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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6766 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 2, 2026

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Why do you think sending money overseas is bad?

As long as they get the money through real jobs and not government handouts it's a win win situation for Americans.

In economic terms they are giving us labor and increasing the purchasing power of the US dollar making all foreign goods cheaper for us.

You've got that reversed... Remittances decrease the value of the USD, because they are selling USD to buy their home currency.

The bigger issue is that remittances are money not recirculating in the economy. An American worker will generally spend a significantly higher percentage of their salary on American goods and services, which causes follow-on economic activity. Remittances just vanish out of the economy, creating no follow-on value.

Remittances just vanish out of the economy, creating no follow-on value.

Remittances don't cause money to get moleculaly obliterated.

When dollars are sent overseas they are exchanged for another currency, someone else is buying those dollars.

Those dollars must eventually be used to purchase American goods and services, invest in American stocks and bonds, or be exchanged again with someone who wants dollars.

Foreign demand for dollars and dollar-denominated assets is actually a major economic advantage for the US!!!!

If the dollar goes overseas and someone buys goods from the US, that is because they gain from buying the goods. If the dollar had not gone overseas, someone in the US would have gotten this gain instead.

Ah so I do, but we still keep the labor they provided. Which is lowering the costs of goods and services provided in the US. And foreign workers can send money home but they still have to live here so that means purchasing housing, food, transportation, etc.

I was thinking this was consistent with complaints about Chinese currency manipulation. The complaint against them was that they devalued their currency to give a boost to their manufacturing centers.

But now I'm confused, it's bad for us when China devalued their currency and thus boosts their exports. But also bad when immigrants devalue the US currency and boost US exports?

I would generally just think it's bad to devalue the currency, and that boosting imports is the better thing to do all around since that translates to a higher standard of living.

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