Posted on 07/06/2010 10:08:25 AM PDT by Brian Allen
It can be far easier to tell a lie than it is to refute one. This is a fact that leftists ruthlessly exploit. For them, lying is a moral imperatives. Americans have seen this with respect to their southern border. Obama lied about illegal immigration and he lied about protecting the border and those who near it. To fully refute the lies that are told about the need for illegals one needs to use both history and economics. This is what the following article does. It is written for those who want to counter leftist arguments in favor of illegals.
While General Mola used a secret fifth column within the city of Madrid to secure it for the Spanish Nationalists Obama is doing one better by using illegal immigrants to form a sixth column (the media form his fifth column) to turn the United States into a 'elective' one-party state by giving the Democrats a permanent majority. In this he has the treasonous support of the left-wing unionocracy, the country's so-called 'progressive' media, the entertainment industry's pseudo intellectuals, and numerous billionaires, many of whom — like the loathsome Sandlers and Soros — deeply hate the United States.
Instead of exploring at this point a policy that would — if not halted — lead to the eventual destruction of the United States let us examine the main arguments that are thrown up to defend what many might justly call treason. (In my opinion, an immigration policy intended to render the constitution ineffective and install what would in effect by a dictatorship amounts to nothing less than treason.)
We can do no better than start with Comedy Central's (known to patriotic Americans as Cowardly Central) smart-alec, Stephen Colbert. This economic genius justifies flooding the US with illegal immigrants from south of border — meaning all way the down to Tierra del Fuego — because Americans are too lazy to do the work that immigrants do (Immigrant farm workers' challenge: Take our jobs).
Now I want readers to hold on to their thinking caps because Colbert's lefty nonsense can only be debunked with an economic argument and a couple of historical examples. When Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations he noted that real wages in the American colonies greatly exceeded those in England whose wages in turn exceeded those found on the Continent. This was no mystery to Smith and his contemporaries: they knew full well that it was the scarcity of labor relative to land that drove up the colonies wage rates.
A similar phenomenon occurred in fourteenth century Europe. The devastating death toll from the Black Death created a severe labor shortage that — you guessed it — drove up real wage rates. As expected, once the population began to recover there emerged an inexorable downward pressure on wages. In other words, as labor services became less scarce relative to land their prices fell and the price of land and hence rents rose.
Regardless of what that brilliant economist and economic historian Stephen Colbert might say there is absolutely no way that any form of intervention could have reversed the above process. This brings us to our poor downtrodden illegal immigrants. The ones that are doing America a favor by breaking its laws and hinting they'll vote Democrat as soon as the progressive Obama can get them a free pass.
As I said earlier, hold on to that thinking cap. The demand curve for labor is always downward sloping. This is because at each point down the curve the value of the worker's output gets lower. (Economists call this the value of the marginal product.) The point at which the supply of labor meets the demand for labor determines the wage rate. As more people enter the market the supply of labor slides down the demand curve. Any attempt to prevent this movement will raise the level of unemployment. (This explains why the wages of peasants fell once the population recovered from the effects of the plague).
In a purely agricultural society it would be clear that the limiting factor on wages and therefore the standard of living would be the quantity of fertile land. But since the industrial revolution it was the process of capital accumulation that continued to raise real wages. Expanding the capital stock shifts the demand curve for labour to the right which raises the standard of living because having more capital to work with increases productivity and hence real wages.
This process will continue so long as population growth does not exceed the rate of capital accumulation. But should a comparatively swift and significant increase in the labor force occur then at best a slowdown in the growth of real wages would emerge: at worst real wages would fall. Few Americans know that this once happened to the US. The following chart shows that the annual growth in real wages of 1.27 per cent rate that prevailed from 1855-1895 was slashed to 0.55 per cent for the period 1896-1916. This 57 per cent drop was caused by "the great Ellis Island influx in the first two decades of the 20th century"*.
US wages and immigration
Source: The Tucker series converted to hourly rates and adjusted to the cost of living, Employment and Wages in the United States by W. S. Woytinsky and Associates (New York: The Twentieth Century Fund, 1953) . The chart was simplified to emphasize the effect that immigration can have on real wage rates.
The situation of New York maidservants is a graphic example of an unorganized and uneducated group whose real wages rose significantly without the help of Democrats or the thugs like the SEIU. On the eve of WWI the average wage of these girls was about $3.50: by 1922 it had jumped in real terms to about $18. So how did this happen? The war slashed the flow of cheap labor from Ireland and Scandinavia — where many of these girls came from — while the increased demand from industry absorbed female labor from the South that would have normally gone into domestic service. But the vital factor was — as always — capital accumulation. There was a massive increase in industrial investment which raised real wages for everyone. It was this factor, combined with severe immigration restrictions, that raised real wages for everyone.
