yestrusocialist
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User ID: 2545
yestrusocialist
5d ago
The weaponization of the justice department without even a pretense that things aren't political.
Is the issue here that Trump doesn't make pretenses when the media criticizes him for it, whereas previously the media just never criticized Biden and Obama for doing it?
The expansion of ICE-- it's not like the public didn't vote for more deportations, but similarly it's a force being used for Trump's political/personal vendettas. You really think Minnesota is more of a hotspot of illegal immigrants than, say, Texas?
Texas is working with ICE so there's no need for it. For example, after an illegal alien rapist serves his time in jail in TX, the prison system calls up ICE and hands him over. MN does not do this - for some reason MN wants illegal alien rapists out on the streets and collecting welfare. So you need ICE agents on the streets doing police work instead.
I agree that we're closer than we have been in a long while. But we're certainly further from fascism than we were under Obama and Biden.
yestrusocialist
12d ago
Google "ice bae".
yestrusocialist
12d ago
Doge was successful. It didn't cut the budget (which is mostly wealth transfers) but it did cut a lot of sinecures for leftists and disrupt the operations of many taxpayer funded left wing activist organizations.
yestrusocialist
14d ago
Here's a better analogy:
"You know, there is an easier way to fix this," you offer. "You could just pick up all the open cans of tuna that have been placed all over your yard. Then the problem would basically take care of itself."
"I proposed that yesterday. You stopped me from doing so." your neighbor, Donald, replies. "Also, I saw you putting lots of tuna cans and cat treats out yourself. What the heck are you talking about?"
See this thread from the previous motte thread: https://www.themotte.org/post/3493/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/405679?context=8#context
Specifically, in 2023, anti-immigration republicans tried to pass HR2 which got rid of the tasty tuna cans (mandatory e-verify). The hypothetical "you" (dems + a few CATO republicans) prevented it from passing. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/4529/text
This line about going after employers is a leftist misdirection. I agree Trump should try to get laws changed to make e-verify mandatory, but also he should enforce existing immigration law and try to get illegals out. Enforcing existing immigration law works, today, to reduce the # of illegals. The # goes down regardless of whether Trump's successor feels like enforcing E-Verify laws or not.
Incidentally, Trump is trying to kick out immigrants by doing things like giving them less free money taken from hardworking taxpayers. Leftists oppose this too.
yestrusocialist
14d ago
I also imagine (and in a couple of cases know with certainty) that employers know they are hiring illegals. But at $10k/violation for hiring illegals and $50k-$300k for discrimination for failing to accept "reasonably genuine" documents, I don't blame them for it.
I blame the legal structure they operate under and the politicians who created it. Capitalists will be Capitalists. It's on government to align the incentives with desired actions.
I agree this can be done, but it will be slow and will not get rid of illegals in the short run.
yestrusocialist
15d ago
Lets scroll up and see what the original conversation was about:
I am saying that a Trump that wanted to actually enforce immigration laws would not be doing what he is doing now.
This shouldn't even be up for debate. If they wanted to stop immigration they'd go after American employers who pay the illegal immigrants American money to work for them
In fact, if Trump wanted to "actually enforce immigration laws" he would in fact enforce existing laws which include laws against illegals being in America. The fact that it might be politically infeasible to radically reshape both immigration and anti-discrimination law does not change this fact - the changes you've described (which I support!) are not current law.
And yes, blaming employers is a left wing misdirection because employers are behaving exactly as laws fully supported by the left insist they behave. The fact that a minority of republicans side with left wingers on changing those laws doesn't change this.
I agree that the actual fight is between MAGA and the establishment and the establishment includes some Republicans. Who disagrees with this claim? Trump certainly doesn't - witness his many fights with Republicans like Liz Cheney who value preserving their social standing with leftists over saving America.
yestrusocialist
16d ago
Nowhere, because Republicans are not a monolith and the establishment ones side with Dems on this issue. See also, e.g., continuing to fund NED, remote shutoff, etc.
yestrusocialist
16d ago
I asked grok. Republicans tried to make everify mandatory in 2023 with HR2, and multiple times in the past as well. Dems prevented it.
yestrusocialist
16d ago
Every employed illegal also went through it. I'm all in favor of mandatory e-verify plus giving employers broad leeway to reject any vaguely suspicious documents (even if "reasonably genuine") and re-e-verify any employee anytime for any reason.
I'd also favor inverting the cost of penalties - $50-300k for hiring illegals, only $10k for discrimination. (Today it's the reverse.)
But this is a major change in the law with exactly zero D support + very little establishment republican support.
