Like I Would Know What To Do In The Majority
I never said my immigration opinions were widely held here in Arizona, but apparently they are not popular nationally either:
The new poll finds 61 percent of voters nationally think Arizona was right to take action instead of waiting for the federal government to do something on immigration. That's more than twice as many as the 27 percent who think securing the border is a federal responsibility and Arizona should have waited for Washington to act. . . . Significantly more voters think the Obama administration should wait and see how the new law works (64 percent) than think the administration should try to stop it (15 percent).
Oh well. Its not like being in the minority is a new thing for me.
What I would really like to understand is: what drives these folks?
I will take them at their word that it is not racism.
If its violent or property crime, the stats are pretty clear that immigrants don't really contribute to these crimes disproportionately.
If its gang violence at the border, I am wondering what people see in the law's rules that allow easier harassment of day laborers and brown-skinned people with broken turn signals that they think is going to deter gang members supposedly armed with AK47's.
If its competition for jobs, well, I encourage folks to learn how the economy actually works (hint: it's dynamic, not static), and further, encourage them to figure out why they feel they can't compete with unskilled, uneducated laborers who don't speak the native language.
Finally, if it is, as many of my emailers claim, just a matter of the rule of law -- "THEY ARE ILLEGAL" as I get in many emails, inevitably all in caps, then why not just legalize their presence? After all, I lament all the hardships associated with marijuana law enforcement but you don't see me advocating new rules to incrementally harass potential possessors -- I am grown up enough to know form history that such efforts are never going to work as long as their is an enthusiastic supply and demand. I advocate legalization.
Is there a limit to allowed worker visas in your plan? If so, what is it?
Yes, the limit will be based on unemployment. Also, current guest workers would have to be the first let go during layoffs at any company.
If there is a limit, how do we ensure that those working are in fact allowed to work in the USA? What is to prevent triple the number of people coming in?
Limit as above. Workplace verification with stiff fines and potential imprisonment for employers of illegal alien workers. Border enforcement, with a dual wall with tamper prevention measures as well as surveillance and armed border patrol.
If there is a limit, and no check to be certain those legally allowed into the country are in fact the only ones working, what is different with your policy and the status quo?
My policy only increases enforcement and makes changes to the limits that dynamically adjusts to the unemployment rate of the country.
If there is no limit, what prevents the workers from overhwelming the nation and like La Raza has stated as its goal, taking America from the gringos?
There is a limit.
If there is no limit, where do people apply for work permits; In their home country or once they arrive?
People will be forced to apply from with in their home country or current country of residence.
If there is no limit, then what restrictions are allowed in who we allow into the country; can we say no people from terrorist countries, people with criminal records, what if the country in question will not release criminal records, what if the country in question particularly likes to export their criminals?
No real changes, although I think changes to qualify should include job skills.
What rights are granted to guest workers?
Same as now.
How long is a guest worker allowed to remain in the country?
There should be a limit. For every 8 years, they must be outside the country for at least 2 years.
Under what circumstances should a guest worker be required to go back home?
End of a time limited Visa, or at termination of a job specific visa.
What if the guest worker did not save enough money for a plane ticket home, what happens then?
Boat ride with a demerit point for their home country. Home countries with too many demerit points will find it harder for their citizens to get Visas to come to the USA for any and all purposes. Home country can avoid this by paying for the Employees trip home.
If a guest worker pays taxes, should he not also be allowed to vote? (This country was founded on the principle of no taxation without representation.)
No, that is the reason that guest worker visas have limits on duration, as well as requirement for said visa holder to not be allowed unlimited duration in country.
If allowed representation how much representation should they get?
No representation allowed.
Will minimum wage laws be enforced? How? If not enforced, what jobs are exempt from the minimum wage laws?
Yes. In fact, visa holders will be required to be paid the same as equally qualified Americans, any life time benefits that a regular employee gets will be paid to the visa holder at termination of job. So if a regular employee gains a retirement package, the visa holder will get a pro rated payment at termination. This is to prevent bias against citizen workers.
What other labor laws can we ignore with guest workers we cannot with citizen labor?
None.
If they cannot vote, have lower protected status with respect to labor laws does this sound like two classes of citizens?
This is why they are not allowed permanent residence status. Their representation is in their home country.
Can guest workers bring huge sums of cash with them and buy out large portions of land?
Guest workers may not buy landed property.
As land owners, can they be deported? If so, what about their right to property?
Not allowed to be property owners.
What if a million Chinese come and the government of China funds the purchasing of whole states with the hundreds of billions of dollars of debt America owes them. Can they then leave the nation?
Will not be allowed to buy land.
Where exactly do you find these people’s right to work in this country from?
