[Diesle]

I just cant put my finger on this one and am looking for a nudge in the right direction....

Illegal immigration coupled with the outsourcing of jobs to offshore markets is at a level that is hurting Joe American. I know first hand that both are having an effect on my marketability. Being a Systems Engineer for an organization that provides both onshore and offshore services to customers in the US market I have a birds eye view of this trend.

Personally, I am in a difficult position in that I am really committing myself to a non-American organization that is more than happy to staff contracts with offshore resources. And, equally happy bringing many many many Indian nationals to the US on visas to fill jobs that could otherwise be filled by Americans. Current market conditions have forced me to stay put and be glad I have a job. I am between a rock and a ........ to say the least.

This is not new news to anyone. The abysmal job market, rampant illegal immigration, and the exportation of jobs are in the DAILY news. It’s splattered all over almost every source I tap.

The question I can’t resolve then is why is this OK? There is clearly something broken here that requires action at a federal level. Some stronger enforcement or stiffer penalties for hiring illegals, some tightening of the visa rules and quotas, some regulation or tax on business that’s sold to offshore workers. Something....

Action is usually taken after enough pain is felt. In this case, the pain is there and no action is being taken. This leads me to think that there is some force or condition that exists that I am not aware of that makes these things good. There must be some reason why the Government WANTS to populate America with illegal immigrants or WANTS to move a significant amount of work offshore. I just cant put my finger on why....??? Or, more directly, why is it being done at Americans expense…?


Diesle

[glocksman]

Because using illegal immigrant labor and offshore outsourcing benefits the large corporations that both political parties are beholden to.

In other words, screw Joe American. :fire:

[bountyhunter]

FWIW, most of the sucking up of engineering jobs by aliens is being done LEGALLY because companies are abusing the 1B visa loophole in the law that allows them to get unlimited visas for off shore engineers with "special skills".

Bottom line: you get what you pay for. Hire a engineer from a third world country who went to inferior schools and that is what you get... somebody who has to be trained before they are competent.

It's also true that tech jobs are being sent to foreign countries for a long time. It's been going on for at least 30 years, that's when I started working as an engineer. Fairchild semiconductor went to places like Indonesia, Jakarta, bangkok, and basically started hiring girls from rural areas to come to the cities and work in drone-type jobs (assembly/inspection). They were paid so little they had to live ten in an apartment and worked about 70 hours a week. The psychological shock was so severe that many of them freaked out at work on a regular basis. I remember reading a management directive on handling these "meltdowns" and how they had to be removed from the production floor quickly because others would start doing the same when they saw somebody start shaking and screaming.



"This leads me to think that there is some force or condition that exists that I am not aware of that makes these things good. There must be some reason why the Government WANTS to populate America with illegal immigrants or WANTS to move a significant amount of work offshore."


I think you are missing the big picture: the US federal government is a coin-operated vending machine. Companies that pour money over congressmen get legislation passed that gives them what they want. Loopholes to use cheap foreign labor increases their profits at the expense of American jobs... which they don't give a crap about. if you don't want a government who believes that big business can do no wrong, you may just have to start voting for democrats.

[longeyes]

Red?

You exist to pay taxes to keep bureaucrats and the financial elite
in comfort. Your welfare does not matter to them. They are not
interested in what you have to say. Even your vote is being diluted.
An imported proletariat will be docile and won't make trouble about
such little matters as Constitutional rights.

[moa]

Have you guys noticed that the ecomomy is resurging, but jobless claims have gone up and it was just announced that the average wage is going down. Lower wages means lower tax revenues unless the governments raise taxes still more.

My bet for a jobless rebounding ecomomy is that illegal aliens and imported labor is taking many jobs that an American could be hired to do.

I work for one of the big information technology corporations and our location is filling up with programmers from India. Plus we send programming and other work to India, Russia, Brazil, etc. This has been going on for years but has escalated enormously since around 1997. These are high tech, well paying jobs with upward mobility.

My immediate manager tells me that he has no choice but to use "global resources" for our internal programming support. Upper level management orders. However, once these programmers are trained and acclimated to American ways, they are yanked from doing internal work and unleased on green dollar, external accounts.

It is the global economy thing which I think is hurting America in a number of ways. And the political and business leaders believe deeply in the global economy.

Heard a couple days ago on the news that 96% of the clothing sold in America is now manufactured overseas.

[Oleg Volk]

We need a job-saving law (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/03/jobslaw.html) ?

[El Tejon]

Could it just be that immigrants create jobs and do the work that Americans cannot or will not?

[Standing Wolf]

In this case, the pain is there and no action is being taken.

Neither the president nor the congress feels any pain: they not only get reelected, but reelected with lots of dollars from businesses that depend on cheap illegal alien labor. The rest of us get to pick up the tab for the cheap illegal alien labor: increased law enforcement costs, increased prison costs, increased so-called "social welfare" costs, increased educational costs, increased...

Cheap labor is the most expensive of all.

Obvious solution: fine each employer $100,000 for each illegal alien on the pay roll.

[Cosmoline]

"Could it just be that immigrants create jobs and do the work that Americans cannot or will not?"

Naaah. There must be a conspiracy behind it!

What I find interesting is that the dire theories about immigrants taking over are nearly all posed by grandchildren of immigrants! Guess what guys! This is the USA! The immigrants took over back in 1776!

[TallPine]

This whole country has been going to heck ever since those Asians came over the land bridge from Siberia about 10,000 years ago ...

They just ruined the hunting.

:)

[bountyhunter]

All sounds fine to keep singing that old song about the great melting pot and how we are all descended from immigrants. But, I can tell you one thing that I don't need any of my college degrees to prove:

At some point, the bus gets full and you have to stop letting people get on.

Our country may not be physically full, but it is bogus to say that offshore facilities are only occupying jobs no one else will do. It is accurate to say that they are taking jobs that no one here will do for 50 cents per hour.

I'm basically in favor of free markets as long as it goes both ways, but the wholesale abuse of the visa loophole needs to stop. They have literally flooded this country with hundreds of thousands of "engineers", many whose skills are highly questionable, and displaced people here who had committed the crime of working for a company for a long time and becoming well compensated for all their contributions.

People don't speak up a lot on this issue because we get slapped for being "racist"...

[Cosmoline]

I believe that anyone willing to go through the steps should be allowed to become a US citizen. No quotas, no cutoffs. The rules should be simple and absolute--total loyalty to the US. No dual citizenships. Knowledge of spoken and written English. Knowledge of US history and law. Maybe an NRA gun safety class, too ;-) We can make it as hard as we want for each applicant, but I don't think we should turn away anyone as long as they are willing and able. As it is we have an insanely complex system of immigration laws which rival the internal rev. code for byzantine code. That's not what this nation was supposed to be.

[longeyes]

"I believe that anyone willing to go through the steps should be allowed to
become a US citizen. No quotas, no cutoffs. The rules should be simple and
absolute--total loyalty to the US. No dual citizenships. Knowledge of spoken and
written English. Knowledge of US history and law. Maybe an NRA gun safety
class, too ;-) We can make it as hard as we want for each applicant, but I don't
think we should turn away anyone as long as they are willing and able. As it is we
have an insanely complex system of immigration laws which rival the internal rev.
code for byzantine code. That's not what this nation was supposed to be."

Unfortunately your criteria, though wise and noble, don't match the immigrants
I see where I live, the illegal immigrant capitol of the US of A (Southern California). Some of those criteria don't match a lot of native-born American citizens either, frankly. This country is no longer about "willing and able," it is about the cult of Diversity, about "acceptance," about "inclusion," about just about anything, bluntly, except merit, reason, and sound values. The idea is to balance out the numbers, nothing more. I call it Demographic Socialism.

[Standing Wolf]

Legal immigration is one of America's greatest strengths; illegal aliens, however, aren't immigrants, but looters and parasites.

[Taisho]

Could it just be that immigrants create jobs and do the work that Americans cannot or will not?

Those are the jobs that the illegals do in my area. Hard working folks where I am.
No engineers here, unless working at the mexican food stand makes you an "food preparation engineer". ;)
Just hard working people.

Oh, I still think we need to seal the borders, we have more than enough people to populate our lands.

