Hacker News Reader

This is Schrodinger's Immigrant[1], often spotted in the UK Murdoch papers, sometimes even in the same edition.

[1] https://www.econlib.org/schrodingers-immigrant/

Lazy yet stealing jobs. Yup that makes sense.

The better argument is that the more immigration there is the more difficult it becomes to provide various social programs. Difficult doesn't imply impossible however. One countering argument is that the more people there are the more taxation there is to support social programs. The truth therefore is that immigration has both good and bad aspects so there's a balancing point: Fully open or fully closed borders are likely a bad idea in general.

"Social programs" here being things like education and health. "Minor" things like that...

> The better argument is that the more immigration there is the more difficult it becomes to provide various social programs

The counter argument is that in an aging Country like mine, less immigration is killing social programs (caregivers are mostly immigrants here) and entire economic sectors (like catering and hospitality) because there aren't enough workers willing to do the job, but the trumpets both left and right shout that the other party is not doing enough to create new jobs and people lament that they can't find one.

We can call it the Schrödinger job that's both nowhere to be found by employers and yet highly prized among the population.

I believe Schrödinger would be very surprised to see that his experiment can be applied to social phenomenon and not only to quantum mechanics.

>> because there aren't enough workers willing to do the job

because there aren't enough workers willing to do the job at a price employers want to pay

Fixed it for you. There is never a labour shortage, only a shortage at a particular wage rate.

> because there aren't enough workers willing to do the job at a price employers want to pay

> Fixed it for you

I like people who assume without knowing like anybody else, but that's not the point.

These are jobs that usually pay above average salaries, people simply don't want to work on the evening (restaurants serve dinners, you know...) or in the weekend (restaurants work the most when people do not work or are on holiday etc. etc.)

So they both want the money and the time.

Long story short: they don't want to do the job, which is legit, but can't at the same time complain that there are no jobs IMO.

> There is never a labour shortage, only a shortage at a particular wage rate

There are limits though, over a certain threshold it becomes nonsensical, at some point it's better to kill the job sector entirely and call it a day.

If a waiter wants the same salary of a CEO, probably she/he's shooting too high...

Or they imagine that restaurants should be for billionaires only, that would shrink the number of available jobs to the bare minimum and skyrocket the skills needed to actually do the job.

Schrodinger at work here too.

p.s.: in my Country collective negotiation is the norm, one cannot easily pay radically different salaries for the same job. On the flip side once hired it's not as easy as in other Countries to be fired, it is actually pretty difficult to fire someone.

>> These are jobs that usually pay above average salaries, people simply don't want to work on the evening (restaurants serve dinners, you know...)

People will do all sorts of unsavoury jobs if the pay is high enough. Plenty of people work night shifts in various jobs.

>> There are limits though, over a certain threshold it becomes nonsensical, at some point it's better to kill the job sector entirely and call it a day.

This we can agree on.

------ Update due to the posting too fast rules ----

If I offered to pay you $10,000/night as a waiter in a restaurant, I guess you would take the job. I would.

If I offered you $1/night, you probably wouldn't.

Hopefully, somewhere between those two points is a number that will get people to work and be profitable for the restaurant owner. I'm not sure why people think supply and demand applies to other goods but not labour.

> People will do all sorts of unsavoury jobs if the pay is high enough. Plenty of people work night shifts in various jobs.

One would think...

Problem is that people that are willing to do that are not that many as you imagine.

Maybe where you come from people would kill themselves for money, but not here.

You know who would do almost anything to get a job and become better integrated with society while also feeling better about themselves?

Immigrants.

> If I offered to pay you $10,000/night as a waiter in a restaurant, I guess you would take the job. I would.

Surprise, I would not.

My best friends have restaurants and pubs, if I ever wanted to do that job I would already do that.

But it's not my job, it's not what I am good at and if someone gave me $10,000 night to do that job I would feel like a fraud. Also I would imagine that if you pay me that much, one that is actually good at the job is being paid at least 2x that amount, because I really suck at that!

People have consciences, believe it or not not everyone is a money-slut.

I'm much better off doing my job, which is what I really like to do.

But back on topic: if you offer a waiter 2,000 euros / month + tips (it's a very good salary in Italy) and they stop coming at work after a few days "because I wanted to go to the beach with my friends" there's something different going on, which is not "not enough money".

Besides: there are many psychological studies that point out that people would accept lower salaries for more meaningful jobs or better work/life balance and that they work more willingly if it's a favor to someone (even if it's people they do not know) and/or for free than for a paid position, where they feel like they are only doing it for the money but don't really wanna do that. So they prefer to say no to the money and don't do the thing at all.

Correlations have been found.

For example, I would push someone on a wheelchair for free, but if they offered me money to do it, I would politely refuse with an excuse, because it's not something I wanna do for money (not that I do not like money in general, it's that I do not want to do it as a job, paying someone it's exactly that: hiring the person for the job)

> Surprise, I would not.

Yes, I find it surprising. Seems to not compute.

>But back on topic: if you offer a waiter 2,000 euros / month + tips

This is poverty wages. That waiter would never be able to afford a home and family of his own. The waiter would find time to go to the beach around his work schedule if he was properly compensated.

> Yes, I find it surprising. Seems to not compute.