Every person in the world has the same rights. Unfortunately, many people have not instituted government that is prevented from taking those rights from them. Americans earned their rights, instituted a government to protect those rights, and those rights are a birthright only to Americans. People who are not American citizens have no right to anything American, they may be allowed privileges such as visitation for vacations, work, education and so forth, but the rights with in America are all owned completely by the American Citizens as a whole. Through our government we decide who to honor these privileges with and for how long and to what degree. It is our sovereign nation and our choice.
Is it just a human right granted from God for just being a human?
These are human rights we get from our creator, but they must be defended to be exercised. We have instituted a government to protect our exercise of our rights.
If so, then why do they even need government permission to come here?
These rights are our rights. We own the land for which the United States Government protects for us. No others have the right to be here or act here.
Where are the rights of a sovereign people to have a sovereign land protected by a sovereign government instituted by the people, for the people and of the people?
I grant full rights to the Sovereign United States of America people which is exercised through our instituted government.
Mexicans aren't trying to get into the U.S. because it has a free-enough economy because as this bloke points out:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/land1.1.1.html
Mexico actually has the freer economy. Mexico has fewer regulations and it's easier to ignore the exist regulations and bribe officials to look the other way. Hence if these people really wanted a free economy to better themselves they would stay in Mexico and make something of themselves there.
The real reason immigrants want to enter illegally is because that's where the money is. Mexico may be economically freer than the U.S. but the U.S. is far wealthier per se. The illegals look at the $7.25 minimum per hour and think to themselves "that's a king's friggin ransom for fiddly unskilled work and I'll do the same work for far less except I'll have to enter the U.S. illegally and get paid cash in the hand".
As has been already articulated, while making Legal immigration easier would be a plus (and is woefully under-represented in opinions on immigration between the 'oh let's just legalize them all and be done with it' crowd and the 'Nein, Nein, Das Verboten!' closed-borders sect), granting de jure legal status to those who've already come across illegaly rather than compelling them to go through the new kinder and gentler hoops would be a disservice to all those immigrants who go through the trouble if immigrating legally.
But there's another aspect that TJIC brought up, what's so far deep at the core of it that those arguing may not even be conciously aware.
Culture.
Culture and language. What happens when immigration far outstrips birth-rates among native-born citizens? Why do we see so many fight so hard against bi-lingual education? Culture changes, but if you are of the dominant majority you can at least see the culture change in nominally predictable ways that you can anticipate and change with should you chose. If you are not, or your status as such is suddenly subverted, you are left with a choice. Take great pains to adapt to the new cultural paradigm, one that you may not even be comfortable with or approve of.. or accept your fate as culturally irrelevant and that the greater portion of society is intended to service pretty-much everyone But you.
stoner-
so "you are insane or retarded. Either way it is a wasted effort to try and make you less than completely ignorant" isn't a personal attack? what curious communication skills you have.
i have not argued that there are not other issues sending jobs overseas as well, just that high wages do it as well. yet again, you make a totally orthogonal argument and set up some straw man that misses the point. wages are a big part of of competitiveness issues. union participation has been in decline for decades, so what can't we make shirts here? why not shoes if not tanned leather? you're reaching. wages are a big deal. we have been systematically exiting all the labor intensive jobs for this reason. if the issue is regulation, why are we still big manufacturers of chemicals and semiconductors (both horribly polluting) but not clean industries like textile assembly? if low wage labor isn't desired here, why are we hiring so many migrant workers?
our registered guest worker program is too small. it ought to be large and easy to participate in. once you are here illegally, you have less incentive to follow other rules and far more to lie about who you are. if we taxed guest worker wages and used those taxes to cover healthcare and schools for them, it would solve a lot of problems, and yes, free emergency rooms and schools are entitlements too.
this "You have already made the case for the fence, that they will just find other ways around it. So that already proves that a fence works" doesn't make any sense at all. by this logic, the maginot line was a huge success. this is literally like arguing that plugging up one basement window works even though you still got a basement full of water though the other 4 and wasted your money on a window plug.
"The other steps are workplace enforcement. Frequent raids with stiff fines and prison time for repeat illegal alien hiring would cut off a very large amount of the calling for this demand. The demand is not from companies for workers"
if the demand is not for workers, why do they keep hiring them? this doesn't even make sense. it might change behavior and penalize industry, but all you are doing is raising the price of a desired input. it alters the demand curve not one iota, just moves us to a less efficient point on it. that's not good policy, it's flat out harmful.
"the demand is for extremely poor people to get into America where the poorest of the poor who are not deliberately worse off have two TVs, cable, A/C, cell phone, a car if not two, own their own home and eat 2500 calories a day. That is the what makes the demand."
that is a different kind of demand and the precise reason why you will never stop the flow of immigrants.
