Steve Sailer writes: Los Angeles became a huge light manufacturing center in the 1980s by importing an illegal alien workforce to sew clothes together and the like. But is light manufacturing (i.e., low investment manufacturing) much good, except for the owners? I’m not sure, actually, because the disposability of the industry might be a strike in its favor in the long run. The current gentrification of the downtown L.A. has to do with the ease of pushing out low value added apparel businesses that really should go to the Third World.
In contrast, Rust Belt towns with heavy industry remain Rust Belt towns with heavy industry for a very long time because the huge capital investment. Henry Ford’s River Rouge factory, for example, is still in operation, although it appears that the original building was finally closed in 2004.
In general, the middle of the US (which doesn’t have much lumber or wood-working industry) has had a good 21st Century. In contrast, heavily forested North Carolina, which had a fine 1990s, was hammered by the housing bubble popped. I only realized that from looking at Chetty’s county-by-county data.
It’s one of the differences between states that went for Trump (typically, have had a bad time since 2008) vs. Cruz (done reasonably well for themselves over the last 8 years).
Warning: these things are cyclical and don’t necessarily predict the future. (On the other hand, sometimes they do.)
COMMENTS:
* The issue of mechanization/stoop labor is a recurring theme in America.
There is one school of historical thought that reasons that mechanization would have ultimately displaced negro field hands in the South and that the Civil War was unnecessary. Southern planters would have realized that maintaining human beings cost more than replacing them with machines and would have gradually adopted up to date technological innovations which would have jump started the virtuous feedback cycle of increasing demand, money for research and development, innovation and increased productivity, lowers prices, greater demand and so on.
According to this argument then, the tragedy of the loss of life in the Civil War can be laid directly at the feet of Northern Abolitionists who, impatient of gradual reform, forced a violent resolution to a problem about which they knew little. Too, they can be blamed for the consequent degradation of life for both poor whites and blacks in the post Reconstruction South. Had the transition been allowed to proceed organically, then the fabric of social life in the South would not have been rent.
This may or may not be true. Certainly, many planters would have been reluctant to adopt new ways.
One thing is sure; free labor cannot compete with slave labor. Most immigrants to America during the first half of the 19th century settled in the (tariff protected) North because there were no good paying jobs for free whites in the South. This principle holds as well today as it did then. Thus, ironically, the supposedly liberal, open-border apologists such as Paul Krugman serve the interests of today’s slave-holding class.
* Madison is becoming a Chinese colony.
That is another story of the last 8 years that respectable people are avoiding- how heavily Sinicized the modern university has become in the last decade.
At first glance, a huge wave of Chinese students entering American higher education seems beneficial for both sides. International students, in particular from China, are clamoring for American credentials, while U.S. schools want their tuition dollars, which can run two to three times the rate paid by in-state students.
On the ground, American campuses are struggling to absorb the rapid and growing influx—a dynamic confirmed by interviews with dozens of students, college professors and counselors.
Students such as Mr. Shao are finding themselves separated from their American peers, sometimes through choice. Many are having a tough time fitting in and keeping up with classes. School administrators and teachers bluntly say a significant portion of international students are ill prepared for an American college education, and resent having to amend their lectures as a result.
In a recent computer engineering class, Mr. Shao sat quietly in the back of a large lecture hall, dividing his time between Chinese social media on his smartphone and a lecture by Dave Nicol. He doesn’t remember ever asking a question in class.
Mr. Shao says he doesn’t want to expend the energy it would take to bridge the culture and language gaps. “The academic atmosphere is really good, which is the most important thing I care about,” he says.
He pledged a fraternity his freshmen year but soon found the drinking rituals and other demands took time away from his studies.
“I am majoring in electrical engineering,” says Mr. Shao. “It’s pretty intense.”
* First Mexicans get in as fruitpickers “doing the jobs Americans won’t do [for lousy, un-American wages]“.
Sadly, our Magic Dirt doesn’t work. Once they set foot on our soil, they don’t automagically get a PhD in biochemistry and start working at Johns Hopkins. Nor do their children. Nor do their children’s children, or their children’s children’s children.
Since Magic Dirt never fails to work (in the SJW mythos), their failure to instantly cast off their work gloves and don a lab coat can only be due to white oppression. We must then expend massive amounts of money to take care of them and “close the gap”.
SJWs honor Mexicans because they are noble, hardworking, and work cheap. Once they walk on the Magic Dirt and actually start working cheap, however, they automagically become poor and oppressed and the taxpayer must take care of them.
Weird stuff. If you don’t want poverty, stop importing poverty.
* Well if you’re a Mexican stoop laborer happily ensconced in some U.S. town, once you realize that you can get food stamps, housing assistance, free medical care, free school for your pudgy brats and countless other goodies, why bother going to work? Hell, you can do a few day jobs here and there for beer money.
Now if — heaven forbid — we cut them off from ALL benefits of any kind, including kicking their brats out of the schools, you might have a sudden abundance of willing labor. Or a rapid return to what would now be an easier life in Mexico.
It’s amazing how easy it is to solve problems when you’re not consumed with white guilt.
* We used to have a large agricultural labor force in America for hundreds of years, even after the abolition of slavery – they were called Negroes. Then we put most of them on welfare. Not only did this pay better than farm labor, but they got out of the habit of doing menial labor. The women, especially, grew enormously obese due to generous food stamp benefits so they couldn’t do manual labor anymore even if they wanted to, which they don’t. If we hadn’t spoiled our Negroes they would still be out there working, if their other choice was starving. So first, thru generous welfare benefits, we created one problem (lack of agricultural workers) and then created another problem (millions of aliens who will never make good Americans) to fix the first problem. This is like giving yourself malaria to cure your syphilis. Most Mexicans are fine hard working people (at least the first generation before they learn how to be low class Americans with all the bad habits that implies) but they should be fine people in Mexico, not here.
