And you all told me the blue maga border bill that Republicans rejected was 4d chess.

  • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    8 months ago

    I’ve always been staunchly against illegal immigration for that reason.We’re already in a cost of living crisis. The country is full. I wish the Democrats would realize that by continuing to allow illegal immigration, it lowers the cost of labor, and in turn and crushes the working class’ collective bargaining power. I’m not gonna go vote for an insurrectionist traitor that will cut Bezos’ tax bill to fix it though, but straight up, idk why people even want to come here anymore. 20 years ago, I get it, but now everything is expensive and you’re not going to make it Washing dishes and picking fruit.

    • Eldritch@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      8 months ago

      The country is far from full. We have cities in a few states that dwarf the population of entire other states.

      The cost of living crisis is manufactured. And we as a society could choose to end it tomorrow.

      • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        Agreed, but adding to demand without relieving supply does us no favors. If we banned Air BNB and corporate landlords of single family homes, this problem would be gone tomorrow, but that’s not going to happen.

        • Eldritch@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          8 months ago

          We could even leave those things untouched. And simply build desirable, affordable public housing like Austria. In areas where it’s feasible have Finland style district heating.

          That would cause the collapse of said corporate land barons and ridiculous Air BNB BS. We won’t do it however. Because there’s no short term profits in it for said land barons. And it would reduce how much they’re able to overcharge impacting their profits long and short term.

        • Fedizen@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          a vacancy tax would fix seattle overnight, I stayed at a hotel there recently and most the nearby buildings were over 50% just empty rooms. Theres no reason to justify these kinds of rents except price fixing.

          • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            8 months ago

            100%. A friend of mine lives in a “luxury apartment” and at night, most of the lights are off, I never see other people in the hallway, and I can almost guarantee it is 30-50 % occupied. They don’t care though, they would rather have it be 30% occupied at the higher price than 100% occupied at what the true market rate is.

          • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            8 months ago

            I mean, it’s definitely still relevant. If everyone just said fuck it n moved into Hooverviles tomorrow, cost of housing would go down with no one to occupy/ pay for the housing. They are restricting supply. The only way to combat it beyond asking for legislators to actually do their fucking job is to decrease demand.

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.mlOP
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              6
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              They’re restricting supply by buying up empty housing and hoarding it (and manipulating zoning laws and buying off city councils and getting the “right” ordinances passed etc). There isn’t actually a shortage of housing, just a shortage of “available” housing. You can’t fix that by shutting down the border. They’ll just hoard even more to compensate.