"Notice we have 10% unemployment? Always have 5%. Have a permanent underclass of welfare recipients."
so now suddenly we can reduce unemployment by making our economy less competitive? now suddenly you love government management of the economy? your arguments are self contradictory and not based in economic fact. the kind of crackdowns you recommend have left crops rotting in California fields with no one to pick them. americans don't want most of these jobs. these people are either unskilled and uncompetitive or a threat. pick one. to argue they are both argues that we ought to be paying high wages to the unskilled just because they are Americans.
"We have enough workers in this country to get by on a diet of illegal aliens for ten years."
i'm not even sure what that's supposed to mean.
"Lock the borders, workplace raids, verification of all criminal contacts with police of legal residence, and huge fines with prison time for employers of illegal aliens, including people who hire an illegal nanny, lawn care worker, or day laborer. If you could go to jail, would you hire someone that does not have proof of residence status? Get rid of the demand creation device which is nothing more than anything better than some chinese or african living on a dollar a day in their home country."
so, raise costs to become more competitive, great idea. a perfect recipe to send the next batch of our lowest skilled manufacturing jobs overseas and erode our economic and tax base.
if you don't let labor move, capital does. this is an immutable fact. you can pretend it isn't so, but that will help you about as much as jumping off the roof and pretending there's no gravity. you are arguing for price supports for low end US labor. sure, it may work for weeks or months, but in years, it creates job losses and capital flight. watch venezeula for an instructive example of the effects of price controls.
your argument about "what company is going to invest in US manufacturing" is foolish. uh, bmw, audi, and loads of others have already done so in the right to work south. so too could textiles. don't forget that actually being in the market you serve is a big advantage both in shipping costs and in responsiveness. companies like true religion figured this out on the high end. they could create a new product and have it to stores in weeks, not months. lots of firms would love to produce here if they had the affordable workers. i talk to dozens of companies a week, this is a clear trend. sure, osha and the epa and all manner of idiot zoning are issues, but you think it's easy to open a factory in italy or india or china? for a foreign producer, those are still very difficult environments. why not build in mexico? because it's totally corrupt. having a factory there is like having a "rob me" sign on you. no question, our policies raise our costs, but if there is so little demand for low cost labor here, why does it keep coming and how does it keep finding work?
"Yeah, which problem do you think is going to be easier to solve? The entitlements or the border? I say fix the border because it is something we can do on the cheap, will save us lots of money, will make America a stronger country and one more respected in the world. Entitlements fixes are on the horizon, something that will be forced on us in the near future when the world has run out of other people’s money. I do not an unsecured border as a good policy and I never will. It is about the illegal aliens, but it is also about national respect and nation security. If the people come over by boat, ship themselves in a cargo box, board a plane to get here, one thing is sure for all of that, the number of people getting through will be magnitudes lower than current land border crossings, and we reduce the chances of nuclear weapons crossing the border."
again, you misframe this issue and build a straw man argument. i'm not talking about altering the entitlement programs for US citizens, only for guest workers. excluding them from expensive programs is both easy and popular. it also saves money while getting them on tax rolls makes money, a double win. building a wall and manning it costs money and makes our production inputs more expensive, a double loss. so, guest workers are by far the cheaper answer. building a wall is expensive and makes us weaker.
unsecured is not the same as open to workers. i'm not arguing for "let's have no border and customs checks" . interview them. keep criminals and the seriously sick out, like ellis island. look for security threats. allowing in workers doesn't mean being stupid. document everyone. you seem to take these cartoonish versions of my arguments and argue against them. that's not going to get you anywhere.
no limits to guest worker numbers. the market will take care of that. just ensure that you interview and document them. require renewal of documents so that they are monitored as well.
guest workers have the right to work, own property, start businesses, etc. they do not get rights to US services or voting. (lots of people pay US taxes and can't vote. this is already how being a guest worker works) they are guests, not citizens. they pay taxes and those taxes go (in part) toward rudimentary health coverage and schooling. the child of a guest worker, even if born in the us is not a us citizen.
guest workers get a visa for some period (6 months, a year) that is easy to renew if they are employed, paying taxes, and have not committed a crime.
commit a crime, go home and you cannot come back. if we don't give them handouts, unemployment will mostly take care of itself.
guest workers are subject to all the same laws as a US worker.
it's not 2 classes of citizens, these are not citizens. that's the whole point.
why can't you deport someone who owns land? denying access to the country doesn't take the property away any more than imprisoning you does. you still own it and can sell or rent it if you like.
your china example is absurd. keep in mind, they could already do that. there is nothing to stop Chinese companies from buying up US land and resources just that way now. further, without a vote, guest workers cannot secede. what's to stop texans from doing it now?
i have NEVER argued for a right to work in this country. you bring this up again and again like i'm making a human rights argument. i'm not. i'm arguing that it's beneficial to us. this is an economic analysis, not a rights based one.
so there you are, destroyed again and without a single valid argument. care to try again?
http://bigjournalism.com/sright/2010/05/10/media-take-note-in-arizona-county-of-64-highway-chases-last-month-not-one-perp-a-u-s-citizen/
Hm.
