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Comment by dbc | Hacker News Reader

"India’s best and brightest swept inland, helped turn a valley full of orchards to Silicon."

Uh, no. Those orchards were gone long before South Asians came to Silicon Valley in significant numbers. The demographic makeup of SV engineers was overwhelmingly white American until around a dozen years ago.

With the importation of so many engineers into the US, wages were suppressed and many American students who had the potential to become engineers made the rational decision to pursue other career paths.

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"The demographic makeup of SV engineers was overwhelmingly white American until around a dozen years ago."

A dozen years ago was 1997. Do you seriously think this is true?

"With the importation of so many engineers into the US, wages were suppressed..."

You seem to think that white Americans work hard to "create" jobs, which are then "stolen" by hordes of immigrants. In other words, white Americans "give" and immigrants "take". That's just not how it works.

Immigrants in SV are on average smarter and work harder than Americans - not because there's something wrong with Americans, but because these immigrants are a highly biased sample of the world's huge population.

"A dozen years ago was 1997. Do you seriously think this is true?"

Of course. That's why I wrote it. This is based on my living and working in SV at the time.

"You seem to think that white Americans work hard to "create" jobs, which are then "stolen" by hordes of immigrants. In other words, white Americans "give" and immigrants "take". That's just not how it works."

Who are you quoting when you put quotes around the words "create", "stolen", "give", and "take"? Are you trying to give the impression that you are quoting me?

The wage issue is basic economics: if you increase the quantity supplied of something (such as wheat, or trained engineers), the price will drop.

No, it's not supply/demand economics, that was my point. It would be if Americans created jobs that immigrants later filled. That is not happening.

Rather, both Americans and immigrants worked hard to build a tech industry that then created jobs. Without the immigrants, the Americans would not have been able to create an industry more significant than, say, the Japanese or Italian tech industry. Thus many jobs would not exist, and the wages would not be higher.

You did not say words like "create", "stolen", "give", and "take", but they are implicit in making your supply/demand argument work.

I am morally opposed to immigration restrictions in general. But I agree with dbc. An increased supply in engineers lowers price (wages). If all immigrants left SF tomorrow, the companies left short would bid up the price of an engineer. That is basic economics.

The words you have put in quotes are the moral judgements you believe are attached to those events. dbc gave no indication of such a position. He is just talking abut the dynamics of the market. An engineering shortage would have encouraged more engineering training. The number of white engineers is not static.

*The other things that would happen if immigrant left is that it would become more rational to hire engineers outside of SF ultimately damaging the prosperity of the city. SF engineers should not want to lose the immigrants.

You're assuming that it's a zero sum game, and that there's only a limited number of engineering jobs available.

What about all the companies that immigrants and immigrant children started? Ebay, Yahoo, Google, etc... All those jobs created by those companies would not exist hat it not been for immigration.

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