Let's talk "Illegal Immigration"...

[Qdrop]

good article to start with....

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0329-21.htm

Today's Immigration Battle - Corporatists vs. Racists (and Labor is Left Behind)
by Thom Hartmann


The corporatist Republicans ("amnesty!") are fighting with the racist Republicans ("fence!"), and it provides an opportunity for progressives to step forward with a clear solution to the immigration problem facing America.

Both the corporatists and the racists are fond of the mantra, "There are some jobs Americans won't do." It's a lie.

Americans will do virtually any job if they're paid a decent wage. This isn't about immigration - it's about economics. Industry and agriculture won't collapse without illegal labor, but the middle class is being crushed by it.

The reason why thirty years ago United Farm Workers' Union (UFW) founder Caesar Chávez fought against illegal immigration, and the UFW turned in illegals during his tenure as president, was because Chávez, like progressives since the 1870s, understood the simple reality that labor rises and falls in price as a function of availability.

As Wikipedia notes: "In 1969, Chávez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valley to the border of Mexico to protest growers' use of illegal aliens as temporary replacement workers during a strike. Joining him on the march were both the Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale. Chávez and the UFW would often report suspected illegal aliens who served as temporary replacement workers as well as who refused to unionize to the INS."

Working Americans have always known this simple equation: More workers, lower wages. Fewer workers, higher wages.

Progressives fought - and many lost their lives in the battle - to limit the pool of "labor hours" available to the Robber Barons from the 1870s through the 1930s and thus created the modern middle class. They limited labor-hours by pushing for the 50-hour week and the 10-hour day (and then later the 40-hour week and the 8-hour day). They limited labor-hours by pushing for laws against child labor (which competed with adult labor). They limited labor-hours by working for passage of the 1935 Wagner Act that provided for union shops.

And they limited labor-hours by supporting laws that would regulate immigration into the United States to a small enough flow that it wouldn't dilute the unionized labor pool. As Wikipedia notes: "The first laws creating a quota for immigrants were passed in the 1920s, in response to a sense that the country could no longer absorb large numbers of unskilled workers, despite pleas by big business that it wanted the new workers."

Do a little math. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 7.6 million unemployed Americans right now. Another 1.5 million Americans are no longer counted because they've become "long term" or "discouraged" unemployed workers. And although various groups have different ways of measuring it, most agree that at least another five to ten million Americans are either working part-time when they want to work full-time, or are "underemployed," doing jobs below their level of training, education, or experience. That's between eight and twenty million un- and under-employed Americans, many unable to find above-poverty-level work.

At the same time, there are between seven and fifteen million working illegal immigrants diluting our labor pool.

If illegal immigrants could no longer work, unions would flourish, the minimum wage would rise, and oligarchic nations to our south would have to confront and fix their corrupt ways.

Between the Reagan years - when there were only around 1 to 2 million illegal aliens in our workforce - and today, we've gone from about 25 percent of our private workforce being unionized to around seven percent. Much of this is the direct result - as Caesar Chávez predicted - of illegal immigrants competing directly with unionized and legal labor. Although it's most obvious in the construction trades over the past 30 years, it's hit all sectors of our economy.

Democratic Party strategist Ann Lewis just sent out a mass email on behalf of former Wal-Mart Board of Directors member and now US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. In it, Lewis noted that Clinton suggests we should have: "An earned path to citizenship for those already here working hard, paying taxes, respecting the law, and willing to meet a high bar for becoming a citizen." Sounds nice. The same day, on his radio program, Rush Limbaugh told a woman whose husband is an illegal immigrant that she had nothing to worry about with regard to deportation of him or their children because all he'd have to do - under the new law under consideration - is pay a small fine and learn English.

The current Directors of Wal-Mart are smiling.

Meanwhile, the millions of American citizens who came to this nation as legal immigrants, who waited in line for years, who did the hard work to become citizens, are feeling insulted, humiliated, and conned.

Shouldn't we be compassionate? Of course.

But there is nothing compassionate about driving down the wages of any nation's middle class. It's the most cynical, self-serving, greedy, and sociopathic behavior you'll see from our "conservatives."

There is nothing compassionate about being the national enabler of a dysfunctional oligarchy like Mexico. An illegal workforce in the US sending an estimated $17 billion to Mexico every year - second only in national income to that country's oil revenues - supports an antidemocratic, anti-worker, hyperconservative administration there that gleefully ships out of that nation the "troublesome" Mexican citizens - those lowest on the economic food-chain and thus most likely to present "labor unrest" - to the USA. Mexico (and other "sending nations") need not deal with their own social and economic problems so long as we're willing to solve them for them - at the expense of our middle class. Democracy in Central and South America be damned - there are profits to be made for Wal-Mart!

Similarly, there is nothing compassionate about handing higher profits (through a larger and thus cheaper work force) to the CEOs of America's largest corporations and our now-experiencing-record-profits construction and agriculture industries.

What about caring for people in need? Isn't that the universal religious/ethical value? Of course.

A few years ago, when my family and I were visiting Europe, one of our children fell sick. A doctor came to the home of the people we were staying with, visited our child at 11 pm on a weeknight, left behind a course of antibiotics, and charged nothing. It was paid for by that nation's universal health care system. We should offer the same to any human being in need of medical care - a universal human right - in the United States.

But if I'd applied to that nation I was visiting for a monthly unemployment or retirement check, I would have been laughed out of the local government office. And if I'd been caught working there, I would have been deported within a week. Caring for people in crisis/need is very different from giving a job or a monthly welfare check to non-citizens. No nation - even those in Central and South America - will do that. And neither should the United States.

But if illegal immigrants won't pick our produce or bus our tables won't our prices go up? (The most recent mass-emailed conservative variation of this argument, targeting paranoid middle-class Americans says: "Do you want to pay an extra $10,000 for your next house?") The answer is simple: Yes.

But wages would also go up, and even faster than housing or food prices. And CEO salaries, and corporate profits, might moderate back to the levels they were during the "golden age of the American middle class" between the 1940s and Reagan's declaration of war on the middle class in the 1980s.

We saw exactly this scenario played out in the US fifty years ago, when unions helped regulate entry into the workforce, 35 percent of American workers had a union job, and 70 percent of Americans could raise a family on a single, 40-hour-week paycheck. All working Americans would gladly pay a bit more for their food if their paychecks were both significantly higher and more secure. (This would even allow for an increase in the minimum wage - as it did from the 1930s to the 1980s.)

But what about repressive régimes? Aren't we denying entrance to this generation's equivalent of the Jews fleeing Germany? This is the most tragic of all the arguments put forward by conservatives in the hopes compassionate progressives will bite. Our immigration policies already allow for refugees - and should be expanded. It's an issue that needs more national discussion and action. But giving a free pass to former Coca-Cola executive Vincente Fox to send workers to the US - and thus avoid having to deal with his own corrupt oligarchy - and to equate this to the Holocaust is an insult to the memory of those who died in Hitler's death camps - and to those suffering in places like Darfur under truly repressive regimes. There is no equivalence.

It's frankly astonishing to hear "progressives" reciting corporatist/racist/conservative talking points, recycled through "conservative Democratic" politicians trying to pander to the relatively small percentage of recently-legal (mostly through recent amnesties or birth) immigrants who are trying to get their relatives into this country by means of Bush's proposed guest worker program or the many variations thereof being proposed.

It's equally astonishing to hear the few unions going along with this (in the sad/desperate hope of picking up new members) turn their backs on Caesar Chávez and the traditions and history of America's Progressive and Union movements by embracing illegal immigration.

Every nation has an obligation to limit immigration to a number that will not dilute its workforce, but will maintain a stable middle class - if it wants to have a stable democracy. This has nothing to do with race, national origin, or language (visit Switzerland with it's ethnic- and language-dived areas!), and everything to do with economics.

Without a middle class, any democracy is doomed. And without labor having - through control of labor availability - power in relative balance to capital/management, no middle class can emerge. America's early labor leaders did not die to increase the labor pool for the Robber Barons or the Walton family - they died fighting to give control of it to the workers of their era and in the hopes that we would continue to hold it - and infect other nations with the same idea of democracy and a stable middle class.

The simple way to do this today is to require that all non-refugee immigrants go through the same process to become American citizens or legal workers in this country (no amnesties, no "guest workers," no "legalizations") regardless of how they got here; to confront employers who hire illegals with draconian financial and criminal penalties; and to affirm that while health care (and the right to provide humanitarian care to all humans) is an absolute right for all people within our boundaries regardless of status, a paycheck, education, or subsidy is not.

The Republican (and Democratic) corporatists who want a cheap labor force, and the Republican (and Democratic) racists who want to build a fence and punish humanitarian aid workers, are equally corrupt and anti-progressive. As long as employers are willing and able (without severe penalties) to hire illegal workers, people will risk life and limb to grab at the America Dream. When we stop hiring and paying them, most will leave of their own volition over a few years, and the remaining few who are committed to the US will obtain citizenship through normal channels.

