Summary
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned that Trump’s mass deportation policy could lead to labor shortages and higher grocery prices.
Experts say agriculture, construction, and healthcare will be hardest hit, with farm output losses estimated between $30 and $60 billion.
Deportations could cost the U.S. economy up to $88 billion annually.
AOC argued that immigrant labor is vital to economic stability, urging Congress to pursue immigration reform.
You must log in or register to comment.
does no one else see the ethical quandary of relying on cheap exploited labor for our food?
100% this.
I’m not a fan of the hamfisted way Trump and Musk are going about all this.
But at the same time, I look at this and have to wonder the outcome…
If agricultural corporations can’t hire cheap undocumented Latin American people to work the farms, they will have to pay more to hire Americans to do the same job. Yes that will drive up grocery prices, but on some level, if that means more Americans are able to afford those groceries isn’t that sort of maybe a good thing?Every time I see a company complain of labor shortage, it is obvious to me that the problem isn’t labor the problem is the company doesn’t want to pay what the labor market demands. You tell me you can’t find anybody to hire, so I ask if you offered $100/hr for this job would your inbox be overflowing with applicants? If the answer is yes, then the problem isn’t that you can’t find anybody, it is the supply and demand of the labor market and your only problem is you don’t want to pay the market rate for labor. That’s not the market’s problem.
They’re not going to pay a decent wage to pick food. They’re going to enslave you and force you to pick the food for the same wages as before, if not less.
You keep expecting them to suddenly start playing by the rules. You don’t matter anymore to them. They’ve written off the need to win your vote.
You are mixing up your 'they’s. There are multiple theys each with their own motivations. Frequently their interests align. Not always.
I don’t expect anybody with money and power to play by THE rules, but everybody plays by SOME rules. Understand the rules each player is playing by, and you understand the game a lot better.
I don’t for a second think Trump’s motivation behind deporting people is pure as the driven snow. I’m sure for many people behind that policy, perhaps including Trump himself, there is a lot of thinly veiled racism or not so thinly veiled racism and a bunch of xenophobia too.
That doesn’t mean it’s impossible that it will work, and bring about some sort of positive result.
For me, the big problem with illegal immigration is it creates an easily exploitable underclass. A group of people who will work themselves to the fucking bone for peanuts, who can be exploited at will because they can’t call the government to enforce labor regs. That creates a situation for employers that they can hire these people by the thousands, treat them like dirt, pay them barely anything, have them work in horrible conditions, and then basically toss them on the street. That situation is bad for everybody. It’s certainly bad for Americans because if those exploitable people are available as labor why wouldn’t an employer hire them rather than an American who will demand higher wages and better working conditions?
Ending that system of exploitation will suck, it will be a painful process that will destabilize food and labor markets. And knowing Trump, I’m quite sure there will be a lot of civil rights abuses, which I am strongly against. Everybody deserves to be treated with humanity and respect, including undocumented people who are being deported. But I also think that before we dive 100% into saying the whole thing is a bad idea, we should consider potential long-term effects. And if the result over the entire American labor market is there is no longer a cheap exploitable under-class, I think that’s a good thing for everybody.
It’s clear you only have a surface level understanding of the issue so you should either read up or be quiet on the topic. Your ignorance isn’t of any value.
Well there’s a lot of information and different positions, most of which doesn’t fit into a single post. Can you explain what specifically you think I’ve missed?
No. It’s not my job to teach you. Don’t speak unless you know what you’re talking about. It’s clear you’re not confident you did either.
Not asking for instruction on the issue, only clarification on your assertion that I don’t understand.
For example, if you argued that video games cause violence, I could say ‘you obviously don’t understand the issue, specifically, the sort of attitude players take toward the game. Nobody plays like ‘yeah I wish I could do this IRL’, rather, it’s just a game and there’s friendly banter between both teams.’ I don’t have to write a page on video game culture or statistics to do that.
Saying ‘you don’t get it’ on a huge broad subject while offering zero detail on what specifically I don’t get or even a counterpoint is lazy debating. If you think I’m wrong, explain why I’m wrong. Otherwise you are just a low effort shitpost that contributes nothing to the discourse. Do better.
