worker program' and my stupid peons will fall for it again."
Posted on 07/11/2005 7:19:00 PM PDT by bayourod
----SNIP----
Q: How is the undocumented immigrant community affecting the U.S. economy? A: First and foremost, it's a source of value added. The total goods and services that they consume through their paycheck, plus all that they produce for their employers, is close to about $800 billion.
They're also producing at relatively lower costs because the undocumented population typically gets about 20% less in wages than if they were legalized. That leads to lower prices for us and higher profits to employers.
In addition, they're obviously a huge consumer base. We've seen that 90% of the wages that the undocumented population gets are spent inside the U.S. Remittances are sent abroad, but that only represents about 10% of immigrants' income. The numbers are becoming quite huge. We estimate about $50 billion dollars in remittances this year. That means that total consumptive capacity remaining in the U.S. is $400 billion to $450 billion.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
This is Mexico's Economic Developement Policy: send them here to they can mail their American wages back home. This way, the powers that be don't have to reform their corrupt ways.
Indeed, Hinojosa, a fast-talking, pony-tailed graduate of University of Chicago's PhD program, is cashing in on the boom in illegal immigration himself. His startup, No Borders Inc., pedals debit-like cards on which immigrants can store cash, send money home to Mexico, make phone calls, and join medical discount plans.
Hardly an objective piece. An interview with a Clintonista with a built in conflict of interest? That's pathetic.
I'm not reading the rest of the article - but have one question. Why would the illegal segment disappear just because we offered incentives for some to come foreword and present themselves for identification and authorization? It would still be far cheaper for some employers to pay 20% below legal worker wages. What is missing from this is trading legalization en masse for the imposition of real border controls. Unless that happens any legalization program will be muted in its beneficial impact by the continued presence of illegals.
That would change if they were made legal.
Also, it is important to note that while making them legal would increase the TOTAL output, the output per CURRENT citizen worker would decline. That's just basic microeconomics. If you increase the amount of labor going into the production mix, the "marginal" product of labor declines. At equilibrium, the wage is equal to the marginal product of labor, so decent hard working citizens would get paid less, since they will now be competing more directly with people who are until now illegal.
worker program' and my stupid peons will fall for it again."
It's an endless cycle of rewarding something (illegal immigrations) and getting more of it.
That man has the eyes of a lizard.
It was once thought that the voices of the New World Order came from Euroweenies on another continent. Think again!
Consider the following: The wages paid to the illegals + the amount of goods and services amounted to some $800 billion. Since by definition, the illegals wouldn't be hired if their wages were MORE than the value of what they produced, this sets an upper bound on their income of (say) $399 billion. By definition, the lower bound is ZERO. Second, the article states that their wages are "20% less" than what they would be on the open market. Now, given that number, we can come up with a range for either their pay (given the number of illegals assumed or admitted to be working here), or their number (given an assumed or admitted average pay). If there were 1 million illegal immigrants working in the US, the upper bound above would give them an average salary of $399,000 per year. Perhaps that's a bit too high. If there were 20 million illegal immigrants working in the US, their average salary would be just shy of $20,000 / yr. (Given that immigrants get paid less than legal workers, and that illegals tend to cluster in lower-skill, lower-paid work--"the work Americans won't do") this is at least reasonable.) Please recall a prior Business Week article, beating the drum for illegals as they used to for slave labor in China and wholesale outsourcing to India, presented one illegal couple who was making $120,000 per year and financed a Volkswagen Touareg. So far, so good. Why doesn't the article focus on the rising crime (Phoenix has among the highest auto-insurance rates in the country and the highest rate of identity theft in the US) or the medical costs (check with California hospitals)? In fact, the rising tide of illegal immigrations is a way for unscrupulous businesses to transfer many of the costs to the US taxpayer, from higher insurance and medical costs to higher taxes for unemployment). No cheers, unfortunately.
Yes, the NEW ILLEGAL workers will br brought in. The legalized ones will lose their jobs and go on welfare. Why not to abolish the border altogether?
By Samuel P. Huntington
Synopsis:
In his seminal work The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Samuel Huntington argued provocatively and presciently that with the end of the cold war, "civilizations" were replacing ideologies as the new fault lines in international politics.
His astute analysis has proven correct. Now Professor Huntington turns his attention from international affairs to our domestic cultural rifts as he examines the impact other civilizations and their values are having on our own country.
America was founded by British settlers who brought with them a distinct culture including the English language, Protestant values, individualism, religious commitment, and respect for law. The waves of immigrants that later came to the United States gradually accepted these values and assimilated into America's Anglo-Protestant culture.More recently, however, national identity has been eroded by the problems of assimilating massive numbers of primarily Hispanic immigrants, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the devaluation of citizenship, and the "denationalization" of American elites.
September 11 brought a revival of American patriotism and a renewal of American identity. But already there are signs that this revival is fading, even though in the post-September 11 world, Americans face unprecedented challenges to our security.
Who Are We? shows the need for us to reassert the core values that make us Americans. Nothing less than our national identity is at stake.
Once again Samuel Huntington has written an important book that is certain to provoke a lively debate and to shape our national conversation about who we are.
He's a prophet, and we ignore him at our national peril.
The theory behind Reagan's amnesty program was that existing illegals would be amnestied, but further illegal immigration would be stopped by controlling the borders and by enforcing regulations against employers who hired illegals.
As far as I can tell, there was no political will on anybody's part to do the followup stuff.
It's still not a bad idea. Amnesty existing illegals and stop new ones. The only problem is that A would be implemented but not B.
The US is entirely capable of assimilating existing immigrants. It cannot assimilate a continuous flow at the existing rates.
If we provided a legal avenue for American employers to get the foreign workers they have to have in order to stay in business, that would reduce the demand for illegal immigrant laborers, and permit us to enforce the sanctions against those which still chose to go the illegal route.
We can't can;t afford to prosecute American businesses today that hire illegals because our economy is dependent upon those businesses. Business are the golden gooses we can't afford to kill.
Remember that when you see a production floor that has employees that look illegal, that on the second floor are bookkeepers, managers, salesmen, engineers, secretaries, etc.. who would be out of jobs if the production line stopped.
Certainly you aren't suggesting that all people with brown skin are illegal aliens are you?
That's exactly what would happen. Without closing up the borders a new equilibrium would be reached, IOW more illegals.
no
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.