Answer the group of questions I proposed as I did. Give me your questions. We have minimum wage laws, no number of people will make the cost of labor go down below that.
Even at $7.25/hour, china + shipping is cheaper and will remain cheaper for probably 2 more decades as their society modernizes, it will remain cheaper forever if China does not become a regulatory state like the United States is today.
Explain to me how opening the flood gates on cheap jobs for foreigners makes us more competitive when all the money goes to the foreigners? Are business owners the only people who deserve the benefits of society? Bringing in unlimited human resources dilutes the value of American citizens. Great, even if we make shoes in the United States of America, the money goes to a corporation and foreigners who will send a large part of that money back as welfare for their respective home country, this welfare prevents that home country from facing the need to modernize and liberalize so that its citizens can exercise their creator granted rights similarly as we Americans do.
You say I have contradictions, everyone does, that is part of being human. I want the government out of my life, but I need it to protect my rights. To fill this contradiction in human needs, our founders built a negative constitution which granted the federal government specific powers, and one of those powers is the control of the border, because a multistate border is bigger than any individual, small group of individuals or state can handle, it was given as a task for the federal government.
Can we handle more workers. Probably so. I will not support more worker visas from the USA and will use my political capital to fight against any increase until the government does its job and secures the border. End of story. Illegality will not be rewarded, it is not the American way and never should be.
i did answer your questions. read the post.
access to low wage workers causes changes at the margin. have you ever studied any economics at all? the arguments you are making don't make any sense.
it makes our industry more competitive. that benefits all of us through lower prices, more businesses, and a bigger economy. where will these workers eat, sleep, and clothe themselves? their wages will benefit US businesses they don't even work for. you have the narrow view that a few unskilled workers get hurt. yes, they might. but the net benefit far outweighs it. you are left again arguing for price supports for low skill labor just because the people are americans. that's a long term job loser. if you raise the price of an input, people use less of it or go where it's cheap. either we let labor flow in or capital will flow out.
and your whole illegality argument goes away if it's not illegal.
again, you are left with no vaild argument, just some misunderstood economics.
how do you justify your "illegality" argument when you support drug legalization? (and for the record, i support making both legal) you seem to understand that increased enforcement is only making that problem worse. why is immigration different? can you really not see that it's the same situation and that it's the policy causing most of the problems, not the underlying demand?
oh, and you are also assuming that i think there SHOULD be a minimum wage for anyone, which i don't. it causes unemployment and capital flight.
wages are based on productivity. a minimum wage means that many less productive jobs cannot exist. that causes economic imbalances with nasty consequences. look at the under 20 unemployment rate in the US for an instructive example.
Morgan, your last post is a good one. I agree.
Your first response is not.
I justify my illegality problem by the fact that legalizing drugs will not create some great demand for illegal drugs. Legalizing alcohol after prohibition did not make an underground alcohol market bigger, it destroyed it. But legalizing illegal aliens on the other hand just tells those outside the borders that we are feckless and willing to make them legal no matter what the numbers of them that come are.
Access to low wage workers may in fact lower costs, but again, only at the margins as you say. It is not a marginal difference between total industrial capability at a specific price between the United States and China, it is a drastic difference. China can do at far less than half the cost what we do at the low end of skill. America can do far more at the high end of the skill than China can do. You do not make greenhouses up in Canada to supply your banana and coconut needs of the country. You do not drill where the cost of extracting the oil is $500 a barrel. You do not mine where the concentration of mineral you need is 2 parts per million. You do not make shoes where the cost is $25 when you can do it elsewhere for $5 + $.53 shipping and +$1.00 tariff. I know enough about economics that it is not the cost of labor that drove these companies out of America. That means I know more than you do.
stoner-
you are mistaking demand curves and demand at price. legalizing drugs does not alter the shape of their demand space (demand space is a n dimensional demand curve), it just alters their price. price goes down. even if the price in dollars is constant, the threat of punishment goes down. this will cause more drug use. so will the increase in quality and reduction of risk associated with bad product. the risk and difficult of finding a supplier will drop as well. you can argue whether that is good bad of indifferent, but that fact of more use is a certainty. however, even if we assume more use is bad, we can still support legalization if we think the increase in use is less bad than the issued caused by prohibition.
