The New Election Interference Strategy

[bpj]

Well, to everyone else, that is capitalism. The same type of capitalism that everyone would love to have themselves.

What's actually driving costs up to where you can't afford a house is that there are now 10 million+ illegals taking up homes and apartments that you don't have access to.

I don't think the government is entitled to a dime of any of our income. All income taxes are illegal. Saying, "govern me harder, Daddy" isn't doing libs any favors.

[Seattle or Bust]

Well, to everyone else, that is capitalism. The same type of capitalism that everyone would love to have themselves.

What's actually driving costs up to where you can't afford a house is that there are now 10 million+ illegals taking up homes and apartments that you don't have access to.

I don't think the government is entitled to a dime of any of our income. All income taxes are illegal. Saying, "government me harder, Daddy" isn't doing libs any favors.

Have you been to Seattle, New York, Los Angeles recently?

If you think it's illegals driving up housing costs I have a $3,500 a month apartment to sell you.

It's not Mexicans. It's immigrants from other countries who come in on short-term contracts to work for Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc... far under the market valuation for their jobs. Those companies decided they wanted to stop paying Americans increases in salary year over year. Instead, they're contracting immigrants to work long hours at much lesser pay and then rotating them through when their contracts are up. Issue is, they're paying them just enough to rent apartments and have a comfortable living which is why rent is so expensive.

[bpj]

Well, to everyone else, that is capitalism. The same type of capitalism that everyone would love to have themselves.

What's actually driving costs up to where you can't afford a house is that there are now 10 million+ illegals taking up homes and apartments that you don't have access to.

I don't think the government is entitled to a dime of any of our income. All income taxes are illegal. Saying, "government me harder, Daddy" isn't doing libs any favors.

Have you been to Seattle, New York, Los Angeles recently?

If you think it's illegals driving up housing costs I have a $3,500 a month apartment to sell you.

It's not Mexicans. It's immigrants from other countries who come in on short-term contracts to work for Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc... far under the market valuation for their jobs. Those companies decided they wanted to stop paying Americans increases in salary year over year. Instead, they're contracting immigrants to work long hours at much lesser pay and then rotating them through when their contracts are up. Issue is, they're paying them just enough to rent apartments and have a comfortable living which is why rent is so expensive.

Doesn't matter where it is. There are millions fewer apartments and homes that are now taken up by illegals.

Maybe that pushes people from small towns to big cities, but it's having an effect on housing everywhere whether you care to admit it or not.

Doesn't help that corporations like Blackrock are buying up homes by the thousands, which further reduces the supply and causes home prices to skyrocket further.

[Seattle or Bust]

Well, to everyone else, that is capitalism. The same type of capitalism that everyone would love to have themselves.

What's actually driving costs up to where you can't afford a house is that there are now 10 million+ illegals taking up homes and apartments that you don't have access to.

I don't think the government is entitled to a dime of any of our income. All income taxes are illegal. Saying, "government me harder, Daddy" isn't doing libs any favors.

Have you been to Seattle, New York, Los Angeles recently?

If you think it's illegals driving up housing costs I have a $3,500 a month apartment to sell you.

It's not Mexicans. It's immigrants from other countries who come in on short-term contracts to work for Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc... far under the market valuation for their jobs. Those companies decided they wanted to stop paying Americans increases in salary year over year. Instead, they're contracting immigrants to work long hours at much lesser pay and then rotating them through when their contracts are up. Issue is, they're paying them just enough to rent apartments and have a comfortable living which is why rent is so expensive.

Doesn't matter where it is. There are millions fewer apartments and homes that are now taken up by illegals.

Maybe that pushes people from small towns to big cities, but it's having an effect on housing everywhere whether you care to admit it or not.

Doesn't help that corporations like Blackrock are buying up homes by the thousands, which further reduces the supply and causes home prices to skyrocket further.

Agreed. And sure, I don't think it helps that illegal immigrants are given handouts and I wish both sides could come to a consensus on how to handle it. But I'm not going to scapegoat a bunch of people taking a very small chunk out of the pie as the major issue.

To me the issue will always be corporate greed. Those at the top enjoy living a lavish life and could care less about those at the bottom. They do everything in their power to screw the little guy over... until that changes this country is in a rough spot.

