and unlimited work visas.
This kind of work visa does not restrict free transactions between anyone.
You are a middle-class person in China, don’t you want to find a Filipino maid? How much does a nanny cost per month in China? First-tier cities have tens of thousands of them, but Hong Kong and Singaporeans can buy one for 3,000 yuan a month.
Isn’t this the welfare of consumers? The money saved will be spent and invested to create new job opportunities.
should not be understood as directed immigration to Europe.
European society only accepts refugees. Is this normal population migration? If you're not a refugee, don't take it. And it’s country-specific, it’s not a free movement policy either.
is open to the whole world. Then poor people in China can also go to the European market to compete for job opportunities. There are many developing countries around the world, and billions of people want to work in developed countries in Europe and the United States.
If you just go to work without giving benefits or votes, it will be beneficial to the local people and also beneficial to the workers. Wouldn't this be a happy thing for everyone?
It is such a pity that such a tragedy has happened in the United States. The United States, a country founded on the spirit of free immigration, has turned into a country where people have to risk their lives to smuggle immigrants.
Smash that Statue of Liberty, America is not worthy!
(End)
Author: Mr. Gu Yuan