This is, after all, the middle-class "American Dream." And how much better this hemisphere would be if Central and South Americans were motivated to stay in their own nations (because no employer in the US would dare hire them) and fight there for a Mexican Dream and a Salvadoran Dream and a Guatemalan Dream (and so on).

This is the historic Progressive vision for all of the Americas...

[Documad]

What would you do with the 11-12 million undocumented workers currently living and working in the US? How much are you willing to spend? What happens to the segments of our economy, which are largely based on the sweat of these people?

Al Franken talked about this issue all last week. One of his guests said that the easiest way to find illegals would be to raid the fields during harvest. But no one is going to do that. We like affordable salad, fruit, and nuts too much and we don't want farmers to go bust.

[Qdrop]

What would you do with the 11-12 million undocumented workers currently living and working in the US? deport them.

How much are you willing to spend? less than it would ultimately cost if we didn't.

What happens to the segments of our economy, which are largely based on the sweat of these people? they have to hire american workers at higher wages.
prices go up, but with higher wages..the economy has more to spend.
and there ARE ways to control inflation.

Al Franken talked about this issue all last week. One of his guests said that the easiest way to find illegals would be to raid the fields during harvest. But no one is going to do that. We like affordable salad, fruit, and nuts too much and we don't want farmers to go bust. it can be incramental. it doesn't have to be a sudden "swat team-esqe" round up.

[Ace42X]

they have to hire american workers at higher wages.
prices go up, but with higher wages..the economy has more to spend.
and there ARE ways to control inflation.

Nah, immigrants do more work for less. That means more sales tax, more import and export tax, more tax on the materials used, etc. The minute amount of additional tax you get from the poorest people getting a fraction more in their wage packets doesn't compete with the benefits of keeping slaves.

All that would happen is that companies would out-source production. The US economy would crumble, as in the intervening time it would take for the economy to shift to higher paid service jobs (which can't be outsourced as easily) a lot of places would lose faith in America, and start demanding repayment for the trillions and trillions of dollars of loans that they have very kindly been turning a blind eye to.

The UK can afford a higher minimum wage because we weathered the bad times, with our industries going over seas, etc. Unfortunately, the US's policies have painted it into a corner where the "minimum wage mantra" might just be true.

That, I find, seems to happen a lot with America. The government (and the electorate) get an idea into their head, and then seem to spend all subsequent time trying to engineer the situation to prove them right. Take Iraq, they told everyone that troops were needed in Iraq, and then made the country such that no-one dare extricate them.

Normally, I'd say increasing minimum wage is only ever a good thing. It has done wonders here in the UK, forcing the opposition parties to concede that opposing it was just plain daft. I think it is one of the reasons that the "Iron Chancellor" has received his moniker. But I also think that, through the continued stupidity of the American government and electorate, the US is a house of cards built so flimsy and slipshod that even necessary renovation work could bring it all tumbling down.

[ASsman]

Out with the spics, I say.

[Hiebz]

I'm surprised the hard-nose conservatives haven't thought of taking those "who suck up our hard earned money" - welfare monkeys - and sending them to take the immigrants' jobs when they complain they can't find jobs.

the thought crossed my mind, but I don't think it's a good idea at all, and frankly don't know why I brought it up. Oh maybe to stir some drama. or continue to look stupid.

bah ....

[checkyourprez]

they have to hire american workers at higher wages.
prices go up, but with higher wages..the economy has more to spend.
and there ARE ways to control inflation.



i think that would be good if it was actually how it would happend, but i doubt that it would be the case.

[Qdrop]

i think that would be good if it was actually how it would happend, but i doubt that it would be the case.

based on what?

[Qdrop]

Nah, immigrants do more work for less. That means more sales tax, more import and export tax, more tax on the materials used, etc. The minute amount of additional tax you get from the poorest people getting a fraction more in their wage packets doesn't compete with the benefits of keeping slaves. are the slaves cool with that?

All that would happen is that companies would out-source production. The US economy would crumble, why? what would be the differance in switching from illegal immigrant workers who don't pay income tax and send most of thier pay out of country to family....to outsorced labor who don't pay american income tax and don't spend thier wages in the US.

same dif.

[EN[i]GMA]

Normally, I'd say increasing minimum wage is only ever a good thing.

So then I guess you support a $1000 dollar an hour minimum wage?

Or do, in fact, realize that it isn't 'only every a good thing'?

If you realize this, at what point does it switch from being a 'good' thing to being a 'bad' thing?

5 bucks an hour? 10? 20? 40? 400? 4,000?

What causes it to change from good to bad? Or is it only a matter of lower wage being 'less bad'?

If that's so (And it is), why even have it at all?

The only minimum wage that won't hurt the economy is the minimum wage that has little overall effect, period.

Minimum wage cannot benefit the poor, only move money around: Fewer, though higher paying, jobs.

If someone has $4.90 to spend on an extra employee, and the minimum wage is $5.00, that employee isn't going to have a job, is going to be making $0.00 an hour.

Are you honestly going to argue that a person that situation is somehow better off?

[EN[i]GMA]

they have to hire american workers at higher wages.
prices go up, but with higher wages..the economy has more to spend.
and there ARE ways to control inflation.

Let's see here.

11 million people is roughly 3.66% of our total population.

Our unemployment rate is now about 5%, I believe?

So if Americans got those jobs, we would have an unemployment rate of 1.34%, which is, I believe, a record for the lowest rate ever.

I don't know of any unemployment rate going below 2% or ever going much below 3%. I think around 4-5% is 'Full employment' for America, simply because so many people are in the process of switching jobs, are out of work for various reasons, etc.

My point is that I don't think you could, or would, find people to do all these jobs.

If they would do them, they'd be doing them now.

Having an influx of immigration may lower overall wages per person, but increases the efficiency of an economy as a whole.

Adding 11 million people decreases per capita wages, necessarily, but almost certainly increases efficiency and productivity greatly, which means that wealth creation is sped up, which means that, as a result, more people get wealthier.

This is a good thing.

[Ace42X]

are the slaves cool with that?

why? what would be the differance in switching from illegal immigrant workers who don't pay income tax and send most of thier pay out of country to family....to outsorced labor who don't pay american income tax and don't spend thier wages in the US.
same dif.

Immigrants have to spend their cash on food merely to survive. They require premises to work on, and work on building, cleaning, and maintaining units that work within the economy. They work using taxable equipment on taxable materials. Outsourcing is not just the labour, but the whole infrastructure as well.

So then I guess you support a $1000 dollar an hour minimum wage?

Sure I would. All that would happen is everyone else's wages would go up too, as would costs, and through the process of inflation, we'd all be at the same place, but with a few naughts around. The difference is that the price-fixing mechanism that allows people on minimum wage to be *kept* at the same wage, regardless of inflation, would be broken, at least temporarily.

Whack off the extra 0s, and I bet you'd find that all by itself the situation has levelled out nicely, with the lower echelons still better off.

Again I cite Spurlock. Minimum wage does not go up with inflation. The poor are getting poorer as everyone else is getting richer.

And your argument is a nonsense. It has been proven a nonsense here, and would be proven a nonsense there. Despite predictions of increased unemployment for precisely the reason you give, labour instituting and increasing the minimum wage has actually LOWERED unemployment, and is widely considered to have been a good move. It motivates people to seek employment, and improves quality of life, bringing people out of poverty.

I mean, what on earth are you thinking? You'd go into a burger bar and start telling the staff "Hey, I can't afford the price of your burgers regularly, but why not drop the price of the burgers, and then I'll be able to afford them often! You should be happy to make even 0.00001c profit per burger! It's better than no profit at all!"

Yah, I am sure companies will be jumping hand over foot to lower their profit margins to infitessimaly small amounts just to suit you.

If a company cannot afford to cover running costs, it should not be in business. That simple.

You'd not accept "we have to water down the booze to break even" from a bar, so why accept "we have to employ less staff" or "we have to pay our staff a pittance" from anywhere else?

Because you have a shameful and disgusting lack of appreciation for the thinking breathing people that HAVE to do these jobs to live. They don't have the opportunity to bite the hand that starves them, their teeth have fallen out from malnutrition and the inability to afford a dentist.

Your tacit complicity in what is essentially slavery is probably your least likeable feature. Go do a Spurlock, and live the minimum wage lifestyle for 30 days, and then come back and tell us about how the economy should work.

[cosmo105]

ugh. our economy, our whole way of life would be completely fucked because of them. how do you think the u.s. became wealthy? slavery. how do you think it remained in the highest position of power in the world? near-slavery.

[Ace42X]

ugh. our economy, our whole way of life would be completely fucked because of them. how do you think the u.s. became wealthy? slavery. how do you think it remained in the highest position of power in the world? near-slavery.

My sentiments exactly.

[EN[i]GMA]

Sure I would. All that would happen is everyone else's wages would go up too, as would costs, and through the process of inflation, we'd all be at the same place, but with a few naughts around. The difference is that the price-fixing mechanism that allows people on minimum wage to be *kept* at the same wage, regardless of inflation, would be broken, at least temporarily.

Oh I see, so hyperinflation isn't a bad thing to be avoided, it's something we should actively strive for.

Brilliant economics.

