I'm sure some of us knew it would come to this.....

You didn't answer. Would you prefer a Georgist solution?

 

Where are these highly skilled Mexican craftsmen learning their trade? Is construction in Mexico booming?

 

I've seen them do this for hours in 105 degrees.

Wasn't a German or a Brit in the bunch.

 

Probably a German or Brit hired them.

 

Illegals working off the books and outside the law have suppressed wages for so long that they have driven a huge amount of Americans out of the industry. My dad couldn't give his company away when he retired. My mom managed to find some of his employees jobs in the local school system because she ran construction services for the school system, but the rest were out of luck. My dad did higher quality work and specialized on the difficult and high profile residential projects. That was how he stayed competitive in the market with the illegals. It will take years to replace all of the illegals that we force to leave and restore the American workforce. So be it.

And my dad worked all day every day in the Texas heat until he was 66. I did it every Summer for years as a teenager. Mexicans aren't special.

 

I bet your right, but did it answer your question?

 

Your post reflects a lack of awareness of the discussion. I'll try to refresh:

1) The Constitution says tariffs, like all taxes, are under the purview of Congress
2) Trump has circumvented the Constitution in this respect
3) As I've mentioned before and you have dodged, other laws CAN'T CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION. You need an amendment for that. They used to cover this in civics classes. Have they stopped?
4) As I've mentioned before and you have dodged, even those other laws do not fully delegate Constitutional powers from one branch to another. They only allow (and the SC has confirmed this) the Executive to act as the "MERE SERVANT" of the Legislative and under their specified guidelines. That's not what Trump is doing.

Let me add . . .

5) He's still violating the Constitution. Bitching about other people doing the same thing earlier, even if you were right, would still be a fake argument.

But feel free to keep ignoring the facts and keep letting feelings take priority. I'll still be here if you decide to switch tracks and engage the facts.

 

No. Roofing is not a highly skilled profession mostly it's just labor.

 

Those jobs also become closed markets. What I have seen is there is usually one man in charge that will hire and fire the laborers. In many cases there is kick back to the foreman or no job for you and they hire Mexicans who understand the process. There is little point in a white guy applying for those jobs, it's a closed system.

 

Then apparently you're not familiar with the gig economy the US was collapsing into.

 

Gigs exist so there are no other jobs? What a hilarious assumption.

 

some protectionism is needed, but only for those area where it's needed

I am more concerned with foreign outsourcing and foreign imports - this is stealing jobs Americans do want

and having India in control of our data infrastructure is a national security risk

 

Maybe you can expand on that. I understand plumbers and electricians. Who else falls in to highly skilled?
Drywall? Concrete? Framer? Stucco?

 

No, we're a nation of common sense, if the law is silly and hurts us economically we change the law, we don't keep on doing silly things that hurt us because it's "the law". We're not a bunch of hidebound and pigheaded ignoramuses....oh, wait, Republicans ARE in charge, aren't they?.

 

Roofing doesn't take a college degree or equivalent, but there IS a certain amount of knowledge and thought that has to be applied to it or you're going to have problems pretty quickly. That's any aspect of construction, of course, but roofs in particular.

All the trades you mention are technically semi-skilled but can be highly skilled too. Putting Drywall around curves isn't really easy, Concrete specialists have to know things like slump and what it means. Good framers can tell things to structural engineers, Michelangelo was a plasterer.

 

Those are crafts, skills acquired through on the job training. They are also crafts whose wages are controlled by the availability of unskilled workers for the training programs.

 

So why is there a shortage of them?

 

Wages too low?

 

Nonsense. I'm in the industry.

The high cost of construction is due to material costs that were high before tariffs even went into effect. Immigration has not slowed down, so it's not labor shortages.

Problem is, building materials are so high that many buildings are upside down in value before they have occupants move in.

 

There is little to no evidence that outsourcing results in fewer net American jobs. There is probably even less evidence that imports result in this. It is part of the fallacy of the seen and the unseen.

 

Not really. Our trade halls have been desperate for labor since the recession. Part of the problem is finding Americans that can do the labor day-in and day-out, pass a drug test, and show up to work on time.

Immigrants have nothing to do with politicizing the housing costs.

Many home builders went under after the housing bust. We have a shortage of builders, laborers, and high materials cost. This all existed before trump.

 

Could be.
So if you believe Powell you would get rid of the tariffs?

Fed’s Powell says US homebuilders hit by ‘a perfect storm’ of Trump’s immigration policy, tariffs

KEY POINTS

• Powell says “a series of factors” are holding homebuilders back and “challenging affordability,” in response to questioning from Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn.
• The head of the Federal Reserve says those include a skilled labor shortage and increased material costs, aggravated by the Trump administration’s immigration policy and tariffs, respectively.
• His comments come amid a severe housing shortage which has inflated home prices and kept would-be first-time buyers on the sidelines.

I do think it's clear new home prices have outpaced our ability to pay.

 

Nobody will put 1950 style affordable housing on a lot that they can use for a modern home with 4 br, 3 baths and two car garage. The new homes are so expensive because they are made to be expensive. Kids leaving home today don't want what their parents started with they want what their parents have now and they want it right now.

 

June 2007 Table A-10. Employed and unemployed persons by occupation

Construction and extraction occupations
Employed; 9,597,000
Unemployed; 628,000
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_07062007.pdf

-----------------

June 2019 Table A-13. Employed and unemployed persons by occupation

Construction and extraction occupations
Employed; 8,352,000
Unemployed; 364,000
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t13.htm

 

So the only people that will own will soon be even lower and prices even higher until only the rich will be able to buy a house? Therefore we shouldn't be concerned with material and labor costs?
Doesn't sound good for the home team.