this same situation prevails in labor. sure, making it legal to import it may drive prices down and encourage usage, but it does not alter the demand space, just the price. the demand and need is still there. failing to meet us drives us away from our optimum production frontier. further, the skew we get from a shortage of low priced labor distorts our comparative advantage.
how is it that you see the obvious problems caused by minimum wage and disagree with that kind of price support by feel that price supports for labor through immigration policy don't do the same things? you seem to feel that american labor is different from other labor. far more jobs are lost to driving industries overseas through increased labor costs even if the increase is just relative to other things we produce.
you need to read ricardo on international trade. it's one of the few really counter intuitive (but rigorously proven) economic theories.
i fear that you may know a great deal less economics than you think you do and a little knowledge can be dangerous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
even if it is more expensive for us to make shirts than for china, it can still profit both of us for the US to make them and by so doing, both countries can be better off.
by altering the comparative advantage of our labor, we over invest in capital and lose whole industries. germany is a classic example of this.
see if you can digest that and if it changes your mind.
i think you are using an overly simple economic model that leaves out some major salients.
For drugs, my experience tells me that lost job opportunities are the larger driver of preventing those who would use drugs to not use drugs. If drugs are legalized, I would hope that the government allows companies to continue to discriminate against drug users. Personally, I could care less if other people use drugs. I have no interest in using them, and I would prefer to have those who work around me are prevented from using them. Outside that, I could care less if the number goes up, it will not be a doubling, tripling, or most certainly not 6 to 7 times increase we got in illegal alien border crossings that came along with the 1986 amnesty and the likely tripling if we do it again. Besides, I do have a problem with drugs that are imported illegally in any case, so here again, secure the border. Sure, they can go around the border, but the reality is the fact that doing so decreases the amount, increases the time and cost of transport and makes home grown more valuable. Like you say, we should really just be all about increasing our production, no matter the cost to human lives and all. Importing a permanent underclass will have no negative effects at all on our society, you assure us of that. You do always have the option of finding like minded people and going off and forging your own nation, and you can be called the founders. You and Coyote can be first and second presidents, have your faces put on your currency, just think of it.
Who you going to sell the higher priced shirts to?
"Like you say, we should really just be all about increasing our production, no matter the cost to human lives and all. Importing a permanent underclass will have no negative effects at all on our society, you assure us of that."
that's a false trade off. competition from overseas will cause what you deem to be cost to human life anyway, it's happening now. blocking low cost labor doesn't take the pressure away. you think you are promoting "good jobs" but what you are really promoting is "no jobs".
in terms of creating a permanent underclass, making workers illegal is a greater cause of that than letting them in is. the immigrant model in the US has always started with a low wage first wave that betters itself and it's children. making them illegal prevents that and creates the social problems you fear just as making drug illegal causes much of the drug problem. (violence, enforcement costs, imprisonment) everyone argued against the underclass irish and chinese as well, but ability to participate and integrate made the problem go away over time. it would do so again here.
labor is only one input to shirts. we'd save by not having to ship in cotton. let's say a chinese worker makes zero and a US worker makes $10/hr. a worker can probably make at least 10 shirts an hour. you're not talking about a huge difference, roughly $1/shirt. the problem is not the $10/hr wage, but rather that too few american citizens will work for that wage. if you offered most US workers these jobs, they'll say no. i have direct experience with this though investing in a couple of companies that were trying to do low skilled production here.
if you're asking "to whom are you going to sell the higher priced shirts" you have not gotten the gist of the ricardo yet.
take some time and see how comparative advantage works.
you cite issues from giving foreign workers/immigrants and illegals access to our state services, and there i agree and say we should not do so. but the problems you cite from the existence of their cheap labor are not problems, they are benefits and opportunities.
it's easy to bemoan someone losing their job because it seems big and dramatic, but the calculus of protecting few jobs in the short run vs US business becoming less competitive and 300 million consumers paying higher prices doesn't work especially as the jobs at those wages cannot be saved in the long run anyway.
asia is industrializing. that will intensify competition. you can't stop that, only adapt. wishing things were like they were in the 50's will do no more good than blaming the cheap labor that could help us for being the problem. immigration was a huge boon to the US before we put a huge, expensive social net in place. it can be again if we are a little smarter about how we do it.
morganovich:
What happens when there are 100 million guest workers and they decide they personally would do a better job of running the country? 200 million? 300 million? What do we do with the children of these guest workers? Are they citizens at birth? At what point does a society disintegrate and no longer be a single society? You see, at some point people are going to demand their representation, you need look no further than La Raza for that. At some point those looking for that representation are going to take matters into their own hands to get done what they want, you need look no further than the ecoterrorists in our society to know that along with the calls for action from organizations like La Raza to see what will happen with significantly increased "workers". These "workers" are pure and simple nothing more than future citizens, you need look no further than the democrats and others pushing for comprehensive immigration reform with the goal to make nice little progressives out of all of them. You need look no further than demographics of the last two decades to see that progressive they will be. All for what? You cannot possibly not be a progressive with your stance, you just propose we add the short stint of "worker" to the path to citizenship and permanent progressive rule. Sure, just add another 50 million "workers" then we will pass the legislation that makes them all citizens in 3 years time.
