Lemmy moment
I had a friend that voted for Brexit. When I asked him why, he said that his grandfather was able to buy a house and take care of his family on his salary. His father was able to do the same. He said, these immigrants come in and live two families to a house and are willing to work for far less. He said, I don’t want that type of future for myself.
No amount of telling him that – the people that caused this issue are also benefitting from Brexit – could convince him.
Was weird because I wasn’t an immigrant but my family was and he was cool with me.
They come so close. I understand the anger, broken promises from society at large, but then they do that little twist at the end. It’s like they’re about to win the race, then decide to just veer off into the stands right before getting to the finish line.
It’s because their pain is very real, their struggles are very real, their feelings are very often valid, and they understand the concrete impact that it has had on them and their way of life.
They can’t abstract that out and critically think about why that is the case, so they just repeat what an authority told them and is easy for them to understand.
I don’t know though if it is simply a lack of education or an inherent human solipsism that is hard to break through.
It is the same the world over, even before TVs when newspapers brought the news, and before that anything written down was true because “priests and scholars definitely wouldn’t lie.” That is why extremely strict factual news laws have to be brought into effect with anyone caught lying bearing fines based on a percentage of their revenue to combat fascism that is based wholly on fear fabrication. The problem is, of course, policing that correctly as for example an American Trump regime would simply use those laws to say that anything they don’t like is not true (they they do anyway now).
I think the last step of understanding the issue is difficult because it requires admitting that their current belief and way of life is not optimal for themselves.
Everyone or almost everyone thinks highly of their own decision skills or at least that they do their best. They believe they can make good choices and that they can either outsmart or work harder than others. The truth is that, maybe they can, but there’s very little choice in how it’s rewarded. The believable lie is that work is compensated fairly, and once someone has put half a life into this lie, it’s difficult and soul crushing to admit that it’s plain wrong. It may cause frustration and anger, which doesn’t solve it. A solution isn’t evident or maybe it seems out of reach, causing more frustration, causing more anger. It’s a lot easier to take out anger on people than fighting a system. And especially in groups, it’s easier to point at smaller minority groups, because their own group is stronger or have more votes, so it’s actually doable. They get a relief for the frustration by believing that they’re doing something about their issue. It won’t work though. It’s similar to being bullied in school and then thinking it will help to take it out on the younger kids, instead of confronting the older bully.
It takes courage to fight upwards. Having been through unionisation efforts I can assure you that people living from one paycheck to the next are absolutely not courageous.
In regards to news, it’s also a lot easier to simply choose the news that keeps presenting their existing belief.
Yep, if you listen to guys like Steve Bannon talk, they sound like Marxists in their critiques of the system, up until the point where they have to identify the culprit. Instead of capitalists, they’ll go and blame liberal elites, immigrants, etc.
Tie housing costs to wages.
You wanna raise the rent? Go talk to the bosses and convince them to raise wages.
You wanna cut wages? Go talk to the landlords and get our rent down.
Or get a tenant with a higher wage?
The problem with this idea is that stats say that rents aren’t increasing faster than wages.
Yes! I’ve been saying that forever. They say rent/mortgage shouldn’t be more than 30% of your income. OK, make it so if you’re working full-time, you can afford to live. Doesn’t seem like a complicated, or controversial, take.
That is true, in many other countries. But the USA loves it’s exceptionalism, and this is one of those fucked up examples of it.
(Of course other countries have their own issues.)
I don’t know a single person who is only spending 30% on housing. It’s more like 50% where I live. A lot of landlords have that dumb “rule” where you must make triple the cost of the lease per month after taxes but will look the other way when 4 people split the cost evenly for a 2 bedroom apartment so they can each make ends meet. Not a single one of them comes close to making 3x the rent each month but an over occupied apartment is more likely to remove a squeaky wheel who won’t pay their share of the rent on their own without management having to get involved. Saves them the trouble of having to fight a long legal battle to evict a troublesome tenant.
Housing is so beyond fucked right now.
It really is… Me and my gf are two software developers living together, AKA income definitely isn’t an issue. And yet almost half of our collective income goes to rent. To be fair we are renting a 3 room flat, and it was our choice to splurge a bit for now. But when I think about the future, starting a family, suddenly a flat like this doesn’t seem as outrageous of a desire. To actually meet the 30%, we’d need a much smaller flat, each on our own would only afford a single room. But our incomes are comfortably above average, SO HOW THE FUCK DOES ANYBODY ELSE AFFORD ANYTHING AT ALL?!?
I am more in favor of tying wages to inflation.
It’s a day broader metric… That way, slave wage companies can’t screw their workers by charging out the ass for the services they’re providing for next-to-nothing. Then the business owners can fight with everyone about keeping the inflation rates low so they can enjoy paying their workers less.
Let these two asshole groups duke it out amongst themselves.