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I have to guess that you're slave to the money, I'm not.

I really don't care about them , as long my life is not in danger.

> This is poverty wages

LOL

American, right?

Average salaries in Europe are not much higher than that

Italy: €1.740

Spain: €1.800

Portugal: €1.1160

UK: €2.200

And these numbers are after taxes (which are quite high for US standards here, but also they really are not if you wanna define yourself a decent developed Country). So the employer is spending almost 2x, which is not bad per se if you ask me, but that's still something to consider.

> . The waiter would find time to go to the beach around his work schedule if he was properly compensated.

Restaurants are closed usually at least one day/week and 2-3 weeks off-season (it depends on the geography for some it's August for others it's fall/winter).

It's just that most of them close during the week and people want to go to the beach with friends and/or family on weekends.

But then again, you don't complain that there is no job if you don't want to do any job you're cut for and are not qualified for well paid, highly skilled jobs.

Please, if you wanna discuss things, can you at least learn the bare minimum to actually have a conversation that is not entirely based on your prejudices and stereotypes?

And €1.740 is enough to afford an average home in Italy? Raise a family? Seems not enough to me.

Half of the population is doing it with less than that, so I guess the answer is yes.

Also: salaries are per capita, two people with kids on average earn 2x that.

Most of Italy is not big costly cities, but small towns where prices are much more affordable.

You can rent a 100 square meters house in Taranto centre (quite large city in Apulia) for about 500-600 euros/month.

You can eat out in a restaurant and have a full meal for 20 euros.

Of course they are not getting rich.

Of course there are people who literally cannot live on their income and we should do more about it, like raising wages, for example, when possible.

Reminder: after taxes, which means free healthcare and free schools.

Taxes are paid by the employer as part of the salary.

Perhaps you could open a restaurant and pay people as much as they want to live a comfortable life. If you could do that and stay in business I would be most impressed.

Won't be able to stay in business without workers. If workers cannot live comfortably on their wages, they'll choose another job that provides those wages.

Funny. That's not how life works for most people.

Most people earn what they can, and live off it as best they can. If that means single bedroom apartment with 10 family members eating beans and rice, then that is what it is.

People on HN tend to be out of touch with how lower income people actually live.

In my own life over the course of twenty years I went from: living in a tent with 3 others for a year, to a one bedroom apartment with a roommate in the living room, to an apartment with just my wife, to buying a house and starting a family, to then buying a house with a pool and sending my kids to decent schools.

The point is that rice and beans is temporary. As a worker, I continued to work towards better employment that provided the life I required. The vast majority of folks I knew along the way did the same. All 4 of the folks in that original tent with me are comfortably middle class nowadays.

Upper Limit. Hiring you at $3,000 a month will increase my income by $3,000.

No reason to hire you. Below $3,000 and I can make money.

But ~1/3 employees are lazy and I can't fire them. So I have build in some safety margin for the bad employee's.

So I can pay you $2,000 a month and on average I'll break even. No thanks.

So I can pay you $1,500 a month, I'll make $500.

If there are more job openings than there are workers to fill them, then it doesn't matter what wages anyone is willing to pay, surely some of those jobs are going to go un-filled?

> Lazy yet stealing jobs. Yup that makes sense.

There are lots of people for whom logic, and logical consistency, are non-priorities. If they are anti-immigrant* and emotional, assume that they're trying to articulate their emotions - not get an 'A' on their Public Policy 401 term paper, nor favorably impress people with quite different priorities and educational backgrounds from their own.

*Of course, their anti-immigrant "beliefs" may learned from demagoguery they've been exposed to, which was a good-enough emotional match for their economic & social pain & insecurity.

Yes, the lazy mid-wit dismissal used by the upper-middle classes, safe in the knowledge that they would never be replaced. Perhaps in 100,000 additional people a year, there could be groups that do either?

I'm more of an "open borders libertarian" so by all means let everyone come in, but this here is a silly argument. If an immigrant comes, they're either going to get a job, or not get a job. From the point of view of someone who's opposed to more immigration, neither outcome is good. I fail to see a contradiction.

What if the person you are asking is an immigrant themselves? Would that answer make them reverse-Schrodinger's immigrant? Just trying to improve my Harry Potter game here...

At the moment where instead of "Because they cannot get jobs in their home country." the counterpart says "Because they are willing to work for very low pay for which locals would be unable to make ends meet." you have some thinking to do, not him.

> This can be as simple as asking Why? till they come to the point where they suddenly have to talk about the base of their believes:

While I generally support this type of argument, it's not necessarily helpful. Someone can observe something real but misattribute the cause, and you can end up dismissing their observation because their explanation of it doesn't make sense.

For your example, just because immigrants aren't lazy doesn't mean they aren't "stealing jobs".

B: Because of Economics 101. Look it up sometime before talking rot.

Genuinely curious if this is a joke or not. In a thread about arguments, I honestly cannot tell.

I think that is perhaps the weakest strawman I have ever seen.

Three paragraphs and you dismiss it with a sentence. Since you're criticising I think you could have done better.

The asking questions approach is a great way to dig out the weeds especially when someone's thinking appears to be a mess. Especially if you think they are somehow malicious or have a less than positive intent.

I was referring to the seven lines of dialogue.

  B: Why do you think that is?