If low wage labor was the answer to everything, explain why Africa, Central and South America have no ability to bring their nations up in economic standing. It is not some silver bullet. La. is not better off because their citizens earn half the national average. Miss. is not either. California with some of the highest rates of labor costs is not in turmoil because private employees cost too much, it is regulation and the public employees that damage its economy. Massachusetts also does not seem to suffer much from its high wages, its more to do with the nanny state than the pay rate. China does so well because it has almost no environmental protection regulations, does not have worker safety rules and the government places a high value on increasing GDP over every other concern. The low wages in China does not seem to help the 750 million who do not get to work, they have a huge access to labor, and for that, workers are paid far less than they are worth to the employer, are expendable compared to the cost of safety. Child labor laws? are you joking, children are more skilled at sewing those shoes than adults with bulky hands and fingers.
Here in America most of that stuff could be done with machines, should be done with machines, but the regulatory state makes it cheaper to buy it from out of the country. But hey, unlimited low cost labor works miracles, no empirical evidence required, because as a studied individual you know this. We have no clothing manufacturers in this nation because our labor is too expensive. Our standard of living is too good, even for those making $18,000 a year on minimum wage plus over time. The solution to making America a more prosperous nation is to import unlimited numbers of workers who will earn less than that $18,000 a year.
I tell you what though, I will support your unlimited workers plan if I get the following three things. 1) all guest workers automatically pay 60% taxes. 2) Any employer must fill every job position type with 50% round down +1 American citizens. (if there is only one job available of that type, it goes to an American) 3) no guest worker can be paid less than they pay the American worker. This should keep the citizens of this nations, those who own this nation, and are rightful heirs to the fruits of this nation competitive against the labor that can come from countries where the typical median income and life style is 5% that or less of a typical American median income. That is what it comes down to, we Americans are not going to be unemployed beggars in our own nation as companies hire foreigners for every job at minimum wage. Who exactly do you think is going to vote for that?
"you cite issues from giving foreign workers/immigrants and illegals access to our state services, and there i agree and say we should not do so."
You were not shy of cutting and pasting other things, and you keep bring this up. Show me where you think I bring up this issue. Bring it out, you keep saying it like it is some magical nail that will finally seal the supposed casket that my ideas belong in. Well, get out a hammer and nail it in and show me the quotes, in context where I make this the reason I care about these people coming to America. NOT AN ISSUE, its one of the lowest value in factoring if I want more or less of these people coming to America.
I am not some pie in the sky liberal progressive, or an I do not understand human nature libertarian, I am a basic fiscal conservative, low regulation America first patriot. That means American workers hold precedent over any foreign worker. Foreign workers fill the voids where Americans are not, they do not displace. While you call out better than no jobs, it is regulation, taxation and then labor as far as why companies move overseas. America would not have capital flight if regulation costs were cut by 75% and corporate taxes which are paid by consumers anyways were eliminated. I could live with a cut in the minimum wage, and a larger number of circumstances where minimum wages were not valid, for instance teenager jobs and positions taken for training purposes. Increases in "worker" permits will not be something I support until the vast majority of illegal aliens are stopped from crossing the border and those who are here already are forced out. Then I will support limited increases, based on unemployment.
".. encourage them to figure out why they feel they can’t compete with unskilled, uneducated laborers who don’t speak the native language."
(This is probably going to get lost in the noise of 60+ comments.)
The reason is that they really don't want to work for slave wages.
Beyond that, why should any country have to "compete with unskilled, uneducated laborers who don’t speak the native language"?
I forget which economist said it (and if I did remember, it would only be an Appeal to Authority argument) - no country's economy can withstand an overwhelming influx of uneducated, unskilled workers.
We probably haven't gotten there yet, but we have gotten to the place where emergency rooms - and even whole hospitals - have gone broke and shut down (I live in the Los Angeles area) because of the drain of illegal immigrants. Having no health insurance, and no access to doctors, they go to the ER with the least complaint.
