Trump to impose $100k fee for H-1B worker visas, White House says

I think there’s plenty of interesting debates to be had about immigration policy and its effects on the labor market, but one thing worth noting here is that the primary problem that damn near every other country on earth has isn’t immigration, it’s brain drain.

A core strategic strength of the US over the last century has been that everyone with any talent wants to come here to work, and by and large we’ve let them do so. You can argue how well that’s worked out for us - having worked with a great many extremely talented H1bs in an industry largely built by immigrants, I’d consider it pretty positive - but it damn sure hasn’t worked out well for the countries those talented folks came from.

As always, so much zero-sum thinking in all these discussions.

Often, the person may not have been as productive, happy, or well compensated in their own country.

Also, over time, some of those people make money in the US and take that, their knowledge and skills and go back home to share there. Everyone is better off.

I was discussing this elsewhere, and dug up something I wrote 11 years ago, and I think I'm still pretty happy with it:

https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-job...

> Also, over time, some of those people make money in the US and take that, their knowledge and skills and go back home to share there. Everyone is better off.

How are Americans better off in this scenario?

A few ways:

1. An American company benefited from their labor

2. American consumers benefited from the goods / services they contributed to providing

3. American citizens benefited from the services provided by the taxes they pay

4. Other American businesses benefited from their patronage

Seems like you forgot the American worker in the equation?

People who are purely consumers (usually living of real estate gains or entitlements) are of course a huge part of the population, and benefit from everything brining consumer prices down - including cheap labour.

And many people are both consumers and workers, so they are benefitted from lower prices at the same time as they're disadvantaged by lower salaries. If they've already got real estate and the biggest expenses in life paid, they are more interested in lower consumer prices.

Then you have the people who have a much bigger interest in higher salaries than in cheaper consumer goods. Primarily young workers who need to get a foothold in life. For them it is of utmost importance that salaries increase, even though consumer goods get more expensive, because without a foothold in life they have nothing to live for.