Posted on 06/03/2005 6:12:35 AM PDT by shortstop
Can we just put this lie to rest once and for all?
I'm talking about that nonsense you hear whenever anybody discusses illegal immigration.
The one about how we need illegal aliens because they do the jobs that Americans won't. The variation on it is the racist tripe from the Mexican president that illegal aliens do jobs that not even black Americans will do.
It's all nonsense.
Americans would gladly do those jobs -- if the bosses weren't crooks.
And anybody who employs an illegal alien is a crook. And a traitor and a backstabber.
The illegals are one type of problem, the people who employ them are another. One group should be sent back to Mexico, the other should be sent to jail.
I'm not kidding. The damage done to American strength and American prosperity by the combination of illegal workers and illegal bosses is incalculable. The love of money and the putting of profit over patriotism is a glaring moral indictment of the people who hire illegal aliens.
But back to the jobs Americans won't do.
That theory ignores the realities of the free market. It denies the fundamental nature of supply and demand.
Here's an example. Let's say I've got a pile of dog crap I want cleaned up. Let's say I'm willing to pay somebody to clean that pile of dog crap up for me.
Now, cleaning up dog crap is not a particularly pleasant thing. It tends to stink, and you have to bend over, and it's gross and revolting.
People don't like doing it.
But you want to hire it done. So let's say you stand there with a dollar in your hand and say that you'll pay somebody a dollar to clean up the dog crap.
Well, in all likelihood, people are going to walk right on by. You can wave your buck until the cows come home and nobody's going to bite.
That's because the free market is at work. The market is determing the worth of a product or service -- picking up dog crap -- and weighing it against the available wage. Simply put, it's not worth it to people to mess with stinky crap for a dollar.
So how do you respond to it?
Well, in the free-market world, you up the ante. You offer two dollars for the job. And if that doesn't get any takers you raise it to $3, or $5 or $10. At some point, somebody will agree to your terms and you will give them the money and they will clean up your dog crap.
That's the free market. That's the capitalism beneath all economic freedom. People will do anything, you just have to pay them enough. That's how the price of labor is set, just as the price of any other commodity or product is set. It all comes down to what the market will bear.
And the reason that illegal aliens flock to jobs Americans seem to ignore is because the employers are violating not just the laws of our land, but the laws and morality of the free market. Through a willingness to work below legal and prevailing wages, and because many employers pay them under the table, avoiding taxes and insurance, the cost of illegal labor is substantially below what the free market would price it at.
It becomes an odd shell game in which the real costs of employing illegal aliens is borne not by the employer, but by society.The jobs pay below the market level, and are below what is necessary to support a family. Welfare and free services and unpaid-for health care make up the difference -- with every dollar coming out of the taxpayer or the consumer's pocket.
The reason Americans don't take those jobs is because the employers won't let them. The employers do better hiring illegals, ending up with less expensive labor and less obligation to employees.
Unfortunately, it also guts our country, our security and our economy.
But people will take those jobs. They will gladly take them.
But they will have to pay what the market demands. They will have to pay legally. They will have to pay honestly.
They will have to give up the crutch of illegal labor. They will have to be capitalists, not crooks.
Americans will pick lettuce and fry fries and clean toilets and pave roads and milk cows.
You just have to pay them what the work is truly worth.
Only if they paid $9.50 an hour with medical and dental benefits!
And you have a problem with that???
PS - every time you hire an illegal, you are subsidizing the Mexico Inertia Movement, an oligarchy committed to keeping that country oppressive, abusive and corrupt. Why should they change if they have a big safety valve for discontents called the American border?
In most states, it's illegal to do any job for $4 per hour, even if you're a Benz-owning 16-year-old rich kid who'd do the job to build character at the behest of his industrialist father, instead of for the money.
if its a job no american would do its because wages are too low for the job. if no illegals were here, the wages would get bid up and americans would take the jobs. prices would then go up accordingly, but who knows how much or what would happen... same thing with the plastic crap from china, if we want to employ americans, we would be paying 3x for the plastic crap we buy at wally world now.
No but you clearly do!
Who says crime does not pay?????
The worker can walk by the lettuce picking job if it pays less than $10 an hour, sure. But the housewife can walk by the $5 head of lettuce at the supermarket, too. If the housewife demands $2 heads of lettuce, the lettuce rots, nobody wants it, there is no $10 an hour job.
Workers half what their actual efforts are worth, in a welfare state economy. Because the cost to the employer is half again the nominal wage (for employer side taxes and mandatory insurance of this and that stripe), and the worker pays a third of the nominal part to the government. All productive people are producing twice what they are given, to support the unproductive ones. But this is just as true for families with kids, people with medical problems, old people, etc. Whether legal citizens or not.