[El Tejon]

If you wish to be rid of the concerns of illegal immigration, destroy the Welfare State which some say (not I) draws them.

The lesson of the humminbirds and the feeder.:)

[Moparmike]

Not all Indians attended bad schools. I know several whom had never used a calculator until they came here for college. Log tables, sines, cosines, tangents, secants, cosecants, cotangents, all memorized in fractional and decimal form.

These people are damned smart. I dont hold it against them. I hold the outsourcing against the sellout American companies.

[c_yeager]

Id imagine that more jobs have been lost to automation than to immigrants. Maybe we should just go back to making everything by hand? I think the steam engine is where things really started going downhill for this country.

[Alexey931]

It is indeed on daily news, that outsourcing of white collar jobs. And as a foreigner I am extremely interested in what the Joe American has to say about it all. First, I caught the word 'conspiracy'. However, allow me to congratulate you all on that it doesn't figure prominently. Out here in Russia it's much more popular. It's always a temptation to blame your problems on somebody, but in reality it's either your own inability, or some external and lagrely inanimate thing you can't control, or both.

Globalization and global market, for instance. It obviously can't be either conspiracy or incompetence. It leaves us with some objective trend we have to cope with, not to blame somebody for.

Somebody mentioned 96% of the American clothes made offsore. So far as I know, in the past decades the Joe American never expressed much concern about that. And, frankly, no wonder. It was farming out slavery. Outsourcing of certain white collar jobs is just the next logical step along the same path. The only embarrassment, nobody seems to care whether one is willing to make that step or no.

I don't mean to show any disrespect; IMHO, things may be simple. Why not see it this way, for instance:

We have a global market, right? A global free market. If it comes to the price of a loaf of bread it takes some searching to find two points on this globe, where this same loaf is twice as expensive at the other point. But what is the only commodity a standard unit of which can differ in price by the order of magnitude? Yeah, it's labour. I guess that no free market is going to tolerate within its confines (and these are the globe) such an oddity. Of course, the inertia of this rather largish object is huge, but after all, being a free market, it is supposed to move and respond...

Best regards

[wingman]

I believe that anyone willing to go through the steps should be allowed to become a US citizen. No quotas, no cutoffs.


Sounds great and was in 1800's, now with the world population increase
got to be some numbers on entry like it or not the boat is getting full, do
you fill it until it sinks and kills all, or stop a few before they get on.?
How many can we put in your home, got 1900sq ft, 20 perhaps, maybe 30
folks, no problem.
:cuss:

[Tamara]

Solution #1: Produce better product to justify the higher price tag.
Solution #2: Charge less than the other guy.


From the price of goods and services to the numbers on your paycheck, this is what it all comes down to. This is not a theory, not a piece of legislation, this a simple statement of fact; it's how the universe works. No amount of law can stop it; the Russians tried, and look where they ended up.

"That guy's willing to do my job for less money!" Well, harsh as it may sound, maybe that's how much your job is really worth. If Bobby wants twenty-five bucks to mow your lawn, and Jesus will do just as good or better for $15, who are you going to hire? Don't lie to yourself. Little Bobby has priced himself out of the market.

[Gordon Fink]

I was going to write a dissertation on the shortcomings of capitalism, but I doubt my long-winded lecturing would even equal Tamara’s simple eloquence.

~G. Fink

[longeyes]

In other words, my friends, we have two options before us:

a) Experience the Great Leveling in which global capitalism gradually tends to equalize incomes. Unless technology rather quickly produces a vast Leap Forward that sounds mighty like Joe American getting a massive cut in his standard of living. Hmmm, wonder how that will play?

b) Prune the global labor market and/or technological competitors. Of course the last two World Wars accomplished that, hugely benefiting the comparative standard of living for Americans, especially after WW II, when for a good long while we were really the only game in town economically.

Get ready for a bumpy ride.

[Intune]

Or quit letting them take 50% of what we get paid. It's time to start dumping tea again. Every couple hundred years those leaves need to steep in brine. ;)

Today's immig is not the same one who arrived twenty or thirty years ago. The current crop has no desire to assimilate. They seek to conquer.

[moa]

Allowing millions of illegal aliens to come across the border and look for work that American might do, and have been doing, artificially pushes wages down. And I have not seen a great decrease in prices for goods and services as a result of these wages being pushed down.

And importing white collar foreign workers, who are being imported because they work for less (one third to one half) also artificially pushes wages down.

In both incidences employers have to pay less or nothing for normal worker benefits to this imported labor. Additionally, they have the upper hand over these foreign workers as compared to Americans.

So, why should employers hire Americans when the employers reap greater profits not to hire Americans?

I should mention too that many illegals have jobs waiting for them if they can get across the border. A number of industries contract out their labor needs knowing full well the workers will be illegals. This can be seen in the poultry and shellfish processing industry.

[Gordon Fink]

Show me an American who will do a hard job for less than minimum wage and no benefits.

~G. Fink

[Intune]

All kinds of benefits, they just don't have to pay for them. Shut the borders totally down except for valid points of entry. Worker permits.

[Sean Smith]

Shut the borders totally down except for valid points of entry.

How? With what? Did we leave 5,000,000 soldiers under the couch cushions and forget about them or something?

We are talking about over 12,000 kilometers of land borders and nearly 20,000 kilometers of coastline. "Shut down the borders" is an appeal to magic.

[wingman]

(Solution #1: Produce better product to justify the higher price tag.
Solution #2: Charge less than the other guy.[QUOTE]



I wish it were that simple however with a growing 3th world population it
is not, the question is do we bring the third world up to our standard of
living or ours down to meet there's.?

Perhaps we should , just a thought here, but think of our country for a
change, protect our standard of living, our way of life, not be ashamed
of being the best, if someone don't soon it will be too late.:fire:

[Diesle]

"Could it just be that immigrants create jobs and do the work that Americans cannot or will not?"

I was a restaurant manager through most of the '90s and watched many less desirable jobs shift from young white full time students/part time workers to Hispanics. In fact, I was sort of a revolutionary in my organization in that I was the first manager to take the leap to hire non-English speaking employees. Usually, one or 2 'translators' in the organization was plenty. As a manager, I was thrilled to have a new source of recruiting as many of the jobs were very hard to fill. Further, as a generalization, young white males working in unskilled positions tend to be less than enthusiastic. The Hispanics and other nationalities, as a generalization, were very hard workers, valued their job(s) and took pride in producing excellence.

That was the early '90s.... I used to think 'they' were filling jobs that Americans did not want to do or were not willing to do any longer. Now, it is certainly not the case. Many many immigrants are coming with quite refined skill sets, fluent English and a drive to produce exceptional work. Additionally, I DO NOT view offshore employees as 'stupid' or lesser skilled. Well trained individual thinkers can be staffed in most every country.



"What I find interesting is that the dire theories about immigrants taking over are nearly all posed by grandchildren of immigrants!"

I am the grandchild of immigrants on both sides of my family. My family (both sides) originated from Russia.

I feel that there is and should be a healthy and necessary flow of immigration. My concerns are focused on a couple of immigration issues:

- Are we able to track, quantify and identify immigrants? I think that it is important to be able to identify trends in immigration as well as potential threats to Americans. I don’t believe we have a way to accurately depict immigration today because of the amount of illegal.

- Are illegal immigrants able to collect Gov. Money from social programs? There shouldn’t be one instance of this.

- Are illegal immigrants paying taxes? You want to work in America and receive the benefits of that, you pay your way...

- Can immigrants speak English?


"So far as I know, in the past decades the Joe American never expressed much concern about that."

Point well taken!. My 'alarms' began to sound when I started to realize that SKILLED work is being taken by illegals and offshore workers. A sad indictment of my social awareness, but true non the less.



"But what is the only commodity a standard unit of which can differ in price by the order of magnitude? Yeah, it's labor."


The finance 'bin' is labor. However, this figure is driven by a couple of metrics:

- Cost of living in the region. Obviously, when you talk about paying someone .50/hour that is a fuzzy picture. How is that cost when adjusted to America dollars? Does a loaf of bread only cost .10 for that .50/hour worker? Is his rent $100 per month...?