I understand higher food prices is rough for the general public, but I’m struggling to find a reason we shouldnt deport illegal immigrants. I’m concerned that illegal immigrant labor is akin to H1b or prison labor, where the worker has diminished rights and is abused more than other groups.
Why are democrats or people in general in favor of illegal immigration?
In the hope they become legal, productive members of society. Would that not help all parties involved?
Not when you’ve got over 350 million people and the world’s most expensive health care.
And when you have one of the largest land masses on the planet, and some of the most valuable natural resources, and a declining birth rate and increasing childhood mortality, and the cost of your health care is entirely caused by artificial scarcity… hm. Maybe the problem isn’t immigrants.
Oh the problem certainly isn’t immigrants, I’m not at all suggesting that. I’m saying that the US has so many issues that mass immigration will never help when you can’t even take care of the people who are already there.
I’m saying that the US has so many issues that mass immigration will never help when you can’t even take care of the people who are already there.
That’s the thing, though. You can take care of the people already here. There is more than enough wealth, natural resources, land, food, energy… you name it, we have more than enough of it and can make more than enough of it. The point is the people in power choose not to. One or one million, immigrants will not take away anything from the lives of citizens that hasn’t already been taken away.
If you could wave a magic wand and deport every last immigrant, how would that take care of the citizens here? Crime would go down? No, statistically they commit less crimes per capita. Taxes would go down? No, as a group they pay far more in taxes than they could possibly take back in government spending.
The immense amount of wealth being hoarded by the powerful is already not being spent on improving people’s lives, and every last dime of it will continue not being spent on improving people’s lives.
You won’t get another slice of the pie just because someone leaves. You won’t end up with more value to be shared among less people… you will just end up with less people. People whose absence will actually make everything cost more, meaning the slice of the pie you do already hold will be worth less than before.
I agree. I’m not for deportation, I’m for immigration. I’m simply saying that in the current state, the US does not need more people.
… Then you’re for immigration, but also oppose immigration to the United States right now? Presumably because of economic reasons? That’s just being against immigration with extra qualifiers.
The whole point is that neither immigration nor deportation - more immigrants coming in or more immigrants leaving - neither will result in any material change to the problems you have with the nation’s current state. Wave a magic wand and deport them all, healthcare won’t be cheaper the next day. Wave a magic wand and lock the southern border from coast to coast and your food won’t be cheaper either.
Immigration is not causing any of the significant and systemic problems that the United States is currently facing, and so there’s no sense in… what, exactly?
Waiting for the problems to get better before you would accept more immigrants? Some utopian moment in time when you would actually be for immigration in the United States? What would that time look like to you, and why would current or future immigration stand in the way of reaching that point?
but I’m struggling to find a reason we shouldnt deport illegal immigrants.
Are you specifically concerned about illegal immigration, or just immigration in general? Because if it’s the former, that’s a silly distinction because the government (we the people, aka Elon Musk) decides what is illegal or not. If the next wave of politicians decides we should have actually open borders, then there would be no such thing as “illegal immigration”.
I’m concerned that illegal immigrant labor is akin to H1b or prison labor, where the worker has diminished rights and is abused more than other groups.
Do you have specific examples in mind where immigrants are exploited? If you do, look at those examples and ask yourself: “could we pass laws to protect these people from abuse?”, and you’ll find that the answer is obviously yes.
Maybe your definition of “abuse” is that they need to work harder to earn less? Well, that’s the society we live in. Capitalism has its problems, but it has worked good enough for us for the past 248 years. For the immigrant, US minimum wage is likely far better than whatever they received in their home country, and I suspect most would happily take that deal. I think that’s what they’d call “the American dream”, as their children will be able to go to school and have a better future than they did.
…If your issue is with immigration in general, then I don’t know what to tell you. That’s entirely opinion based, and nobody knows what the correct answer is (despite what they might claim). 100% open borders has risks, 100% closed borders has risks.
I guess I’m just silly for thinking breaking laws to get into a country is a bad thing.
