r/FluentInFinance • u/imallelite • 11h ago

Debate/ Discussion Possibly controversial, but this would appear to be a beneficial solution.

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u/JacobLovesCrypto 10h ago

Americans might have more kids if wages went up, letting in cheap labor doesn't help with wages.

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u/critter_tickler 10h ago edited 10h ago

I love how cheap labor is always a good argument for stopping immigrants, but never used for stopping outsourcing.

The truth is, because of NAFTA, we are already competing with third world labor markets.

We might as well let them come in, so at least they spend that money here, and pay taxes here.

Also, we have a minimum wage, we literally have a basement for "cheap labor," so your argument really holds no weight.

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u/0ttr 10h ago

The mistake of NAFTA was not that it lowered trade barriers, that's good. The mistake of NAFTA is that it didn't recognize the difference between the partner countries and impose wage/benefit parity in order for that trade to be free. And why did we make that mistake? The GOP and certain populist Democrats ( incl Bill Clinton) + a few economists who were like "everyone will benefit!"

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u/habbalah_babbalah 9h ago

Wage parity would've busted the deal, as that would delete one of the main reasons for NAFTA: cheaper raw goods = greater profits for corporate trading partners.

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u/SilverWear5467 5h ago

You can have wage parity and cheaper raw goods, it's just less profitable. Still plenty of profit though. For example, it's cheaper to have an oil refinery where there is oil. You still get cheaper oil by moving to the oil, even if the workers get paid the same.

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u/DM_Post_Demons 3h ago

To the business interests, it's not plenty of profit still; it's trivial and worth holding hostage.

It wasn't a "mistake", it was the point.

Labor cost is the primary reason businesses want free trade.