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Labor Dumping (by Mexico)
The Cato Institute ^ | September 3, 2007 | Steve W. Hanke

Posted on 08/21/2007 12:18:45 PM PDT by reaganaut1

The flood of foreign labor pouring into the U.S., the European Union and other hospitable environs has brought political strains. In the U.S., President George W. Bush and Senator Edward M. Kennedy failed to win passage of an immigration reform bill that the President viewed as legacy legislation. In Europe, France's new President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has been busy promising to get tough on immigrants and erecting roadblocks to Turkey's bid for European Union membership.

These are only the latest shots in a long and ultimately futile debate about immigration policy. There is little chance of stemming migrant inflows, as long as the countries supplying immigrants embrace policies that effectively mandate labor dumping.

...

Today Mexico is the world's largest labor dumper and the source of much of the contentious U.S. immigration reform debate. Surprisingly, the political combatants on both sides of the debate fail to mention the source of the problem: Mexico's statist economy. Like Yugoslavia, Mexico can't produce enough jobs. According to the World Bank's Doing Business 2007 report, Mexico's labor market ranks 108th out of 175 countries in terms of the ease of hiring and firing workers and labor-market flexibility.

Rather than modernize the economy, Mexico's politicians use Tito's broom. Mexico's 47 consulates in the U.S., more than any other country has, facilitate the sweeping by issuing passports and offering assistance when Mexican immigrants run into trouble. Thus 30% of Mexico's labor force is working in the U.S., and in 2006 they sent home $23 billion, 12% of Mexico's exports.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Mexico
KEYWORDS: aliens; immigrantlist; labordumping; mexico
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To: tumblindice
than all of the various northern and southern European immigrants, many educated and skilled, that immigrated here legally in both the 19th and 20th centuries?

"Legal" is a slippery word in that context: although there were laws governing naturalization, there weren't any immigration laws to speak of until about the 1880s (the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882), and no really comprehensive immigration laws until about 1921.

Moreover, many of the cultural and educational arguments applied to Mexicans today, were similarly applied to the millions of Irish, Polish, Italian, and other immigrant groups who came here back then. True, many immigrants back then were skilled and educated; and a whole lot more of them were not. Conversely, I'd venture to guess that many contemporary Mexican illegals are as skilled and educated as, say, the average Polish or Italian immigrants of old.

The circumstances of Mexican immigration are certainly different in many respects, including the fact that we share a border with their home country; and also that political events there will inevitably have an impact here.

We shouldn't assume that Mexican immigration will turn out as well as the old-time immigration did. But at the same time, we probably also shouldn't assume that a bad outcome is inevitable.

41 posted on 08/21/2007 1:55:40 PM PDT by r9etb
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To: CDHart

Great idea. Six more states full of Democrat/Socialists and permanent Democrat domination of the US.


42 posted on 08/21/2007 1:59:06 PM PDT by Little Ray (Rudy Guiliani: If his wives can't trust him, why should we?)
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To: Hydroshock

As Fred Reed said, Mexico and the US have the same problem - both have too many Mexicans.


43 posted on 08/21/2007 2:01:18 PM PDT by Pining_4_TX
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To: Hydroshock

Mexico is dumping their poor illiterates, and criminals on us. Just as bad as when Castro emptied his prisons on Carter
and sent them here.


44 posted on 08/21/2007 2:01:33 PM PDT by stephenjohnbanker ( Hunter/Thompson/Thompson/Hunter in 08! "Read my lips....No new RINO's" !!)
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To: GulfBreeze; CherylBower
I made no statement you hyped up buffoon

That's cute, I luv it when people get upset.

I know it was a question. A statement can be a question. My comment is that the question itself is utterly naive.

But you're not alone. I post to anyone that makes that kind of statement, question, whatever with the same comment: people in the U.S. have no idea - no idea - how stunningly vicious, corrupt, murderous, atavistic and alien the culture and "government" is in Mexico.

It is beyond foreign. And pictures on tv or in the media - what few there are - cannot begin to communicate that.

Millions of people flee that country every year, thousands every day. They will kick, scream, fight, run, do anything to keep from having to go back.

What kind of place would make human beings act that way?

The answer is Mexico...and much of Latin America.

We cannot incorporate them in some altruistic mission to try and change them. The only real way to change Mexico would be to commit genocide against the ruling population and then lobotomize the remaining people in such a way that they never remember how it was.

It's a zoo that should be walled in and then maybe you can sell tickets to the "how not to do a nation" show.

It is also a collapsing nation. The Mexodus and the surging narco-violence is the end game of a system so full of contradictions and failures that it is only the existence of the U.S. and our propping up of their grotesque nightmare of a country that the whole thing didn't go Zimbabwe 4 decades ago.

The greatest crime against humanity in history would be for the U.S. to incorporate this sinister disaster area.

That people in our government - who most certainly know the truth - who are acquiescing to such an outcome are some of the greatest traitors of all time that they would let that happen.

45 posted on 08/21/2007 2:05:08 PM PDT by Regulator
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To: AuntB; All

The destruction of non college educated working class Americans is another term to remember. Not every American can, or wants to go to Yale!


46 posted on 08/21/2007 2:06:56 PM PDT by stephenjohnbanker ( Hunter/Thompson/Thompson/Hunter in 08! "Read my lips....No new RINO's" !!)
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To: Regulator

Alrighty then. I accept your apology.