So you don’t care about immigration, you only care about the “illegal” aspect of it? Does that mean you’re pro-immigration reform, so that more people can immigrate to the US without “breaking laws”?
I have no issue with people immigrating legally.
Good to know! I also hate illegal immigration, which is why, at least on this issue, I’m voting for democrats for the foreseeable future. The republican party is hell bent on increasing the amount of illegal immigrantion in this country, and I just can’t support that. Of course, the dems would never go so far as to eliminate illegal immigration completely (by adopting open borders), but I’m confident they’re at least more open to finding a middle ground that makes most people happy.
You know what a “false dichotomy” is? If no, this is a beautiful example. Immigration reform is an entire world of options, “deport all the brown people” and “open borders and free subsidized piñatas for everyone” aren’t the only options like you’re presenting here.
You literally avoided my whole question. Why do you want illegal immigrants here? I’d think youd want them here legally rather but maybe I’m just crazy. Is it just mean to deport people? If I was in Canada illegally and they arrested me and sent me back to the US, I wouldnt think Canada was a shitty country for it.
No human being is “illegal.” This is a very overused and thinly-veiled way to admit you’re a racist while expecting others to miss the context.
Dang you got me.
You really thought no one knew?
Farms are just going to take it on the chin. They’re losing their labor with the mass deportations and they’re losing a hilariously large buyer of food with USAID being shut down.
So who’s ready for the new price on food?
And they’ll blame Democrats. And the Democratic Party won’t combat the misinformation because they suck at messaging.
IMHO, Democrats have gotten much better with their messaging over the past decade. People just don’t pay attention because diligently solving problems with substantial plans that take years to show effects isn’t sexy or exciting.
I stay pretty keyed in to what’s going on in congress, but I have to put effort into that. It seems like all the algorithms constantly want to shift my content to paying attention to all the crazy shit the GOP is up to and I’m constantly catching and stopping myself from getting sucked into rage porn.
Saying they’re good at messaging and then saying people don’t paying attention enough to see it is an oxymoron. If they were good at messaging you wouldn’t have to pay attention to see it.
I disagree. They’re not responsible for the lack of media coverage. If all you watch is legacy media, you’re not going to see democratic messaging.
If there are voters that are only watching legacy media then any approach that doesn’t include legacy media is nothing short of negligent.
How do you propose democratic politicians make legacy media cover their messaging? Can you explain how politicians having no control over legacy media companies is negligence? I’m not following the logic on that one…
If it’s my job to make sure the Dam keeps working and the Dam breaks, I’m responsible. I don’t get to say “Well I didn’t know about the cracks I’m only a manager.”. As a professional you can’t just dismiss responsibility. You have to be proficient. If I hire someone who claims to be an expert, and they break things, they can be sued.
It’s the Democrats job to get elected. They will need to make sure their message makes it to average Americans. Since they failed to do this, they’ve failed to do their job. They’re incompetent and guilty of gross negligence.
Your “Best Effort” is meaningless in the real world. Results speak for themselves and the Dems are losers.
Reminder, losing a large purchasing segment decreases demand, which lowers prices until the market adjusts. I.e., it frees up agricultural output that they have to sell, which they’ll lower prices to make sell to other buyers (domestically or internationally).
The distributors will lower prices. Farmers will get paid pennies for what would be dollars. Farmers don’t sell their product directly. They get screwed before the consumer gets screwed. In this kind of a cycle prices drop in the short term, but as farmers can’t afford to plant as much going forward, there’s a supply crunch next season. The government used to do a lot to manage this cycle and smooth it out, by literally buying product.
No big deal in the long term though right? Well except we don’t have a competitive distributor or grocery market anymore. So when that crunch hits those prices are going up and they’re going to stay up. For reference check the recent greedflation that happened.
Worse there is a real risk of a dust bowl effect. Farmers who are strapped for cash don’t want to spend money setting their fields up to fallow properly. So the summer hits and the crops that are planted get buried in all that dust. Making the supply crunch even worse.
Then in a normal situation we’d still have the global supply chain to fall back on. But there’s a very good chance that food is going to have tariffs on it.