As I said, the trickle from trickle down economics is at a tiny drip right now where it should always have a nice flow to it if we want to believe in capitalism. Business owners should want their employees to live comfortable lives... but the majority only care about themselves and their investors.

[bpj]

Have you been to Seattle, New York, Los Angeles recently?

If you think it's illegals driving up housing costs I have a $3,500 a month apartment to sell you.

It's not Mexicans. It's immigrants from other countries who come in on short-term contracts to work for Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc... far under the market valuation for their jobs. Those companies decided they wanted to stop paying Americans increases in salary year over year. Instead, they're contracting immigrants to work long hours at much lesser pay and then rotating them through when their contracts are up. Issue is, they're paying them just enough to rent apartments and have a comfortable living which is why rent is so expensive.

Doesn't matter where it is. There are millions fewer apartments and homes that are now taken up by illegals.

Maybe that pushes people from small towns to big cities, but it's having an effect on housing everywhere whether you care to admit it or not.

Doesn't help that corporations like Blackrock are buying up homes by the thousands, which further reduces the supply and causes home prices to skyrocket further.

Agreed. And sure, I don't think it helps that illegal immigrants are given handouts and I wish both sides could come to a consensus on how to handle it. But I'm not going to scapegoat a bunch of people taking a very small chunk out of the pie as the major issue.

To me the issue will always be corporate greed. Those at the top enjoy living a lavish life and could care less about those at the bottom. They do everything in their power to screw the little guy over... until that changes this country is in a rough spot.

As I said, the trickle from trickle down economics is at a tiny drip right now where it should always have a nice flow to it if we want to believe in capitalism. Business owners should want their employees to live comfortable lives... but the majority only care about themselves and their investors.

According to the Census in 2021 there were 11.5 million illegal immigrants at that time.

If 10M more have come across since Biden made the border wide open, that's ~20M illegals.

In a country where there are ~144M housing units, having 20M people unnecessarily added to the mix is a huge problem.

Even if they lived 2 to a unit, that's 10M homes/apartments.

10M out of 144M = 6.9% of all units filled by illegals.

The historic vacancy rate in the US is ~5%.

That represents a massive problem and clearly drives the prices through the roof.

[Seattle or Bust]

Doesn't matter where it is. There are millions fewer apartments and homes that are now taken up by illegals.

Maybe that pushes people from small towns to big cities, but it's having an effect on housing everywhere whether you care to admit it or not.

Doesn't help that corporations like Blackrock are buying up homes by the thousands, which further reduces the supply and causes home prices to skyrocket further.

Agreed. And sure, I don't think it helps that illegal immigrants are given handouts and I wish both sides could come to a consensus on how to handle it. But I'm not going to scapegoat a bunch of people taking a very small chunk out of the pie as the major issue.

To me the issue will always be corporate greed. Those at the top enjoy living a lavish life and could care less about those at the bottom. They do everything in their power to screw the little guy over... until that changes this country is in a rough spot.

As I said, the trickle from trickle down economics is at a tiny drip right now where it should always have a nice flow to it if we want to believe in capitalism. Business owners should want their employees to live comfortable lives... but the majority only care about themselves and their investors.

According to the Census in 2021 there were 11.5 million illegal immigrants at that time.

If 10M more have come across since Biden made the border wide open, that's ~20M illegals.

In a country where there are ~144M housing units, having 20M people unnecessarily added to the mix is a huge problem.

Even if they lived 2 to a unit, that's 10M homes/apartments.

10M out of 144M = 6.9% of all units filled by illegals.

The historic vacancy rate in the US is ~5%.

That represents a massive problem and clearly drives the prices through the roof.

In 2005 there were 10.5 million estimated illegal immigrants in the US.

In 2010 there were 11.2 million

In 2016 there were 10.7 million.

In 2021 there were 11.5 million, as you said.

Avg rent in 2005: $604

Avg rent in 2010: $841

Avg rent in 2016: $949

Avg rent in 2021: $1,191

Avg rent in 2023: $1,180.

Illegals in the US and rising rent costs don't seem to correlate. Rent got very expensive in 2021 and has stayed about the same for the last 3 years despite the rising population of illegal immigrants.