- What benefits are offered by the company? Benefits are applied as either a social standard or enforced by law. American organizations are required to spend quite a lot of money for benefits both socially, competitively and by law. All offshore sites are not bound by the same standard and in many cases have no standard. You earn your hourly wage and that’s it...

- How is labor taxed?

Yes, the Corps. are sending this work offshore because its cheaper. Cheaper because the cost of living is lower in the target region, the benefits are non existent and the environment standards are on the floor. This is where my Gov. steps in and requires some level of standard before any contract is written for offshore work.



"Well, harsh as it may sound, maybe that's how much your job is really worth."

My nationalism is evoked.......It is what my job is worth OFFSHORE, it is not what my job is worth in AMERICA.



Im a simple man. I can’t possibly fathom the entire picture here. What I see is an erosion of the American economy and job market to a level that more closely matches the countries in this new 'Global Market'. That feels like Global Socialism to me.

Is it OK to want to protect American culture and the American labor force? Or is that just too costly in the new world order.


Diesle

[wingman]

Is it OK to want to protect American culture and the American labor force? Or is that just too costly in the new world order.

Thank you, I believe that is the point I wanted to make but dident.!!!

[longeyes]

"Is it OK to want to protect American culture and the American labor force? Or is that just too costly in the new world order."

Once you accept that the Ultimate Goal is a consumer culture--and that's what we have here to the nth power--you can forget about preserving and protecting "American culture...and labor force." You have surrendered your birthright to the dollar sign--or the Euro. We need to focus on Production, not Consuming--but that takes values, discipline, and sound education, all things we are steadily losing in a nation that seems more concerned about making sure kids "feel good about themselves" whether they have earned that right or not. America, to me, is on a massive bender, and today's kids who think hard jobs are beneath them will wind up as domestics in twenty-five years after running through the family patrimony.

[Oleg Volk]

Today's immig is not the same one who arrived twenty or thirty years ago. The current crop has no desire to assimilate. They seek to conquer.

A common complaint in the 1890s and ever since.

As for outsourcing jobs -- some aspects of hiring foreigners are problematic (culture and language barriers, level of training) and some aren't. So some people would buy Chinese labor and some would buy American...same as some people would buy a Canon camera (Japanese) and not Kodak (American) while buying US guns and not Japanese. Comparative advantage, basic economics...

A more valid gripe is about the distortion in the free market caused by the welfare state/

[Intune]

We are talking about over 12,000 kilometers of land borders and nearly 20,000 kilometers of coastline. "Shut down the borders" is an appeal to magic.

In order to create magic one must work at it. Remember the big problem with air interdiction in the '70's? Ever seen those big radar balloons along the FL Keys and other places? There are not too many planes slipping in undetected. Same with shipping. Our Coasties take their interdiction tasks quite seriously, as they should. So that brings us the our principle problem, infiltration by land. The primary method of illegal entry is by this method. I'm not an expert but I'll lob some ideas that some will take as draconian while others may cry, "not enough!"

The military. Those who have served will probably agree with me in that stateside duty sucks. All the inspections, busy work, etc. We would have loved to be pulling border duty instead of rolling socks & underwear to Top's specs.

I got out of the Army in '84. We had some incredible detection devices even back then to detect footsteps, voices & vehicle traffic. It can only have gotten better.

Twin 15' fences with a no-mans land between. Well marked & even mined if we're feeling serious. Rattle the fence on marker 112, the detector is tripped and we send an Apache to come check on ya.

The social programs drained by illegals in the state of CA alone in one year would pay for secure borders.

They are called ILLEGALS for a reason. Legal worker or visitor? Come on in. We don't know who or what is coming across our borders, it's about time we did.

[bountyhunter]

I was going to write a dissertation on the shortcomings of capitalism, but I doubt my long-winded lecturing would even equal Tamara’s simple eloquence.

the problem is that tamara's simple minded analysis does not address moral respnsibility or quality of life questions. It is possible to find slaves in third world countries who will work for 50 cents an hour, no question. Is that as far as your reasoning allows you to think?

Is it moral to set up a regime of "paid slaves" to replace our own work force at every opportunity? Do not we in this country have some responsibility to manage our commerce in such a way to maximize the quality of life for our citizens?

BTW: the number of "1B" engineers smuggled into the US through that visa loophole actually is more than a million. If you look at the engineering ranks of any major company in silicon valley it looks like a UN meeting. Theoretically, you could argue that we have to abandon our own engineers and replace them with cheap imported labor to be competitive (not true IMO, but a frequently voiced opinion).

As for competence of off shore engineering: riddle me this, if their schools were competent then why do all the wealthy Indians and Iranians and Chinese etc all come here to go to school?

I was a tutor and TA in an engineering university around 1980. Some import students were smart, some were not. But most had markedley inferior knowledge of fundamental base courses like math and physics which made it hard for them to learn the follow on material.

I will get tarred and feathered if I make any "ethnic" statements, but I will say one thing I know for a fact: in many of those countries, wealthy people do not think they have to actually do any work. They do not learn in school and still get passed through, in fact some don't even attend the schools they "graduate" from. They also enter the work force thinking that the PhD after their name means they get to pick up the pay check and flunkies will do the actual work. I know, because I have been in the position of carrying some of that dead weight.

In the industry it's what I call the "warm body" solution to staffing costs. Companies hire cheap engineers and fill out the staffing requirements (on paper) and a few people who actually know what they are doing carry the load. You should see the SHTF when the real race horses get fed up and leave and the haystack collapses. Bottom line, you get what you pay for. Hire somebody on the cheap: if they are really good, they leave immedaitely because they realize they are underpaid. if they are incompetent, they stay forever and take up a slot a real worker could be in.

[Cosmoline]

I detect some Malthusian errors in the "close the borders" crowd. I hope everyone realizes that the predictions of geometric increases in world population were completely wrong. Even the UN, long an advocate of Malthusian doom and gloom, has admitted that population is levelling off. In much of the third world it is slowing dramatically.

Frankly I never had any problems with poor immigrants. They tend to live wherever they can find room. Rich Kalifornians, OTOH, have destroyed much of my home state of Oregon.

[Intune]

A common complaint in the 1890s and ever since.

But reality for the first time since. Polish immigrants learned English. Vietnamese, Chinese and Laotian im's learned English. French, German, Ukrainian, Pakistani, African… All learned English and assimilated into our society. ONE ethnic group refuses to do so and has societies and clubs on a racist level par with the KKK. To show that this is not my political-correctness-be-damned racist side I will ask if someone out there can name this ethnic group? Anyone?

[Frohickey]

How? With what? Did we leave 5,000,000 soldiers under the couch cushions and forget about them or something?

We are talking about over 12,000 kilometers of land borders and nearly 20,000 kilometers of coastline. "Shut down the borders" is an appeal to magic.

Never underestimate the power of land mines. :D

[Oleg Volk]

If you are referring to Latinos not assimilating, pretty much every one I've seen is more Americanized within ten years than Euro immigrants were a while back.

If the quality of imported labr is so inferior, than the companies which don't use it will win. Self-correcting situation...

[El Tejon]

Intune, you are speaking of German-Americans in Indiana who had state-funded German language schools, their own holidays, faternal organizations, and areas of entire counties where they lived onto themselves. We all KNOW how the place went to heck with all those Dutchies around.:rolleyes:

[sherm77]

I have 3 dear friends that immigrated from India that I go to church with. One has a PhD in Math and invented the dry form of RoundUp herbicide for Monsanto. Another works in a large investment company. The other is a Java programmer that works with a genetics company.

I was told that they come from Southern India, which may be different than Northern, not sure. They studied calculus in high school, which sort of blows out our high school math.

Many countries outside of the US have higher standards in all of their studies.

Legal immigration is one thing, but not stemming the flow of illegal immigration into this country and allowing the illegals to partake in our socialist welfare system will only drain more and more of our economy. Moving hi-tech jobs offshore will cause less and less hi-tech jobs to be available in the US. Many countries have pretty smart folks who can do the job for a whole lot less.

If you go to the store, look at what you purchase as far as goods that are grown and manufactured in the US. You'll find that the greater part is financing communist China. What is there that is manufactured in the US that has a better price/value ratio than something you purchase overseas?

There's a day of reckoning coming in America, and it won't be good.

