JBS N.V., a Brazilian meat supplier controls 80% of USA's meat market. If you don't see it in Illinois, it could be because of labor, or any other reason JBS decides. Hard to say.
Regarding jobs and housing, the future isn't bright. If AI is going to replace many humans, some people talk about the important discussions we are not yet having. What about universal basic income?! What about all these problems that we are ignoring and aren't finding a solution for?! ... Well, I think the conversation is being ignored on purpose. Power and corruption has existed for as long as we are aware of, and is not likely to stop existing. Instead of worrying about how to decide which unemployed person gets which house and what is each person's fair share, they will ignore that problem completely. They will get the house. They and the ones they choose will get everything. The rest will resolve itself. And then with less population and less poor, it will be a paradise for the ones remaining.
Look at North Korea. Why doesn't its citizens rise up? Because they no longer have the means to fight.
This is not a forum about politics, and you are walking the very dangerous line that will lead to its closure if the discussion continues as you've outlined.
Now that I've said that, let's frame this a little different.
1) I've lost my job, and it's being replaced by someone who costs dramatically less.
2) The traditional answer is to lean into reeducation, and reskilling, which most large countries (including the US) have.
3) The net outcome is...what...?
4) Oh, by the way it's 1980, my job is manufacturing, and my job was part of an assembly line.
When you frame it that way, instead of "AI stole my job," then it looks pretty bad. Right? I mean, when the US offshored all of our basic manufacturing to China it was pretty damn hard on the people who relied on those less skilled manufacturing jobs...which as of 2025 are still gone and as long as countries still exist where labor is pennies on the dollar for low skilled work it'll always be elsewhere. Fast forward to today and those low skilled laborers either got replaced by way less but more skilled laborers...or they moved into different industries. Like it or not, the US currently has 5 skilled laborers retiring for every 2 that are coming on (
Mckinsey Article). Isn't that just crazy?
It's almost like everything happens in waves. Low and less skilled labor is offshored, creating a glut of builders and developers, who create a glut of high end houses, that only the rich can afford, which prices those laborers out of the market, which pushes them to other jobs, which produces a dearth of laborers, which leads to everything costing too much, which leads people to flood into those jobs despite newer technologies making some of the old skills obsolete. In plumbing it's PEX, and in tech it's AI. In another 5-10 years it'll be how AI isn't good enough, and people are needed to fix the fundamental structure of the systems...but they're behind because the electrical connection is held up by the lack of electricians to wire their next gigantic energy hogging campus designed to make the answers 2% less insanely deranged. Yay.
As much as I hate to say this, the white collar jobs gave not one crap about offshoring blue collar work. It's time maybe they deserve empathy, but listening to them whine breaks that last little opportunity I had for pity. A lot of people laughed at the big gay orgy episode of South Park, that was designed to solve future people stealing past peoples' jobs...but it isn't so funny when it happens to them. Is it?