Gil makes the point that Mexico has a freer economy. I'll take his word - but with a lot of skepticism. I do note that the current world's richest man is Carlos Slim Helu (some of the drug cartel lords may be richer - but their finances are undocumented).
However, their immigration laws are much harsher than ours. Their laws make our country seem like Mr Roger's neighborhood. I have to raise the "hypocrisy flag" when el Presidente Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa complains about our treatment illegals - his get shipped south, or jailed, right away.
Mexico is happy to have their lower classes leave for this country. Every illegal immigrant who comes here saves the Mexican government about $15 a year in welfare (that seems to be about what the government spends), and brings in about $5000 in remittances.
The issue is not immigration. We have H1-B programs (though not flawless) and legal avenues to citizenship for immigrants with marketable skills. With our schools turning out more and more uneducated, unemployable "graduates", we may need immigrants from Europe and Asia just to keep the country running.
The issue is the illegal immigration of "unskilled, uneducated laborers who don’t speak the native language". And illegals who have no interest in Americanizing (just look at the Mayday demonstrations).
guest workers will only come so long as there are jobs. they don't vote and their kids are not citizens. the path to citizenship is not important to me, just the path to wealth creation. but ask yourself, if a guest worker moves here, learns the language, starts a business and hires people, do you not want him? that seems foolish.
your examples of africa etc are non sequitors. cheap labor is good, but you need a number of other things to make it work like property rights, infrastructure, and rule of law - things we have here, but not there.
sure, low environmental regs are a cost advantage (at least in cash) but you really need to go read that ricardo. you keeping arguing in terms of one product, not a basket and one economy, not the world. screwing up our comparative advantage reduces the overall production possibility frontier and increases our unemployment. not taking advantage of a labor pool is like not drilling in anwar. it's a wasted resource.
"I tell you what though, I will support your unlimited workers plan if I get the following three things. 1) all guest workers automatically pay 60% taxes. 2) Any employer must fill every job position type with 50% round down +1 American citizens. (if there is only one job available of that type, it goes to an American) 3) no guest worker can be paid less than they pay the American worker"
these sound an awful lot like the sort of cost increasing government regulations you profess to abhor. i have no problem with a flat 30 or 40% tax on guest workers, but 60% is simply punitive. employers will pay for productivity. arguing that they must pay immigrants at least as much means the first wave will be overpaid and eliminates the effectiveness of the whole thing. if you want to say they should be paid as much as american who doesn't speak good english and has no education, that is more reasonable, but still involves a vast bureaucracy that's unneeded to do something that would happen anyway.
i doubt you would be happy with the government setting the price of corn flakes, why is a good idea for them to set the price of labor?
"“you cite issues from giving foreign workers/immigrants and illegals access to our state services, and there i agree and say we should not do so.â€
You were not shy of cutting and pasting other things, and you keep bring this up. Show me where you think I bring up this issue"
how about these for a start:
"I will confess though that I am certain that the illegals do and have been using our entitlements"
"9) They damage the schooling system.
10) They damage the health care system."
the only real non entitlement arguments you seem to be making are:
1. they take our jobs
which we're going to lose anyway - it's a world economy, low skill labor is not going to be well compensated anymore. nothing is going to stop that. we can either make things here, or buy them from overseas. the former benefits or service economy by having wages spent and taxes collected here, the latter just drives unemployment. you're fighting a losing rearguard action there.
2. they pollute our culture
and old argument that has been made about a great many immigrant groups and has been proven false time and time again. to my mind, the american dream and american way is work hard and better yourself. in this respect, many of these immigrants are better americans than an awful lot of people living here. one could even argue that they support our culture. what do you care if they eat carne asada or tuna maki?
3. they're going to take over.
seems a bit paranoid and sans vote, quite difficult sans vote. we have assimilated every immigrant wave before. why is it different now?
i completely agree that we have erected a regulatory thicket that makes business creation difficult and agree that we ought to be rolling that stuff back along with many ruinous increases in the power of the federal government. but arguing that that is ALSO a problem does not mean that blocking labor and holding the price artificially high is not a problem too.
morganovich:
1. Low wages is not going to bring the jobs here. High regulatory costs make the cost of a $.01 a day worker still cost more than $10.00 an hour Chinese worker. Get over it. It is not the cost of paying a person a damned paycheck that keeps the jobs out of the country.
2. We have two decades of proof that the current run of people entering this nation are not assimilating. Thus your comparing it to other prior immigrations is false. The current group prides itself on the fact that they will not assimilate.