Let us take a look at another example, this time from England. Industrial development is never 'even' in that everyone is affected the same way, England was no different. Sir James Caird estimated that even as late as 1851 the average weekly agricultural wages in 20 southern counties were 8s 5d compared with 11s 6d for 12 northern counties. He correctly noted that the higher-wages of the Northern counties is altogether due to the proximity of manufacturing and mining enterprise. (Sir James Caird, English Agriculture in 1850-51, London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1852, pp. 511-12.)
So what Sir James found is that where population increased but industrial development remained absent real wages stagnated. Once again we are back to capital accumulation as the key to raising the standard of living. This in turn brings us back to smarty-pants Colbert, illegal immigrants and all those lovely jobs that good-for-nothing rednecks refuse to do. Once a country starts accumulating capital at a far faster rate than the growth in population it eventually becomes capital intensive, which means that as the competition for labor raises wages more labor intensive industries have to raise their wages or otherwise lose labor. This is why barbers get paid vastly more today than they did 150 years ago.
Those who cannot successfully compete for labor must abandon their enterprises. This situation is not to be lamented but celebrated. It means that the standard of living is rising, not falling. This is where the phony labor shortage comes in. If it is found, for example, that parts of agriculture cannot pay enough to attract the labor it needs then it will complain of a labor shortages. But in these circumstances this is to say no more than the prices of their products will not cover the market wage.
To try and solve this 'labor shortage' by flooding the labor market with immigrants is to promote a policy of lowering real wages. It is, in effect, a strategy for using imported labor to offset the beneficial effects of capital accumulation. Taken to its logical conclusion this policy would push American wage rates down to the Mexican level if not lower. It is, in fact, a deeply anti-growth policy.(For those who doubt me I refer to a study produced a few years ago by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center that concluded that the flow of illegals had driven down local wages by 11 per cent. Imagine the situation if the flow was to rapidly expand.)
Economic logic tells us that by bringing in more and more labor jobs that had once disappeared can reappear. No doubt that great economic theorist and scintillating wit Stephen Colbert would point to this as evidence that the jobs were always there but Americans just wouldn't do them. This would be the response of an economic illiterate, which is exactly what Colbert is, apart from also being a lefty bigot.
One could argue — and many do — that illegals could be turned into guest workers, at least for agriculture. Why bother? It would be much better for America and Mexico if those US operations that need illegal labor because they cannot afford US labor packed up and moved south of the border. This would release resources in America for more valuable activities while at the same time creating more job opportunities in Mexico.
Ultimately jobs are a function of price. This leads to the conclusion that the re-emergence and spread of low paid jobs would be evidence of either capital consumption or the population growing faster than the rate of capital accumulation. If Colbert and his lefty mates get their way it will certainly be the latter case. And why would Colbert and Hollywood's celluloid intellectuals (Jimmy Smits for one) support a policy that cuts real wages? (The wages of others, that is.) Think about it, where else can these caring and compassionate liberals get cheap labor to cut their grass, do their laundry, change their beds, dust their antiques, wash their cars, babysit the kids and mindlessly vote for corrupt Democrats?
And this is where Obama's sixth column appears. If this leftist and the rest of those political gangsters called the Democratic Party thought for a moment that illegals would overwhelmingly vote for the Republicans not only would they be sending them back by the trainload they themselves would be down on their hands and knees at border laying anti-personnel mines — and Jimmy Smits and the rest of the corrupt Hollywood crowd would be down helping them while Comedy Central put on skits about Mexicans playing hopscotch in mine fields.
Obama has basically said that while he is "president" the border will to all intents and purposes cease to exist. What he is doing is inviting into America an army of illegals that he later hopes the Democrats can pardon in exchange for their votes. This is no different in principle from them bringing in an invading army to keep themselves in power. There is a word for this kind of behavior.
Why would Obama do this to his country? Because he is a dedicated leftist who hates America and despises its people. No wonder he found a home in the Democratic Party.
*If a country was accumulating capital at a rate that resulted in a suboptimal use of the capital structure then importing workers could actually raise incomes.
“...Obama lied about illegal immigration and he lied about protecting the border and those who near it...”
The loon lies about everything.
Why listen?
He is incapable of writing a coherent speech, let alone understand what he’s reading on the ObamaPrompter.
God help us in our day, in Jesus name, amen.
Obamao is who he is. There were some people smart enough to see it from the beginning, and some who weren’t. If it is bad for America. Obamao will do it. He is the enemy.
No recovery will be possible when the men in power are ala Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Chavez, Castro,or Hussein.
Elections are not fair in Tyranny or dictatorships. They are controlled and rigged before they take place. BAD! I know but true. Stop believing they are fair and well meaning, reasonable men. Not true. It is what is killing us now our continuing to believe it is a passing stage we are currently experiencing.
