Politics

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WSPanic
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Re: Politics

Post by WSPanic »

beautyfromashes wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 1:32 pm ^ Do you believe in restricting people from entering this country besides those who are terrorists or criminals?
Yeah. I'm fine with some limitations. I prefer they not be race-based, but I'm open to ideas.

I believe our legal immigration process needs fixing, but I do believe it's a necessary process.
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Re: Politics

Post by brewcrew1000 »

flyingember wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 12:16 pm
WSPanic wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:14 am We have never had open borders and never will.
Border control was introduced around 1904. The agency was founded in 1924.

So if there was no formal patrol, what kind of control was there at the borders?
I think the only reason why border control was introduced around that time because the lesser races like the Jews, Eastern Europeans and some Asians were starting to pour in. It was no longer the (so called) superior races like the Germans, Northern Europeans or English coming in anymore, it was the lesser races and people were getting pissed because it was turning some areas into ghettos and the people already established here all saw these races (people) as inferior - Pretty similar argument people are using today
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FangKC
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

The idea the present administration has with shutting down, or severely limiting, immigration is simply madness.

Most Americans are barely reproducing at a rate to replace the existing population of workers. The largest generation in history is either already retired and approaching retirement.
When the Social Security program was initiated in 1935, the average life expectancy was 61 years old. Considering that the average age for retirement has remained consistently around 65, beneficiaries in the early years of the program were receiving payment for a much shorter time.*

The Social Security Dilemma
Javier Escamilla
Poverty & Prejudice: Social Security at the Crossroads


Life expectancy has increased since then, and people are regularly living into their 80s.

When the program started,
there was a ratio of approximately 37 workers for every 1 retiree, it was very feasible that the American work force could provide enough to completely support the program. Today, the ratio of participants in the work force to Social Security beneficiaries has shrunk to less than 3 to I and is expected to decline even further in the next few years. Compounding the problem of decreasing worker to beneficiary ratio has been the increase in the life expectancy of an adult living in the United States. *
We are obviously not producing enough native-born workers to support Americans in retirement for much longer. One of our only viable options is to increase immigration--especially young workers.

It is especially important to make sure Social Security remains funded because fewer people receive any pension from their jobs in retirement. Many Americans have not been able to save enough for retirement even through employee 401K plans--if they are lucky enough to even work somewhere that offers them. A large population of Americans reach retirement with no savings, or assets. The fact is that most retired Americans will live off Social Security benefits alone, and also need to be augmented by SSI, food stamps, housing assistance, and Medicaid programs.

This Is What Life Without Retirement Savings Looks Like

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... ia/553970/

We shouldn't only limit immigration to highly-educated, highly-skilled workers. One of our biggest challenges in the years ahead will be who will be available to take care of our aging and ill citizens. There are already nursing shortages at a time when the need is growing with each passing year because Americans are living longer, and living more years with illness and infirmity.

Many nursing homes will literally hire anyone off the street whether they have a history of alcoholism, drug-problems, or a criminal past. That dream of letting your aging, chronically-ill, or demented parent live out their days at home is nearly impossible for middle- and working-class Americans. Even if your parent has the funds available, or you do, finding several people you trust to provide 24-hour, in-home care is difficult. You need more than one person to do it, often three, who will share 8-hour shifts.

If you are white, you better hope your parents aren't racists, because finding a trustworthy. white. Anglo-Saxon in-home-care team will be difficult and costly.

Even if you or your parents have a nest egg for home care, it's very possible to outlive it, and end up in a nursing home paid for by Medicaid. Those nursing homes will require people to do the work. Immigrants have often filled those jobs. Worker shortages drive up what nursing homes must pay to fill the jobs, and that increases the cost of nursing home care.

The primary argument though for immigration is to increase the ratio of workers to retirees paying into Social Security and Medicare.

* https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/p ... ialsec.htm

If you are concerned with unskilled immigrants being allowed into the country, then train them as health care aides and nursing home workers, because we need them. In addition for taking care of our aged citizens, they will be paying into Social Security and Medicare as well as all the other taxes people pay while living in the USA.
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

brewcrew1000 wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 1:50 pm
flyingember wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 12:16 pm
WSPanic wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:14 am We have never had open borders and never will.
Border control was introduced around 1904. The agency was founded in 1924.

So if there was no formal patrol, what kind of control was there at the borders?
I think the only reason why border control was introduced around that time because the lesser races like the Jews, Eastern Europeans and some Asians were starting to pour in. It was no longer the (so called) superior races like the Germans, Northern Europeans or English coming in anymore, it was the lesser races and people were getting pissed because it was turning some areas into ghettos and the people already established here all saw these races (people) as inferior - Pretty similar argument people are using today
I think we should start deporting any USA citizen, or politician, who promotes these ideas. I read there is an area between Egypt and Sudan that is unclaimed territory. Send them there. :D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bir_Tawil
Last edited by FangKC on Thu Oct 18, 2018 6:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
earthling
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Re: Politics

Post by earthling »

FangKC wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 4:39 pm The idea the present administration has with shutting down, or severely limiting, immigration is simply madness.

