You comment proves my point. You don't understand job creation, immigration, manufacturing, international markets and more.

> We create 3-4 times that many jobs

You are confusing job recovery with job creation. In an economy that was devastated by the pandemic, politicians (and statistics) love to show job creation, when, in reality, it's job recovery.

Job creation is easy to define: First get to the point where no person who is able to work has a job. Any job openings beyond that point represent new jobs created for which there might not be people to fill them.

> job holders also create additional demand

I love economists. They know so much about money and economics that every single millionaire and billionaire is has a degree in Economics. It's amazing, really.

Look my friend, if you are going to grab onto wonderful-sounding theories pushed by economists, you might just have to learn the hard way just how stupid these people and their theories can be.

In my world, the instant someone starts quoting economists is the moment they lose a lot of points with me. Just a personal view. I have almost no respect for them. Pick a country, almost any country, and I'll show you economists who have mucked-up the machinery beyond recognition. Almost every country in Latin America has a "favorite" economist people can name as the root of all evil. Sometimes more than one.

>> you would be surprised how much of an ATM machine the US is for the world.
> This metaphor implies receiving money without any real effort.

That isn't what I said at all. I stated a fact. Personal money transfers amount to well over $150 billion per year. Mexico alone receives some $60 billion of that. China, about $20 billion. Etc. These are not trivial amounts of money.

This is money doing noting in the US economy and lots elsewhere. The US isn't in good shape. Things are not good. $150 billion dollars is a tremendous amount of money to have exit the economy. That's one hell of an ATM machine for those countries. And, yes, from the perspective of the recipients, it is an ATM machine.

> Perhaps the US should have instituted capital controls several decades ago instead of letting the monied class fatten itself on the short-term windfalls of outsourcing to markets with an oversupply of cheap labor.

That statement (the the bit that follows) betrays an almost complete understanding of what happened and how business actually works. Our politicians have failed us for probably fifty years when it comes to foreign economic policy. That much is evident from the results delivered not just to the US, to the world. This has nothing to do with the popular American academic's ideological hatred of capitalism, which is utterly laughable to the core.

> US manufacturing is actually doing great and outpacing the rest of the world

Sorry my friend, you are as wrong as can be. I have been in manufacturing --across a range of domains, from commercial and industrial to aerospace-- for about 40 years. The fact that we have people in this country believing that manufacturing is "doing great" is sad to watch. it would be funny if it was not tragic.

This is one of the main reasons for which I say we are not creating enough jobs to be importing millions of unemployed. Because, well, we are not.

Sometimes it helps to go through some basic numbers, imperfect assumptions as they might be, just to get a sense of proportion. Assume you bring in 6 million people to work in manufacturing. For simple numbers, let's assume a factory can take 6K workers. That means you need a THOUSAND new factories of that scale to support those workers. You show me where we have built anywhere close to a THOUSAND new factories --of that scale-- and I'll change my mind. Filling-in jobs lost at existing factories isn't new job creation.

> This trend looks likely to continue for some time given the large subsidies still coming down the pipe for green energy and chip production

Yeah, good luck. Keep an eye on that. I sincerely hope you figure it out one day. It might take time.

Do me a favor. Drop the immigration lawyer goal. We don't need more lawyers, we need more entrepreneurs willing to risk life, limb and treasure to create things people need and, as a result, yes, create jobs and make everyone's lives better. Lawyers don't create shit. They are parasites feeding on society. If you really want to understand how reality works, go create something. You won't find the answer in books. And, yes, get as far away from economists as you can as fast as you can.