No activity is performed in such a society unless the worker's efforts add real value, to twice the extent of what he demands in return for his work. Increasing what he demands does not increase what he receives. It just prevents the job being done at all, as soon as the amount demanded passes the line, half what it is worth to the end consumer (with all other costs along the way included).
The economic thing that can increase what he receives is not any state of his demand for compensation or unwillingness to do this or that job for less. But only what the real value of his effort is, to others - end consumers. If he doubles that his wage can double. If he just doubles his demand, it isn't bargaining any more, it is a deal breaker, and there simply is no deal. The work does not exist to do, because it fails to add more value than it costs, with the massive overhead of a welfare society wedged between one and the other.
The only other thing that can increase real effective wages, is a reduction in the size of that welfare and tax wedge. If the government and unproductive people take only a third instead of half, pay for the productive can go up. The way you do that is reduce government spending.
It doesn't much matter, spending on who or what. You and I can agree or disagree about which things are worthy or not, but whatever mix we hit on has some overall size and cost. And that overall size determines the width of the wedge, between what consumers think our efforts are worth, and what we actually get.
The reason to oppose illegal immigration is because it is illegal, disorderly, spreads scoff law behavior in other respects, acts as a barrier to assilimation, etc. Not because it skins the rest of us, any more than the welfare state in general does. There is every reason to disallow welfare payments of any kind to illegals. There is also good economic reason to shrink the welfare state wherever possible.
But not because men can increase their pay simply by refusing to work for less. That does not increase their pay, it just results in less being done overall.
This is the true reason why Vicente wants an open border. If we closed the border, there'd be another Mexican revolution within a year.
Seems to me that "Mexicans only do work that Americans don't" is about as racist a statement as you can say.
It's the equivalent of saying that Mexicans are the "n!ggers" of the 21st century.
Those who advocate employment of illegal immigrants for this reason may come across as sympathetic, but are in fact labeling them as lower caste plantation workers.
I lived in Mexico for about a year, and know that my Mexican friends were of no less worth than any other nationality. That said, we absolutely do need to enforce our immigration laws....
Because the MSM,sleazy politicians and lobbyists tell us so.
And we don't question how much of our tax $$$ are spent on medical care, food stamps, free lunches, free education, rent assistance, child care assistance, etc., goes to subsidize the "cheap labor" costs of hiring illegals.
Businesses won't complain, because it's Joe and Jane Taxpayer that foot most of the bill for these illegal employees.
I'll do it because I look beyond you and see there are piles and piles of dog crap since you are the owner of a huge dog kennel. I estimate I can pick up 2 piles a minute, take a 15 minute break and be done in 4 hours. Then have to come back day after day. That's about $2250 a week or $137,000 a year. Only problem I can't take a vacation because as soon as I'm gone some illegal will come in to do it for $.75 a pile.
That's the point: if you artificially increase the labor pool with desperate immigrants (legal and otherwise) then you've tinkered with the laws of supply and demand. If you make it possible to hire people for less money this way, you are interfering with the natural balance of labor's "worth." The author understands that quite well.
But I'm not a professional. Just a dreamer.
You espouse the Labor Movement's case that all jobs should be union and they will tell you how much they should be paid. Any nonunion worker is artificially increasing the labor pool and tinkering with the laws of supply and demand ...
For labor costs to force lettuce to $5 per head, farmers would have to pay field workers $280 an hour. At that rate, it would be the kind of work "every American would want to do." The problem with illegal immigration is not that labor costs too much; it is that growers compete in a commodity market. If one grower can outdo another by using illegal labor, then his profits will increase. Inevitably, all growers must do the same thing to survive. As recent studies show, illegal immigration is driving down the wages of millions of Americans, while at the same time increasing their taxes
A little something for the economically illiterate.
"Only if they paid $9.50 an hour with medical and dental benefits!"
Well.. then that's how much it costs to get those jobs done. Simple as that. That's the free market at work.
>>>>>Illegals may not be getting $9.50 an hour, but they do have medical and dental benefits and we are paying for them.
That's a lot of the problem right there. One of the reasons that employers can hire illegals at an unburdened labor rate is the fact that they get medical treatment at our expense every time they show up at a hospital.
Let's review the bidding.
A) I can hire an American and pay a labor rate where 66% of the costs are insurance, pension and G&A (Federal legal Latin and Red Tape).
B) I can hire an illegal where there's no pension, no G&A unless I was stupid and wanted to go to jail, and the insurance part was federally subsidized.
Until we stop having to provide health care to illegals at taxpayer expense, only an idiot would hire an American.
Whatever. You're a traitorous sellout, too. I hope it pays you well.
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