Posted on 11/28/2005 2:00:08 PM PST by Shermy
"there is not SUPPOSED to be a guarantee of a job in our society and there also is not SUPPOSED to be a guarantee of being able to hire a low wage worker simply because you don't want to pay more."
You are implying that there SHOULD be guaranteed jobs in our society. There are none. If you do not prepare yourself for a career and take responsibility for your future while young, you will probably be poor and unemployable when older.
It's coming. Right now it's mostly IT in the news, but there are accounting and payroll functions being done offshore, and it's just going to continue. Businesses are using the global labor market to drive down the cost of labor across the board. In the long run, it will do to America what its done to California: turn us into a third world country. I'll vote for immigration reformers and do what I can, but long term I am very pessimistic, particularly since we refuse to assimilate anybody and are touting all the multi-culti nonsense. Culture matters as much as economics in a country's well being, but people won't figure it out until it's too late.
agreed... and then they will look for someone to blame.
I certainly have no sympathy for anyone who makes no effort to rise above minimum wage. I do like to discuss reality, reality is that the $1.25 minimum wage in 1963 would amount to enough to rent a livable dwelling with forty hours pay.
Today the minimum here is $5.15 per hour, there is nothing fit for habitation that can be rented for less than eighty hours earnings in this area at that wage. Regardless of what else we may say, that is the fact, of course I cannot speak of the situation in New York State. I am not even an advocate of minimum wage, I simply believe in looking at the facts as they exist.
I can assure you that there are many people right here in this area who would do all sorts of jobs for a wage that would equal the actual buying power of the 1963 minimum wage in terms of housing, food, transportation, medical etc.
You are implying that there SHOULD be guaranteed jobs in our society>>>>>>>>>
I cannot fathom why you think that as I certainly did not mean any such thing. Allow me to clarify, there are not SUPPOSED to be any guaranteed jobs but some people have something similiar when government assistance is handed out to those who do not work while those who have worked for thirty years and are now disabled are routinely denied social security disability even though no doctor will approve their returning to work. I am the last person you will ever hear support government guarantees, I am simply commenting on the situation as it exists. Those who insist that things are rosier than they have ever been before are, at least in my honest opinion, refusing to see reality.
Got it. Those who are disabled and unable to work, yet are not of sufficient age for SS Benefits should hire an attorney to resolve it. You are right that those who need it have a hard time getting it.
"The illegals you mention at nuclear facilities are doing labor work."
Really?
"ICE agents arrested 44 illegal aliens at the Marley Cooling Technologies factory in Olathe, Kansas, where cooling towers for nuclear plants are manufactured."
Looks like they were involved with the manufacture of some fairly important items, not "doing labor work". At the other nuclear facilities the were performing "maintenance", exactly what they were maintaining is not in evidence.
Plenty of entry level jobs by whose standard? Of course there are in areas of small Illegal population. The fact is, in areas with large Illegal populations unemployment is much higher than the national percentage and entry level jobs are nonexistent.
Not on you best day bub! Blackbird.
KMA twice.
Ya, and I could move to India and find a place cheaper than that, but that really misses the point.
About the cleaner/janitor jobs: if you factor in the bennies with these civil service jobs you reach 20 dollars per hour.
Here's your original statement: I don't think Adam Smith would regard $15-20 per hour wages plus bennies for cleaning jobs as keeping anyone "poor and miserable."
We can sympathize all we want with the "little guy's" plight trying to make a living - but the little guy has options: he can stay at minimum or he can upgrade his skills and go for the higher pay jobs. It's not like he's a serf in the middle ages or a dhimmi living under Islamic oppression. He/she can rise in the economic ladder with a little effort---that's what it takes. Nobody gets it for free.
OBL's father was illiterate, blind in one eye, and dirt poor. As a teenager he made his way to Saudi Arabia and through hard work managed to create a fortune so great that he sometimes lent money to the Saudi royal family. Do we then excuse low wages, and lack of opportunity for the serfs in SA because OBL's father lived a Horatio Alger story?