Most Americans are barely reproducing at a rate to replace the existing population of workers. The largest generation in history is either already retired and approaching retirement.
And given most GOP are more interested in pushing Jesus and dumbing down science, we'll have to import STEM talent. In the 1980s about 12% of US high schools students went into what we now call STEM fields. By the 2000s it was only 2%. It's up a little more now but not over 8% last I checked several years ago. In comparison, about 50% of high school grads head into STEM within affluent Asian regions.

- The US placed 38th of 71 countries in math, and 24th in science.

- 74% of middle school girls express an interest in engineering, science, and math...
--But only 0.3% choose computer science as a major when they get to college.

- Of 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US ranks 30th in math and 19th in science.

https://www.idtech.com/blog/stem-education-statistics
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Re: Politics

Post by brewcrew1000 »

FangKC wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 4:39 pm The idea the present administration has with shutting down, or severely limiting, immigration is simply madness.

Most Americans are barely reproducing at a rate to replace the existing population of workers. The largest generation in history is either already retired and approaching retirement

We shouldn't only limit immigration to highly-educated, highly-skilled workers. One of our biggest challenges in the years ahead will be who will be available to take care of our aging and ill citizens. There are already nursing shortages at a time when the need is growing with each passing year because Americans are living longer, and living more years with illness and infirmity.

Many nursing homes will literally hire anyone off the street whether they have a history of alcoholism, drug-problems, or a criminal past. That dream of letting your aging, chronically-ill, or demented parent live out their days at home is nearly impossible for middle- and working-class Americans. Even if your parent has the funds available, or you do, finding several people you trust to provide 24-hour, in-home care is difficult. You need more than one person to do it, often three, who will share 8-hour shifts.

If you are white, you better hope your parents aren't racists, because finding a trustworthy. white. Anglo-Saxon in-home-care team will be difficult and costly.

Even if you or your parents have a nest egg for home care, it's very possible to outlive it, and end up in a nursing home paid for by Medicaid. Those nursing homes will require people to do the work. Immigrants have often filled those jobs. Worker shortages drive up what nursing homes must pay to fill the jobs, and that increases the cost of nursing home care.

If you are concerned with unskilled immigrants being allowed into the country, then train them as health care aides and nursing home workers, because we need them. In addition for taking care of our aged citizens, they will be paying into Social Security and Medicare as well as all the other taxes people pay while living in the USA.
Another thing that gets overlooked is the immigrants revitalizing older dying towns. Evidence of this is seen in SW Kansas and rust belt towns like Rockford IL. Somili immigrants in Lewiston Maine are helping revitalize the downtown. Everyone just wants to focus on the negative like ms13 or how all of them think they go on welfare but if u give these immigrants time to settle they assimilate into our culture and add to the melting pot of America.
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Re: Politics

Post by beautyfromashes »

earthling wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 5:47 pm ....we'll have to import STEM talent.
... or keep outsourcing it like we have the last two decades. Most of the imported STEM work that I see is management of Indian offshore talent, people who can liaison between US workers and offshore shops.
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

Immigration should certainly attempt to solve some of our problems.

Yes, there are many depopulated states and cities that need immigration--even large ones. I am thinking of places like Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, NY, and St. Louis right away. Instead of allowing immigrants to settle in Chicago, give them the option of Gary, Indiana. which is within driving distance to Chicago. These places need new residents to pay taxes to support aging, existing infrastructure.

The government also should encourage immigrants to settle in low-population states. It's not only to repopulate cities, but try and spread future voters out into states with two senators, but very little population. It's also ridiculous that a state the physical size of Wyoming has less than 600,000 people. I hear this complaint a lot. Why does a state with a population less than San Jose, CA have two senators?

It's a fair question. Why should the government be allowing more immigrants to move into already highly-populated states? We should also discourage immigrants from moving into already-water stressed regions.

There are ways that our government can direct immigration. If you are given a VISA, or on the road to citizenship, you might be required to settle and remain in a specific city. Once they are citizens, I don't see how you can restrict movement.

If the immigrants are joining family members, then their VISA might be conditional. If they want to all live in the same city, then their family member must also move to the assigned city of the newcomer--even if that relative is already a US citizen. Otherwise, they will just have to visit.

Our government could require that big companies that employ highly-educated immigrants who are scientists, engineers, and computer software programmers place their facilities and jobs in some of these lower-population states by telling them that they will allow VISAs for these workers, but only in specifics states or cities. The Federal government could feasibly dictate where Apple and Amazon both locate their second headquarters just using this policy. This might prevent these companies from severely adding to income inequality or gentrification in already stressed real estate markets like DC, Boston, and New York City for example.