Its nonsense to pretend that this new regime is anything like existing law, however.
yestrusocialist
16d ago
I agree the law should be changed. I was disagreeing that Trump could simply enforce existing law.
yestrusocialist
16d ago
If you want to reduce the penalties for discrimination and commensurate increase the penalties for hiring illegals, to the point where employers happily risk discriminating in order to avoid hiring illegals, I support this.
yestrusocialist
16d ago
I agree that it would be great to dismantle antidiscrimination law. It is not true that this could be "easily cleared with legislation" - among other things one would also need to eliminate leftist judges and other instruments of left wing anti democratic power.
yestrusocialist
16d ago
That is a fake alternative, made up by the left. More detail here: https://www.themotte.org/post/3493/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/405679?context=8#context
yestrusocialist
16d ago
No, this is a made-up misdirection from the left.
Employers are not the villain here - employers are legally required to accept any "reasonably genuine" documents that appear to relate to the employee, even if they are not ultimately confirmed by e-verify. Employers cannot terminate an employee simply because they believe they are an illegal immigrant. Doing so may result in anti-discrimination lawsuits against the employer, which are far riskier and carry heavier penalties than hiring illegals.
If an employer reports a worker to ICE as potentially illegal, the employer may get into trouble with anti-retaliation law. Additionally, claiming the employer is retaliating against you can be a pathway to getting 6 more years in the US - i.e. the illegal alien is financially motivated by the government to cause further trouble for the employer.
yestrusocialist
30d ago
I don't think this works, as there are also relatively right-leaning libertarians like Bryan Caplan who are also in favor of more immigration.
Caplans position is actually quite far from the left. He favors a UAE type model: let the world in and deport them instantly if they jaywalk or consume any welfare. Also they and their America-born children get no political representation or welfare ever.
Apart from the complete inability to politically maintain this situation, it's a good plan.
yestrusocialist
1mo ago
Obama campaigned on a paradigm shift from Bush and the forever wars in the middle east.
Obama chose Biden as his VP and Clinton as secretary of state.
Anyone who was fooled into thinking he was anti war or pro civil liberties wanted to be fooled.
yestrusocialist
2mo ago
you don't have principled economic reasons to oppose immigration.
The principaled economic reason to oppose immigrating in this case is that you want immigrants to be net taxpayers, and also work in jobs complementary with (most) Americans rather than in competition with them.
For example, high skilled specialists we just don't have enough of. (Original use case of H1B, before it got exploited as a source of cheap accountants and php drones.)
yestrusocialist
2mo ago
On the immigrants thing, they can easily be doing both. Any immigrant with income below approximately the 60th percentile of income is a net negative to the taxpayer.
Then they are both taking our jobs and being net consumers of welfare.
yestrusocialist
2mo ago
In India it is possible to know the cost. The hospital knows that some procedures have complications and prices that in. If the 4/5 patients cost 75k and 1/5 costs 2 lakh, they charge all of them a flat 1 lakh. You pay 1 lakh before the procedure and your obligation is done.
This is possible. The US having a different situation is a choice the US made.
yestrusocialist
3mo ago
I don't think you quite understand what was done. The risk reduction comes from being in the senior tranches and taking losses last.
This happened. Folks owning the senior/low risk tranches lost the least, exactly as CDO sellers promised. (This is quite mechanical and unsurprising.) The stress tests at the time did not assume uncorrelated losses - that's dumb, even for a regulator.
CDO sellers who kept the junior tranches (I.e. first losses) went bankrupt. Why would they do that if they were selling the senior tranches with a false bill of health?
yestrusocialist
3mo ago
The bill of health wasn't false. It's trivially easy to take a cdo prospectus and simulate what happens in the event of a catastrophic drop in house prices.
It's just that everyone - buyers, sellers, rates, regulators, all assumed that this was a very low probability event. Reality turned out to be worse than nightmare/worst case scenarios in various stress tests cooked up by regulators.
The sellers (who are often accused of fraud) kept the risky tranches on their books while selling the safe ones - the opposite of what one would do if they knew the risk.
yestrusocialist
3mo ago
Trump deserves significant credit" surprised me, a little, since Democrats didn't shy away from giving Trump credit for Operation Warp Speed,
Wait what?
Who is the most mainstream Dem you can cite who acknowledges Trump saved millions of lives and got a vaccine out at a speed they previously categorized as "misinformation"?
yestrusocialist
4mo ago
Maybe the CEO is a specialist in managing decline.
A regular CEO might be able to extract $10B profit from a declining company, but he can extract $15B before it dies. If I were on the board of a declining company, I would surely want to hire this guy.
yestrusocialist
4mo ago
For my stocks, at the moment they vest (a taxable event) a fraction of them are sold and the proceeds are given to the IRS as tax withholding. This is pretty common in the US.
No extra forms. It goes on my W2.
They surely eliminated gender bias. But the claim that they helped women (I.e. that bias against women existed without them) is not really supported by the original study on it.
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/05/11/did-blind-orchestra-auditions-really-benefit-women/
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