[Sean Smith]

Never underestimate the power of land mines.

Seen that first hand. Lots of parapalegic kids, but people still went pretty much where they pleased.

[Intune]

Musta been pole vaulters on my border. Hard to wander up a 15' fence.

Oh, then it must just be the ones in Miami, San Antonio and the TN driver license stations messing with this tall gringo. They sure had me fooled into thinking they couldn't speak English. It musta been my French-Puerto Rican-southern accent. Perhaps I can join up with MEChA, a nice group that loves American culture and have also been associated with anti-Semitic groups like Nation of Aztlan.
Another strange, took an American Airlines flight to Vegas from Nashville on a brand new plane. Very modern. It even had little LCD screens that popped down for the pre-flight emergency instructions movie. All in Spanish. Oh, they got to the second half and that was in English. They left out the German and Swede version only because the flight didn't originate from (for El T. ;) ) Gary IN. Maybe I'm was just being sensitive due to this trip coming on the heels of a written suggestion from our elementary school that our children should sign up for the Spanish class as it was the "social and business language of the future." :what:

[bountyhunter]

But reality for the first time since. Polish immigrants learned English. Vietnamese, Chinese and Laotian im's learned English. French, German, Ukrainian, Pakistani, African… All learned English and assimilated into our society. ONE ethnic group refuses to do so and has societies and clubs on a racist level par with the KKK. To show that this is not my political-correctness-be-damned racist side I will ask if someone out there can name this ethnic group? Anyone?

Here's a non-PC reality check. When all the Viet namese fled their homeland, about 99% of them came to Kali and stuck withing a few hundred miles of where they hit ground. They did provide a nice force of labor who would do mindless jobs at minimum wage... they also overloaded kali's medical and educational systems in the area, not to mention the welfare system.

Another fact not mentioned for fear of the racism stigma: after that "influx", tuberculosis became common place. All the health care givers have to be vaccinated against it and tests show widespread exposure to them not to mention children in schools. And be advised: you need to grit your teeth and get used to the idea you will be bathing your kids for head lice on a semi regular basis... yes, even in the "good" schools.

Here's some more non-PC facts:

At the county hospital where my wife runs a cardiac care unit, they are required by law to provide interpreters to any patient who shows up and treat anybody regardless of immigration status. Here is how most of them show up: a wealthy old man arrives at the san Jose airport from India, Iran, China, the Phillipines, etc dripping in jewelry and starts "having chest pain". By law, the county hospital must treat them. A cardio workup shows 80% blockage in all heart vessels, a condition that develops over many years (and is the reason they flew here... because they didn't want to pay for surgery in the third world when they can get it here for free). They get a five vessel bypass by some of the finest surgeons in the world and a leisurely stay in the ICU. A week after they leave the hospital, they are back in their own country and the state (that would be us taxpayers) are stiffed for about $500,000 worth of medical care and intensive care time.

Another non-PC fact:

about ten years back, they tried to enforce a ruling that aliens would forfeit their welfare payments if they would not attend a class to try to learn English. That was immediately thrown out by the courts. So, they don't speak a word of English, are not employable, and refuse to change that situation. And we just keep paying them to live here.

Ain't it wonderful?

Bottom line is that "cheap" labor ain't cheap when you factor in all the actual costs that are incurred. It's just cheap for the employers who make more profits, while the added social costs fall on the back of the taxpayer. And that, folks, is what you call corporate welfare.

[bountyhunter]

If the quality of imported labr is so inferior, than the companies which don't use it will win. Self-correcting situation...

God help us.....

The labor is cheap for the employer because he doesn't have to pay the tab for educating the six kids in their native language..... another well kept secret. "Bi-lingual" education is actually "monolingual", it's just that the language isn't English. You go see one of those "bi-lingual" classes and you won't hear a word of English all day long. We are paying to replicate the education system their own countries don't provide, we are not "bringing them up to speed" so they can assimilate.

Also, let's tally up the costs of the other people in the family who are on welfare as well as the grandparents who are on Medi-Cal living in the emrgency room of the nearest county hospital getting all their medications for $2 per scrip while American citizens retired on a fixed income eat cat food to be able to buy their meds.

Yeah... that's cheap labor all right. America at it's finest.

[Waitone]

It ain't free.

It ain't trade.

Free trade doesn't take a 25,000 page document to lay out the rules. NAFTA merely extended the borders of US trade law to encompass Mexico and Canada. Free trade happens and does not need to be regulated.

A lot of the responses indicate a better than average understanding "free trade." Don't be so quick to assign the free trade label to a phenomenom that is anything but free.

If job migration is happening it is happening for a reason. In today's world the ultimate reason for moving a job overseas or outsourcing it is ultimately money. It is cheaper to produce overseas than in the US. Why????? If it was "free trade" something would be coming back this direction, and it is. Cheaper goods and services. Now why is it cheaper to use overseas labor?

To see if "trade" is indeed free we have to get to an apples to apples comparison of the cost of labor on either side of the border. To get a true feel for cost of US labor lets pull out a few "benefits" . Let's pull out the following costs: local, state, federal taxes, social security tax, medicare tax, property tax, gas tax, highway tax, healthcare costs, environmental costs, safety costs, litigation threat premium, defensive legal product design.

While were at it, let's pull out US government tax law that pays companies to spend capital in other countries. When the last tax bill passed congress the president of HP announced the company would bring back into the US $63 billion (that's sixty-three BILLION) in capital spending because the tax bill had reduced an obscure tax HP was forced to pay. Let's also pull out promotional activities various US ogvernmental agencies fund to send American jobs out of the country.

Since were getting to a reasonable comparison, let's also pull out incentive and subsidies the receiving country pays to get US jobs. We'll have to add back in tax breaks they are given, add back in grants, property improvements, stays on any environmental cleanup that may be required.

Free trade? Don't make me laugh. It is government controlled trade. Bottom line. . . .it is far too expensive and risky to produce in the US. Frankly I'm surprised the situation is not worse than it is. "Globalization" has force the American worker to run a marathon with an anvil strapped to his or her back. That fact that we work and compete successfully hauling all this crap around is a testimony to just how good we really are.

That said, American trade policy is a component of our foreign policy. Our leaders of both parties and over the last 15 years in particular have determined the best way to buy peace around the world is to allow "unequal" access to markets at first, then to American production. So not only is the US worker running a race at a severe disadvantage, he is simultaneously building a house for the competition to live in.

So those of you who really believe in "free trade" kindly avoid treating me like an idiot. It ain't free and it ain't trade. It ain't raw competition. It is government managed foreign policy where corporate and political elites have determined the middle class needs to "give back" to society.

Now that we have cleaned the BS off the argument, let's have a vigorous debate about whether or not it is in our best interests to outsource jobs. After all, if job is in India, the worker isn't buying a US house, car, paying taxes, buying food, or investing in IRA's. Are we in the US really interested in worshipping at the altar of "free trade" when the consequence is severe.

I personally have no problem with competition. I'll mix it up with anyone professionally, but don't call me a fat, lazy white-guy that is too slovenly to compete in todays market. I am running the race, I am competing while I carry an inhuman governmental load AND in my spare time I'm building a house for competitors to live in while they compete against me.

E'nuf is e'nuf.

[Gordon Fink]

[T]he problem is that [T]amara’s simple minded analysis does not address moral respnsibility or quality of life questions.

Bingo! This is one of the shortcomings that I would have written about, if Tamara hadn’t laid out capitalism’s basic morality (or lack thereof) so succinctly.

~G. Fink

[Tamara]

if Tamara hadn’t laid out capitalism’s basic morality (or lack thereof) so succinctly.

Funny, nobody discusses the "morality" of the laws of thermodynamics or the special theory of relativity, but discuss supply and demand and the fact that a product is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and we all pull out our scriptures.

Bet y'all don't shop around for the best price on stuff, huh? Never haggle at the gun store or car dealership, eh? If Item X sells for $100 at Store A and $150 at store B, you buy from Store B, right, because it helps their standard of living?

[telomerase]

Bet y'all don't shop around for the best price on stuff, huh? Never haggle at the gun store or car dealership, eh? If Item X sells for $100 at Store A and $150 at store B, you buy from Store B, right, because it helps their standard of living?

