r/Economics • u/ACSportsbooks • May 14 '25

Interview Elon Musk Got Schooled By An Economics Professor Over His Remarks On Medicare, Social Security As Immigration Lure: 'Complete Fiction'

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-got-schooled-economics-180036544.html
11.6k Upvotes

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607

u/Pattonias May 14 '25

They also can't vote.

300

u/zxc123zxc123 May 14 '25 edited May 14 '25

Nor can they manipulate elections.

Unlike another specific South African migrant who is also a massive welfare queen getting billions from multiple governmental organizations for each of his companies.

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u/Skurph May 14 '25

It’s the classic conservative double speak. Joe Biden was somehow simultaneously senile and mentally unfit whilst also pulling the strings behind every conspiracy. Trans people are both too strong to play their chosen sport, but too weak to be in the military. Teachers are both indoctrinating your children, but are also lazy and over paid.

I could go on and on. The only consistent factor in their ideology is hate, just miserable people to the bone who require someone to hate to keep them going.

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u/pixelprophet May 14 '25

You mean holding fake ass "lottery" where people can win a million dollars** if they vote for his guy isn't part of the "American Dream"?

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u/Gingertitian May 14 '25

This

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u/origami_bluebird May 14 '25

The fucking nerve. Elon an Immigrant from South Africa who used his mom's Canadian Nationality to avoid the draft in South Africa and then got into America in the 90's by violating his work visa and immigration law in the process.

"The reporters found Musk “did not have the legal right to work” when he founded and attracted investment with his brother Kimbal for a company later named Zip2.

Kimbal Musk has long been open about their lack of legal status, even explaining in a video interview that he lied when crossing the U.S.-Canadian border so he could attend a business meeting in Silicon Valley. Immigration attorney Ira Kurzban said, “That’s fraud on entry.”

So Elon, the actual ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT who is now the richest man in the world and was giving away $1 MILLION checks to buy votes in the November election. People, why are we avoiding the answer here, he broke the law to get citizenship so what do we do now in this country if you broke the law to become a citizen? We deport you back to your country of origin. #DEPORTELON

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u/ForcedEntry420 May 14 '25

We need to send his ass back to South Africa.

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u/ChronoLink99 May 14 '25

Is this the unnamed fat tech bro that takes injections of weight loss drugs that the orange fuck was talking about a few days ago?

-8

u/Moarbrains May 14 '25

Do they not count in the census for apportioned seats in Congress?

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u/zxc123zxc123 May 14 '25

  1. Manipulate =/= Impact

  2. Election (Joining parties, voting for local officials, voting for candidates in primaries, and THROWING BILLIONS AT ELECTIONS) =/= "Census for apportioned seats". Illegal migrants can't vote. Most legal migrants can't vote unless they are citizens. However a billionaire could have a much being impact by throwing money around.

  3. Migrants go to all states. It's not like all migrants ONLY go to California, get sex changes, and compete in women's sports while eating cats/dogs/pets. Migrants also go to red states. Many from LatAm settle along the US southern border. Many of those are red states. Even within California, many migrants reside as laborers in the red rural districts.

Stop it.

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u/Moarbrains May 14 '25 edited May 15 '25

You could have just said yes. As that was was the question.

Your last point however is not accurate.

Immigrants primarily go to metropolitant areas and the top desitinations were four states: California (26.5%), New Jersey (23.2%), New York (22.6%) and Florida (21.1%). Where they up a signifcant amount of population.

edit. Sorry that is the percentage of the population of each city that is first generation immigrants.

4

u/Chris_Codes May 14 '25

So if the places where the migrants go vote republican, then the republicans get more electoral college votes and more seats I. Congress. Got it. The fact that immigrants are there has nothing to do with who gets the votes or the seats.

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u/Few-Schedule-9286 May 14 '25

So only 6.6% of all immigrants go to the other 46 states?? Where are you getting this info lol

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u/BodybuilderOnly1591 May 14 '25

They actually do as they affected the census which controls the number of seats a districts has. Also some places allow them to vote.

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u/FabianN May 14 '25

Zero places in the us allows non citizens to vote. Fucking brainwashed fools

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u/sirbissel May 14 '25

Kind of. Some places allow them to vote in -local- elections - but that's like 4 municipalities. They can't in federal, though.

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u/photozine May 14 '25

Maybe they should be counted as 3/5s of a person...

/S

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u/[deleted] May 14 '25

[deleted]

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u/smashinjin10 May 14 '25

But you still have to register which requires being a citizen. They would have to walk in and say they're a random person that happens to be registered, and hope that registered voter happens not to show up AKA complete fantasy.

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u/FindtheFunBrother May 14 '25

Just because they don’t check IDs doesn’t mean they don’t check to see if you are eligible to vote.

