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“I mean the latter of course.”

I’ve been thinking about the former quite a bit of late, as I have become increasingly aware of the plummeting purchasing power of wages. I was overseas for a long time, so I didn’t see it at first.

I realized that I had more purchasing power on unemployment in 1977 than I have had working 40 hours a week these last few years.

It now seems to me that wages have been eroded from the bottom up. Illegal aliens first took the lowest jobs on the ladder, like dishwasher. This drove those wages down. Then they became foremen on lawn care trucks. And the higher they climbed on the ladder, the more damage they did to the wage structure.

Today I figure a rough 500% inflation in prices across the board since 1976. (As I said, this is “rough.” Some things have gone up more, some less.) However, wages have not gone up 500%. It seems to me that wage-earners have lost ground.

This, IMO, is directly attributable to the availability of cheap, illegal labor.

I’ve spent most of my adult life criticizing labor unions for being communist-run and irrational. Or is that redundant? Anyway, I am now starting to think that some companies are selling the American people and the United States down the river, not merely to remain profitable, but to become *more* profitable.

And yes, yes, I know: Over-regulation, taxation, wages and benefits that could run a company into the ground, responsibility to the shareholders, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

All true. But is moving overseas the right answer? Is it the ethical, courageous answer? Or would a better answer be to use their influence to smack down the demonrats? I don’t have figures to support this, but I’d bet that if taxation and regulation were more rational, companies could offer proper wages and benefits and still turn a profit.

Of course, “could” is one thing, “will” is another. Looking at the conduct of companies today, I don’t know what would happen. Are there no decent people left in business today?

I know of one company that opened a call center here, and paid workers the same wage they paid in other areas of the country. Then they looked around and said, hey, we don’t have to pay that much here. The local economy sucks; there are no decent jobs; we can just announce that everyone is getting a 25% pay cut, like it or lump it.

And they did. Just because they could. Even though they were already benefiting from tax breaks and lower costs. Yeah, they were turning a profit, but by screwing their workers, they could report a *larger* profit.

This turned them into a McJob that attracts society’s dregs. Like McDonald’s, they want workers to come in the front door for training, work until they are due a raise, and then get bum-rushed out the back door. The notion of getting good people, then treating them right so they can keep them, is utterly alien to them.

So, several hundred scrape-by, poverty level jobs became several hundred jobs that left the workers eligible for food stamps. It is said that there are many jobs here, and any three of them will support you. Of course, that leaves you working 24 hours a day, but if you choose instead to work 16 hours a day and apply for food stamps, you are a lazy-ass welfare queen.

The importation of cheap labor to drive wages down is, according to my Faith, a sin that cries to Heaven for revenge. I don’t know what to think other than that the border is not sealed and illegal aliens are not deported because commercial interests want the cheap labor, and politicians (America’s only native criminal class) are going along with them.

“All we need is the right person in the WH.”

I very much fear that if the right person — Governor Palin — were elected, the forces of evil would JFK her.

“And when Eisenhower shipped them home, he didn’t just deposit them across the border. He sent them down the coast. :-)”

Good old Ike. He was no MacArthur, but he was definitely smarter than the average bear. (I just wish it would turn out to be a lie that he was carrying on with his driver in London.)