I'm clearly outclassed by you Ace.

Step aside Sachs, we have Ace42 to show you how hyper-inflation really works!

Do you not see ANY problems with rampant inflation? Any idea how that might harm an economy?


Whack off the extra 0s, and I bet you'd find that all by itself the situation has levelled out nicely, with the lower echelons still better off.

Except for the ones out jobs do to incrased labor costs for employers.

They get to starve.




Again I cite Spurlock. Minimum wage does not go up with inflation. The poor are getting poorer as everyone else is getting richer.

'The poor' =! 'those on mimimum wage'.

You are (Conveniently) leaving out those who are unemployed because of the law itself.

If you shut out half the labor force in the US and doubled wages for the other half, it would obviously be specious to say that people as a whole would be better off.

Minimum wage shouldn't go up with inflation because it shouldn't go up at all. It shouldn't exist in the first place.

Who's going to speak up for the people left out of jobs because of minimum wage?


And your argument is a nonsense. It has been proven a nonsense here, and would be proven a nonsense there. Despite predictions of increased unemployment for precisely the reason you give, labour instituting and increasing the minimum wage has actually LOWERED unemployment, and is widely considered to have been a good move. It motivates people to seek employment, and improves quality of life, bringing people out of poverty.

The hell you say?

http://www.house.gov/jec/cost-gov/regs/minimum/50years.htm

* The minimum wage reduces employment.

Currie and Fallick (1993), Gallasch (1975), Gardner (1981), Peterson (1957), Peterson and Stewart (1969).

* The minimum wage reduces employment more among teenagers than adults.

Adie (1973); Brown, Gilroy and Kohen (1981a, 1981b); Fleisher (1981); Hammermesh (1982); Meyer and Wise (1981, 1983a); Minimum Wage Study Commission (1981); Neumark and Wascher (1992); Ragan (1977); Vandenbrink (1987); Welch (1974, 1978); Welch and Cunningham (1978).

* The minimum wage reduces employment most among black teenage males.

Al-Salam, Quester, and Welch (1981), Iden (1980), Mincer (1976), Moore (1971), Ragan (1977), Williams (1977a, 1977b).

* The minimum wage helped South African whites at the expense of blacks.

Bauer (1959).

* The minimum wage hurts blacks generally.

Behrman, Sickles and Taubman (1983); Linneman (1982).

* The minimum wage hurts the unskilled.

Krumm (1981).

* The minimum wage hurts low wage workers.

Brozen (1962), Cox and Oaxaca (1986), Gordon (1981).

* The minimum wage hurts low wage workers particularly during cyclical downturns.

Kosters and Welch (1972), Welch (1974).

* The minimum wage increases job turnover.

Hall (1982).

* The minimum wage reduces average earnings of young workers.

Meyer and Wise (1983b).

* The minimum wage drives workers into uncovered jobs, thus lowering wages in those sectors.

Brozen (1962), Tauchen (1981), Welch (1974).

* The minimum wage reduces employment in low-wage industries, such as retailing.

Cotterman (1981), Douty (1960), Fleisher (1981), Hammermesh (1981), Peterson (1981).

* The minimum wage hurts small businesses generally.

Kaun (1965).

* The minimum wage causes employers to cut back on training.

Hashimoto (1981, 1982), Leighton and Mincer (1981), Ragan (1981).

* The minimum wage has long-term effects on skills and lifetime earnings.

Brozen (1969), Feldstein (1973).

* The minimum wage leads employers to cut back on fringe benefits.

McKenzie (1980), Wessels (1980).

* The minimum wage encourages employers to install labor-saving devices.

Trapani and Moroney (1981).

* The minimum wage hurts low-wage regions, such as the South and rural areas.

Colberg (1960, 1981), Krumm (1981).

* The minimum wage increases the number of people on welfare.

Brandon (1995), Leffler (1978).

* The minimum wage hurts the poor generally.

Stigler (1946).

* The minimum wage does little to reduce poverty.

Bonilla (1992), Brown (1988), Johnson and Browning (1983), Kohen and Gilroy (1981), Parsons (1980), Smith and Vavrichek (1987).

* The minimum wage helps upper income families.

Bell (1981), Datcher and Loury (1981), Johnson and Browning (1981), Kohen and Gilroy (1981).

* The minimum wage helps unions.

Linneman (1982), Cox and Oaxaca (1982).
* The minimum wage lowers the capital stock.

McCulloch (1981).

* The minimum wage increases inflationary pressure.

Adams (1987), Brozen (1966), Gramlich (1976), Grossman (1983).

* The minimum wage increases teenage crime rates.

Hashimoto (1987), Phillips (1981).

* The minimum wage encourages employers to hire illegal aliens.

Beranek (1982).

* Few workers are permanently stuck at the minimum wage.

Brozen (1969), Smith and Vavrichek (1992).

* The minimum wage has had a massive impact on unemployment in Puerto Rico.

Freeman and Freeman (1991), Rottenberg (1981b).

* The minimum wage has reduced employment in foreign countries.

Canada: Forrest (1982); Chile: Corbo (1981); Costa Rica: Gregory (1981); France: Rosa (1981).

* Characteristics of minimum wage workers

Employment Policies Institute (1994), Haugen and Mellor (1990), Kniesner (1981), Mellor (1987), Mellor and Haugen (1986), Smith and Vavrichek (1987), Van Giezen (1994).

------------------------------------------------------------


I mean, what on earth are you thinking? You'd go into a burger bar and start telling the staff "Hey, I can't afford the price of your burgers regularly, but why not drop the price of the burgers, and then I'll be able to afford them often! You should be happy to make even 0.00001c profit per burger! It's better than no profit at all!"

Would you rather have 0.000001c of profit, or no profit at all?

Obviously the aforementioned scheme is unrealistic, absurd even, but it's fundamentally true that a lower margin of profit is better than no profit at all.

That should be self-evident.


Yah, I am sure companies will be jumping hand over foot to lower their profit margins to infitessimaly small amounts just to suit you.

Fantastic strawman.


If a company cannot afford to cover running costs, it should not be in business. That simple.

It can cover costs NOW.

But if you doubled the minimum wage, for instance, they might have problems.


You'd not accept "we have to water down the booze to break even" from a bar, so why accept "we have to employ less staff" or "we have to pay our staff a pittance" from anywhere else?

Because it's true.

What do you expect? Companies to spend more on employees than they have and then go out of business?

If you run on a low profit margin, like a restaraunt or something of the sort, you can hardly afford to go from $5,000 a week in pay to $7500 in pay.

So in order to make do you cut employees, do more work yourself, lower wages for people not making minimum wage, increase prices, etc. all of which have a real cost.

"Pay everyone more" isn't a valid option if you're running on a razor thin margin.


Because you have a shameful and disgusting lack of appreciation for the thinking breathing people that HAVE to do these jobs to live. They don't have the opportunity to bite the hand that starves them, their teeth have fallen out from malnutrition and the inability to afford a dentist.

Your being a sanctimonious cunt is probably your least likeable feature.

Your entire argument rests on you ignoring the people who lose jobs or lose pay becuase of the minimum wage.



Your tacit complicity in what is essentially slavery is probably your least likeable feature.

Prove to me that minimum wage laws help the poor.

Don't just feed this Spurlock bullshit, give me some data. Some studies perhaps.

[Documad]

deport them.
How exactly would you do that? Imagine 11-12 million people. How much would it cost? What do you want to give up to pay for it? I wonder if it would cost twice what the war in Iraq costs. And I'd rather spend the money fighting violent crime.

Right now, the big benefit of the under the table low cost labor goes to businesses who pay illegals less than a living wage. It's bad for the illegals because they're exploited (in more ways than financial) and bad for the low income legal laborers whose wages may be driven down. If we come up with a program that lets the illegals work legally, but also build in rules, it's easier to monitor and the employers can do less exploitation all around. Illegals can report bad employers for one thing.

P.S. Our work force is aging rapidly. If we don't get more young labor in this country, at some point we're going to be in even bigger trouble.

I understand why people get worked up so easily. It's not all about racism. Some of it's about fairness. My best friend's dad was on a list to come over here for years. He came here and then tried to get his brother in for over a decade before he got in. The rest of his family never made it. They kept getting pushed back in line because other countries had a perceived bigger need. This family did everything legally, and I hate that some people don't follow those rules. But it's time to face reality.

[Space]

i think a wall would be ugly and dumb, i do think that we could employ a lot of people by building several Damns and lakes on the Rio Grande. I also think that mexico should put in several casinos on the border with hotels and resorts with golf courses....there would be plenty of workers to do the jobs, and when the damns , lakes and landscaping were all done there would be better economy on the border towns...!!!(lb)

[Ace42X]

GMA']
Do you not see ANY problems with rampant inflation? Any idea how that might harm an economy?

I do, much in the same way that I see problems with any sort of revolution. Does this mean there should be no revolution? Nuts to that.

Of course, as "ecomics" is bullshit, I am not to bothered about a purely abstract concept being harmed. The relative number of 0s that follow on from a purely arbitrary measuring unit is of no great concern to me.

Except for the ones out jobs do to incrased labor costs for employers.

Which doesn't happen. It is a sophistry. What *actually* happens is that the boss doesn't get his third house. Boo fucking hoo.

They get to starve.

They are starving *now*. If you extracted your head from your anus, and climbed down from your ivory tower, you'd see that. The difference is that they won't be working eleven hour days, propping up the wages of all the people above them who DON'T starve, and DO get free medical care, and DO get to drive to work, and DON'T end up getting ill because they are living in squalor.

'The poor' =! 'those on mimimum wage'.

So you are defending a low (or non-existant) minimum wage, which is designed to protect the poor, on the grounds that people who are kept by non-minimum wage significant others can afford to work in a low-paid job for pocket money? Or are you just grasping at straws?

You are (Conveniently) leaving out those who are unemployed because of the law itself.

Yes, I am leaving out fictitious people that only exist for the benefit of contrived theories, constructed solely to justify the greed and self-serving actions of America's 'movers and shakers'.

And so should you, unless you intend to become a slave-owner. In which case you should hang yourself now.

If you shut out half the labor force in the US and doubled wages for the other half, it would obviously be specious to say that people as a whole would be better off.

Indeed, but of course, that is not would happen in reality, as the introduction of minimum wage in the UK has proved conclusively, practically and tangibly.

In reality, what happens is that companies accept that *the free ride is over* and stop furnishing shareholders with complimentary champagne.

All your arguments are precisely what the South argued for preceding the civil war. It is pretty contemptible. "But we're America's breadbin... Without slaves the whole country will be poor, wah wah wah." Bullshit.

Minimum wage shouldn't go up with inflation because it shouldn't go up at all. It shouldn't exist in the first place.

And if the UK government had agreed with you, we'd be a poorer and less content nation, with higher levels of unemployment. Thankgod we're not all lickspittle whelps.

Who's going to speak up for the people left out of jobs because of minimum wage?

The easter-bunny. I believe he is the current union rep for fictitious constructs.

The hell you say?
------------------------------------------------------------

Hmmm, I don't know about you, but all those people telling me that WHAT I CAN SEE WITH MY OWN TWO EYES OUTSIDE MY WINDOW OVER THE LAST DECADE DOESN'T EXIST sure convinced me. Just like all those people telling me how much more efficient privatisation is (and it isn't) does.

Conclusion? Economists are self-important dellusional fucks whose work is so divorced from reality that they only see what is happening right outside their windows when the bodies of empoverished stock traders plummet past.

Read my lips, and learn these four words well:
Economics is all bullshit.

It is like Startrek nerds arguing about the relative phaser strengths of the different Enterprises - it's all academic, because it is all concoted crap. Yah, on paper, it's coherent. Yah, on paper, it prolly makes perfect sense. Which is precisely what economists say about Marxism.

Would you rather have 0.000001c of profit, or no profit at all?

None at all, and this is for two reasons:

Firstly, it is innate in human nature to refuse an unfair deal unless you are forced or coerced. This is a useful biological function, and it ensures social cohesion and promotes co-operation. When this is broken, society fragments. This is when people get strung up by piano wires like in numerous revolutions, and cars get set on fire like in Paris.

Secondly, there is only one way to win at cat and mouse, and that is to not be the mouse. People will fuck you around if you let them. When you stand up to them, they will back down and give you a fair deal. The US minimum wage is a joke. Sorry, but it is the worse kind of farce, and it makes your country look backwards. I could go to France, do the exact same job as a minimum wage guy in the US, and be living SO much better. Stick that in your anti-socialist pipe and smoke it.

I don't care how many people you cite who try and tell me otherwise, your system sucks. Why they do not follow this simple argument, I dunno. My best guess is because they care more about making sure that high-paid economics professors are well-paid and in a high wage bracket, than making sure the vast majority of the population have an acceptable minimum standard of living.

but it's fundamentally true that a lower margin of profit is better than no profit at all.

Nope, that's nonsense. You might as well say "It's fundamentally true that it is better to be constantly tortured, kept on the edge of life in constant agony, than to actually die."

A lower profit margin is worse because it perpetuates inequity.

Enigma's wisdom: "It is better for everyone to work as slaves, than to protest and risk being beaten..."

What a patriot.

It can cover costs NOW.

Just like a bar can cover costs by watering down its booze. If you are trying to tell me that exploitation is necessary in "the richest country in the world" - when socialist countries do better without it, then perhaps you should dress up a bit better, and take me out for drinks first. 'Cause I'm gonna need a few before I swallow that crap.

But if you doubled the minimum wage, for instance, they might have problems.

Yah, heaven forbid companies would have to do without "record profits" and actually put some of that cash to people who really need it. Of course, rather than half their profits and have a happy work force, it makes more sense for them to half the workforce, and thus productivity, and thus half their profits, and lose a little bit more on the side, due to shrinking economy of scale.

What do you expect? Companies to spend more on employees than they have and then go out of business?

Yes, because companies are notoriously poor. All those shareholders and CEOs all living on rice and beans... Why should it be those minimum wages living like hogs?!?

Come on man, ffs, do you listen to yourself? Companies would not be "spending more" if the minimum wage was kept inline with inflation, they would be paying "the same."

What has been happening in the US for the last ten years is that companies have been paying them *LESS*. Now, unless, contrary to inflation, these companies have been accrewing cumulative losses, and are onyl surviving by passing those losses *ONTO THE MINIMUM WAGE WORK FORCE*, clearly you are talking bullcrap.

Which brings me back to what I said - IF A COMPANY CAN'T AFFORD TO COVER COSTS, IT SHOULD NOT BE IN BUSINESS. US industry should not be passing off their inability to stay at the same level of profitability onto the poorest people in the nation. It is that simple. And when you try to argue against these pragmatic truths, it makes *YOU* look like a cunt.

If you run on a low profit margin, like a restaraunt or something of the sort, you can hardly afford to go from $5,000 a week in pay to $7500 in pay.

Lower than they were 10 years ago, not including inflation? Then they should close up, before they lose any more money. That's what you said about the UK nationalised industries losing money. According to you, the nationalised industries should've just slashed wages to stay profitable. And employed people to crack the whips.

"Pay everyone more" isn't a valid option if you're running on a razor thin margin.

So, after 10 years of employee's wages getting relatively cheaper, in the richest country in the world, 'your profit is razor thin' ? In a time of plenty? With companies boasting profits that could feed an entire nation of years? Fuck off, and take your bullshit with you. Go on, get out, and close the door on the way out.

Your entire argument rests on you ignoring the people who lose jobs

Yes, people who don't actually exist.

or lose pay becuase of the minimum wage.

Yes, I am well aware of the people who AREN'T malnourished, and DON'T have homes infested with vermin. But forgive me if I don't cry about them losing a fraction of their money to pay for the people who actually need it.

Prove to me that minimum wage laws help the poor.

Don't just feed this Spurlock bullshit, give me some data. Some studies perhaps.

See, and that's the bottom line. Someone could be starving infront of you, looking like an auschwitz inmate, and you'd still say they are fine unless some bullshitologist gave you a piece of paper saying otherwise.

"Don't feed me pragmatic empirical evidence that you can witness first hand, I'd rather have some ambiguous statistics to hum and har about."

Want proof, come here and see for your own eyes.

Oh wait, that wouldn't work, because you are jsut a kid who hasn't seen how these theories translate to the real world. You'd not see the difference it has made here.

Just google for it, there is bound to be something about it on the web, Labour bragged about it for the election before last.

[edit] Here we go:

"It is right that, at a time when our economy is generally strong, with the longest ever period of sustained growth and nearly 2.4 million more jobs than in 1997, we continue to help those who get paid the least," said Trade and Industry Secretary Alan Johnson. (...) When the minimum wage was first introduced in 1999 it stood at £3.60 an hour, and has been increased every year since.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4824544.stm

So, let's see, introduced in '99, increased every year since (ahead of inflation), and jobs have gone up by 2.4 million.

Nope, can't be any good...

[EN[i]GMA]

I do, much in the same way that I see problems with any sort of revolution. Does this mean there should be no revolution? Nuts to that.

Yes, hyperinflation HAS turned out well historically.

The 'revolution' ushered in by the Weimar Republic's failure was dandy, wasn't it?


Of course, as "ecomics" is bullshit, I am not to bothered about a purely abstract concept being harmed. The relative number of 0s that follow on from a purely arbitrary measuring unit is of no great concern to me.


Absolutely abstract.

No bearing to anything occuring in reality at all.

What an absolutely easy way to avoid actual debate.


Which doesn't happen.

Amazing.

Before you said that, I thought it did, but when I simply read that sentence, not backed up by any data, no proof, no facts, my entire opinion changed!

You are a miracle worker.


It is a sophistry. What *actually* happens is that the boss doesn't get his third house. Boo fucking hoo.


Yes Ace, that's exactly what happens.

That family that owns a diner on a next-to-nothing profit margin really lives in a giant mansion.

3 of them.

10 of them.