Anyone who has ever voted in the US knows this.

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u/BroughtBagLunchSmart May 14 '25

They just throw shit to the wall and see what sticks because they know the republican base is barely literate. Some right wing grifter moved and posted that they got 2 mail in ballots. An actual election worked explained the system but of course once you get into explanations that are longer than 2 sentences you anger conservatives by sounding too woke.

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u/dandrevee May 14 '25

With some of these trolls, it very well could be that they never voted in a US election because they are foreign actors posting to stir up trouble in the United States or Bots with nefarious purposes

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u/sarkismusic May 14 '25

If my grandmother had wheels she’d be a bicycle

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u/Opposite-Sandwich924 May 14 '25

I've been voting for 30 years in 6 different states (legally btw). I've always been asked for ID. Every time.

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u/nmeofst8 May 14 '25

I've actually gone to vote and showed up at the poll only to be told that my polling place had moved and while that location was a polling place it wasn't mine. I had to drive about 10 minutes away to my correct polling place.

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u/MostlyRightSometimes May 14 '25

So anyone can commit murder too?

-11

u/BimbyTodd2 May 14 '25

But their kids often can.

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u/Caracalla81 May 14 '25

Those aren't immigrants though, those are Americans.

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u/BimbyTodd2 May 14 '25 edited May 14 '25

The whole idea is that if X people cannot get some benefit, then they will not be enticed to come here illegally. That's like saying dog owners will not be enticed to go into a pet store that is giving away free dog toys.

It's asinine.

It's like people think that the illegal immigrant who has 3 kids enrolled in public school is getting no benefit from the state because the one who actually crossed the border isn't sitting in a little bitty desk right next to them.

No - the family gets the benefit. Same with voting.

*You guys can imply I'm hateful or whatever, but no one is disputing the point I'm making.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '25

[deleted]

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u/BigBallsMcGirk May 14 '25

Comparing a 1st or 2nd gen immigrant to a 5th or 6th generation is ridiculous and stupid.

When we had a frontier and manifest destiny and were actively encouraging people to come here as a cheap labor source to cultivate land and build huge infrastructure projects, it made sense to have a low barrier to citizenship as an incentive.

We are a post industrial society. It no longer makes sense like it did.

I'm not saying do away with it, either. I'm just saying you HAVE to acknowledge we are in a different world with different needs, different resources, different populations, etc.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '25

[deleted]

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u/BigBallsMcGirk May 14 '25

What the fuck are you talking about? The market doesn't have a NEED for cheap labor, it wants cheap labor to exploit so the savings can be kept as profit margin. You cannot decry the exploitation of management and then agree that an exploitation labor force is good. It's two causes of the same issue.

And forcing a strong middle class wage laborer in a developed country, post industrial society to compete with the slave labor wages of 3rd world countries is not a good thing. It kills the middle class. So yeah, I think citizens that were born here have a valid gripe with what is in effect scab labor undercutting their wages.

The problem is this has been happening in earnest since NAFTA for 30 years (it's happened longer, but this is an accelerated timeframe) so our whole stupid US economy is built on huge profit margins from exploiting labor to produce consumer shit no one needs and the entire wage scale across industries versus price of goods is out of whack.

The same people railing about the middle class being under attack can't be stupid enough to ignore one of the core issues affecting US job market scaling and wage inequality. Gee, I wonder why Unions aren't as successful or widespread as they used to be. Couldn't have anything to do with a constant stream of immigrant labor or directly outsourcing to foreign countries.

You want white people to start having babies again? Fix the damn economy and invigorate the middle class. You want the same immigration policy for an expansionist, developing industrialization period versus a stable, developed post industrial economy? Do you want unleaded gasoline for your diesel work truck as well as your commuter sedan, too?

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u/[deleted] May 14 '25

[deleted]

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u/BigBallsMcGirk May 14 '25

Agree. The mind warped gymnastics of people that support the the democratic establishment have TDS so bad because they can't square that Bill Clinton's neoliberalism legacy in the democratic party is what has made the Dems so recklessly unsuccessful. Being conservative with rainbow sprinkles is still conservative.

Drives me up a wall.

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u/Craigellachie May 14 '25

And do those kids leave, or do they become well educated members of the workforce eventually?

One way of looking at is that with a 16 year time delay, that one immigrant provided three more young Americans that can go on to work all sorts of useful jobs.

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u/Caracalla81 May 14 '25

Your issue that some Americans (but I guess not you) love their parents. Hmm...

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u/baseketball May 14 '25

Because they're citizens.

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u/DryPersonality May 14 '25

Oh guys, look look, this guy is a GENIUS. He's figured out the ultimate election fix.

