$5 submissions

This piece focuses on the intersection between labor, capital, and capital's ability to substitute technology for labor. Also has serious implications regarding the political forces behind the current debate (ie., how REAL is the whole "labor shortage" argument?):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101146_pf.html

I am not fully convinced but it does raise some interesting points to keep in mind.

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Why

i have no problems with building a wall of a fence.

KRL

You want to get rid of 12 Million hard workers?

I'd like to know who the hell else is going to go out on the farm in the hot sun with their back bent over all day long picking the fruits and vegetables we all love so much.

Or who is going to sit in sweat shops doing the sewing for this country's clothing manufacturers.

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Snake Doctor

Yes I would like to get rid of 12 million ILLEGAL aliens who are working ILLEGALLY under the table and NOT paying U.S. taxes on their income.

There are lots of people who will work on a farm picking vegetables, IF the pay is adequate and the job is reasonably safe.
Saying you need illegal aliens because you can't get Americans to work for slave wages and in unsafe working conditions is like saying we should legalize crack because it keeps crack dealers off of welfare.

Also your line about the sweatshops where they sew clothes is inacurrate. Those jobs got moved out of this country a long time ago.

The bottom line is big business can't get Americans to work for slave wages and in slave conditions. So rather than raising wages and improving working conditions they BREAK THE LAW by hiring illegals.
Since they have this president in their back pocket, they're using him to try and make what they're already doing legal.

We currently have an unemployment rate of over 5%. That number doesn't include what the labor department calls "discouraged workers" who have been unemployed for a very long period of time.
Once our economy reaches "full employment" and we have a real "labor shortage" then I have no problem with the government opening up more spots for LEGAL IMMIGRANTS to move here and fill those positions.

Snake Doctor

Something else I'd like to point out is we're NOT saving money by having illegals do work here for lower wages than an American would.

The only people saving money are the businesses that employ the illegals.
The rest of us have to pay the cost of putting the illegal immigrant's children in our public schools, we have to teach them english, we have to provide health care for them (because they'll go to the emergency room and then never pay the bill)
In the meantime you have American citizens collecting unemployment and welfare checks.

If the illegals weren't here the employers would be forced to raise wages in order to fill those positions. We wouldn't be providing education and health care for illegal immigrants AND we would have fewer Americans living on the dole.

chadglni

Lenny if the illegals weren't doing those jobs there would be no jobs for anyone else to take. Some of those businesses would not survive with higher wages and no, most people do not want to work in the damn fields when they can go work at McDonalds instead.

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tony286

put the employers in jail , if they really want to stop it.

Snake Doctor

That's absolute bullshit.
If a business can't survive without paying higher wages they should be allowed to break the law?
If they have to pay higher wages they won't go out of business. They'll just have to work with a tighter profit margin or pass the increase on to the consumer. (And if we're referring to agriculture they're already subsidized out the ass anyways. So we hand the corporate farmers big fat government checks paid for out of my tax dollars so they can use that money to hire illegal Mexicans? Fuck that)

As for the McDonald's thing. McD pays minimum wage or close to it as far as I know. You don't think that manual labor should pay more than that? If it pays more plenty more people will be willing to do it.

Snake Doctor

You usually don't put people in jail for white collar non-violent crime. There's not enough room in the prisons for that.

However I am liking the idea of heavy fines for employers who hire illegals. That would take the economic incentive away from them if the fines were high enough.

chadglni

Well you're opinion is these businesses would survive with higher wages and my opinion is they wouldn't. Pass on the extra doesn't always work. If you make the products ridiculously priced you won't sell any of it then the businesses start shutting down which hurts the economy more than illegals taking your money back home.

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GatorB

Ok so if a person can't make a high wage then people here say "Fuck him that's his own fault he not smart enough to get a better job" If a business owner can't make enough profit without paying slave wages then we are supposed to allow him to higher illegals and pay slave wages? Well maybe that guy shouldn't be in business and should be working for someone else because he is obviously to stupid to run a business and oay workers a decent wage.