Right! And when I want my house remodeled, I go pay double from some slacker "Amurrican" instead of hiring the extremely skilled Mexicans around here. (Actually, I did do that once, but never again!)

Look guys, it's called division of labor. You hire the Mexican to do low-tech work while you go make more money at higher-tech work. Both of you are better off. There's no way for you to get richer from limits on the people that you are allowed to trade with. (But there is a way for politicians to get power from immigration barriers and tariffs, which is why they exist).

[Gordon Fink]

Funny, nobody discusses the “morality” of the laws of thermodynamics or the special theory of relativity, but discuss supply and demand and the fact that a product is worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and we all pull out our scriptures.

Yes, indeed. I should have said “amorality.”

To maximize the benefits of capitalism, however, we humans must provide the morality.

~G. Fink

[gunsmith]

Oh, so the Iindians were here first so I should just give up my rights?
http://www.kennewick-man.com/
before my interest in firearms I used to read about Paleo Anthropology,
I think that Polonesians and Eygyptians got here before the group now called native Americans got here,(a recent DNA study showed them to be
from near Japan).
I bet that Europeans were in Nova Scotia before the Eskimos and Africans were in South America before them as well.
Not to long ago we were taught in school that Colombus was the first "white" man here. Now we know that the Vikings were here before him.
When I lived in Ireland it was impossible for me to get a "real" job even though I have alot of Irish ancestry.
I say close the damm borders we can not take any more.
It's not racism! has nothing to do with it,lets fix the country up then resume carefull immigration. At least have some reciprocity,if I cant go work in Ireland or India or Australia then they should not be able to take jobs here.
If the bums on the street had to work for their alcohol instead of my tax $$ buying it, then the illegals wouldn't be picking fruit ...good old American alky's would!
Americans would be picking fruit and busing tables if they had to but noooooooooooo we have to pay for old people who vote for gun control to move here and get welfare and never paid into social security and get that too.
Illegal aliens are raping ,killing and destroying our God given rights,not just Mexican illegals,illegals period!
They are crashing planes into world trade centers and it is time for it to be stopped!
http://www.immigrationshumancost.org/

[Jeff Timm]

El Tejon said: Could it just be that immigrants create jobs and do the work that Americans cannot or will not? Which is pretty much a standard statement made everywhere whenever this subject comes up.

Illegal immigrants, pardon me Undocumented Aliens, oh, pardon me, future citizens, come here for the free benefits, paid for by honest hard working taxpaying Citizens, who then die because the emergency rooms at our hospitals are full of FCs getting free health care.

One of the reasons Grey-out-Davis is being recalled in California was his obvious buying of votes, from FCs who are voting in mass illegally.

Ooops! Sorry. There can be no illegal voting, because there can be no questioning of anyone appearing to vote now days. Such a terrible thing, as questioning the identity of someone, just because they don't speak english or act like they knew where they were, would be a hate crime!

Geoff
Who is getting old gray and cynical, OK older, grayer and more cynical.

[Tamara]

Illegal immigrants, pardon me Undocumented Aliens, oh, pardon me, future citizens, come here for the free benefits, paid for by honest hard working taxpaying Citizens, who then die because the emergency rooms at our hospitals are full of FCs getting free health care.

The simple solution to that, of course, is to cease the handouts. If you give free stuff away, the shiftless and lazy will take it, if you require folks to work for stuff, then the shiftless and lazy will go elsewhere.

The culture of entitlement in this country is the problem; look how much is expressed between the lines in this very thread. "This country" doesn't "owe" anybody free healthcare or a free education or a living wage or much of anything else, regardless of where they were born or where they now reside.

[c_yeager]

I agree with Tamara and others that have pointed out our system of handouts. The second we do away with the system that rewards laziness is the second that we stop getting an influx of freeloaders into this country. Will it STOP illegal immigration? no. But, the people who will be coming into this country will be working for a living and doing their part. That makes them Americans in my book.

[longeyes]

Are there any of us who don't agree the hand-out system is the biggest,
if not the only, villain of the piece? But realistically what likelihood
is there that the aforesaid system will be eliminated or dramatically
reduced? Zip, zilch, nada. Even under an alleged conservative like
Bush our Government is expanding, not shrinking. The mantra even with
Repubicans is "compassion"--translation: welfare give-ways.

Ergo? What's next? Do we have to wait for The System itself to collapse?
For a tax revolt? For the money to be cut off completely? What?

Frankly, what I see is an impending war of secession, real or de facto,
in which some parts of the U.S. opt out of the madness. Or try to.

[El Tejon]

longeyes, the feds I can talked to have narrowed it to a tax revolt. This is the primary scenario they are training for.

[Waitone]

El T,

If your federales sidekicks are watching the tax revolt mouse hole, then once again they are misreading the sociological tea leaves.

I can see a tax revolt starting but will most likely be local, geographically scattered, and relatively quiet from a reportage standpoint.

I can also see trouble erupting over water rights most likely in the distant west. That one has the potential of being noisy but under reported.

But the one where trouble could erupt over a widespread area and make a lot of noise is over illegal immigration. Its got all the elements of a great controversey. Well funded organizations pump both sides. Lots of media coverage and media advocacy for one side. Law breaking by definition on the part of the immigrants. Law breaking by local, state and federal government. Law breaking by business. Taxpayers picking up the tab to pay for preferrential treatment of law breakers. Governmental refusal to enforce the law in the face of blatant law breaking.

I would say a tax revolt is perhaps the least likely scenario of the three I've identified. After all, the federales have a history of completely misreading a situation.

[Glock Glockler]

Tejon,

Out of curiosity, how can the Feds "train" for people giving them the middle finger and not paying taxes? There will be limits to what people can do, but moving into the underground economy to avoid being financially sodomized is very doable under limited circumstances.

PS Are you sure you don't need any equipment for your business?:)

[gunsmith]

Now,thanks to the "democraticsocialist" party of fineswine and dumbass & schemer. Illegals can now get ID and vote and buy guns and crash planes into towers,kill us,commit acts of war against us,rape children.
So we can have cheap lettuce?

[hammer4nc]

Another data point: link: http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/biztech/10/04/india.jobs.reut/index.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jobs abound in India's tech sector

...India's software sector, including the back-office services industry, added 130,000 -- nearly 25 percent -- to its workforce in the year to March, taking the sector to 650,000. Wage costs are rising but are not yet a threat for a nation that churns out about 200,000 engineers per year, analysts say.

Software workers with two years of experience are paid about 25,000 rupees ($545) a month, roughly one sixth of what their U.S. counterparts earn but a princely wage in a country with an average per capita income of $480 a year....
(emphasis added)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's a reality we all have to deal with...transcends immigration or border policies). I don't have a solution, except we all have to be flexible in looking for our own viable opportunities in the economic landscape. Opportunities ARE out there!

[longeyes]

What underlies the policies of our politicians?

Okay, let me play Devil's Advocate for a sec. It's commonly said that the Republicans want cheap labor and the Democrats want votes. But what if what
both parties, at the highest levels, really want is just a young, tax-paying work force? Face it, Anglos have discovered material prosperity and increasingly find, for various reasons, childbearing and childrearing too onerous. SOMEONE has got to reproduce and man the ship, right? The pols read the demographic statistics, and what they know is this: without young blood they can't keep The System going. Moreover, they know that youth fuels the economic and political might of a country. I forget the exact projections I read but both Europe and Japan are headed for populations with an average age of well beyond 50. We on the other hand will be in the mid-30s. In the long run that plays to our advantage, or so goes the thinking. We are "reloading" the software.

Of course, this is predicated on that young blood being Americanized and productive, isn't it? On that we'll have to see.

[longeyes]

"...India's software sector, including the back-office services industry, added
130,000 -- nearly 25 percent -- to its workforce in the year to March, taking the
sector to 650,000. Wage costs are rising but are not yet a threat for a nation
that churns out about 200,000 engineers per year, analysts say.

Software workers with two years of experience are paid about 25,000 rupees
($545) a month, roughly one sixth of what their U.S. counterparts earn but a
princely wage in a country with an average per capita income of $480 a year...."