I know there are many immigrants who want to settle in the most popular cities, but these markets are already under severe housing pressure. I would be fine with the US government stopping immigrants from settling there--at least until they become citizens.
Last edited by FangKC on Thu Oct 18, 2018 9:24 pm, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: Politics

Post by brewcrew1000 »

I find some of the immigration really interesting. Like why did Bosnians settle in South St Louis and its now the largest bosnians population outside of bosnia. or why did Somilians and Hmongs settle in Minnesota? Even Akron has a large Burmese population.
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

The answer is often relationships with specific churches, that often sponsor immigrants.
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Re: Politics

Post by flyingember »

earthling wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 5:47 pm
FangKC wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 4:39 pm The idea the present administration has with shutting down, or severely limiting, immigration is simply madness.

Most Americans are barely reproducing at a rate to replace the existing population of workers. The largest generation in history is either already retired and approaching retirement.
And given most GOP are more interested in pushing Jesus and dumbing down science, we'll have to import STEM talent. In the 1980s about 12% of US high schools students went into what we now call STEM fields. By the 2000s it was only 2%. It's up a little more now but not over 8% last I checked several years ago. In comparison, about 50% of high school grads head into STEM within affluent Asian regions.

- The US placed 38th of 71 countries in math, and 24th in science.

- 74% of middle school girls express an interest in engineering, science, and math...
--But only 0.3% choose computer science as a major when they get to college.

- Of 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the US ranks 30th in math and 19th in science.

https://www.idtech.com/blog/stem-education-statistics
Going into STEM back in college (not called that at the time) was a good decision on my part.

I got laid off my specific IT team in November 2017 with 30 days notice and a chance to be relocated within the company (nothing I wanted to change to so I looked externally). After approx five weeks I had three offers and I only got 9 or 10 interviews. My hunt crossed three holidays too, not an easy time to get a job.
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Re: Politics

Post by earthling »

brewcrew1000 wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 8:01 pm I find some of the immigration really interesting. Like why did Bosnians settle in South St Louis and its now the largest bosnians population outside of bosnia. or why did Somilians and Hmongs settle in Minnesota? Even Akron has a large Burmese population.
KC has a large Somali/Sudanese population as well for some reason...
Kansas City is one of the primary destinations for African Refugees in the United States, many of which come from Burma, Somalia, Sudan, and Bhutan.

Kansas City has the second largest Somali population in the United States, as well as the second largest Sudanese population in the United States.
https://www.peoplegroups.info/site/Metr ... ansas+City
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Re: Politics

Post by flyingember »

brewcrew1000 wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 8:01 pm I find some of the immigration really interesting. Like why did Bosnians settle in South St Louis and its now the largest bosnians population outside of bosnia. or why did Somilians and Hmongs settle in Minnesota? Even Akron has a large Burmese population.
Al four examples have religious and language considerations for where they moved to.

Bosnia had a large muslim population and they would want to live near a mosque and private school. You wouldn't see a Bosnian Muslim move three towns over if there's opportunity three blocks over. They identified a tolerant community to live in with lots of opportunity and word spread.

You can see this in how people move around a city today. Orthodox Jewish populations have a religious requirement to live a certain distance from a synagogue because they walk there, so you will usually see the Jewish population all living in one small area.
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Re: Politics

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earthling wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 12:13 pm
brewcrew1000 wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 8:01 pm I find some of the immigration really interesting. Like why did Bosnians settle in South St Louis and its now the largest bosnians population outside of bosnia. or why did Somilians and Hmongs settle in Minnesota? Even Akron has a large Burmese population.
KC has a large Somali/Sudanese population as well for some reason...
I think it's because of the Don Bosco Center.

https://www.donbosco.org/#about-us-1
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

Voting Rights Act anyone? Nah, we don't really need that anymore.

Iconic Dodge City moves its only polling place outside town
...
At a time when many rural towns are slowly dying, the arrival of two massive meatpacking plants boosted Dodge City’s economy and transformed its demographics as immigrants from Mexico and other countries flooded in to fill those jobs.

But the city located 160 miles (257 kilometers) west of Wichita has only one polling site for its 27,000 residents. Since 2002, the lone site was at the civic center just blocks from the local country club — in the wealthy, white part of town. For this November’s election, local officials have moved it outside the city limits to a facility more than a mile from the nearest bus stop, citing road construction that blocked the previous site.
...
https://www.kansas.com/news/business/ar ... 86260.html
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Re: Politics

Post by FangKC »

Air wars: Hawley flies on lobbyist's plane after blasting McCaskill
...
Josh Hawley has criticized Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill repeatedly for using a private plane to travel around Missouri. But the Republican Senate hopeful isn’t above taking a ride in a private plane himself.