3. I think our founding fathers accomplished taking over very well with no representation in votes. They fought a war, think La Raza is not talking armed conflict when it says la revolucion? Also note, the current trend in politics is towards path to citizenship, the retarded of the conservatives think like you do, that unlimited access to cheap labor is some answer and democrats know that low waged unskilled people will vote 70% for the party offering more entitlements. So, it is not paranoia that drives the understanding that at some point those who come in your plan of "worker" visas will have the ability to make dramatic changes to our nation through force. Either force of arms or through force of the ballot.
Been nice playing. you have no argument. You say the same thing over and over again. Low cost workers will save us. We can make it here or they can make it there. But there are not going to be any buyers for the American Item that costs 50% more than the same product made over there, and unless your making plans to make American laborers less safe, our environment less protected the costs in America is not going go down enough to compete with China, sure we can reduce the per hour cost total from the staggering $$67.25 down to one of $60.01 by going from minimum wage of $.01 from $7.25 but that is still no where near the total hourly cost of $15.00 they accomplish in China.
1. really? then how are so many low wage workers finding jobs? what evidence do you have to back up your claim?
2. but a great deal of that is because we won't let them. being illegal keeps them poor and out of circulation for fear of prosecution. assimilation takes generations, not years. everyone made that same argument about the chinese and the irish in the 1800's.
3. pointing out an extremist group and calling it mainstream proves nothing other than the fact that you are a bad judge of social trends. lots of american groups in america also support all manner of anti government and anti minority violence. blinded, i'll bet you can't tell la raza rhetoric and action from any number of black and white activist groups that have also failed to take over. this is just a paranoid fantasy of yours.
you have yet to make a single valid argument against guest workers, only ones for your economic ignorance and status as a social reactionary.
without an understanding of comparative advantage, you will never understand international trade and will keep trotting out these same fallacies grounded in your ignorance. did you even try looking at the ricardo?
ps.
making up numbers on costs proves nothing.
also: lots of manufacturers do follow the law. as a result, they cannot hire the cheap labor they would like. make it legal, and manufacturing will boom. i've seen a whole pile of business plans for this and existing business hamstrung by labor unavailability. just because loads of americans would rather be on welfare than get $7.25/hr doesn't mean that we cannot benefit from other people who want to and make everyone better off.
La Raza is not an Extremist organization. Presidential have accepted their endorsements. Thus, they are mainstream. Just like all the pro terrorist organizations, they are solidly in the Democrat mainstream. They get talking points on all the news stations, are sought out for their views, are given respectability by media. Besides, they support your position, I guess that makes you extreme. Me, I am moderate on this, I like immigration in moderation.
Since our society is stuck on stupid with multiculturalism you are wrong about aliens coming to this country to become Americans, at least in a similar fashion as happened in past mass immigrations. Some do adapt, enough apparently do not based on multiple million people marches waving flags from foreign nations demanding to be made citizens as if they have every right to that. It used to be frowned upon to be different, to not learn the language, to use a foreign tongue out in public, to wave foreign flags at protests. That is no longer the case. Now they are encouraged and told they should not adapt by large numbers of Americans. It is not that I have a problem with Mexican, Chinese, African Culture, the reason I do not is because I just do not visit those places, so it should not affect me. If they want to live like they do, what is it for me to care. But when they bring those cultures here and try to mainstream it, I no longer have the luxury to ignore them, and considering where their culture leaves their societies it is apparent that their cultures suck.
Now, if our culture were different, in the way it used to be, I might be willing to agree more with your views, but it is not and so I will not. When facts change my position changes. Right now the facts say that huge numbers of immigrants to this nation will not quickly assimilate, but rather work to force significant changes on our society, since I know what our society was like growing up and what it is like today, and that the mass immigration started when I was about 7 and it is now 35 years into the mass immigration I can say that I do not like the changes that have been brought about by said immigration and will not support it. Culture reason, economic reasons, security reasons.
you keep trotting out the worst few of a group and attributing their characteristics to the whole.
i live in California. we have piles of latin immigrants. most are busily working, starting businesses, and raising their families and turning into americans. the ones that don't won't make it here. so long as we don;t have to foot the bill for that, who cares?
if their cultures suck so much, why are you so afraid they will dominate ours?
you sound just like the anti chinese league partisans from the 1800's. they were wrong them and you are wrong now.
what are these terrible cultural changes you bemoan? can you name one verifiable change not caused wither by the illegality or access to entitlement programs like healthcare and schools?
americans march all the time. was the million man march by african americans not america? how about huge rallies for nationalized healthcare? tea parties?
i agree with you that the arguments about "i have a right to be a citizen" are flawed and i'm not proposing we make them citizens, just able participants in the economic system.
right now we have the worst of both worlds: all the cost and little of the benefit in terms of taxes and business creation.
all a wall does it make that worse by jacking up expense for a project that can do nothing but fail.