India adds heaps of engineers a year. So does China.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had leaders who made the importance and impact of these kinds of statistics clear to the American public, edified them as to what these trends portend? Instead, we prattle on about affirmative action and diversity and while cultures that have become more reality-oriented than our tv, movie, and rap-addled "consumers" go on believing the world owes them unlimited prosperity. Our kids want to be lawyers, pop stars, get shoe contracts. A couple of generations ago they wanted to build something, just the way the Indians and Chinese do now. You can bet the leaders of India and China are not encouraging pleasure-principle fantasies in their children.

[Erik]

Welcome immigrants! Immigrants, for those who aren't sure, are those who have entered by the rules, with an intent of staying.

Welcome legal visitors! Enjoy your stay. (Companies abuse this left and right, but it is not the visitors fault, mind you.)

Everyone else, may your journey be miserable, costly, fraught with peril, and your stay should you make it short lived.

[Dex Sinister]

Yes, indeed. I should have said "imorality."

To maximize the benefits of capitalism, however, we humans must provide the morality.

Unfortunately, one cannot "maximize the benefits of capitalism" by altering it to fit the sensibilities of those who think that its results don't match their version of morality.

It is perfectly true: the free market, which simply means the freely chosen economic decisions of billions of people (to the extent that they are allowed to make them by their various governments,) is amoral. It is outside the province of morality.

However, the principle behind the free market is very moral: The right of each individual person on Earth to make free choices based on his or her best interests, without being forced (ultimately at gunpoint) to abandon their decisions to do what someone else says they must do. Freedom is profoundly moral, and individual freedom is the highest, most moral expression of this.

That means in order to "provide the morality" Gordon wants to provide for the marketplace - in other words to alter the results freely chosen by individuals - we must deprive individuals of the right to make their own decisions. But only because "we" know "the good," and they don't, we're inevitably assured.

In the free market, buyers and sellers conduct transactions for exactly one purpose: To both gain from the transaction. If they weren't both gaining, they wouldn't transact business. However, this does not mean that both parties will always be perfectly happy. Nor is this a bad thing.

Suppose I sell widgets. I'd prefer to sell them for $30 each. This would allow me to pay my widget laborers a high wage, which would allow them to buy nice things, and we would all generally spread prosperity throughout society. This is a good thing, right?

Well, absent any competition, and assuming others need widgets, this is true. But what happens if Evil Alberto offers the same widgets at $10 each? I can't sell mine at $30, my employees can't buy things, and poverty spreads throughout the land? Silly nonsense. What happens is my former buyer, who used to have to exchange $30 for one widget, now has a widget and $20 to spend elsewhere in the economy.

Given that my former buyer's funds are always finite, Evil Alberto has just increased my former buyer's personal wealth by $20. This allows my former buyer to buy other things, or hire more people, or do whatever he wants with the money -- but the money didn't disappear from the economy, it just influences the economy by a path that we were ignoring previously.

One of the most fundamental principles of economics is that wages are costs. Higher wages, higher costs, higher prices, less money for the consumers who buy the product and therefore cannot buy other things. Lower wages, lower costs, lower prices, and more money for the consumers who can therefore buy other things.

To issue the cry for "higher wages" is the exact same thing as saying, "I demand higher costs for goods, so that consumers will have less goods for their money!" Sure, this is a good for whoever gets the higher wages, but it is equally and just as exactly bad for everyone else who has to pay them out as a larger fraction of their finite incomes. What gets ignored is the lost opportunity costs ?Ethe things that people would have bought if they hadn't been paying higher prices.

Let me propose a very simple definition for wealth: I am wealthier if I can buy, given a particular amount of work on my part, more things for me and my family (more products, more services, whatever.) I am less wealthy if, given the same exact amount of work, I can buy less things for me and my family.

If, instead of buying just widgets, I can buy widgets and wing-dings, and thingys, I'm wealthier. And my money goes to support not just the widget industry and the widget workers, but also the wing-ding industry and workers, and the thingy industry and workers as well.

Industries and workers are not the base of an economy: Consumers are. Without buyers, there are no sellers. And consumers are the ones that get blindsided by every "socially conscious" reformer who wants to make the market "safe" and "moral" for whom ever their favorite producer is.

Does that mean that it is comfortable if I sell widgets and someone undercuts me by 2/3rds? Of course not! But it also doesn't mean that I somehow have the "right" to the wealth of others such that I can demand that they must continue to give it to me, rather than to someone who not only gives them the same product, but also $20 more wealth.

Dex }:>=-

[Dex Sinister]

the problem is that tamara's simple minded analysis does not address moral respnsibility or quality of life questions. It is possible to find slaves in third world countries who will work for 50 cents an hour, no question. Is that as far as your reasoning allows you to think?

Is it moral to set up a regime of "paid slaves" to replace our own work force at every opportunity?

And what is the cost of living in the country of these "paid slaves?" Are our "paid slaves" making twice as much as other workers there? Is a loaf of bread $0.10 there?

Why is it somehow "moral" to aid less developed countries by just giving them money (after it is taken from us in taxes) but "immoral" to hire people in less developed countries for as much or more than they would otherwise have the opportunity to make?

"Is that as far as your reasoning allows you to think?"

Do not we in this country have some responsibility to manage our commerce in such a way to maximize the quality of life for our citizens?

Of course we do. How does managing our commerce so that each of our consumers must pay more for each item they buy maximize their quality of life?


Dex }:>=-

[Dex Sinister]

In order to create magic one must work at it. Remember the big problem with air interdiction in the '70's? Ever seen those big radar balloons along the FL Keys and other places? There are not too many planes slipping in undetected. Same with shipping. Our Coasties take their interdiction tasks quite seriously, as they should. So that brings us the our principle problem, infiltration by land. The primary method of illegal entry is by this method. I'm not an expert but I'll lob some ideas that some will take as draconian while others may cry, "not enough!"

The military. Those who have served will probably agree with me in that stateside duty sucks. All the inspections, busy work, etc. We would have loved to be pulling border duty instead of rolling socks & underwear to Top's specs.

I got out of the Army in '84. We had some incredible detection devices even back then to detect footsteps, voices & vehicle traffic. It can only have gotten better.

Twin 15' fences with a no-mans land between. Well marked & even mined if we're feeling serious. Rattle the fence on marker 112, the detector is tripped and we send an Apache to come check on ya.

It is funny how easily the things allegedly instituted to protect one from "outsiders" can be adapted to making sure that one cannot escape from the asylum as well.

Personally, I'm not all that sanguine on the idea of creating a "free country" that I need the government's permission and approval to leave. Historically, guards very often become jailors.

There's a very sane reason that Title 18 US Code, part I, Chapter 67, § 1385, [The Posse Comitatus Act] forbids using the Army and Airforce as posse comitatus. (Latin: "power or force of the county.")
Washington University Law Quarterly article on the Posse Comitatus Act (http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/75-2/752-10.html#fn37)

Dex }:>=-

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis

[Intune]

Personally, I'm not all that sanguine on the idea of creating a “free country” that I need the government’s permission and approval to leave. Historically, guards very often become jailors.
Aw Dex, c'mon. When was the last time your family wore camo, applied facepaint and inflated the black rubber raft to cross the Rio for a shopping excursion into Mexico? Or trekked across miles of wilderness and twenty-foot snowdrifts to pick up a case of Moosehead for the weekend?