Funny how people are against welfare for the poor, but welfare to incompetent business owners is ok.

Also most jobs are NOT farm jobs. I have this friend who has a female friend who's boyfriend is illegal mexican so is his 2 brothers one of which is 15. All 3 work in factory full time. In that area unemployment is nearly 10% in this region so do no tell me there are 3 AMERICANS in my area that would take those jobs if they could. I my county we have a wal-mart super center being built. A lot of the work force is mexican. Unemployment rate in my county is 8% in a GOOD month. Hmmmmmmmm. Don't tell me they couldn't find LOCAL workers to do the work.

Odin

Watch and learn from the Japanese. Unlike the West they aren't selling out their nations to the floodgates of immigrants that we are meant to 'need'. There is, in my opinion, absolutely no way in the next 50 years Japan (which faces the same aging population issues as the West) will open up to mass-immigration. Will the Japanese economy crash and burn? Will it become a third world nation because they don't have all these hard working Mexicans to do unskilled work? Of course not. Japan will be just fine, and if immigration weren't such a taboo topic in the West we'd end up in just as fine a position with a bit of effort.

Snake Doctor

Which businesses are you talking about that won't survive?
If there are NO ILLEGAL workers in the U.S. then all companies are playing on a level playing field, they'll all have to pay similar wages and have to charge similar prices and the ones that are managed the best are the ones that will prosper.

Saying that the businesses won't survive without ILLEGAL LABOR is ridiculous. Then perhaps those people shouldn't be in business to begin with.

It's the same argument businesses make whenever Democrats want to raise the minimum wage. "It'll cost the economy jobs" "We'll go out of business if we have to pay workers more" etc etc etc
But none of those things ever happen, all that happens is the workers make more money and prices go up a little bit.

GatorB

In case I didn't make my point clear. Let that business die. Cream rises to the top. COMPETENT business survive and make money. As I said how come personal responsibility only applies to workers and not businesses. If you're too stupid or lazy to make you business work then the government should bail you out? where do i sign up for this program?

tony286

THey want to put the illegals in jail as felons, they are people just trying to eat. PUt the owners in jail then you will get results, they are breaking the law. They dont put people in jail for white collar non violent crimes. They come in tomorrow and your 2257 isnt right. Your ass is sitting in jail for 5 years, now your telling me the guy who knowing hires illegals for slave wages shouldnt go to jail.

KRL

Illegal aliens do get taxes taken out. They don't get to collect refunds though, nor are they able to file returns obviously.

Dude, you've never been in the fields if you think anyone else is going to do that shit work.

And where do you get off saying illegals still aren't working working in garment and other factories??? I worked in the clothing mfg. industry and my family was in it since the 1930's. Los Angeles alone has 140,000 immigrants slavinng in clothing factories.

I've been in factories and I guarantee you these companies could never operate without the immigrant work force. And if they did they'd either go out of business or the price of manufactured goods in this country would skyrocket.

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Snake Doctor

See here's the thing that big business doesn't want the average American to understand. Some of you may think I need a tin foil hat to go along with this theory but if you hear (read) me out you'll have to admit it makes sense.

We all know about supply and demand.
When demand goes up, supply goes down, and prices increase.
When demand goes down, supply goes up, and prices decrease.

In business, prices are indeed controlled by the supply/demand curve (assuming there's no monopoly)
You have competitors who are trying to take business from you and they price their goods accordingly, but still at a level high enough to make a profit, and the consumer wins.

