Returning to the example in the previous post, suppose that instead of hiring a cheaper worker that creates more value, the company hired a more expensive one. Now each chair costs $60 to produce instead of $50. Where will this money come from? If the company makes 10% in profit, it will charge for each chair $11 more.
OK, let's see what happened when 10 chairs are produced in a week. The consumer pays for 10 chairs $110 more with the more expensive carpenter; of this am0unt, the company pockets $10 and pays the expensive carpenter extra $100. The consumer subsidized the carpenter.
This is true in general: when you protect an unproductive worker, the rest of the country pays that worker. Why should it?
When you protect "American jobs," no matter how unproductive in terms of value-creation they are, you are reaching into the pocket of your fellow Americans. Many people think that the losers are foreigners; they are not: the losers are American consumers.
When the American Consumer has lost his/her job, they are no longer "consumers" now are they? Here's the circular part of the argument.
You can only bring in so many H1B workers to do the expensive jobs cheaply, while maintaining a vibrant economy that produces JOBS that pay for Goods & Services "consumers" can afford.
We cannot be a nation of simply "consumers" having others do all the work, can we? NO. Your argument: . The consumer pays for 10 chairs $110 more with the more expensive carpenter; of this am0unt, the company pockets $10 and pays the expensive carpenter extra $100. The consumer subsidized the carpenter. really doesn't hold any water, since the CONSUMER is the one who subsidizes EVERYTHING in the manufacturing process, including the costs & taxes of all materials and labor that went into producing the chair in your example. The consumer "subsidizes" the payroll, SS taxes, health insurance benefits, etc.. of the expensive carpenter.
With reduced labor rates of the H1B worker, the cost of the product is supposed to go down, but in fact DOES NOT. If it takes 2 H1B workers to complete the job of 1 American at roughly the same cost, where are the savings? What damage is being done to the economy? There's a much larger picture here which I don't see you addressing. That includes the damage being done to the economy by displacing higher paid workers with more BUYING POWER than two lesser-paid non-citizen workers who simply send the money home. That money LEAVES the economy.
I think I follow now. The almighty dollar!
If I need to manufacture a widget, and the US is too expensive, I just move my factory to Tijuana, where I can get cheaper labor and less hassles about environmental pollution that my widget factory produces. Not to worry about cancer or child labor injuries, the consumer wins when he or she gets my cheapo widget! 10 years later, when the pollution wafts into San Diego, or when kids are born with birth defects-- that is someone else's problem. Doesn't show in corporate balance sheets.
Hey, got another hot idea, why not simply abolish all borders while we are at it! That way, goods can flow without needless and unprofitable regulation. Making H1Bs and a lot of other bureaucratic red tape unnecessary.
After all, intangibles such as cherishing or preserving the quality of life, or the environment, or holding onto Constitutional freedoms-- these are trifles and hardly worth protecting. They have no market value, after all. They interfere with multinational corporate profits.
The almighty dollar! Now that's something we can and should sell just about anything for. Right TQ? :-)