47 posted on 08/21/2007 2:08:09 PM PDT by GulfBreeze (Support America, Support Duncan Hunter for President.)
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To: Regulator

“The greatest crime against humanity in history would be for the U.S. to incorporate this sinister disaster area.

That people in our government - who most certainly know the truth - who are acquiescing to such an outcome are some of the greatest traitors of all time that they would let that happen.”

Amen to that!!


48 posted on 08/21/2007 2:08:38 PM PDT by stephenjohnbanker ( Hunter/Thompson/Thompson/Hunter in 08! "Read my lips....No new RINO's" !!)
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To: Roccus; All

If we do not elect a President next time who is firmly against this invasion, this country is finished!


49 posted on 08/21/2007 2:14:05 PM PDT by stephenjohnbanker ( Hunter/Thompson/Thompson/Hunter in 08! "Read my lips....No new RINO's" !!)
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To: reaganaut1
"The American worker, the most productive in all of history, is being made to compete with the lowest paid workers."
author unknown
50 posted on 08/21/2007 2:16:40 PM PDT by ßuddaßudd (7 days - 7 ways Guero >>> with a floating, shifting, ever changing persona....)
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To: Regulator

BTW,

How do you come to have a better knowledge of al the intimate details of Mexico’s corruption than me?

Would you mind giving me a breakdown of the differences in our experiences and or research?


51 posted on 08/21/2007 2:34:30 PM PDT by GulfBreeze (Support America, Support Duncan Hunter for President.)
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To: reaganaut1

As often happens, the libertarians fail to see the big picture. Yes labor dumping contributes to the problem, but if illegals can’t get in(build the fence), can’t find a job when they get here(crack down on businesses) and know they will get caught and sent home(enforce the laws)then it doesn’t over much matter how much Mexico wants to dump its “excess” population on us. Seems to me libertarians want politics to stop at the waters edge from the other side. Yeh, lets be libertarian on this side of the Rio Grand(with open borders, loose immigration laws, and businesses can do whatever the hell they want) but lets make those nasty countries do whatever non libertarian things they need to do to make them stop sending their people here.


52 posted on 08/21/2007 2:38:15 PM PDT by Delacon
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To: reaganaut1
Once upon a time, rich Serbian factory, mine and farm owners thought "cheap Albanian labor" was a great deal in the province of Kosovo.

Our Southwest is going to be Bosnia and Kosovo cubed.


53 posted on 08/21/2007 2:52:32 PM PDT by Travis McGee (--- www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com ---)
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To: GulfBreeze
Alrighty then. I accept your apology

Oddly, I think that once again, you've misinterpreted a statement of mine!

54 posted on 08/21/2007 2:56:00 PM PDT by Regulator
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To: GulfBreeze

You need only to live in the Southwest and have your eyes open, your ears listening, and your brain functioning to understand the Nightmare Next Door.


55 posted on 08/21/2007 2:58:14 PM PDT by Regulator
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To: GulfBreeze

Or we could just creat an DMZ style border...It’s been done before with some semblence of success...

You cannot be more hated then I!!! I forbid it!

You may be my sidekick, but that is as far as I will go...

“Wife-Unit” has spoken!!! ;-)


56 posted on 08/21/2007 3:05:36 PM PDT by stevie_d_64 (Houston Area Texans (I've always been hated))
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To: Regulator

I agree they are traitors. I also know that Mexico would never become a state or legal protectorate (we do that and pay them for the privilege). I don’t think the Mexican people have any idea how truly corrupt their government is, either. I don’t think the situation is completely hopeless (although close). Pie-in-the-sky visions at least give us a starting point on where we would like to be. You can’t have progress unless you know where you are going. I don’t believe this will be solved, ever. Sometimes I think we need a John Galt, a Franco d’Anconia, we need to scrap it all and start over. Stop letting it (all the Mexican, NAU, issues, name it) bother us and help it along to its ultimate destruction, then rebuild.


57 posted on 08/21/2007 3:07:02 PM PDT by CherylBower
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To: GulfBreeze
Imagine only having a 300 mile border than an 1800 mile border to guard.

I see your point, to a point, but at this time, securing an 1800 mile border would be easier than trying to de corrupt, and change the mexican condition.

Talk about nation building. Nation building after a war would seem to me to be an easier proposition than trying to re build one without destroying it first.

While I suppose it would be possible, the hard core methods to rid mexico of the corruption, drug cartels, elitists et al, would bring howls from the touchy feely liberals, probably more so than the WOT/Iraq/Afghanistan.

58 posted on 08/21/2007 3:39:56 PM PDT by AFreeBird (Will NOT vote for Rudy. <--- notice the period)
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To: 1_Inch_Group; 2sheep; 2Trievers; 3AngelaD; 3pools; 3rdcanyon; 4Freedom; 4ourprogeny; 7.62 x 51mm; ..

ping


59 posted on 08/21/2007 6:32:02 PM PDT by gubamyster
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To: Eric in the Ozarks
Why not invade Nova Scotia ? They’re almost as poor.

They aren't trying to "reclaim" the country.

60 posted on 08/21/2007 6:44:57 PM PDT by humblegunner (Word up!)
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