"Average rent prices have increased 8.85% per year since 1980, consistently outpacing wage inflation by a significant margin; 2021 was an exceptionally volatile year for the market, which appears to continue in 2022." But then rents dropped a little bit in 2023 despite increases in illegal immigrant population.

[bpj]

I'd agree that it's not the only contributing factor.

But, in the past few years I believe the number of illegals has doubled.

Add that to the homes being gobbled up by Blackrock, and negative interest rates leading to tons of relatively poor people buying a second and third home to rent as Air-BNB's, the problem is exacerbated.

Since there isn't likely to be a fix to the Blackrock and Air BNB problem, the only issue that can be fixed outside of a market collapse, would be to get rid of the illegals that are taking up an extra 2 or 3 percent of the supply.

[Seattle or Bust]

I'd agree that it's not the only contributing factor.

But, in the past few years I believe the number of illegals has doubled.

Add that to the homes being gobbled up by Blackrock, and negative interest rates leading to tons of relatively poor people buying a second and third home to rent as Air-BNB's, the problem is exacerbated.

Since there isn't likely to be a fix to the Blackrock and Air BNB problem, the only issue that can be fixed outside of a market collapse, would be to get rid of the illegals that are taking up an extra 2 or 3 percent of the supply.

As I said, the market in major cities is inflated by legal immigrants who are under contract from major tech companies. Companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon do not want to pay American workers salary increases year over year so they are rotating crops of immigrant workers on starter-level contracts over and over to keep employment costs low. It's why they're building apartment complexes on every corner in the Seattle area.



"A letter sent by Compete America a trade group representing Silicon Valley interests, claims that the current cap of 85,000 H-1B visas per year is seen as insufficient to meet the demands of these tech firms. The letter cited by independent reporter Lee Fang shows how Silicon Valley is urging the Department of Homeland Security to expedite and streamline the visa application process.

However, these same companies recently laid off tens of thousands of American workers, leading to concerns about the replacement of domestic workers with H-1B visa holders. Some reports have even suggested that the companies have already started replacing fired employees with H-1B visa holders.

The H-1B program has been criticized for its potential to depress wages in the tech industry, as companies can pay foreign workers below the local median wage."

I have nothing against these people. Take advantage of what's being offered to you. But 85,000 new immigrant workers in tech companies at major cities every year will surely increase rent rates. And these tech companies are doing so to avoid paying workers a fair wage so they can make investors happy and make record profits.

What is stopping Lee Fang from hiring the 10's of thousands of college graduates each year w. computer science and programming degrees? Oh right, greed.

[gil]

Agreed. And sure, I don't think it helps that illegal immigrants are given handouts and I wish both sides could come to a consensus on how to handle it. But I'm not going to scapegoat a bunch of people taking a very small chunk out of the pie as the major issue.

To me the issue will always be corporate greed. Those at the top enjoy living a lavish life and could care less about those at the bottom. They do everything in their power to screw the little guy over... until that changes this country is in a rough spot.

As I said, the trickle from trickle down economics is at a tiny drip right now where it should always have a nice flow to it if we want to believe in capitalism. Business owners should want their employees to live comfortable lives... but the majority only care about themselves and their investors.

According to the Census in 2021 there were 11.5 million illegal immigrants at that time.

If 10M more have come across since Biden made the border wide open, that's ~20M illegals.

In a country where there are ~144M housing units, having 20M people unnecessarily added to the mix is a huge problem.

Even if they lived 2 to a unit, that's 10M homes/apartments.

10M out of 144M = 6.9% of all units filled by illegals.

The historic vacancy rate in the US is ~5%.

That represents a massive problem and clearly drives the prices through the roof.

In 2005 there were 10.5 million estimated illegal immigrants in the US.

In 2010 there were 11.2 million

In 2016 there were 10.7 million.

In 2021 there were 11.5 million, as you said.

Avg rent in 2005: $604

Avg rent in 2010: $841

Avg rent in 2016: $949

Avg rent in 2021: $1,191

Avg rent in 2023: $1,180.

Illegals in the US and rising rent costs don't seem to correlate. Rent got very expensive in 2021 and has stayed about the same for the last 3 years despite the rising population of illegal immigrants.

"Average rent prices have increased 8.85% per year since 1980, consistently outpacing wage inflation by a significant margin; 2021 was an exceptionally volatile year for the market, which appears to continue in 2022." But then rents dropped a little bit in 2023 despite increases in illegal immigrant population.