I knew somebody would call in the Posse. Fine. Build the fence, buy the sensors and give the "Border Patrol" some helo's. Feel better? Let our forces continue to roll socks & underwear because some feel that interdiction efforts would lead to a loss of "civilian control" of the military. Please. I would not use the paper you cite to support my argument for Posse. The following quote gives one the feel for their entire viewpoint. All congress has to do is say that the U.S. armed forces cover all parts of the border excepting legal points of ingress & egress, which is handled by the Border Patrol. Posse is not an absolute.
D. Wrong Tool for the Job
Illegal immigration, drug interdiction, and investigative support relating to terrorism are all long-term problems requiring long-term solutions. These problems are not easily resolved, however, and no foreseeable end to the military's involvement appears forthcoming.[181] Because of the significance of the problems and their continuing and chronic nature, using the military to combat these problems is like using a sledge hammer to open a locked trunk when all one needs is the key. It is better to fashion a key than to destroy the trunk.
All three exceptions to the PCA require using the wrong tool for the job. For example, border duty forces the military to alter its mindset and training. The border patrol and other law enforcement agencies already have the proper mindset and qualifications and are better able to do the job. Using an F-15 to track drug smugglers' slow planes is both excessive and expensive. A basic military soldier costs the government $82,000 a year in training and upkeep. A soldier's involvement in drug interdiction is much more expensive than a civilian counterpart's participation. Investigatory support for weapons of mass destruction to counter terrorism is more than a minor exception because terrorism is a continuing problem without end. We would best be served by developing these resources in civilian law enforcement.
Great! Our three letter friends get more power. Author Matt Hammond seems to embrace not only soldiers rolling undergarments but airmen as well. Use of a sledgehammer is too much for poor Matt. Planes and bullets are just mean & excessive. He says later, "the military should be the last resort, not the first solution." I say it's resort time. What was the first solution we used? Please use proper crossing points? Pretty please? Bah!

:D

[Guy B. Meredith]

Since I am one of those hanging on to a job between serial layoffs I haven't had the chance to read this entire thread so I hope I am not repeating anything.

Corporations operate for the sake of corporations and their short term owners, stockholders. If my company, Xerox, decided to sell produce tomorrow and could do so successfully then the stockholders would be happy, the management would maintain their jobs and every technical person would be on the street. Just as long as the stockholders are happy anything goes.

While mulling this over one day I had a scary flash image of a United States where all the jobs had gone overseas and the majority of the skilled population unemployed or underemployed. In this scenario the corporations exist because they make money selling to each other and don't depend on the impoverished locals who are put on a new class of permanent welfare funded by the corporations because no other tax payers exist to do so.

Of course there will always be service and local small businesses, but the flash did give me a brief chill.

In terms of illegal aliens, I have a real problem. My wife is a legal alien from Australia who almost got deported because her sponser was not quite yet a citizen. Seems she had to fullfill a requirement to demonstrate that she would not be a financial liability to our society. She went through all legal channels to become a permanent resident and productive member of our society.

After seeing what honest people go through I become very annoyed about the people who, as Tom McClintock put it, are cutting in line. I get annoyed about the mantra that they are solid citizens and paying taxes. The reality is that they are not supposed to be able to hold jobs without green cards which means that they are not employed where taxes are withheld from their checks or else they are day laborers who get cash and pay no taxes. The reality is that the latin illegals at least (and probably others) do not tend to assimilate well, tending to live in ethnic specific neighborhoods.

I should also mention that I have often been mistaken as a member of different ethnic groups, have experienced at least small flashes of discrimination and appreciate the pain, but that does not eliminate the fact that they are here illegally.

Guy B. Meredith

[Cosmoline]

If you're serious about stopping illegal immigrants, then you must start by sending the farmers, business people, and homeowners who employ them to prison for long terms.

Oh, don't want to go that far? I'm shocked. Shocked. :rolleyes:

[longeyes]

"If you're serious about stopping illegal immigrants, then you must start by sending the farmers, business people, and homeowners who employ them to prison for long terms."

Don't be so sure this won't happen or that the issue of whether to won't blow up into a major issue. We are just at the beginning of the War of Illegal Immigration. Far greater issues lie ahead, including voting fraud, the integration of Social Security with Mexico, identity theft, etc.

They keep telling us that illegal immigrants are solid citizens and pay taxes. They don't tell us what percentage of prison inmates are illegal aliens--it's substantial. They don't tell us that illegal immigrants pay nowhere near their fair share of taxes proportionate to the services they draw. I don't know how any illegal with kids can be paying his/her share of taxes when it now costs about $10K per student a year. There is clearly a double-standard when it comes to computing these costs, and I wouldn't trust any "academic study" on this subject. Common sense informs us that the poor in general pay very little in taxes; the top fifty per cent of taxpayers, the IRS itself tells us, contribute 96 per cent of all tax revenues.

Today's L.A. Times has a story about how illegal aliens working farms are being shortchanged on translation services when they go to doctors. A lot of these workers don't speak English OR Spanish well enough to communicate; many speak various Indian dialects. But we are supposed to provide expensive translators to go along with the provided medical care. This is "cheap labor?" No, it is only cheap for the employer, who hands the real bill on to the taxpayers. If you think you are getting cheap lettuce, think again; you are paying for that lettuce when your tax bill for the year is tallied up.

The CA recall election is turning into a sideshow but at least it has reminded the voter that certain instruments are available to him electorally. We need to organize to use the initiative and impeachment capabilities granted to us. While we can.

[moa]

Longeyes, according to the latest stats I have seen, 30% of the US prison/jail pouplation is foreign born. That is 30% of 2 million people incarcerated. Reason will tell you that most must be illegals. There are also 4 million people on parole or probation.

The following is a shocker from the Communications Workers of America.

Th CWA reports that a number of major corporations plan on sending over 3 million US Information Technology jobs to India in the next 12 years. This is from a handout from the CWA. CWA had obtained presentation material from a major corporation's Human Resouces executive with this information.

[Waitone]

Get use to it, people. It ain't just manufacturing jobs at risk. Any job having to do with IT and communications is subject to offshoring.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/33217.html


http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/7/32038.html


These two articles are out of the UK but I've read the same thing out of Denver.

[longeyes]

Let's see, the brain jobs are going to Asia and the brawn jobs are being taken
by illegal aliens. And that leaves?

[Tamara]

Corporations operate for the sake of corporations and their short term owners, stockholders.

So what's the alternative? Look, if Lockheed decides it would rather make toilet tissue than JSF components tomorrow, then that's up to the owners of the company, not the guy that dumps their ashtrays, or the guy that designs JSF components. If you own something, that means it is yours to dispose of as you wish, whether your wish is a very bright wish or not; that's the very definition of "ownership".

What's the alternative? Nationalize all corporations? Pass regulations preventing Xerox from going into the produce business? (Effectively the same thing as nationalization...) Or encourage employees to be informed consumers of wages the way they are expected to be informed consumers of everything else once they are past 18 years of age?

[Guy B. Meredith]

Tamara,

No, corporations ARE ru(i)n(ed) by the impulses of their short term owners and that is their lot. The point is that no one should live in a la-la land of belief in public dedication of corporations. No one should carry the mistaken notion that they care one whit about employees.

We should worry that the corporations are such an overriding force in our economy because their very self centered existence affects real people and stress the government. The corporations are driven by arbitrary demands of prognosicators that may or may not have anything to do with a healthy business. But then, what the hey, it's just a ficticious organization that is being run into the ground or moved out of the US so why worry the stockholders and marketeers with trivia.

Personally, I would love to be able to get my corporation calcified brain in gear and figure out how to earn a living in a non-corporate life for myself and wife. It would be very good to be able to sit on the sidelines and let the market do itself. It might be a lot like having a real life.

Guy B. Meredith

[Cellar Dweller]

Illegal immigrant SERVICE jobs
Nobody denies they send the bulk of their money back home, which is why they overcrowd their homes. They aren't putting much money back into the U.S. consumer market, so it is a net loss.

Legal 1-B HITECH/hi-pay jobs
Well, these people ALSO send the bulk of their money back home, again a net loss.

Companies that don't hire legal workers or do layoffs in favor of 1-Bs
Suddenly wonder why nobody can BUY their goods or services, so EVEN MORE jobs get outsourced to make up profit.

Joe Average
Went from his $60k programmer job to $15k XMart worker because his former company HAD to "globalize" to "compete." Mrs. Average has to work a $15k job as well, but day-care so she CAN work costs $12k. Junior Average can't get any money mowing lawns or washing cars because Jose and Jesus down the block undercut his price by 66% so he just stays home playing Nintendo and smoking funny cigarettes with his buddies. The Averages' Congresscritters just passed bills that will send Junior to college so someday he too can be a Xmart worker (can't greet customers without a college degree) and provide day-care and child tax credits. Some of the money is "borrowed" from what WAS the Averages' retirement plan and the rest will be made up when their taxes inevitably increase.

The Averages are now on the public dole and OBLIGATED to their representatives, they just haven't realized it yet... :cuss:

[Moparmike]

Scary stuff Cellar.

