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US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

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Re: US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

#121

Post by rayiner »

boroboro4 wrote: post #118
rayiner wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, your assumption is false. Even if all those paper valuations, etc., were real money you could use to pay for school lunches today, a 100% tax on the total wealth of U.S. billionaires wouldn’t even fund the federal and state governments for a year.

Total US wealth is ~170T so obviously it will be enough to cover federal and state government for a year (and more like 20 years). Even considering obvious issue of wealth going down like crazy in such hypothetical scenario in its ends this would be enough. Because in the end it’s all part of same economy.

That’s including everyone. The wealth of U.S. billionaires is about $8 trillion total, while the government at all levels spends about $10 trillion annually.

Re: US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

#122

Post by throw5t434r »

roenxi wrote: post #51
Apreche wrote: post #27

My family came to the US via Ellis Island. Compared to what people have to do today, their legal path to US citizenship was relatively easy. I see no reason that becoming a citizen today should be any more difficult today than it was in the early 20th century. Open a 21st century equivalent of Ellis Island, and let people become citizens.

The growth of a welfare system seems like the major change. How does that plan interact with the welfare system? If someone is impoverished in Asia can they get a plane ticket to the US and expect to eventually be entitled to a state-sponsored minimum standard of living? Maybe healthcare if the left's plans for that get through eventually?

Most countries in Asia already have universal healthcare so they definitely would not be coming to the US for that.

If anything, expats from Asia come to the US to make a higher salary to support their family back at home. They are not asking for a handout, they are asking for jobs.

Re: US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

#123

Post by xyzzyz »

boroboro4 wrote: post #118
rayiner wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, your assumption is false. Even if all those paper valuations, etc., were real money you could use to pay for school lunches today, a 100% tax on the total wealth of U.S. billionaires wouldn’t even fund the federal and state governments for a year.

Total US wealth is ~170T so obviously it will be enough to cover federal and state government for a year (and more like 20 years). Even considering obvious issue of wealth going down like crazy in such hypothetical scenario in its ends this would be enough. Because in the end it’s all part of same economy.

You missed the "total wealth of U.S. billionaires". The billionaires own a tiny fraction of total US wealth. Most of the wealth is owned by people like me, who own a house, and stocks in retirement account.

Re: US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

#124

Post by boroboro4 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #123
boroboro4 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total US wealth is ~170T so obviously it will be enough to cover federal and state government for a year (and more like 20 years). Even considering obvious issue of wealth going down like crazy in such hypothetical scenario in its ends this would be enough. Because in the end it’s all part of same economy.

You missed the "total wealth of U.S. billionaires ". The billionaires own a tiny fraction of total US wealth. Most of the wealth is owned by people like me, who own a house, and stocks in retirement account.

My bad.

However billionaires don’t own tiny part of US wealth, more like 5%-10%. And top 1% (and grandparent was talking about rich people) own 1/3 of US wealth.

Re: US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

#125

Post by hn_acker »

tclancy wrote: post #50
csmpltn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your family had to leave everything behind, risking a weeks-long journey at sea costing them everything they ever had, going into the unknown - at a time where nobody could travel. The US was not as rich, or built, or anything. People today get a 50$ plane ticket and move straight to the Bay Area. You don't see why things need to change?

Buddy, what are you on about? This sounds just like all those welfare queens in Cadillacs GHW Bush was telling us about.

> This sounds just like all those welfare queens in Cadillacs GHW Bush was telling us about.

I don't think George H. W. Bush did that. Do you mean Ronald Reagan [1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_queen#Origin

Re: US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

#126

Post by hn_acker »

csmpltn wrote: post #34
Apreche wrote: post #27

My family came to the US via Ellis Island. Compared to what people have to do today, their legal path to US citizenship was relatively easy. I see no reason that becoming a citizen today should be any more difficult today than it was in the early 20th century. Open a 21st century equivalent of Ellis Island, and let people become citizens.

Your family had to leave everything behind, risking a weeks-long journey at sea costing them everything they ever had, going into the unknown - at a time where nobody could travel. The US was not as rich, or built, or anything. People today get a 50$ plane ticket and move straight to the Bay Area. You don't see why things need to change?

> People today get a 50$ plane ticket and move straight to the Bay Area.

> You don't see why things need to change?

Are you asserting that the current system of legal immigration needs to change, with an unsubstantiated example of a rare $50 dollar plane ticket as if people can easily move to the US by plane? Do those people leave behind most of their belongings, or do they instead make multiple plane trips to move them? And what about all of the paperwork and approval and unpredictable waiting [1]?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46912126

Re: US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

#127

Post by hikkerl »

LexiMax wrote: post #100
eudamoniac wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is culture. The desire for an ethnostate is a proxy desire for a monoculture, somewhat easier to implement because it's easier to see someone is white than to see their behavior patterns. There are also studies that show most people have subconscious tension among other races even from the same culture, though. But the outright desire for an ethnostate or a monoculture are both politically untenable in the Wes…

> Countries have the right to cultivate this feeling among their citizens. I disagree, because what seems to always be the logical next step is "My monoculture is superior, and deserves dominion above your monoculture, which deserves eradication. And oh by the way, if you don't like our monoculture and try to escape it, we'll invade that place too." That's kind of what the "mono" in monoculture implies. Multicultural…

[flagged]

Re: US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

#128

Post by donkeybeer »

kreetx wrote: post #40
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you stupid? Where does Doctorow's post advocate for illegal immigration?

The entire post reads like a justification to illegal immigration, no?

You should stop living in your head. Your imagination is making up hallucinations and visions that's seriously impairing your life.

Re: US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

#129

Post by hn_acker »

rayiner wrote: post #78
astura wrote: post #38

I don't understand the premise of this. The author goes on and on (and on) about how "Americans have no idea how weird and tortuous their immigration system is" but doesn't really give any evidence. I wonder if they ever have spoken to an American? They must have some extremely out of touch social circles. Here in the real world, every American I know knows that the only way for "normal" (non-rich, non-connected, non…

> A lot of people would prefer if even family sponsorships didn't exist. Many people think of that as "gaming the system" because they allow "average" people to be immigrants. I assume Republicans want to get rid of this. I think Republicans didn’t really understand that this existed until recently. And yes, many want to get rid of it, because it’s a loophole in the skilled immigration system. We apply aggressive fil…

> And yes, many want to get rid of it, because it’s a loophole in the skilled immigration system.

Why does "the skilled immigration system" represent the whole immigration system? What makes family sponsorship a "loophole" to H1Bs, when family sponsorship could instead be framed as an equivalent form of legal immigration with a different purpose?

> and hundreds of thousands of low skill people come over because they’re someone’s cousin.

Accepting the "low skill" framing and setting aside the fact that family-sponsored immigrants can have "high skill" without proving it through the H1B process, I don't think it makes sense to have an immigration system based solely on "high skill", because not every member of a family should have to be "high skill" for the entire family to move to the US.

Re: US Immigration on the Easiest Setting

#130

Post by hn_acker »

nine_k wrote: post #15
direwolf20 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the laws of physics that decide whether you actually get in or not.

It's the law of the land that determines how well are you doing once inside.

> It's the law of the land that determines how well are you doing once inside.

That continues to become less true, in the cruelest ways [1]:

> One man told KBI that Border Patrol agents tore his birth certificate up in front of him. He managed to save his Mexican identity card because he had hidden it in his shoe.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/news/immigrants-rights/border-patrols-a...

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