I would find it highly unusual if illegal aliens were hired to do design or engineering work at a company manufacturing nuclear cooling towers. Do you think common laborers are not needed in that process?
"The fact is, in areas with large Illegal populations unemployment is much higher than the national percentage and entry level jobs are nonexistent."
Are the following rates the "much higher" rates you are referring to?
US Unemplyment Rate 5.0%
California Unemplyment Rate 5.1%
Arizona Unemployment Rate 4.7%
Texas Unemplyment Rate 5.0%
New Mexico Unemplyment Rate 5.4%
California has a current unemployment rate of 5.1%, down from 6% a year ago. Of the 936,000 unemployed, 326,000 were laid off, 118,000 left their jobs voluntarily , and the rest were new entrants to the job market.
New entrants to the marketplace - +/- 500,000
You're not trying to fool me now, are you?
You've had your hat handed to you many times on this thread. You haven't come up with a cogent response to anyone that challenged your babble. One would think you'd have the good sense to just tuck tail and run. Spit! Blackbird.
A "level playing field" for reducing American salaries to Third World levels ? You think Americans are going to put up with that ? You think Americans are going to accept "competing" with the entire Third World in who will work for less ?
If that is your idea of policy, get used to a permanent Democratic majority.
And what makes you think that the service worker has different interests from his blue collar factory worker grandfather ? Or sees the world any different ?
If worse comes to worst, you can always become a cop or fireman.
Not trying to fool anyone, you're still looking at too large an area. As hard as it is to believe, Illegals do not live in every area of California. Try looking at Rural areas where you claim the Illegals are working. Kern County for example, mostly rural, with 7.5 to 17.6 percent unemployment. (http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/).
As a bonus, Kern county has some of the worst schools, most crowded jails and ranks 6th worst in health care access.
$5.15 times 160 hours equals $824 before taxes,which will take about 15% of the gross ,so our mythical unmotivated person now has $700 for all living expenses. Take away $400 for rent,now he has slightly less than $10 per day for three meals ,basic medical expenses,travel costs to work, clothing,and hygiene needs.
Why do you think the illegal immigrants are found living so many to a room?It is because they can't pay rent on just one minimum wage job either.
And why all the people crapping on the unskilled or semi-skilled workers anyway? I would love to see some of you superior persons reaction if no low caste person cleaned your business restrooms,took out the trash,cut the grass,painted ,and dozens of other necessary tasks.
If everbody did nothing but manage,darn little would get done. Workers may need managers to more effectively direct their efforts but the wage disparity today is ridiculous.
The company president may well deserve a big house on the hill but not so big that the janitor must huddle in a hovel. Slavery is supposed to be illegal in the United States of America. In my youth the company president drove a newCadillac and lived in a big brick home while the mailroom clerk drove a decade old Chevrolet and had a two room apartment. The president ate steak,the clerk hamburger. Now the president wants two mansions,three foreign cars and expects the mailroom clerk to live in subsidized housing and buy his groceries with food stamps because the company owner is just too darn greedy to pay a living wage. Not a wage of luxury but a wage that will meet the basics.
Even the feudal lords understood that with wealth comes responsibility; albeit too many did not act on the knowledge.
Don't change the subject.
You were arguing that blue collar was a meaningless term because you insisted on narrowing it to the blue collar middle class of 50 years ago. The factory worker. Reality is, it applies to every service worker behind a counter, who wishes he had those good union factory jobs his grandfather did.
Funny you talked glowingly about cops and firemen. The only sectors of the blue collar working class that still have powerful unions.
Those that trumpet the benefits of Illegal Immigration are doing the crapping. Without Illegals, America's semi-skilled workers would be much better off.
"They could have been running a simple lathe, drill-press or assembly line task."
Highly unlikely.
"Try looking at Rural areas where you claim the Illegals are working. Kern County for example, mostly rural, with 7.5 to 17.6 percent unemployment."
The following is from the current Kern County Economic Report.
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