Tamara, Nationalize all corporations? Pass regulations preventing Xerox from going into the produce business? (Effectively the same thing as nationalization...) didnt we already do that with the airlines (and possibly AmTrak)? Didnt it fail miserably?

What I want to know is why the bloody hell didnt these companies go under because of their bad business practices? Who said that it was the duty of the government to bail out businesses who cant read the tea leaves of their company?

If I start up a computer business, do I get to be bailed out and go on the support of the Goobermint? Hell no.:banghead: Why do they?:cuss:

[wingman]

"Protecting Our Borders, Our Jobs, and Our Lives"


Posted by Cole Gunther
Saturday, September 20, 2003





Editor's Note: This will introduce a new writer for our site, Cole Gunther of Kansas City, Missouri. Dr. Gunther is a former professor at the University of Missouri who enjoys writing and researching in the area of business, media, and public affairs.

~~o~~

The Arizona Republic and the Tucson Citizen have been covering Arizona's struggle to deal with illegal immigration. They report a storm of protest swirling around the Border Security and Immigration Act recently introduced in the U.S. Congress by Arizona Representatives Flake and Kolbe and Senator John McCain.

Commentary by the Tucson Citizen tells us the Arizona GOP leadership is ''split'' on border policy. It seems the various parties to Arizona's ''desert storm'' see different dangers concerning illegal aliens and our ailing economy.

So, what is the greatest danger facing America today? Weapons, drugs, and terrorists crossing our porous borders? The weak economy? Political battles over the war in Iraq?

All of these problems are among the greatest dangers we face. However, the deadliest danger to American survival today is our failure to recognize and act on consensus when we have it.

Recently CNN conducted a poll to clarify more specifically what people are talking about when they discuss ''the economy.'' Are they talking about the stock market, jobs, or what? Well over 80 percent of CNN's respondents said ''the economy'' means jobs and employment. Other polls show more than 80 percent of Americans want more and better border security. These numbers suggest that while our leaders may be split on the issues, the people are not. All over the political landscape, we have consensus about American survival.

The American Conservative Union is the oldest conservative political groups in America. And they want increases in ''the number of Border Patrol officers to effectively safeguard our nation's borders.'' On the other side of the political spectrum, state Democratic leaders in Michigan want more federal funding for U.S.-Canadian border security.

Across the U.S., Republican and Democratic state legislators are backing away from offshore outsourcing of state government contracts, as well they should. In another good move, legislators also are backing away from contracting to companies that employ foreign citizens brought to the U.S. on H-1B and other non-immigrant visas. Moving in the same direction, the AFL/CIO has recently demanded limits on the number of non-immigrant visas for foreign workers.

Everybody agrees that America needs more jobs--now. Riots were reported last June in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where unemployment is reportedly 40%. It is a sure bet that the rioters would concur with the course the AFL/CIO is taking.

Henry Kissinger, former secretary of state, has been quoted as saying that we need ''to develop incentives to prevent increasing outsourcing of economic activity from the U.S. to other countries.'' Wisely, Kissinger was addressing the big picture of our survival as a nation. What could be more dangerous than continuing to outsource the manufacturing of critical defense technology offshore?

Addressing another piece of the survival picture, comments by Tom Ridge illuminate the massive danger posed by foreign and domestic access to our infrastructures by workers with loyalties to other countries. He has said, ''Terrorists can sit at one computer connected to one network and can create worldwide havoc -- [they] don't necessarily need [a] bomb or explosives to cripple a sector of the economy, or shutdown a power grid.'' Offshore outsourcing means that more and more computers in Bangalore, Beijing, Riyadh, or elsewhere will be connected to American infrastructures through corporate networks and the Internet.

Not long after Mr. Ridge's comments, infrastructure experts participated in a ''Digital Pearl Harbor'' experiment designed to study the possibility of simultaneous terrorist attacks. A large majority of participants in the Digital Pearl Harbor study agreed that a coordinated attack on multiple infrastructures in America was ''likely in the next two years.''

While defending America, our troops are dying daily inside the porous borders of Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet, our leaders refuse to close and defend our porous borders here at home. In support of our troops, this unendurable hypocrisy by our leaders must be opposed by all Americans. And most Americans do oppose the hypocrisy.

Groups that study population and economic sustainability have said for years that America is on the path to self destruction. The American people agree that we are facing unrelenting attacks on many fronts.

The war in Iraq, offshore outsourcing, non-immigrant visas, porous national borders, illegal and out-of-control immigration, the struggling economy, and terrorist attacks all over the globe are all pieces of one big ugly picture. It would be helpful if our mainstream media would do a better job of portraying the big picture by emphasizing the consensus that citizens have about these problems.

The right view of the big picture is being delivered online every day in many ways. In weblogs, letters to the editor, e-mail to talk show hosts, chat sessions, website postings and op-eds, people advocate pro-American increases in homeland security and protection for the jobs we have left.

Fearing that we will soon become just one more third-rate, Third World country, Americans are demanding swifter, more effective action. In local communities around the country, millions of Americans have joined the chorus of consensus. In massive numbers, they have written, e-mailed, called and met with congressional representatives and senators . . . demanding action over and over and over again.

Our Congress and leaders must implement comprehensive policies to simultaneously protect our borders, our jobs, and our lives. The American people need action--now!

[longeyes]

The first step is awareness. That is definitely growing.

The wise politician will be listening.

The answer is not to stop Xerox from making produce but to have leaders
who explain what is going on and what we might do about it. We need
to stop treating our schools as sensitivity centers and recognize that
the future of our Republic depends on mental toughness and competency.
If that means more "drill sergeant" and less "diversity trainer," then
so be it. We can also re-cast our tax and incentives policies to
encourage investment in this country. For that matter we can encourage
savings and investment, period, rather than give our citizens the idea
that instant gratification and consumption, even if based on massive
indebtedness, is what it means to be an American.

There is a lot we can do but we have to be more reality-oriented and
less pleasure-oriented.

[spartacus2002]

Wow, this discussion was prescient...

[longeyes]

Prescient indeed. Would that our political leaders, with their immmense access to widely-seen public forums, could air a discuss as probing and cogent as this one. That they don't--AND DON'T WANT TO--tell us volumes about where we stand politically at the beginning of yet another critical Election year.

[Waitone]

I am continually amazed at the gap in perception of a problem. With the exception of literally a handfull of congressional vermin there is no perception of a problem with illegal immigration.

The political class is tone deaf.

The chattering class with the exception of Lou Dobbs of CNN fails to see a problem.

Ink stained pundits primarily of the alternative media see the outlines of a problem.

Big media organs whistle past the graveyard.

Alternative media jumps up and down but is not attracting attention.

Corporate interests are in a race to the exits. All claim this is in response to a free market. Anyone who has ever worked in a corporation in the import / export department knows damned well it ain't a free market in which they participate.

Meanwhile the taxpayers and customers at the middle class level are being marginalized to an extent that is breathtaking.

Revolutions incubate in such environments.

[spartacus2002]

Meanwhile the taxpayers and customers at the middle class level are being marginalized to an extent that is breathtaking.

Revolutions incubate in such environments.

And they explode once the taxpayers/customers realize how they are being lied to and marginalized.

My fears are one or more of the following coming to pass:

1. Police officers get false calls and ambushed in cities in which people feel like the cops abuse them.

2. Anti-mexican violence rises sharply, especially in high black/white unemployement areas. Look at the English experience, where roving bands of poor, unemployed urban whites beat up immigrants and minorities.

3. Vigilante groups go down to the southern border and start sniping border crossers on known ingress trails.

4. Welfare offices become the abortion clinics of the 2000s, with protestors, bombings, and snipings.

5. Another McVeigh-style explosion, except this time at a La RAza office.

6. 5. above, except at an IRS building.

I'm not advocating any of the above, just making educated guesses based on study of history, human nature, and current events.

[Adam]

I'm in Poland. I'm law-abiding man, and I never thought about illegal immigration to US even if I have such possibility (my family in Chicago,New York and Santa Barbara CA). It's all about rules. It's sad that now I can see abolition plan for all illegal immigrants. They broke the law and they will gain a prize for it. Hard to belive for me. Even now I want to do it in legal way...:fire: