Those in favor of foreign labor are corporations who are addicted to cheap labor. They are the ones who are benefiting. But their benefit comes at the American tax payer's expense when you consider that the American tax payer is virtually subsidizing the labor costs of the greedy corporations by supplying the illegal foreign workers and their families with welfare, free education, free medical, WICs, housing assistance, etc. -- something the corporations won't do.
This would be Economic fallacy #1: The primary logic behind most of these programs [which I do not support] is that education, etc., makes for better workers and supports economic productivity.
However, if we take the logic at face value, then the American tax payer is subsidizing himself, as wages – in economic terms – are
costs for the corporations, which when they are decreased lower the cost of goods and services purchased by those very same taxpayers.
The fallacy is looking at half of the economic equation and forgetting the other half. Consumers pay workers, ultimately. Increases in wages are merely transfers from one segment of the economy to the other: What one gains, the other loses. We don’t see what people lose in higher prices, and the things they didn’t buy, because we ordinarily don’t pay attention.
But one thing is for sure – when someone tells you that the way to “create prosperity†is to pay people more, regardless of whether they want farm subsidies [higher profits for farmers, losses for consumers,] or union-scale wage schemes [more spending for union-scale workers, less spending for everyone else,] or tariffs [more for the protected, less for everybody else,] or “non-exploitive wages,†one can be sure that they do not have a firm grasp of economics.
Americans won't allow themselves to be exploited like illegals do, but they WILL do the work that illegals do for fair compensation and benefits. If Americans did the work that illegals do at higher pay, would that benefit the consumer? You bet it would in the long run. But many Americans who do not care about America's future are consumers who favor the idea of exploiting illegal workers because it keeps commodity and service prices down in the short term.
The current economic wealth of the country is the current economic wealth of the country. Transferring less of it to a given segment, means that those who get to keep it get to spend it on other things.
"The net cost of immigration is $70 billion a year." - George Borjas, Harvard professor.
Given the cost of American bombs and fighter aircraft, is this supposed to be a large number?
"Immigration costs U.S. born workers $133 billion a year in job losses." - Economics professor George Borjas
You’ll notice that he doesn’t say “economic losses,†because if you can add “X†amount of labor to the pool of American wealth for a smaller amount of money, it benefits all Americans.
The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a NEGATIVE $55,200, [Center for Immigration Studies, 2001]. [bold added.]
So, “the average adult Mexican immigrant,†is what – 25-35 years old, maybe? That would be a life expectancy of 65? [random guess.] So, an average of 35 years into $55,200 is $1,577/yr? So we’re paying the average adult Mexican immigrant $4.40 a day to input labor into the economy at “sub-standard wages,†lowering the prices for everyone else????? Oh My GOD!!!
Overall, migrants from around the world send $30 billion to relatives back home. $23 billion last year to Latin America and the Caribbean. $10 billion was sent home to Mexico alone. Filipino workers send $6 billion a year and 10,000 cash transfers are sent to China each month, averaging $2,000 to $3,000 each.
Wealth = total-economic-productivity / money supply. If you take ~70 billion pieces of paper out of the economy, then you cause the rest of the bits of paper in circulation to be worth more.
“But it’s going
out of the country!â€
Yup, so what? It is bits of
paper. We don’t balance trade by shipping gold reserves any more – haven’t for quite a while. If they want something for their bits of paper, they’ll have to buy something here: That’s where the money is spendable. No, it doesn’t make any difference if the buy from someone, who buys from someone, who buys from someone, who buys from here. It still comes back.
Come’on guys – Adam Smith pointed out most of this stuff in the 1700’s. Can we get over the “high prices beefit the public†idea yet?
Dex