Inflation however is a load of bollocks. It’s inaccurate to measure and can be oh so easily manipulated.
House prices have been rising at a stupid rate for decades yet we had in the UK a typical inflation rate of… 0.1% for a decade whilst house prices out performed everything else because they just ignore it.
Like how if your favourite brand of cereal goes up 700%, that won’t be included in inflation data they make the assumption you’d eat a generic brand instead that only went up 0.5%
It’s all bollocks the lot of it, remove money it’s not worth anything anyway
Remember if your yearly raise isn’t more than inflation, you’ve lost money.
Happened to me for a couple of years through COVID, where I got no raises for a few years and let’s just say, I don’t work at that company anymore.
Consider the incestuous circle of ownership of the big 3 asset managers (BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard) and despair.
That explains why the oligarchs are trying so hard to get Kamala to fire FTC leadership
Anyone whose income depends on harming others has an incentive to distract the people they’re harming. Point a finger at any out-group & that job is done. Immigrants are the easiest out group to post a finger at
You all are fundamentally missing something with real estate pricing increasing, and that’s how it’s used for money laundering.
You know how you can sell a piece of art to someone for any price and how that gets used for money laundering? Well, the rich do that with houses and property too. Hint: a lot of real estate agents aren’t really working as real estate agents. They are someone’s escort or drug dealer etc who gets payment in the form of a cut of the property they “sold,” but in reality was a pre-planned transaction that didn’t really need real estate agents to facilitate.
So basically they are subsidizing illegal activity with our properties.
Ummm… What? Proof of this? Would be pretty wild if true.
Oh, they talk about it in the documentary Active Measures (2018) when discussing Donald Trump doing it with commercial real estate and iirc, the mob/mafia. McCain and Hillary Clinton are in that doc. I’m looking for a link to the full documentary and will update this comment if I find it.
Please ping me when that’s posted. Thank you.
I couldn’t find the free full (legal) version on YT anymore. It was free about a month ago. Sorry about that. You can of course find it through the usual other means
Well, I lived near a mn+ per year broker and he was sketchy. One of his clients was eventually convicted for tax evasion and got ten years, so while I didn’t ask a lot of questions, I did always wonder. I was just wondering the potential mechanisms. Thanks. I’ll sort something.
These two groups are the same people.
Don’t forget the massive property tax increases and home insurance increases. Both have doubled in less than 10 years. At least they have here in FL with our wack job governor.
Yes but that also has a lot to do with insurance companies finally using climate data for their rates.
And the lack of state income tax. The tourist taxes only go so far, they’ve got to make that money somewhere, property tax is one of the places Florida balances the books.
One of my best friends is an illegal immigrant and I’ve realized that he is here doing what I’m doing. Trying to get by and provide for his family. If the tables were turned I’d do the same and if all these people against them say they wouldn’t, they are full of shit. Actually, there’s such shitty people that they probably wouldn’t anyway.
In some countries (including the USA), immigration is mostly a civil issue, and most “illegal immigration” is actually not illegal!
Back in 2019 I needed to move across the country on very short notice. It didn’t leave me any time to sell my house. A friend of mine was getting absolutely screwed on rental payments, so I did some math, and offered to rent it to them at a rate that just barely covered the mortgage and taxes. It was SIGNIFICANTLY below market rate, and significantly less than he was currently paying.
I guess that makes me a parasite.
you’re surely aware that your situation is the exception rather than the rule
Doesn’t matter, according to hexbear he still has to die, “he should have gifted the house to his friend rather than become a slum lord” and all.
He should at least let the friend own however much equity in the house they helped pay with their rent payment, to be paid out when the house is sold
To be fair, the canadian minister of immigration recently admitted that they should have slowed down on immigration sooner.
Landlords and shareholders do have incentives to drive rent up and wages down, and immigration is one way to do it. The housing and job market crisis aren’t there for no reason, and it’s partly due to immigration.the canadian minister of immigration recently admitted that they should have slowed down on immigration sooner.
A politician pandering to the Right doesn’t make it true.
housing and job market crisis aren’t there for no reason, and it’s partly due to immigration.
Nope. Nobody’s forcing employers to exploit immigrants desperate enough to work for less due to fewer opportunities and less support.
Likewise, housing is much more expensive than simple demand would dictate. Landlords aren’t charging as much as is fair all things considered, or even as much as people can generally afford. They’re charging the absolute maximum that they can get away with, which is usually more than people can afford.
They’re charging the absolute maximum that they can get away with
That’s how all economics works. If you found a job where, in your opinion, you were really overpaid for the work burden - would you go to your boss and ask them to pay you less?
The root of the housing problem is undersupply, which imo is due to a nationwide patchwork of NIMBY policies driven by Boomer landlords, especially in big cities. Younger people and renters just don’t fucking vote, especially in the local elections where housing policies are decided. So Boomer retirees ensure that 95% of the city is zoned for single family housing, and no apartments can get built.