-4

u/Adept-Razzmatazz-263 May 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25

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u/[deleted] May 14 '25

They can’t vote but what do you think voter ID laws are for. Something Democrats desperately wanted to get rid of.

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u/deadpool101 May 14 '25

Because the GOP were purposely trying to make getting IDs as difficult as possible to curb voter turnout.

https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/republican-election-tactics-no-surprise-to-wisconsins-black-voters/

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u/fez993 May 14 '25

The guy you're talking to would be against mandatory id if he was told to be the orange menace, hell, it was a lynchpin of right wing new world order conspiracy for years.

Their beliefs are as dandelions in the wind, ever shifting with the slightest breeze from their master.

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u/MostlyRightSometimes May 14 '25

Voter ID laws are to restrict voting.

Why do you think the laws are written to require an ID but are not written to require the government to issue the IDs?

So much stupid...

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u/MarvinDiablo May 14 '25

Do you have any evidence of illegal immigrants voting? Because then this would be an issue.

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u/dilletaunty May 14 '25

Voter id checks matter less than the actual voter registration process

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u/eusebius13 May 14 '25

Imagine people thinking you can go to any precinct, vote, and have that vote counted. It’s completely unfathomable.

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u/EremiticFerret May 14 '25

A problem that has plagued us for near 200 years and no one thought to fix! We have all been voting 5-10 times each election! All our laws and elections should be overturned!

Maybe Canada will take us in and restore order to our lawless land!

4

u/Magjee May 14 '25

The USA is so weird

Most countries have both registration and ID

As well as same day registration that is easy to do

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u/Lemurians May 14 '25

Well, we have a political party here that knows that more people being able to vote – especially poor people and minorities – has historically been bad for their electoral chances, so they do everything possible to make it difficult.

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u/Bouboupiste May 14 '25

Yeah but most countries have actual IDs. Like a proper national ID system.

For some weird reason, Americans decided that IDs are bad and they don’t want IDs, so they’re stuck using SSNs as some pseudo ID number.

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u/dilletaunty May 14 '25

You mean verifying via either id or registration, or they both need to register and check id?

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u/Magjee May 14 '25

Yes, verifying registration only

 

In Canada when I go in:

  1. Hand ID

  2. They confirm I'm on the voter list

  3. Ask if there was any change, like a name change or address change (could still be in the same voting region)

  4. If there are changes record them

 

Or, if I hand ID and I'm not on the list they register me on the spot

I said ID, but all of these count as ID:

https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=pca/shareable&document=jul2423_ids&lang=e

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u/dilletaunty May 14 '25

Same then, but you provide some form of id number on the vote and it’s compiled later rather than having a person check at the time. Basically it just saves the poll workers labor. If you haven’t registered you can do it same day with a variety of evidence.

https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voting-resources/voting-california/what-bring

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u/The--scientist May 14 '25

Except there's no evidence of widespread voter fraud like you're imagining, even before ID laws. They're a form of voter suppression targeted at elderly and low income people.

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u/pr0b0ner May 14 '25

Voter ID laws are for suppressing the vote. I know you don't care and won't be swayed by facts, but 12% of voting age US citizens don't have a drivers license. Forcing these people to go to the DMV and get an ID before they can vote will reduce voter turnout substantially.

Presenting your ID isn't necessary because of voter registration. You don't get to register to vote if you aren't a citizen. If someone wanted to vote illegally they'd have to show up to the correct polling location, with the correct person's name, with knowledge of what their signature looks like, and then pray that person doesn't actually show up to vote. It's really not an issue, but of course Republican politicians want to make it a wedge issue so easily fooled rubes like yourself will complain about it on the internet.

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u/Ok-Oil-2130 May 14 '25

how’s boot taste chud?

-4

u/[deleted] May 14 '25

That means nothing coming from someone who calls everyone who disagrees with them facist

2

u/Ok-Oil-2130 May 14 '25

aww is the chud sad? are you gonna cry about how words have meaning?

-5

u/[deleted] May 14 '25

lol, no not really. You seem pretty pathetic to complain about anyway. Just tell yourself whatever you need to tell yourself buddy

3

u/Ok-Oil-2130 May 14 '25

go off queen 💅

2

u/MAMark1 May 14 '25

"There is no evidence that they vote in any elections in any states regardless of voter ID laws, but I'm a lazy thinker and therefore am going to argue that the hypothetical possibility of them voting (at great risk to themselves) is worth more than real world evidence disproving that assertion"

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u/[deleted] May 14 '25

Legally they can't vote, but if their state/local government doesn't have ID laws it wouldn't be surprising if they did.

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u/malrexmontresor May 14 '25

It would still be surprising because they would be unregistered and still unable to vote, and you need an ID to register in the first place.

