Homeland Security Wants To Protect Us From Foreign Bands
A new proposal to more than triple visa entry fees for performers will harm American audiences and culture.
In a proposal published in the Federal Register last month, DHS wants to, among suggested fee hikes for many dozens of categories of entrance to the U.S., raise the entrance fee for what is known as a "P visa," for temporary stays in the U.S. to perform, from $460 to $1,615, a more than threefold increase.
The "O visa" for longer-term working stays for performers would jump slightly more, from $460 to $1,655. The two visa categories have in addition to their costs, naturally, a lot of other complicated rules.
The homeless population in this town has exploded over the past five years of so. They used to hangout around just a few places near the city center; now they're all over town. Another symptom of Late Stage Capitalism.
Speak for your own pecular capitalist system, your your own peculiar brand of welfare statism and other policy choices.
Why are US mortgage payments tax deductible? Because home ownership is divine?
Why does the US Central Bank have an employment mandate? Because America is the most drug-addled society on the face of the earth and going through the day without 'stimulus' is unthinkable? Because more macroeconomic volatility is a good thing? Because you don't care about the most vulnerable?
What is the purpose of your immigration program? More opportunities for promiscuous sex? Cheap labour for entitled get-rich-quick Americans? Because Democrat voters refuse to believe in resource constraints?
As for the current round of inflation..... why did US-lead NATO agree to provide NATO membership to the Baltic States and Poland in the 1990s? Because Americans are righteously myopic and love the Great Man of Stature approach to international relations?
The homeless population in this town has exploded over the past five years of so. They used to hangout around just a few places near the city center; now they're all over town. Another symptom of Late Stage Capitalism.
Sort of deliberately missing the point. Build nice middle-income housing, enough so that anyone who wants it can get it. They'll move out of their current place and make it available to someone further down the ladder. And so on. But as long as Americans aren't "buying a home" but are "investing in property," they'll fight anything that makes housing prices stop rising faster than inflation.
The upshot of the article is that simply building housing that meets the "affordable" criteria isn't going to do the job. Since it's new, it's going to be more desirable, and so its price will go up. People can get into affordable housing without moving: Either they make more money and have bought or have a contract that keeps their housing costs constant, or housing is built that doesn't fit the "affordable" definition but once there's a glut of housing available at the "top," that depresses prices all the way down the line. So just frickin' build, and let the market do its thing.
I'm not sure I agree 100% but I do agree that just building any units is probably better than trying to get cheaper and cheaper housing to market.
Agreed. However, with an affordable housing crisis here in the U.S., home ownership becoming out of reach or can't afford exorbitant rent hikes. Homelessness rising with the population already here ... where will these immigrant workers LIVE?
Farm workers may have bunk houses, but not the maid that works cleaning hotel rooms or the guy doing construction. How will they have affordable housing on the wages they make in our current environment?
The upshot of the article is that simply building housing that meets the "affordable" criteria isn't going to do the job. Since it's new, it's going to be more desirable, and so its price will go up. People can get into affordable housing without moving: Either they make more money and have bought or have a contract that keeps their housing costs constant, or housing is built that doesn't fit the "affordable" definition but once there's a glut of housing available at the "top," that depresses prices all the way down the line. So just frickin' build, and let the market do its thing.
I'm not sure I agree 100% but I do agree that just building any units is probably better than trying to get cheaper and cheaper housing to market.
The first piece in our labor shortages series demonstrated how labor shortages negatively impact Americansâ quality of life. The staggering inflation rates were an added blow over the last year, and these two phenomena are connected as labor shortages contribute to the inflation rateâs unsustainable growth. Supplementing our labor force by recovering pandemic-era immigration losses can help.
Agreed. However, with an affordable housing crisis here in the U.S., home ownership becoming out of reach or can't afford exorbitant rent hikes. Homelessness rising with the population already here ... where will these immigrant workers LIVE?
Farm workers may have bunk houses, but not the maid that works cleaning hotel rooms or the guy doing construction. How will they have affordable housing on the wages they make in our current environment?
The first piece in our labor shortages series demonstrated how labor shortages negatively impact Americansâ quality of life. The staggering inflation rates were an added blow over the last year, and these two phenomena are connected as labor shortages contribute to the inflation rateâs unsustainable growth. Supplementing our labor force by recovering pandemic-era immigration losses can help.
I went to a thing where "liberals" were paired up with "conservatives" and you know which side I was recruited for but when the immigration subject was universally agreed to be a matter of degree, I dropped a Lazyism on them (I think) with "what right does a government have to restrict a person's freedom of movement?" and that was fun.
It is interesting to look back on about the first 150 years of Europeans in N. America (not counting the Vikings). People were moving freely back and forth across the borders. So you would think that the constitutional originalists would be on board with that. White people, anyway. These days Canada brings in far more refugees than the US, in spite of a much smaller population and economy.
I don't think there is an easy answer to how to frame the policies. The lines between economic, social, and political migrants are fuzzy. It is tricky in Australia with the proximity to some pretty awful places in Asia. We have a significant Sri Lankan-Tamil population but how much migration is it reasonable to accept when the Tamil area of India is right there? And probably over half of Afghanis would be better off here than there. Then there's Myranmar... As a pragmatist, I think the limiting factor on immigration is not as much about how many people could be absorbed but by the number that could be allowed in without a social backlash making for more restrictions in the long run.
Borders are an anachronism. We are one species on one finite planet. We need to start acting like it.