They are starving *now*. If you extracted your head from your anus, and climbed down from your ivory tower, you'd see that. The difference is that they won't be working eleven hour days, propping up the wages of all the people above them who DON'T starve, and DO get free medical care, and DO get to drive to work, and DON'T end up getting ill because they are living in squalor.

[quote]
So you are defending a low (or non-existant) minimum wage, which is designed to protect the poor, on the grounds that people who are kept by non-minimum wage significant others can afford to work in a low-paid job for pocket money? Or are you just grasping at straws?

Minimum laws are designed to protect the poor?

Or to protect union jobs from competition?

The push for higher minimum wage wouldn't have anything to do with the fact union wages are tied to minimum wage in union contracts, would it?


Yes, I am leaving out fictitious people that only exist for the benefit of contrived theories, constructed solely to justify the greed and self-serving actions of America's 'movers and shakers'.

And so should you, unless you intend to become a slave-owner. In which case you should hang yourself now.

You've seen right through me!

None in the history of modern economy has ever lost a job because of higher minimum wage! Not once!

Brilliant of you to see right through elaborate construction.


Indeed, but of course, that is not would happen in reality, as the introduction of minimum wage in the UK has proved conclusively, practically and tangibly.

'Proven'? Inductively? Or deductively?

I certainly hope you, Ace, wouldn't be using the fallacy of inductive reasoning.

Becuase your argument seems a great deal similar to one I made in a past debate of ours about how the lowering of tarrifs and freeing of labor laws resulted in Britain's greater economic growth compared to France and other mainland countries.

I believe you declared this unprovable and said it was 'the muffins'.


In reality, what happens is that companies accept that *the free ride is over* and stop furnishing shareholders with complimentary champagne.

Do you have any proof that minimum wage costs the rich more?


All your arguments are precisely what the South argued for preceding the civil war. It is pretty contemptible. "But we're America's breadbin... Without slaves the whole country will be poor, wah wah wah." Bullshit.

That's not analagous to my argumentation at all.

If you weren't intentionally misrepresenting my point you'd know that.


And if the UK government had agreed with you, we'd be a poorer and less content nation, with higher levels of unemployment. Thankgod we're not all lickspittle whelps.


Are you going to bother proving any of this, or should I just accept it at face value?


Hmmm, I don't know about you, but all those people telling me that WHAT I CAN SEE WITH MY OWN TWO EYES OUTSIDE MY WINDOW OVER THE LAST DECADE DOESN'T EXIST sure convinced me. Just like all those people telling me how much more efficient privatisation is (and it isn't) does.

Conclusion? Economists are self-important dellusional fucks whose work is so divorced from reality that they only see what is happening right outside their windows when the bodies of empoverished stock traders plummet past.

Read my lips, and learn these four words well:
Economics is all bullshit.

It is like Startrek nerds arguing about the relative phaser strengths of the different Enterprises - it's all academic, because it is all concoted crap. Yah, on paper, it's coherent. Yah, on paper, it prolly makes perfect sense. Which is precisely what economists say about Marxism.

What a fabulous way to ignore dissenting evidence.


None at all, and this is for two reasons:

Firstly, it is innate in human nature to refuse an unfair deal unless you are forced or coerced. This is a useful biological function, and it ensures social cohesion and promotes co-operation. When this is broken, society fragments. This is when people get strung up by piano wires like in numerous revolutions, and cars get set on fire like in Paris.

Secondly, there is only one way to win at cat and mouse, and that is to not be the mouse. People will fuck you around if you let them. When you stand up to them, they will back down and give you a fair deal. The US minimum wage is a joke. Sorry, but it is the worse kind of farce, and it makes your country look backwards. I could go to France, do the exact same job as a minimum wage guy in the US, and be living SO much better. Stick that in your anti-socialist pipe and smoke it.

Or, more likely, you could go to France and not get a job because their unemployment rate is double ours, more than double ours in terms of youth unemployment, which was my exact point.

France has a high minimum wage and numerous other laws dedicated to 'job security' and it has almost no economic growth and terrible unemployment which was my exact point.

According to you, people in France should be better off, should have jobs, shouldn't be rioting in the streets because they have a higher minimum wage, which is good.

But I'm sure, Ace, that not a single one of 23% of the unemployed youth is unemployed because the minimum wage is preventing jobs from being created.

Not a single one.



I don't care how many people you cite who try and tell me otherwise, your system sucks.

Than why even debate? If you're going to be as dogmatic sisko or racer "I don't care who cite, I'm still going to believe in Creationism".

The last thing I suspected from you was anti-intellectualism.


Why they do not follow this simple argument, I dunno. My best guess is because they care more about making sure that high-paid economics professors are well-paid and in a high wage bracket, than making sure the vast majority of the population have an acceptable minimum standard of living.

Good to see you're able to making ringing declarations without any evidence or proof.


Nope, that's nonsense. You might as well say "It's fundamentally true that it is better to be constantly tortured, kept on the edge of life in constant agony, than to actually die."

A lower profit margin is worse because it perpetuates inequity.

Enigma's wisdom: "It is better for everyone to work as slaves, than to protest and risk being beaten..."

What a patriot.


Just like a bar can cover costs by watering down its booze. If you are trying to tell me that exploitation is necessary in "the richest country in the world" - when socialist countries do better without it, then perhaps you should dress up a bit better, and take me out for drinks first. 'Cause I'm gonna need a few before I swallow that crap.

Countries like Italy, Germany and, France that are doing WORSE?

Like those countries?


Yah, heaven forbid companies would have to do without "record profits" and actually put some of that cash to people who really need it. Of course, rather than half their profits and have a happy work force, it makes more sense for them to half the workforce, and thus productivity, and thus half their profits, and lose a little bit more on the side, due to shrinking economy of scale.


So this is your proof that minimum wage helps the poor?

Appeals to emotion?


Yes, because companies are notoriously poor. All those shareholders and CEOs all living on rice and beans... Why should it be those minimum wages living like hogs?!?

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/WM19.cfm#1

Though I'm sure you'll do nothing but poison the well.


Come on man, ffs, do you listen to yourself? Companies would not be "spending more" if the minimum wage was kept inline with inflation, they would be paying "the same."

Unless their spending in other areas changed.

Furthermore, if spending were kept in line with inflation, they would be spending more which would mean the total effect of minimum wage would be worse, from my point of view.


What has been happening in the US for the last ten years is that companies have been paying them *LESS*. Now, unless, contrary to inflation, these companies have been accrewing cumulative losses, and are onyl surviving by passing those losses *ONTO THE MINIMUM WAGE WORK FORCE*, clearly you are talking bullcrap.

Unless the percentage of people earning minimum wage has changed, which it has: http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2004.htm

Figure 10.


Which brings me back to what I said - IF A COMPANY CAN'T AFFORD TO COVER COSTS, IT SHOULD NOT BE IN BUSINESS. US industry should not be passing off their inability to stay at the same level of profitability onto the poorest people in the nation. It is that simple. And when you try to argue against these pragmatic truths, it makes *YOU* look like a cunt.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2004.htm

Figure 10.


Lower than they were 10 years ago, not including inflation? Then they should close up, before they lose any more money. That's what you said about the UK nationalised industries losing money. According to you, the nationalised industries should've just slashed wages to stay profitable. And employed people to crack the whips.

When did I say that?

I don't support nationalized industries EVEN EXISTING.

Whether or not they lower wages is of little consequence to me.


So, after 10 years of employee's wages getting relatively cheaper, in the richest country in the world, 'your profit is razor thin' ? In a time of plenty? With companies boasting profits that could feed an entire nation of years? Fuck off, and take your bullshit with you. Go on, get out, and close the door on the way out.

Because all minimum wage jobs belong to mega-corporations and not mom-and-pop operations that can't afford the extra cost.


Yes, I am well aware of the people who AREN'T malnourished, and DON'T have homes infested with vermin. But forgive me if I don't cry about them losing a fraction of their money to pay for the people who actually need it.


Which isn't what happens at all.

You STILL have no proven this.

Good luck proving this without using: Economics or inductive reasoning.


See, and that's the bottom line. Someone could be starving infront of you, looking like an auschwitz inmate, and you'd still say they are fine unless some bullshitologist gave you a piece of paper saying otherwise.

"Don't feed me pragmatic empirical evidence that you can witness first hand, I'd rather have some ambiguous statistics to hum and har about."

Want proof, come here and see for your own eyes.

Oh wait, that wouldn't work, because you are jsut a kid who hasn't seen how these theories translate to the real world. You'd not see the difference it has made here.

Just google for it, there is bound to be something about it on the web, Labour bragged about it for the election before last.

And if I show you someone someone who doesn't have a job because of minimum wage?

Will you close your eyes and pretend they don't exist?


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4824544.stm

So, let's see, introduced in '99, increased every year since (ahead of inflation), and jobs have gone up by 2.4 million.

Nope, can't be any good...

Inductive reasoning.

Who knows how much they would have gone up had the law not been passed?

Jobs would have gone up by 10 million! Wages increased by a factor of 2!

[EN[i]GMA]

No damage to jobs

The CBI, however, complained that higher minimum wages could seriously damage businesses and employment prospects.

