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.
Advocating illegal behavior (immigration) online is somewhat protected by the first amendment. Enjoy your hard-fought privileges to undermine our rights with illegal immigration. Others have defended them for you with their lives and blood, so you'd better live it up.
More drama queen dramatics, BTW I'm not defending illegal immigration, just stating that the system has to be fixed.
Personally I support the Kyl/Cornyn immigration bill, intsead of the liberal/rino kennedy/mccain bill.
But what the hey, you probably consider good conservatives such as Kyl and Cornyn as "traitors" also. I would probably have a better conversation with a brick wall.
Thanks for the link. I'll go through the numbers to see what the cost impact would be for increasing the labor costs. (I still suspect that the impact will be minimal given all of the other production costs involved.)
What's bizarre about that is the AFL-CIO is all for the ongoing invasion.
Thanks, yes.
Immigration reform is a long ignored crisis that demands urgent action. But President Bushs announcement today of his principles for immigration reform is a hollow promise for hardworking, undocumented workers, people seeking to immigrate to the U.S. and U.S. workers alike. --AFL-CIO (Guillermo Meneses 202-637-5018)
So much for "union support" for restricting immigration and deporting illegal aliens.
Open-borders and illegal alien advocates on these threads are mighty transparent in their ploy to bring down America one alien at a time.
Almost, but not quite. Americans would do these jobs if the rest of us didn't pay them not to do them. End welfare, end foodstamps, end housing subsidies, and end all of the other tax-payer funded freebies that allow people to refuse these jobs. Given a choice between starvation and picking lettuce, most people will choose the lettuce field. Right now, they aren't faced with that choice. Instead, we take care of them so they needn't worry about an inconvenient job causing them to miss Oprah.
The "Eeeeeeeevil Capitalists" aren't the problem. The "Compassionate" are the problem.
There's a wide range of colors and features in "hispanic" people, including some who look like "white guys". The idea of a "hispanic race" is laughable.
Only if they paid $9.50 an hour with medical and dental benefits!
Not true, McDonalds pays about $6 (have no idea about benefits). In my area we have no significant illegal population, it's homemakers getting a few extra bucks and kids. You do NOT have to have illegals to make it work.
Faceoff over civil rights and immigration legalities
New Hampshire AFL-CIO president Mark MacKenzie, who attended the protest, said illegal immigrants are part of the economy "and that's the reality."
Charging illegal immigrants with criminal trespassing "is an embarrassment for New Hampshire," he said. "I think it paints us a right-wing, reactionary state."
Excellent article.
LaRaza is all about one race.. the hispanic race. They don't much care for anyone that isn't hispanic.
Bob Lonsberry misses one point: for a lot of these jobs, if the cost per hour exceeds a certain amount, the job just goes away and doesn't get done if it doesn't really need to be done. Since a lot of our economy is built on discretionary spending, that's a lot of jobs at risk.
Try talking to this pile of bricks:
Wouldn't happen, I read hire legal American's at $10 an hour would raise it by .25 cents per head.
By my own calculations, if one cuts 100 head of lettuce in an hour at $5.00 an hour, that would be .05 labor per head of lettuce, pay someone $10 (an AMERICAN) that would increase the cost per head by .05 cents. I don't know how many head a person could cut in an hour but I'd bet 100 is an extremely low estimate.
We're just buying into the arguments employers of illegals want us to believe.
Apparently you still don't get it.
Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!
Be Ever Vigilant!
Minutemen Patriots ~ Bump!
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