Bush pushes for immigrant worker plan (Kool Aid Warning)

CNN.com ^ | Saturday, January 10, 2004 Posted: 11:35 AM EST (1635 GMT) | CNN

[putupon]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Saturday his program to allow illegal immigrants to work in the United States legally for up to three years was designed to put "willing foreign workers" in jobs that Americans are "not willing" to do.

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No employer has ever offered you salary? Have you ever had a job?

[eleni121]

No employer has ever offered you salary? Have you ever had a job?

As I said Economics 101 rather than Marx 101 should help.

Short of that let me try again. Salaries do not just magically appear by themselves. They become what they are as a result of the supply and demand for labor. Income for most people is determined by the market value of the productive resources they sell. What workers earn depends, primarily, on the market value of what they produce and how productive they are.

As the world shrinks and good and services become intertwined capital will naturally seek to increase its potential value by searching for means - automation, other labor sources, efficiencies, etc - in order to maximize its profits. This process can cause disruptions in the traditional patterns of a society but these disruptions usually work themselves through and eventually will the result being more efficient, higher quality goods and services and overall benefits to those societies that buy into this economic model. This has been proven so again and again.

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This process can cause disruptions in the traditional patterns of a society but these disruptions usually work themselves through and eventually will the result being more efficient, higher quality goods and services and overall benefits to those societies that buy into this economic model.

I note that you make no statement about wages. Please feel free to discuss free trade and its effect on wages - especially the points raised by David Ricardo in his treatise called The Iron Law of Wages. I note that you have jumped threads.

You have also failed to answer my questions about your employment. Have you ever had a job? Have you ever been offered a salary?

[sarcasm]

This process can cause disruptions in the traditional patterns of a society but these disruptions usually work themselves through and eventually will the result being more efficient, higher quality goods and services and overall benefits to those societies that buy into this economic model.

I note that you make no statement about wages. Please feel free to discuss free trade and its effect on wages - especially the points raised by David Ricardo in his treatise called The Iron Law of Wages. I note that you have jumped threads.

You have also failed to answer my questions about your employment. Have you ever had a job? Have you ever been offered a salary?

[eleni121]

I note that you have jumped threads.

Golly gee...Posting monitors on FreeRepublic? Who would have thought!

[eleni121]

It seems obvious that your wages have dropped despite scanning Ricardo. That should tell you something.

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You still have failed to answer the questions I asked.

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It seems obvious that your wages have dropped despite scanning Ricardo. That should tell you something.

My wages have never been higher, thank you for your concern. Have you ever been employed?

[eleni121]

I refrained from responding to the job question because I think what I do (and make) is totally irrelevant to this discussion.

My employment history spans 3 continents and 3-4 career changes. Like you, financially I have never been better off. And like you probably, I (and my spouse) am always looking over my shoulder at other opportunities.

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My concern, and the concern of others, is the kind of society that we will be creating with untrammeled globalization. Are we going to be a society like Brazil or, God forbid, Mexico?
Are we going to see a new and more powerful worldwide Marxist movement led by those who are unable to compete in this new world?

[eleni121]

US becoming Brazil? Mexico? That's a leap IMO. I can tell you that in Mexico's case Marxist ideology has gone nowhere fast. The Zapatista movement flirted with it, castro has tried hard there, and nothing has come of it. Our conversations with Mexicans proves at least to me that the Mexican poor are every bit as ambitious as any other ambitious person.

Renewed international Marxist movement? That is always a possibility and one which disturbs me as well. Immigration here helps stifle that possibility as I see it. I see the seeds (maybe more) of an even worse possibility than Marxism already in an energized islam. That is what we are fighting now, but its causes are only tangentially economic. Your response?

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I actually see immigration and legalization of illegals as the start of a big move to left in this country. The unions and the left correctly believe that the importation of impoverished immigrants will force the government to furnish more of a safety net. I don't agree that Mexican immigrants, legal or illegal, show the ambition you describe - the percentage of their population which is on the dole shows otherwise.

I'm pretty certain that we'll have a national health insurance system with ten years - there was an article in the Washington Times last week which stated that over 80% of Mexican immigrants wanted such a system. They, and other immigrants, are much more likely to be uninsured or on Medicaid than the native born. I don't know how familiar you are with immigrant neighborhoods in New York - last year a saw an area of Queens plastered with propaganda from The Sendero Luminso - what are we importing?

This article explains the plans of the left:

'A Fair and Just Amnesty'

The left is using free trade as an argument for their policies - I assume that you are familiar with the revolt of the indigenous people in Latin America supported by American Marxists. It's not really far fetched to predict communist revolution in many Latin American states. Africa is a basket case caused by socialism and Marxism and I don't see that there will be any improvement in the near future.

Radical Islam has many commonalties with Marxism - Marxism + Allah?

[sixmil]

Salaries do not just magically appear by themselves. They become what they are as a result of the supply and demand for labor.

Very important point. This is why Americans should be mad - their own government is attacking them on two fronts, increasing the supply of labor through legal and illegal immigration, and decreasing the demand for labor through outsourcing and unilateral free trade schemes. The only possible outcome is lower wages, which is good for employers and bad for employees. I am all for creating a positive business environment, but not when it is simply taking from workers and giving to employers - that is a zero sum game even though employers are always telling us that they will pass the savings on. BS, the cost of goods is also determined by supply and demand. If you really think business is trying to get you the lowest possible price for goods, look no further than the pharma industry which is trying to block Americans from getting the same drugs cheaper from overseas. They argue that they are worried about quality. Since when are free traders worried about quality? We have been buying crappy goods from Asia for years now, and never did I hear them suggest that we would be in danger of buying poor quality goods. Anything a businessman tells you needs to put in the context that it will help him make more money.