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Fair enough.

Well, Bush is allowing a flood of illegals in to do the work at the bottom of the labor chain, driving down wages for the unskilled Americans, I see no reason to favor any group.

This statement implies that Bush must intervene in labor markets --- to prevent "driving down wages" of skilled workers. Labor markets are markets largely like any other, and as such are part of capitalism. Just as each of us competes in production and sale of goods, we compete in selling ourselves. When we are successful, we get "high" wages and "low" wages or no job at all when we are unsuccessful.

You advocate government intervention into markets, which is a socialist idea. It assumes that the government can allocate resources better than markets. This idea is very appealing to people and seems reasonable to many. The biggest mistake is that it compares real-life, imperfect markets to an idealized government. Naturally, any real-life phenomenon seems worse that ideal.

The mistake, as you can see is logical to begin with. What is a government? It's a collection of people --- real people, with their limited knowledge and their OWN interests. How do you make those people do what is "right?" You have to give them costly incentives --- paid by you and me. How do those people even know what is needed in the economy? They don't. An owner of a diner know immediately when he needs an extra waiter. Compare that to a bureaucrat in Washington --- what will it take and what will it cost for him to even learn what's needed in the labor market, that is, even before he can start thinking about what to do.

In sum, governments are WORSE informed and LESS effective than markets in the real-world, changing environment. By the time they "solve" the problem, the problem itself has changed. As I said earlier, if you compare the real-world, not idealized, governments to real-world markets, the markets always win. You have every bit of interest to keep any president --- whether BUsh or any other --- and any Congress --- whether dominated by Republicans or Democrats --- as far away from the markets as possible. That includes the labor market.

Moreover, what I said has been shown empirically many times. The central planning system of the Soviet Union destroyed that economy (the same thing: by the time Moscow learned that a tractor was needed 10,000 miles away, that tractor was no longer needed, etc.) China is now growing rapidly because it turned away from socialism to markets. And, more interestingly, socialism of Western Europeans --- the same as the Soviet one economically but without the dictatorship and prisons --- is failing. The MSM does not let you know that at at all times we have a higher labor participation rate (the percentage of population working), and twice or three times lower unemployment. This is despite the fact that we've been paying for decades for all innovation and defense. Markets win hands down.

Now, please don't be offended, but why should I not be disappointed to see a conservative like you advocating measures --- BUsh, government must do something --- that will destroy the very foundation of this great society? This attack is perpetrated by the media every day: they never report positive effects of markets (that gas prices stayed low for 25 years, for instance) but scream at the top of their lungs when effects are adverse (gas prices spiked during a NATURAL disaster, which no government can control). They will not tell you that precisely because gas prices went up, gas itself was purchased by those that needed it MOST --- something that no government can do in principle. True, you should not rely on the MSM for this: people you should get it from basic courses in high school and college. But they don't. So many self-desribed conservatives on this board are completely ignorant of what markets are and yet advocate government intervention (gas prices, outsourcing, programmers' salaries) at every turn.

It appears that you've done it unknowingly, but your remark did advocate socialism. In case this was not clear, let me assure you that I had no intent to offend you. But I readily admit that any attack on markets and support for bigger government is an affront to conservatism. THat, and not you personally,is what I attacked in my previous post.