This is a great discussion, thanks. I find myself typically advocating for strong borders, but the fact is that "illegal immigration" has become a bogeyman for things it doesn't cause. My thoughts:

I doubt that illegal immigration has anything to do with housing prices in Ballard, but it might in lower-priced cities like Ontario Oregon or Waterloo Iowa (basic supply and demand for lower cost housing: without immigration - legal or not - there would be a lot more empty housing units in those places).

If some large tech companies are using perfectly legal immigration to fill positions at lower costs, that DOES push out equally-qualified American citizens who expect higher salaries.

We have entire industries dominated by workers from south of the border. Whether they are legal or not (which is hard to tell without knowing the individuals, this is a fact). The roofing crew down the street. The people in the meat packing plant. I don't know if they are "displacing" America workers, but the system has provided us (consumers) cheaper food, cheaper home repairs, etc.

About 15 years ago, the United Farm Workers launched what at the time I thought was a publicity stunt called "Take Our Jobs." It's had legs, and I've grown to see the point: Anyone who things that immigrant farm workers are taking jobs away from "real Americans" should come down to the farm and get a job. I don't think there was much interest, to say the least.

[Seattle or Bust]

According to the Census in 2021 there were 11.5 million illegal immigrants at that time.

If 10M more have come across since Biden made the border wide open, that's ~20M illegals.

In a country where there are ~144M housing units, having 20M people unnecessarily added to the mix is a huge problem.

Even if they lived 2 to a unit, that's 10M homes/apartments.

10M out of 144M = 6.9% of all units filled by illegals.

The historic vacancy rate in the US is ~5%.

That represents a massive problem and clearly drives the prices through the roof.

In 2005 there were 10.5 million estimated illegal immigrants in the US.

In 2010 there were 11.2 million

In 2016 there were 10.7 million.

In 2021 there were 11.5 million, as you said.

Avg rent in 2005: $604

Avg rent in 2010: $841

Avg rent in 2016: $949

Avg rent in 2021: $1,191

Avg rent in 2023: $1,180.

Illegals in the US and rising rent costs don't seem to correlate. Rent got very expensive in 2021 and has stayed about the same for the last 3 years despite the rising population of illegal immigrants.

"Average rent prices have increased 8.85% per year since 1980, consistently outpacing wage inflation by a significant margin; 2021 was an exceptionally volatile year for the market, which appears to continue in 2022." But then rents dropped a little bit in 2023 despite increases in illegal immigrant population.

This is a great discussion, thanks. I find myself typically advocating for strong borders, but the fact is that "illegal immigration" has become a bogeyman for things it doesn't cause. My thoughts:

I doubt that illegal immigration has anything to do with housing prices in Ballard, but it might in lower-priced cities like Ontario Oregon or Waterloo Iowa (basic supply and demand for lower cost housing: without immigration - legal or not - there would be a lot more empty housing units in those places).

If some large tech companies are using perfectly legal immigration to fill positions at lower costs, that DOES push out equally-qualified American citizens who expect higher salaries.

We have entire industries dominated by workers from south of the border. Whether they are legal or not (which is hard to tell without knowing the individuals, this is a fact). The roofing crew down the street. The people in the meat packing plant. I don't know if they are "displacing" America workers, but the system has provided us (consumers) cheaper food, cheaper home repairs, etc.

About 15 years ago, the United Farm Workers launched what at the time I thought was a publicity stunt called "Take Our Jobs." It's had legs, and I've grown to see the point: Anyone who things that immigrant farm workers are taking jobs away from "real Americans" should come down to the farm and get a job. I don't think there was much interest, to say the least.

Agreed. Picking fruit in 100 degree weather isn't something Americans in rural cities are exactly lining up to do.

You know who will be pissed if illegal immigrants are deported? All the farmers who enjoy paying cheap labor. All the hotel chains that enjoy paying cheap labor. All the small restaurant business that enjoy paying cheap labor. And so on...

The question for me will always be, how can the government entice business owners to pay their employees winning wages?

I'm not sure when becoming a business owner went from starting a business to help yourself and your community live comfortably to people needing to own 1% of the US economy by themselves and doing everything in their power to make sure they can pay their employees the bare minimum they can get away with.