Monetary Tsunami In America!!

Please explain??I am totally open to changing my mind, I used to vote republican, til I was a hair from needing welfare. I used to belive in God, til I wised up. I am not looking to argue, only to learn. I will be the first to tell you I am wrong. I think all men have right to try to improve their lives, within the law. I guess I want to know where these laws are flawed?Would a better guest worker program help?

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"I hate to advocate the use of drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they always worked for me." - Hunter S. ThompsonAd astra per aspera

Right now, our union is the only thing keeping the corporation from hiring illegals to stock the shelves at night. Were they allowed to do so, it would lower the wage of every one of us through attrition, as we would compete with each other for the limited hours left available. A lower middle class American can barely feed a family of four on twenty five thousand a year, but the new wage would be $12,500.00 a year...half as much as before. Whom does this demand help? Corporate stockholders and to a limited degree consumers.(though prices would not go much lower) Whom does it hurt? 14,000 lower middle class workers displaced into a hostile economy and likely forced to go on government assistance. Edited by Phat, : fixed mistakes

I'm sorry but do you have any support for that assertion?

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Yes. Right now, our contract covers every area in the store except floor maintenance, and floor maintenance is essentially 100% non English speaking immigrants. Our manager is so cheap, however, he even let one of them go and now makes us empty the trash in addition to our regular duties. (Which I dont complain about. )Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

It's racist to treat Hispanic immigrants from Mexico differently under the law from white immigrants from Spain, but that's exactly what we do. It's unfair that it takes more than 30 years for a Mexican laborer to be approved for legal immigration, but a European professor can do it in about six months. It's deeply punitive in that we regularly place immigrants into a legal limbo of incarceration without sentence, legal representation, or trial. And the "problem" of economic losses and downward wage pressure immigrants supposedly cause doesn't exist; economists universally agree that low-skill immigration produces economic gains for domestic residents. But for some reason, the popular and racist consensus against Hispanic immigration from Mexico remains. What would help is rethinking the notion that we need to keep out people who want to move here and do useful work, while American cities like Detroit are abandoning entire areas of the city due to depopulation.

That still offers no support for your assertions.You present no evidence that they are illegal.They do not effect your jobs.No one is competing for those jobs.In other words, not one of your assertions is supported.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

By the way, my trade is not considered un-skilled or low -skilled. I doubt very few of you know as much about plumbing as my helper does.Sorry I know this is off topic response, but I get sick of people thinking that construction jobs are simple low skill jobs.

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"I hate to advocate the use of drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they always worked for me." - Hunter S. ThompsonAd astra per aspera

Why? Immigrants can't live in Mexico and work in Denver, Phat. They have the same costs of living you do because they have to live where you live. They're no more inclined to accept a less-than-livable wage than you are, because they're paying the same bills.If there weren't ill-considered and racist laws against their right to work, they wouldn't have to be paid under the table, which is the sole advantage to employers - being able to evade payment of payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, and health care costs. They could join your union. They could pay taxes in your district. You. Illegal immigrants can't go on public assistance due to not having a US tax identity. Since they can take only limited advantage of public services, but contribute to the tax base via sales taxes and other revenue streams, they're clearly giving more than they get. Immigration is and always has been a positive force, economically.

I'm sorry, I don't think of plumbing as a low-skill profession, certainly. I assumed we were talking about low-skill immigration because that's usually what people are talking about when they're concerned about the effects of Hispanic immigration from Mexico.The guys coming over who actually are plumbers are even more beneficial for everyone, including you. We all benefit from skilled immigration, despite the nearly universal popular consensus that immigration is bad for everyone. It's really amazing how people get that completely wrong.

Construction is a wide-ranging field. Plumbers, crane operators, electricians, and other skilled labor all fall under the "construction" label, and so can unskilled basic laborers.But it's still a myth that illegal immigration somehow costs American jobs. It's just not true. At all. Illegal immigrants don't come to take jobs from already-employed Americans. Illegal immigrants come to fill open positions. They'll continue to come as long as there is work available. When new housing construction basically stopped in 2008, illegal immigrants started leaving the US in droves, and it's continued as other market sectors have been affected.US immigration laws fight a problem that does not exist. The only reason to get so riled up about illegal immigration is that you don;t want more brown people moving in. They don;t lower your wages. They don;t take your jobs. They use the ER, but on average you probably do too because you can't or won't spend the money for a normal doctor's visit. They pay taxes, frequently even income tax. They don't use social safety net programs like welfare or food stamps. They earn money and spend money, helping to drive the American economy.The problems with illegal immigration stem primarily from designating them as illegal in teh first place. Give them full legal rights like you and me, and they won;t be taken advantage of by employers because they won;t be able to be threatened with deportation. Give them social security numbers and they'll pay income taxes (and many of them already do using stolen identifications) in addition to the sales and other taxes they already pay anyway. Give them access to normal healthcare (hell, give it to the rest of us, too) and they won't go to the ER all the time. Give them drivers licenses and they can get car insurance.Give them legal identification paperwork at no charge when entering the US so that they can enjoy the rights we all do, and you won;t have a few million anonymous and un-tracked people hiding out and being exploited in the US.And the ones who still try to hide will obviously be people like drug runners (we can talk about the absurdity of the War on Drugs in another thread) and terrorists, who right now can sneak in pretty easily.Do you see where I'm going here? We spend disgusting amounts of time, money, and political hot air whining and bitching about illegal immigration, and we're causing the problem, not them. Yes, they're breaking the law. Yes, that's bad - but the law is counterproductive, too. It doesn't excuse willingness to break the law, but neither is there any real justification for current US immigration policy. It's all just a bunch of stupid racism and scapegoating.

That does not make them illegal. Also, non-english speaking does not even make them immigrants.You do realize that SW USA was populated by spanish speakers long before the USA even existed. There are many native born US Citizens for whom english is a second language. My father is one of those. Puerto Ricans have been US citizens since 1917. My Spanish speaking ancestors were US citizens further back than most of my ancestors on the english speaking side. Most of my mothers family came from Canada in the 1920's and 1930's.Racism is a very ugly thing.Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Thank you and frog for explaining your position, and for most part I agree.I mentioned a better guest worker program and I think the "illegal" immigrant status is something that needs to be addressed, for the benefit of all. If there was no market for people who felt they had to work cheap then we all would benefit. Am I wrong?

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"I hate to advocate the use of drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they always worked for me." - Hunter S. ThompsonAd astra per aspera

And it could be addressed easily and quickly by removing the exempted industries from the minimum wage laws, and by setting minimum wages as a percentage of the poverty level instead of a specific dollar amount.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

There's always a market for cheap labor; what depresses wages is when workers exist in a legal gray area (or dark area, for that matter.) If Hispanic immigrants from Mexico weren't forced by punitive immigration law to conceal their activities from the law, they wouldn't be exploited by unscrupulous employers.

What utter nonsense. All the retailers around here, as far as I know, hire only legal workersincluding the night-stock crew.Why? Night-stock is usually a well-paid position.

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