Hawley received an in-kind contribution of $5,225 for a charter flight in September on a plane owned by lobbyist Travis Brown and his wife, according to public records. Hawley attended a West Virginia fundraiser on that day, social media posts show, before returning to Springfield, Missouri that night – and posting a Facebook video of him driving into the city for a rally with President Donald Trump the next day.

Brown is a registered lobbyist in Missouri, whose clients include the St. Louis Blues hockey team and wealthy businessman Rex Sinquefield, a Hawley donor who’s linked to a state-level effort to permit medical marijuana use. The plane Hawley flew in, a Pilatus PC-12/47, is registered to Brown’s business address, and flight records show it leaving Missouri for West Virginia on Sept. 20 and returning later that night.

Hawley also reported charter plane expenses of $8,732 for a flight in August and three flights in September in campaign finance disclosures. It is unclear who owned those planes or where Hawley went; his campaign declined to provide details about the flights.
...
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/ ... O8ff__TL_g
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Re: Politics

Post by phuqueue »

FangKC wrote: Thu Oct 18, 2018 7:51 pm Immigration should certainly attempt to solve some of our problems.

Yes, there are many depopulated states and cities that need immigration--even large ones. I am thinking of places like Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, NY, and St. Louis right away. Instead of allowing immigrants to settle in Chicago, give them the option of Gary, Indiana. which is within driving distance to Chicago. These places need new residents to pay taxes to support aging, existing infrastructure.

The government also should encourage immigrants to settle in low-population states. It's not only to repopulate cities, but try and spread future voters out into states with two senators, but very little population. It's also ridiculous that a state the physical size of Wyoming has less than 600,000 people. I hear this complaint a lot. Why does a state with a population less than San Jose, CA have two senators?

It's a fair question. Why should the government be allowing more immigrants to move into already highly-populated states? We should also discourage immigrants from moving into already-water stressed regions.

There are ways that our government can direct immigration. If you are given a VISA, or on the road to citizenship, you might be required to settle and remain in a specific city. Once they are citizens, I don't see how you can restrict movement.

If the immigrants are joining family members, then their VISA might be conditional. If they want to all live in the same city, then their family member must also move to the assigned city of the newcomer--even if that relative is already a US citizen. Otherwise, they will just have to visit.

Our government could require that big companies that employ highly-educated immigrants who are scientists, engineers, and computer software programmers place their facilities and jobs in some of these lower-population states by telling them that they will allow VISAs for these workers, but only in specifics states or cities. The Federal government could feasibly dictate where Apple and Amazon both locate their second headquarters just using this policy. This might prevent these companies from severely adding to income inequality or gentrification in already stressed real estate markets like DC, Boston, and New York City for example.

I know there are many immigrants who want to settle in the most popular cities, but these markets are already under severe housing pressure. I would be fine with the US government stopping immigrants from settling there--at least until they become citizens.
I'm not sure the government should be empowered to dictate to people where they'll live, and I'm not really into viewing immigrants as merely tools to accomplish some end (be it economic growth, or revitalizing depopulated communities, or funding the retirement of existing citizens, or whatever), although I realize that emphasizing these advantages of immigration might help convince people who are skeptical of immigrants. I'm also not actually sure it's super necessary to exert that kind of control over immigrants anyway -- as has been discussed in this thread, immigrants are already helping to revive some of these towns and cities even without exerting that kind of control over them. If you want to accelerate that process it might be as easy as simply letting more immigrants in, rather than devising some convoluted authoritarian system that tells people where they can or can't live, or tells businesses where they can or can't employ people.
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Re: Politics

Post by earthling »

Polls tied to elections are at best just a temperature of public feeling at the moment as what matters is who shows up to vote. Will more DEM leaning supporters actually show up for this mid-term?

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/21/democra ... -poll.html
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Re: Politics

Post by earthling »

KC has heavy Independent identity compared to most metros according to this (2017). STL metro has comparable or higher GOP identity than several southern cities (Nashville, Dallas, Houston)....
http://ava.prri.org/#politics/2017/Metr ... 1,13,18,28

KC was higher in GOP identity and significantly dropped since 2013...
http://ava.prri.org/#politics/2013/Metr ... 1,13,18,28

This shows Ideology. KC metro's conservative ideology has shrunk 5% from 2013 to 2017 with liberal ideology up 4 points.
http://ava.prri.org/#politics/2017/Metr ... 8,13,18,28
http://ava.prri.org/#politics/2013/Metr ... 8,13,18,28
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Re: Politics

Post by beautyfromashes »

Political views go in waves. Leave it to Beaver brought on 70s hippies, brought on 80s Wall Street brought on Millinneals.
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