Farming isn’t like making a widget in a factory.
I’m not sure what your main point is here. I was responding to you grouping together a labor shortage and a demand shock as - from what it sounded like - a reason to expect high prices. But demand shocks lower prices on the consumer side of food production, as opposed to raising them, because the food at that point exists, and whoever has it needs to sell it, more desperately than they were before.
My main point is this is well beyond the supply/demand chart you get in Econ 101. That more applies to distributors and grocers than it does to farmers. In most places the farmers aren’t in control of the price. The distributors are. This is how you get things like Dairy Farmers disposing of literal tons of milk. It was more expensive to send it than they would have been paid for it. In other words the price dropped so low it wasn’t worth selling it.
Of course that has knock on effects. That farm doesn’t magically get more money next year so their operations are constrained. Grain is worse than Dairy because it can be siloed for literal years. That means the glut will take years to resolve. Years with low or no income for grain farmers.
Are you seeing the problem yet?
No, I’m still not really sure what you’re trying to say. Your original post was about the price to consumers.
And as for the relationship between farmers and distributors, that really depends on the specifics of the purchasing agreements they enter into.
Dude I’m not going to start repeating myself. You have the chain of events that causes higher consumer prices, you just don’t want to admit it’s likely unless the government steps in to prevent it.
If that’s what you were saying re: USAID cancellation eventually raising food prices, you have quite a few leaps of logic in there.
I know she’s been villainized by the right, but I feel like, at this point, she needs to be elevated to key leadership of the party. She’s the only one who seems to be able to speak to specifics. I just listened to Jeffries on Jon Stewart’s podcast and it was all of the same old generalities.
I can’t speak to every politician, but as a class, they seem to be elites that are disconnected from the average American.
AOC, having been a normal person, is able to bring the message that gets through to people without having it filtered through some sort of communication agency.
deleted by creator
She stands by what she says though. It may sound familiar, because it’s the same shit all the time. She doesn’t take lobby money, she doesn’t take pac money and she doesnt take corpo money. Her donations are working class citizens that fuel her campaigns. If you want her to speak simple language, go watch her John Stewart interview. It’s as plain and “common folk” speak as you can get.
deleted by creator
That’s the game, she’s just doing her best to play it. Listen to her more casual interviews if you want a normal person, she gets seconds of the average person’s attention at a time
deleted by creator
It’s not that it’s an unpopular take, it’s that you’re not going to get that from mainstream media. They only want snippets and blurbs to present to the people, so if you’re not able to articulate your point in a short sound bite, you don’t get to send your message at all.
deleted by creator
Speaker of the House might have more power for her.
deleted by creator
Half the population is below average intelligence. As a politician you have to speak in a way that is both to the point and emotionally charging to get your point across as simply as possible. It’s the best way to actually reach the most people. You also have to repeat yourself ad nauseam. It’s just a pitfall of the job. Simultaneously, they have to treat people like idiots and not treat people like idiots.
It also works. Remember all those signs in yards this past election cycle that said “Trump: lower taxes, Harris: higher taxes” and “Trump: good for America, Harris: bad for America”? They were wrong, and simple and they worked.
deleted by creator
So what’s your issue? What does “not speak like an elite” even mean? Politicians speak like politicians and they do so for reasons I’ve already outlined. She isn’t talking down to you, she’s empathizing with you. What do you want her to say? You want her to talk like the room is filled with post-doctorates? How does that help a chronically under-educated populace who literally can’t afford get a good education, let alone pay attention to anything of substance after sifting through our hellscape of a media?
She isn’t Trump, of course. I don’t think anyone in Lemmy is asking for her to be. My point was that repeating yourself and speaking simply literally just won an election. “Me, good. Other guy, bad” as a message, works. Bernie has been repeating himself for longer than I’ve been alive. He’s been right about everything he’s ever said in the simplest of terms. Why do you think he keeps doing it? Because it’s still true, and people still need to hear that message.
deleted by creator
I haven’t downvoted a single one of your comments. I’m asking questions I wanted answers to. Sorry people don’t like what you’re saying, but I’m trying to have a conversation.