"More and more companies are finding it difficult to absorb the rises so another 6% will be the last thing they need," said the employers' organisation's director general, Sir Digby Jones.

The British Chambers Of Commerce, which represents smaller companies, said the minimum wage would hit hotels and restaurants particularly hard. The sector had already seen 39,000 jobs go during the first nine months of 2005, and the proposed rise would put yet more jobs at risk.

"Businesses cannot cope with more costs which are damaging their ability to compete," said David Frost, director general of the BCC.

"We cannot continue increasing the minimum wage at the pace at which it has increased in recent years."

Eh?



"The (Low Pay) Commission shares our aim to help the low-paid through an increased minimum wage while making sure we do not damage their employment prospects by setting it too high," he said.

"They have concluded that there is no strong evidence to support the contention that the minimum wage has had any detrimental effect on employment levels in low-paid sectors."

Hmm.

They probably had an economist on this commision somewhere.

I'd say that invalidates it completely, wouldn't you?

I guess that the business that just cut 39,000 won't be affected at all but the extra cost, will it?

[Ace42X]

GMA']
I guess that the business that just cut 39,000 won't be affected at all but the extra cost, will it?

So you'd rather have those 39,000 in work (assuming that they would be in work if there was no minimum wage) as well as 2.4 million out of work, and everyone who would've been on minimum wage poorer? Sounds like a great deal to me.

What an absolutely easy way to avoid actual debate.

About a totally intangible and contrived subject. I am sure the Picard-fans say that to the Kirk-lovers too.

As for you getting confused over the BCC's criticisms, think about this carefully. The BCC represents company's interests. It is in company's interests to pay their staff as little as possible. The BCC would be advocating 0 pay to staff if it were feasible. There criticisms are moot.

Who knows how much they would have gone up had the law not been passed?

It should be easy to figure out, given the unemployed population of the country. However, according to your theory, it shouldn't've gone up at all. Even accepting your argument, all it proves is that minimum wage, which can have a massive positive effect on poverty and the population, has a negligible effect on the economy. Which makes you insisting that people should slave for a pittance really quite disgusting. Especially as you are completely unfamiliar with what the struggle actually entails.

And if I show you someone someone who doesn't have a job because of minimum wage?

Then I will personally pay them the US minimum wage out of my own pocket, 9-5 5 days a week, because I can afford that on my minimum wage, and have cash left over. Sound fair? I won't even make them do any work. Although, maybe I'll ask them politely to hunt you down, and call you a cunt for every second of those hours.

Which isn't what happens at all.

You STILL have no proven this.

Good luck proving this without using: Economics or inductive reasoning.

Yeah, and I haven't proven the sky is blue either. It's just fact. If you can't see what is right before your face, I can't offer you any better proof than that.

Unless the percentage of people earning minimum wage has changed

Irrelevant. If a company spends $10,000 a month on minimum wage worker's salary, and then 10 years later is still spending $10,000 a month on minimum wage worker's salaries when everything else has stayed even, in line with inflation, it is paying its workers less.

Percentage of people on minimum wage, etc is completely irrelevant.

Unless their spending in other areas changed.

I see, so if a company is doing worse for whatever reason, it is only right and fitting that the workers should cover the backfall, while the managers don't see a single difference? Fuck off.

Though I'm sure you'll do nothing but poison the well.

Yeah, it's bollocks. I am insulted that you would bring such bollocks before me and pass it off as fact.

So this is your proof that minimum wage helps the poor?

My proof is knowing poor people who have seen their income more than double under minimum wage, and have gone from abject poverty to a standard of living which is tolerable.

They are poor, minimum wage helped them. It is that simple. But, of course, you can ask the 2.7 million previously unemployed people if earning twice as much money is of any help to them. I'm sure all of them will say "nah, I didn't need it."

While you're at it, ask the people who were already working.

Seriously, I've had enough of your pontificating, when you've never done a day's work in your life. You move out, get ap lace of your own, and live the minimum wage life for just one month, and then your opinion will be worth something. Until then, you are just another shit that needs a good flushing.

[D_Raay]

It is a shame you have to come to a message board to hear an intelligent, coherent debate on this subject which, incidentally and conveniently, has become the huge issue du jour for the media.

These political "pundit" shows are complete rubbish.

[Qdrop]

leave it to Ace and Enigma to debate/disect a subject to pieces....till the initial topic is lost in a swirl of dick waving.



look, there is no final word on what raising or maintaining minimum wage would do.
for ever example one gives on one side, another can be given to support the other.
economics deals with a world of near infinite variables....like weather forecasting.
the theories, in and of themselves, are sound (just like meteorology)...but often become impractical-if not useless- when they can't account for all the likely variables that are out there.
this is why apparently very differant economic theories seem to be able to show success, even when they are at odds.
that, and the ability of economists to look at that same pool of data and cherry pick whatever data they need to bolster thier views.

will raising minimum wage just shift the money, hurt business, and force unemployment up?....
or will it increase the level of life, spread the money out, force big business to cut executive pay and frivolous spending to account for it?

fuck if ANYONE truly knows.
because the fact of the matter...is that you can do that in two separate countries and get TWO totally differant results.
variables.


But getting BACK to immigration itself.
i have no problem with immigrants. i have no problem with immigrants coming here, staying here, and working.
that's what America is all about. there are plenty of jobs...our economy can support them just fine.
the idea of them working for less and less and driving the wages down does set me off....but hell if I (or anyone else) can say for certain the how this will effect the economy.

what i care about is ILLEGAL immigration.
and i'll stick to the non-economic arguments against it: no criminal background checks, easy avenue for terrorists, and social unrest at the "injustice" of forcing so many others to wait, or be turned away...while mexicans jump the border by the millions at will.....

what to do with the current ILLEGALS in our country?
deport them?
let em stay and naturalize them?
seems unjust...and dangerous.
how many were convicted criminals in mexico (a country with one of the highest crime rates in the western hemisphere)? does anyone have a clue? what do you think they'll do over here? automatically turn over a new leaf?
yeah. right.
do a little research on who runs the majority of the smaller meth labs in Cali and surrounding states....illegal mexican immigrants (and legals)....often right on the land that they pick fruit from during the day.
check out the Frontline special on the meth epidemic.

one thing i stand strongly for....is the withholding of healthcare to illegal immigrants AND thier children (regardless if they were born here), until they are naturalized and start paying taxes.
health care is not a charity system.

[chrisd]

america is the land of the free and the home of the brave, you're brave enough to cross the border then you're free to be an american! odelay!

[checkyourprez]

what i care about is ILLEGAL immigration.
and i'll stick to the non-economic arguments against it: no criminal background checks, easy avenue for terrorists, and social unrest at the "injustice" of forcing so many others to wait, or be turned away...while mexicans jump the border by the millions at will.....



do you want a wall on the mexican border?

and what do you think sould be done with the canadian border?

[King PSYZ]

Well let's talk about Canada a second. First off they import a lot of comics and musicians into the country, so I am suprised the entertainment unions don't drag them to the border by their nuthairs.

But seriously, if you're an American citizen try going into Canada and tell me how freely they let you in the door. They run your DMV and Criminal records before letting you in and if you have something as simple as an old "disorderly conduct" or even a ten year old DUI you can't come without paying an outrageous fine to the Canadian government. Then on return you get your car strip searched by the US.

But for some reason, down south where we know illegal imigrants are flowing over by the truckload, there's not even a similiar action. I went to a little border town in Mexico right after 9/11, when everyone, esspecially our armed forces and supposedly our border patrol, was on plaid alert or whatever the fuck it was. They encouraged me to park my vehicle in America and then let me wander around where illegal drugs are being sold within footsteps of the checkpoint and all kinds of crazy random shit was going on.

On return here's the run down:
US officer: "Did you buy anything not allowed in the US today?"
Me: "No sir"
US officer" "OK, have a nice day. Next!"

So I could have had a bag full of pills and weed or a bomb even and I just walked right into America with little to no scrutiny. Where as before the US was on Uber high terror watch alert when I lived in Montana, going to Canada to pick someone up was a chore. You had to add on time to account for background checks, filling out forms if you have ANYTHING on your prior record (and not every US citizen was a perfect child), and then having your vehicle and sometimes yourself strip searched at the border by the US coming back in. I was made to feel like a terrorist coming back from Canada, yet was walked through the Mexican border during a "time of crisis" like we want to get our shit blown up.

[Qdrop]

But seriously, if you're an American citizen try going into Canada and tell me how freely they let you in the door. They run your DMV and Criminal records before letting you in and if you have something as simple as an old "disorderly conduct" or even a ten year old DUI you can't come without paying an outrageous fine to the Canadian government. Then on return you get your car strip searched by the US.



i've crossed the Canadian border about 30 times in my life...for everything from vacations to raves to beastie concerts....

i've never had an issue going over...
"where are you going?"
"to the beastie boys concert"
"ok...have fun"

coming back into the US takes a few more minutes....but i've never had my car searched...ever.