Little to disagree with there, but what many commentators seem to be forgetting is that Bush and Rove, and a fair collection of other Republicans, tried the same gambit for five or six years. And the Republicans pushing for amnesty damaged the party and helped give us Obama and the Dim majorities in Congress.
And there are still self-deluded Republicans who think that supporting amnesty will win significant, future Republican votes. Sure, Obama is detestable on this and other issues, but all too many Republicans are no better, except that Obama is right that amnesty would bring many future Dim votes.
It's odd that this writer spent most of his column building the case that high immigration lowers wages (more a Republican motive), but then concluded with Obama's motive of bringing in future Dim voters. Hollywood libs might like the cheap labor, but they are only a tiny slice of the employer class.
Whether Obama hates or does not hate America is a distant third on the agenda. The first priority of the agenda is to acquire power, and second, is to consolidate power. There is obviously a reckless element to the agenda. IMO, the lefties know that their time of power obtaining is short.
What the short-sighted democrats do not see is the dilution of the democrat party and leadership. For example, with an election aided by new found Dem voters (illegals), the Dem canidate, John Smith, wins the primary and general election. At the next election, Juan Ortiz Sanchez Perez wins the primary and election, beating John Smith and the Repub challenger handily. The Dems seem to be oblivious to the fact that Juan is NOT John. Will Juan's loyalty and agenda align with the establishment Dem party? Americans in general? I'd bet a dozen pesos it will not.
as soon as he waves the magic wand... the 20m+ illegals will be told to go down to a federal agency and pick up their new gov’t cards
right next to the main desk will be another desk... voter registration
and on that desk... a massive stack of absentee ballots
Ping!
Printed in Spanish, of course.
Bush was for amnesty , too , and McCain , until election time and now he says he is not for it . Really dumb when 99% of them will vote Dem , right ?
That's the whole idea. He's not an American. He's a Third World revolutionary in the tradition of Che Guevara and Castro. The idea is to make America into a Third World country, using Alinskyite tactics, and then to merge that socialist state with the UN and the New World Order against any remaining opposition. When the US is completely taken over as a Third World dictatorship, it's over. No more Christian Western civilization, freedom, free way of life, constitutional rights, etc. Kiss it all goodbye. You will have a socialist globalist police state driven by a semi-illiterate Third World underclass, indentured to the welfare state, ready to riot if they don't get their way. East LA with high-surveillance security cameras, computerized profiling, dumbed-down mass education and infotainment, cradle-to-grave welfare state, through-the-roof tax system leaving only the top of the elite able to own property of any substance, with an intolerable criminal subculture just about everywhere else outside of gated communities.
A banana republic with its own utopian messiah and bread&circuses mass culture ("American Idol" for the mortgaged, disinherited, and dumbed-down masses). Anyone who questions it or who points out the secret society conspiracies imposing such an Orwellian social order or who reminds others that the Constitution does not authorize such a socialist tyranny will be branded a right-wing extremist or terrorist. And added to a profiling database administered by nerdy neurotic liberals with sexual issues, of limited education and intelligence.
The New New Deal By Charles R. Kesler
Adapted from a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on February 1, 2010, during a four-day conference on “The New Deal,” co-sponsored by the Center for Constructive Alternatives and the Ludwig von Mises Lecture Series.
EXCERPT Unlike most Americans, President Obama still bristles at any suggestion that our nation is better or even luckier than other nations. To be blunt, he despises the notion that Americans consider themselves special among the peoples of the world. This strikes him as the worst sort of ignorance and ethnocentrism, which is why it was so difficult for him to decide to wear an American flag lapel pin when he started running for president, even though he knew it was political
suicide to refuse wearing it.
As President Obama hinted in his Berlin speech during the campaign, he really thinks of himself as a multiculturalist, as a citizen of the world, first, and only incidentally as an American. To put it differently, he regards patriotism as morally and intellectually inferior to cosmopolitanism.
And, of course, he is never so much a citizen of the world as when defending the world’s environment against mankind’s depredations, and perhaps especially America’s depredations.
In general, the emotionalist defense of the earth—think of Al Gore—is now a vital part of the liberalism of our day. It’s a kind of substitute for earlier liberals’ belief
in progress. Although his own election—and secondarily liberalism’s achievements over the past century or so—help o redeem America in his view, Obama remains, in many ways, profoundly disconnected from his own land.
REST HERE http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp
<< as soon as he waves the magic wand... the (30million+ criminal aliens) will be told to go down to a fe’ral agency and pick up their new gov’t cards
right next to the main desk will be another desk ... voter registration
and on that desk... a massive stack of absentee ballots >>
Nothing, that is, will be different from the last hundred election cycles!
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