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Ideas such as "membership benifits" and "Americans pay more to Americans" seems to create an us vs. them mentality and imply that the us party receive govnt benifits. The idea that country A receives befits over country B can be abstracted to simple free trade theory.

If you abstract a skilled worker to be a countrys "resource" and accept the idea that country A and B can ingage in "trade", than it is easy to see how US h1b style imigration worker laws are basicly tariff. They distort the price to protect domestic, by making foreign more expensive.

David Ricardo (Supply/Demand economist) and many other economists have shown countless times that countrys are better off in the long run by engaging in free trade.

If we removed the worker "tariffs" we would get more engineers, companies would be able to make more / do more. In the end US consumers would be better off by having more/better choices.




> seems to create an us vs. them mentality

No, it simply recognizes a situation which already exists, because different nations have different laws and economies. If you want a world hegemony, it's up to you to find a route that doesn't inordinately harm specific groups (e.g. US workers) while transferring value to others (e.g. US companies and arbitrage groups.)

> If you abstract a skilled worker to be a countrys "resource"

Oh? Seems to create a "people don't matter because they're just objects" mentality :P

> In the end US consumers would be better off by having more/better choices.

Unemployed or underemployed consumers never have more/better choices.




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