If that’s how economics works, just giving us the perfect argument for why economics is a bullshit field. Human beings need shelter to survive. It’s a human right. It’s one of those super important things, up there with water and food.
If you’re buying into an economic system that doesn’t make sure that right is filled, then you have a problem with morality, and perhaps also mortality.
If that’s how economics works, just giving us the perfect argument for why economics is a bullshit field. Human beings need shelter to survive. It’s a human right. It’s one of those super important things, up there with water and food.
Economics is a soft science. Economics is not about describing how things should work, economics is about describing how things do work. Whether you want to support the system or tear it down, understanding it is extremely helpful to either cause.
Economics is a soft science. Economics is not about describing how things should work, economics is about describing how things do work.
I mean, tell that to economists? In my experience, they are extremely dogmatic. With vanishingly few exceptions, every economist I’ve ever heard, seen, or read in any media acts as though whatever model they subscribe to is gospel, and that any issues you might have with it must therefore stem from a lack of understanding, rather than from the faulty assumptions underlying it.
ETA a recent example: Harvard economics professor and former Obama economic adviser Jason Furman on Jon Stewart’s podcast.
Economists talking to the media are typically pushing for policy proposals, and in pushing for policy, a “never admit uncertainty” sort of deal is in play to avoid a soundbite where an economist says something that can be played as five-second mockery to sink said policy proposal.
Economists writing in academia can be stubborn and at times utterly bizarre, but are genuinely discussing models and theories the same way sociology does.
Yeah, I think there’s also a lot of tone-deafness among economists, that seems to reflect a lack of understanding (or at least acknowledgment) that the economy is built on—and designed to perpetuate—massive inequality. The average person derives comparatively little benefit from an economy which is—on paper—booming, because the profits are overwhelmingly siphoned off by the wealthy. This is probably mostly a problem with the way the economy is reported on by the media, but economists are the face of that.
I don’t have an opinion on housing, but that’s not how job market works. The final decision to employ an immigrant ultimately comes down the HR & company. Saying that “immigrants took our job” is like loosing an auction and saying “they took your painting”
Usually you have a choice in participating in an auction, even get to set your bid.
They tried that over here with Brexit. Those darned immigrants stealing our jobs (while also just living off benefits, of course). EU citizens were like, screw this. They left, suddenly farmers were faced with their produce rotting in the fields, because guess what? The Brits don’t actually want to do those jobs.
So what do you think happened next? They had to allow special visas to lure immigrants back in.
Meanwhile, the gammons were still raging that immigrants lower wages because they’ll work for less pay than UK citizens.
Yup, I have read about that situation, pretty funny looking at it from outside
Yes, but if you facilitate access to foreign workers, let’s say with a “temporary foreign worker program”, like it is the case in Canada, companies will go after them first because they are cheap labor and are easy to abuse. Meanwhile, there are new graduates who struggle to find jobs.
It does not help canadians and it does not help foreigners. Sure, we can always blame the companies, but the government also has it’s part of responsibility by enabling this.Okey let’s take a look what that program is, citation from Wikipedia :
Workers brought in under the program are referred to as Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) and are allowed to work in positions that are not filled by Canadians. The aim was to address skill shortages
It looks to me that the shortage was the reason why program was initiated. So from the information I have, it looks to me you have it backward.
And then you have companies displaying highly skilled job offers at minimum wage knowing nobody sane will apply. Then they claim that no canadian can be hired for their job and they need foreigners. They end up hiring foreigners for half the wage they would pay a canadian and exploit them all they want.
Foreigners are attractive because they don’t know their rights and their value and can easily be abused.
Sure, the program has been created because of a worker’s shortage, but now that jobs are scarce there is no reason to keep it up. --And that’s why the different governments are starting to say that it has to stop.
This year, the largest job fair in Montréal had the double of attendant they had last year. 8000 people looking for a job. Half of them were newly arrived, the other 50% were either jobless, already on the job market or recently graduated.
Elon musk is an immigrant.
Mudrock family are immigrants, also were in UK while publishing xenophobia.
Shiity people often abuse the USA’s liberties in bad faith and prosper.
But govt people allowed the mergers until the media are mostly owned by them, soon there will be ONE major grocery chain in USA, apparently the Loblaw imbroglio is invisible from Wash DC, and buying and selling personal data is commonplace, not even taxed much less protected.
Those Pogo comics of them going downhill out of control are from the 50s, that pure copper penny still hasn’t dropped.
Who got bailed out in 2008? And who bailed them out?
Those dern im’gints controlin’ the means’o production.
Yeah but my problems are all because I have to see a brown person at work sometimes!
A quote often posted, but still works:
President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
