[havblue]

One of my "friends" bragged to me this year about how he threatened to replace one of his underperforming programmers with someone from Pakistan for $10 an hour.

Say you're on the receiving end of this threat. Do you really care what country your replacement is from? Is my "friend" really all that benevolent to fire someone for less money?

[sanderjd]

What is the political salience of this anecdote, in your view?

[havblue]

Parent discusses immigration in terms of xenophobia. The anecdote is an example of how an employee not wanting to be replaced by a lower salary individual isn't xenophobic. The desire to drive down wages though is in the economic interests of employers.

[sanderjd]

Yeah, but what is the political salience of that? It's unclear to me what political party or set of policies this anecdote relates to.

[havblue]

The anecdote would imply that if you're a tech worker, hiring more H1B's or outsourcing development is financially beneficial to shareholders and management while it puts downward pressure on wages for employees.

[sanderjd]

Yes, but again, what political conclusion are you suggesting would be drawn by that?

[BrenBarn]

I wasn't one of the ones who posted in this thread, but the obvious answer seems to be that the person who is told "we'll replace you with a $10/hr worker from Pakistan" will conclude "immigration hurts me and should be reduced" and thus that political parties should adopt that position.

[tucnak]

I'm sorry, I don't understand either. You use these hundred-dollar words that sound smart, but their meaning escapes me completely.

[sanderjd]

I think the confusion is mostly my fault, I should have just said this:

I don't think either political party has shown themselves to be against outsourcing.

So I don't really understand what political conclusion I'm supposed to draw from an anecdote about replacing someone with cheap outsourced labor.