[enree erzweglle]

i've crossed the Canadian border about 30 times in my life...for everything from vacations to raves to beastie concerts....

i've never had an issue going over...
"where are you going?"
"to the beastie boys concert"
"ok...have fun"

coming back into the US takes a few more minutes....but i've never had my car searched...ever.Re-entering the U.S. from Canada, I was detained for maybe 8-9 hours with a friend from Australia who was in a grey area visa-wise. He was in between one visa status and another status--so they pulled us over. There isn't much to do in that brick building.

Also since 9/11 whenever I've gone to Niagara Falls, the line to get back into the states (going across the Peace Bridge, I think it is)...that line: really, fucking long.

[Qdrop]

Also since 9/11 whenever I've gone to Niagara Falls, the line to get back into the states (going across the Peace Bridge, I think it is)...that line: really, fucking long.

both bridges are...

it's fuckin retarded.

we sat in line for about 2 miles...for a about 2.5 hours last time.

[STANKY808]

Re-entering the U.S. from Canada, I was detained for maybe 8-9 hours with a friend from Australia who was in a grey area visa-wise. He was in between one visa status and another status--so they pulled us over. There isn't much to do in that brick building.

Also since 9/11 whenever I've gone to Niagara Falls, the line to get back into the states (going across the Peace Bridge, I think it is)...that line: really, fucking long.

And rightly so, you never know what an Aussie with undetermined Visa status will do. But if you are a citizen of the US...

"BOSTON Jun 7, 2005 (AP)— On April 25, Gregory Despres arrived at the U.S.-Canadian border crossing at Calais, Maine, carrying a homemade sword, a hatchet, a knife, brass knuckles and a chain saw stained with what appeared to be blood. U.S. customs agents confiscated the weapons and fingerprinted Despres. Then they let him into the United States.

The following day, a gruesome scene was discovered in Despres' hometown of Minto, New Brunswick: The decapitated body of a 74-year-old country musician named Frederick Fulton was found on Fulton's kitchen floor. His head was in a pillowcase under a kitchen table. His common-law wife was discovered stabbed to death in a bedroom."

[greedygretchen]

I'm sick of these snowbacks taking American entertainment jobs!!

I thought the media coverage of the protests were a joke and a distraction from the war. I thought it was strange that this got so much press and coverage when the mass war protest barely got any. And I really felt the point was moot because guess what- it is already against the law to be an undocumented alien hence the term "illegal" immigrant- they can already be deported, and they cannot receive social services (unless they have an American-born child and even then only the child is eligible for welfare/Medicaid/Food Stamps).

But, really, maybe if the United States didn't overthrow the democratically elected leaders of Latin American countries causing bloody revolutions and mass destruction and maybe if we didn't plunder their resources and outsource jobs that Americans used to get paid min. wage and benefits to do which Mexicans and others now get 20 cents an hour and no benefits to do (not to mention no environmental regulations), we wouldn't have this "problem." I mean, if I had to choose between $3 a day or $3-$6 an hour, I'd definitely choose the latter. And aren't we constantly promoting America as the land of opportunity? Look at Schwarzenegger- he was here under a cultural arts visa (bodybuilding apparently was considered an artform) and he wasn't supposed be working or recieving a salary but he was- he was an illegal immigrant!! And now he's the freakin governor of California- what do you think that says to illegal immigrants? From what I understand, it's even really not that our borders are being swarmed, but that many people overstay their visas.

It seems to me that people think immigrants are somehow living in the lap of luxury and getting all these benefits that we who were born here don't even get. I used to do homecalls for Public Social Services and have seen where and how a lot of these people live- and it's not pretty. To me, illegal immigration is not the problem, it's just one symptom of the bigger underlying problem- political power and corporate greed above all else. We are spending so much more on corporate welfare than illegal immigrants and social services combined, but no one seems to really want to see that.

And King PSYZ makes a valid point- if illegal immigration was such a problem and threat- why is the Mexican border so lax?

[King PSYZ]

i've crossed the Canadian border about 30 times in my life...for everything from vacations to raves to beastie concerts....

i've never had an issue going over...
"where are you going?"
"to the beastie boys concert"
"ok...have fun"

coming back into the US takes a few more minutes....but i've never had my car searched...ever.
Well in Montana is was a different story, and that really brings it back to inconsistancies in our border policies.

What they need to focus on is getting the naturalization dept in check and orginized, not on weather or not illegal imigration is illegal or not and start enforcing the law.

[D_Raay]

You think this is the sitting conservatives way of separating themselves from Dubya? Elections are right around the corner.

[King PSYZ]

why bother? American's are so complacent now they don't need to distance themselves from Dumbya. How is it we have a President with record low approval ratings still in office? How is the majority of Americans don't like how he's driving the nation and yet he's still in charge?

[phinkasaurus]

To me, illegal immigration is not the problem, it's just one symptom of the bigger underlying problem- political power and corporate greed above all else. We are spending so much more on corporate welfare than illegal immigrants and social services combined, but no one seems to really want to see that.


here here..

I think this is the root of this debate, at least the one happening in the mass media. One side wants to present the nationalist front and one wants to protect the big business. Simple fact is the US could stop and deport every singe illegal working in the open all across the us, in the fields and eateries, hostipals, and industries everywhere. But if they did our economy would collapse (faster than it is...).

Some have said it already, but this country was founded on Slavery, and this led to our immense wealth. And now the largest economy in the world (with the largest trade deficit) is surving on wage slavery. Cheap labour is needed to make these record breaking profits. Record breaking profits drive the corporations that run our politicians. Don't expect them to ever make any real changes. They can't, it's against their rules.

Remember when the US erupted in labour strikes to win the 8-hour work day? how many people only work 8 hours anymore?

[Qdrop]

we'll fight it, kicking and screaming...
but the US is probably going to have to relinquish it's #1 MOST POWERFUL SUPER MEGA AWESOME BEST COUNTRY monicor in order to truly make any non-profitable progress.

the profits must fall for equality and ethics to rise.

or perhaps not.
i just started reading "Capitalism, Democracy, and Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery" by John Muelller.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691090823/sr=8-1/qid=1144267526/ref=sr_1_1/103-7337657-8411808?%5Fencoding=UTF8

he argues that Capitalism can (and was designed) to be run ethically...and that you can be ethical AND profitable in a capitalistic system.
in fact, most DO so and make thier profits in such a manner.

[EN[i]GMA]

So you'd rather have those 39,000 in work (assuming that they would be in work if there was no minimum wage) as well as 2.4 million out of work, and everyone who would've been on minimum wage poorer? Sounds like a great deal to me.


About a totally intangible and contrived subject. I am sure the Picard-fans say that to the Kirk-lovers too.

I'm sure.

Absolute analogue between 50 peer reviewed, scientific studies and a debate on Star Trek.


As for you getting confused over the BCC's criticisms, think about this carefully. The BCC represents company's interests. It is in company's interests to pay their staff as little as possible. The BCC would be advocating 0 pay to staff if it were feasible. There criticisms are moot.

I guess if you say so.


It should be easy to figure out, given the unemployed population of the country. However, according to your theory, it shouldn't've gone up at all.

?


Even accepting your argument, all it proves is that minimum wage, which can have a massive positive effect on poverty and the population,

Prove it.


has a negligible effect on the economy.

Prove it.


Which makes you insisting that people should slave for a pittance really quite disgusting.

It's disgusting that I'm opposing something that you haven't proven and are merely assuming to be true?


Especially as you are completely unfamiliar with what the struggle actually entails.

Ad hominem.

And the whole 'point' was circular logic.


Then I will personally pay them the US minimum wage out of my own pocket, 9-5 5 days a week, because I can afford that on my minimum wage, and have cash left over. Sound fair? I won't even make them do any work. Although, maybe I'll ask them politely to hunt you down, and call you a cunt for every second of those hours.

You'll have to buy the plane ticket too.


Yeah, and I haven't proven the sky is blue either. It's just fact. If you can't see what is right before your face, I can't offer you any better proof than that.

"If you can't see that God created the Universe, I can't offer anything more. It's right in front of your face, I mean just LOOK at the world"

You're debate is on par with racerstangs.


Irrelevant. If a company spends $10,000 a month on minimum wage worker's salary, and then 10 years later is still spending $10,000 a month on minimum wage worker's salaries when everything else has stayed even, in line with inflation, it is paying its workers less.

Percentage of people on minimum wage, etc is completely irrelevant.

Yes, but I find the whole situation doubtful.

Economies are not that stagnant.


I see, so if a company is doing worse for whatever reason, it is only right and fitting that the workers should cover the backfall, while the managers don't see a single difference? Fuck off.

Not my point at all.


Yeah, it's bollocks. I am insulted that you would bring such bollocks before me and pass it off as fact.


I'm insulted (Not really) that you call a poisoning the well fallacy debate.


My proof is knowing poor people who have seen their income more than double under minimum wage, and have gone from abject poverty to a standard of living which is tolerable.

They are poor, minimum wage helped them. It is that simple.

Stop the presses, the entire debate is 'that simple', because 3 of Ace's friends ostensibly benefited from minimum wage.