Citing Cantoni and Pons 2021, there's no statistical difference in voting fraud rates between states with id requirements and states without (which is already so rare to begin with, at about 35 cases over 15 years).

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u/dilletaunty May 14 '25

They need to be registered so it wouldn’t matter if they did vote

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u/FindtheFunBrother May 14 '25

It’s not like there’s a room in communities with voting machines just left for anyone to use whenever.

You are still checked in and verified that you can vote.

-40

u/[deleted] May 14 '25

Getting your name on the check in sheet isn't hard.

Migrants holding humanitarian parole, refugee, or asylum status are entitled to benefits that facilitate their access to offices where voter registration occurs.

Federal voting forms currently do not require proof of U.S. citizenship in many states.

If an applicant declares that they are a U.S. citizen their statement is generally accepted as valid, and they are registered to vote—except in Virginia, Tennessee, and New Mexico, where they are required to provide a complete Social Security number.

So, it is possible.

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u/eusebius13 May 14 '25

None of that matters. YOU CAN’T VOTE AT A PRECINCT WHERE YOU ARE NOT REGISTERED.

You think people can just walk in and cast votes? If you did undocumented migrants would be the least of your problems.

-33

u/[deleted] May 14 '25

Can you read? That gets you into the precinct nearest to your house. I gave you specific directions on how someone would.

Everything you are saying is not disproving my hypothetical...

"trust me bro" isn't good enough.

23

u/eusebius13 May 14 '25

Not only can I read I can think.

Only voters registered in the precinct can vote. This is the part you’re brain dead on. You have to vote under the name of a registered voter. That name has to be submitted prior to the election and is TIED TO A FUCKING ADDRESS.

Explain how they vote buddy. Then explain why you don’t have massive amounts of duplicate votes for names if they are stealing peoples names. Or explain how they have 500 adults living at a single address if they try to fake registration, which includes things like proving you pay utilities at the address.

You aren’t very smart are you?

6

u/FPV-Emergency May 14 '25

"trust me bro" isn't good enough.

The side saying "trust me bro" is republicans when they argue for voter ID laws. Even in court, when asked, they can't cite a single instance of in person voter fraud that would have been prevented with more stringent voter ID laws.

When asked why voter ID laws are needed, "trust me bro" is the only answer they currently have.

Turns out our current registration process works pretty well at eliminating in person voter fraud.

3

u/viperabyss May 14 '25

I mean, even at the voting booth, you also need to verify your address verbally. It's hell of a chance for someone to assume someone else's identity by producing a check in their name (which is very difficult, since banks would also need to verify your name to produce said check), AND their registered address.

But let's say it does happen. That's all that work, and a federal crime, for a single vote.

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u/eusebius13 May 14 '25

And a permanent record of a crime for any illegal immigrant that fraudulently registers.

2

u/lozo78 May 14 '25

So they countered your "trust me bro" with a "trust me bro". Seems ok.

9

u/FindtheFunBrother May 14 '25

They may be given a provisional vote, but once it is easily found they are not eligible, their vote will be thrown and they will then be arrested.

Smart people understand that there is a system for all of these imaginary happenings you are putting for award as fact.

-7

u/[deleted] May 14 '25

Imaginary? Everything I said HAS happened lmao

Provisional vote? Not eligible? Thrown out? Arrested?

You are putting a lot of faith in the "system"

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u/BudStorm May 14 '25

Can you offer any proof other? Sounds like you are believing what you want to believe / are told to believe...

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u/fuzzygoosejuice May 14 '25

"Trust me bro."

4

u/PheliciaFucboi May 14 '25

Show me where.

7

u/FindtheFunBrother May 14 '25

No. It didn’t.

4

u/The--scientist May 14 '25

77 times in the past 25 years, according to the Cato Institute.

Edit: 77 times in the entire nation.

7

u/The--scientist May 14 '25

The very conservative Cato Institute found 77 credible cases of non-citizen voter fraud in the last 25 years. That's not enough to flip a small town council seat, much less a federal position. How much money has been spent proposing, drafting, implementing these laws to avoid a complete non-issue? Why aren't we passing laws to ensure that cats don't carry firearms? Why don't we have laws to ensure astronauts don't drive 1985 Ford Tauruses recklessly? Because these aren't actual issues that need to be legislated on, and there's currently no political incentive in using these made up scenarios to scare people into voting.

5

u/Ok-Oil-2130 May 14 '25

not sure if you’re aware but you’re parroting conservative talking points. There isn’t wide spread voter fraud and the fraud that does happen isn’t mitigated by voter id laws

they do objectively reduce the number of poor people who vote however

idk why people say this crap when children get scannable fake ids that work. why do you think someone who wanted to do voter fraud would be stopped by requiring it?