Publish findings Ace, you could win the Nobel Prize and use the money to send your friend over to call me a cunt.


But, of course, you can ask the 2.7 million previously unemployed people if earning twice as much money is of any help to them. I'm sure all of them will say "nah, I didn't need it."

Why don't you ask them that, and then ask them if correlation proves causation?


While you're at it, ask the people who were already working.

Seriously, I've had enough of your pontificating, when you've never done a day's work in your life. You move out, get ap lace of your own, and live the minimum wage life for just one month, and then your opinion will be worth something. Until then, you are just another shit that needs a good flushing.

Feigning piousness again, Ace?

Ace42, salt of the earth, the common man.

Your 'debate' has went from:

Asserting something without proving

to

asserting the same thing, while providing no proof

to

assuming your original position is true, in order to back up your original position

to

doing the very same thing you accuse me of doing (Pontificating)

Ace job, Ace.

[Ace42X]

GMA']
Your 'debate' has went from:


My "debate" never got started. Every single time, it comes down to the same thing, a lengthy waste of time, resulting in you eventually backing down imperceptibly, and then coming back next time with exactly the same sort of bullshit, with a minutely different spin on it.

I have lost the will and inclination to do that.

From you asserting that every male in Switzerland owns a gun, to telling us how bad nationalisation is (and then say... "oh, wait, so... Like there are plenty of exceptions to this rule I was throwing around..."), to going on about chuffing liberty dollars, etc etc etc.

Fuck it. Just be wrong. It's easier than me having to correct you all the time.

[EN[i]GMA]

Forgive the rant; responding in kind.

My "debate" never got started. Every single time, it comes down to the same thing, a lengthy waste of time, resulting in you eventually backing down imperceptibly, and then coming back next time with exactly the same sort of bullshit, with a minutely different spin on it.

And now we get to the point in the debate where Ace's frail ego breaks down and goes on another 'petulent' rant, in some attempt to absolve from the fact that he has not provided a single solitary piece of proof for his primary assertion in the entire course of the discussion.

Ignore that fact and look instead at how Ace can browbeat an opponent! He must be winning the debate because he can engage in virulent abuse!

What's funny here is, this isn't even a 'debate' you can even possibly claim to have won, or competed in, because you didn't even go so far as to even back up your first assertion.

So yes, I'm mutually tired of these tirades of yours. Tired of having to deal with you twisting out of each and every point and resorting to nothing but childish insult-mongering.

Not I think any of this can guilt you; you're too far lost in your ego for it to have any effect.


I have lost the will and inclination to do that.

Poor Ace.

I guess your time would be spent stroking the ego (Or rather, having your ego stroked by) of fellow travellers.

I thought you were past the point of rampant, pointless, funny-in-a-pitiful-way, insultry, but I guess I was wrong there too.


From you asserting that every male in Switzerland owns a gun, to telling us how bad nationalisation is (and then say... "oh, wait, so... Like there are plenty of exceptions to this rule I was throwing around..."), to going on about chuffing liberty dollars, etc etc etc.

Fuck it. Just be wrong. It's easier than me having to correct you all the time.

A mistatement (I meant to say that every male in Switzerland is required to serve in the military, and that Switzerland has a high gun ownership rate, both of which are true. I mispoke and combined the (Similar) issues. Give it a fucking rest already. You serve none any purpose. You aren't impressing anyone with your ability to bring up meaningless shit, you aren't inspiring regret in me because I made a simple mistatement; you're doing anything at all, a common trend, perhaps.), a position I no longer hold, and something I have not seen proven.

I could quite entire passages out of books I have, on nationalization, but you and I both realize it would do nothing to dissuade you.

And yet I'm somehow the irrational ideologue? You already admitted that you aren't debating using reason; that you're akin to sisko. You act as if I'm suffering some great loss by not being able to debate someone who tells me 'nothing you can say will change my mind'.

I could fill you in on positions of mine that have changed recently, but it would be of little consequence, wouldn't it?

I don't believe in half that libertarian shit I believed in a year or so ago, to be honest.

I don't consider myself a libertarian or conservative anymore at all. Probably something like an American liberal plus free trade and more economic liberty.

I could spell out my views, but it would serve little purpose, because quite frankly, I don't give a fuck what you think, or what your spin on an issue is.

It, frankly, takes more than a 'loss' in a meaningless internet debate to change an entire political philosophy.

If it does your precious heart any good, I have changed my views, considerably, as a result of these debates, though I loathe to admit it to an egotistical reprobate such as yourself.

So in the interest of respectability and civil discourse in general, I'm going to end my part of the correspondence, indefinitely, as you are unable to respond with requisite decorum to the simplest of demands and further discussion will achive nothing but unecessary acrimony and vitriol.

Feel free to continue pissing in the wind.

[Ace42X]

I'm not going to be drawn on this. I really have no interest in discussing this sort of thing with you anymore. You're full of shit, and I have had enough. End of. Have another little vent if you want.

[checkyourprez]

we'll fight it, kicking and screaming...
but the US is probably going to have to relinquish it's #1 MOST POWERFUL SUPER MEGA AWESOME BEST COUNTRY monicor in order to truly make any non-profitable progress.

the profits must fall for equality and ethics to rise.

or perhaps not.
i just started reading "Capitalism, Democracy, and Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery" by John Muelller.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691090823/sr=8-1/qid=1144267526/ref=sr_1_1/103-7337657-8411808?%5Fencoding=UTF8

he argues that Capitalism can (and was designed) to be run ethically...and that you can be ethical AND profitable in a capitalistic system.
in fact, most DO so and make thier profits in such a manner.


thats actually a pretty good book. restored my faith in capitalism for a couple days...until i watched the news. and ya know it just ruined it for me.

but seriously, if capitalism really was practiced like it says in the book this place would be a much better place.

but capitalism inspires traits that dont really coincide with what Muller is takling about (im looking at it from the Marx base influences the super structure sort of way, because i tend to agree with it) in my opinion.

[fucktopgirl]

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa060409_wz_protests.1aeead68.html

[D_Raay]

From Real time with Bill Maher:


And finally, New Rule: Don't blame illegal immigrants for driving down wages. Blame Congress. Republicans in Congress have to stop saying that the problem with Mexicans coming over the border is they keep wages down. You know what keeps wages down? The fact that Congress hasn't raised the minimum wage since 1997. 1997, when my dealer still had a beeper! Car dealer, car dealer, what did I say?

Yes, news flash: Congress controls what the minimum wage is. Who did you think it was, the valet parking team at Tony Roma's? And upping the minimum wage would affect wages. It has to. The word "wage" is right in it. Even George Bush could understand that. Maybe not. The point is, the elephant in the room is that no one can live on minimum wage, and that we are making a whole swath of our society - tens of millions of people - live like animals. So that the luckier segment can live with indulgences their parents never dreamed of.

Do you know that most upper-middle-class people nowadays never clean their own toilet or do their own laundry...until they go to rehab.

AFFLECK: Sometimes not even then.

MAHER: Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage is actually lower than it was in 1968, the year George Bush graduated from Yale. And that is unforgivable! And the wage thing is bad, too.

People like to tell themselves that these immigrants do the jobs Americans won't do. Not true. Americans will pick fruit in the hot sun. But not at $5.15 an hour. Trust me. If some of these jobs paid real wages, your wife would be having sex with a Jewish gardener.

Americans want the contributions of the poor and the immigrant without having to actually see or be among them. Which is why I suggest, instead of building a wall on the border, we build a Wal-Mart. It would be 1,950 miles long, or the size of a normal Wal-Mart. And there would still be just the one register open. But it would solve this problem.

Because if we built this Wal-Mart exactly on the border, the Americans could come through the front door and shop, and the Mexicans could come through the back door and work. And then go home the same way at night, unless they got locked in. It is Wal-Mart.

In summation, I am not saying that raising the minimum wage is going to solve the illegal immigration problem. That can only be solved by arming Lou Dobbs. But five bucks an hour in an America where the luckier ones spend that on a coffee, is a cruel joke. And if you don't believe me, do what I do. Listen to the voices of those poor souls who are making this paltry sum. Of course, I have to. They're my staff.

[beastieangel01]

leave it to Ace and Enigma to debate/disect a subject to pieces....till the initial topic is lost in a swirl of dick waving.


Ha, my thoughts as well.

one thing i stand strongly for....is the withholding of healthcare to illegal immigrants AND thier children (regardless if they were born here), until they are naturalized and start paying taxes.
health care is not a charity system.

Although in some ways I agree with this, at the same time, should we deny them healthcare as they; cook our food, handle our food, etc?

[Qdrop]

should we deny them healthcare as they; cook our food, handle our food..

and pay no income tax to pay back into the health care system....




yeah, i see where you are coming from...a health/safety issue...
i dunno. that's actually a pretty valid point.
nice.

[beastieangel01]

Yeah I mean, I'm not saying that they SHOULD get free healthcare without paying taxes but at the same time... they are handling our food. Sick people and handling food is probably not a good idea ya know.

I don't know have an answer on how that should be remedied. It's just something to think about since I think it's pretty damned important that people should be healthy if they are handling food.