It's supposed to work the same way in the wage market.
When unemployment gets low, businesses have to fight harder to get workers, and wages go up.
When unemployment is high, there is a glut of workers and wages go down or stagnate.
However, during the current administration businesses have been able to artificially control the supply of workers available by importing illegal immigrants. (Knowing that this administration's INS would look the other way)
By doing this the supply always stays high, so not only do you get cheap labor from illegal immigrants, but you can also depress the entire wage market by keeping the unemployment rate high.
It's the equivalent of the Chinese "dumping" cheap textiles or shrimp or whatever into the American market in violation of WTO rules, something that we as a people would throw a fit about. Only in this case American businesses are dumping cheap labor onto the market.
Now what's even worse is this president is trying to make this practice legal.
If you believe that this is somehow good for the American economy then you've been drinking way too much of the republican kool aid.

Snake Doctor

I don't think you realize how off base your arguments are man.

You're saying that if we don't let these companies violate the law they'll go out of business so we should let them do it so they can stay in business?
BULLSHIT!!.

Do you feel sorry for the crack dealer who was just trying to feed his kids by selling on the street corner? How about the guy who knocks over the liquor store or the investment planner who defrauds his customers?

We don't allow anybody else to break the law in the name of making a living or staying in business so why should the textile industry or agriculture be any different?

The problem today is that not only has there been no enforcement of any of these laws in the last 6 years, now these companies are using their money, power, and influence to try and get the government to make these activities legal.

Pornwolf

If immigrants were not slaving away the sharp rise of costs in just about every product would be a blow to the American family. They would have to raise wages at least 30-40% to entice Americans to do those menial jobs.

Actually, the wages would have to raise more than that because a large percentage of those Mexicans in the toughest jobs get paid even less than minimum wage... in cash. Ask the dishwasher at your local greasy spoon restaurant how much he gets paid. Oh wait, he doesn't speak english so here's the question in Spanish...

How much do you get paid? = ¿Cuán to usted consigue pagado?

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Paul Markham

amazing how many here think the US economy would suffer if you kicked out the illegal immigrants.

Seems it's not as strong as you thought if 500,000 workers on illegally low wages will bring it all down.

I personally think the US is a lot stronger than that and agree with those who think the only people who would suffer would be the people employing them. Most goods manufactured by unskilled labour are now imported, most of the US agriculture is subsidised and they would ask for a bit more to take some US citizens off welfare and a yes lot of middle income families would have to mow their own lawns and do the laundry. But with obesity being a major problem in the Us that's not such a bad thing.

We were recently offered a job in the US for $100K. Told the company we do not work for slave wages.

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QQQ

30-40 years ago AMERICAN CITIZENS picked the fields, did the laundry and cut the grass for minimum or + wages. This bullshit about "who" is going to do this stuff is just a smokescreen for the corporations. Who have, btw, also appropriated the language of the civil rights movement AND the race card to basically commit genocide
on American citizens, bringing in third world diseases via illegals who have no health checks and pulling the economic carpet out from under our poorest citizens.

What really infuriated me about these marches this weekend was the rallying call by these illegals of "we have a right to a better life." I truly think these folks are full of hatred and xenophobia for our culture, they hate the citizens, they don't give a flying fuck about our right to a better life, it's all about THEM THEM THEM.

potter

I have to give Lenny2 some applaud here. Very good posts. Keep up the good work.

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gideongallery

it obvious you don't understand economics at all

The theory of supply and demand describes how prices vary as a result of a balance between product availability at each price (supply) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand).

i suggest you read this

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bringer

exploiting uneducated people is fun huh

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JFK

now you're talking, Americans want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the lowest prices possible, but oh No, heaven forbid some poor schuck should be working illegally to make this pricing possible

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Paul Markham

Good point, a consumer society that wants more and more for less and less, but no one suffers.

Cloud cuckoo land.

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$5 submissions

What about the article? Do you guys agree that it's possible that the USA, being a high-tech society, would use some of its capital to replace labor through either bioengineered farm products or better machines? Usually when the price of something soars and there's no available replacement, technology steps in to create alternatives which become cheaper with mass proliferation. This goes hand in hand with what Chief said earlier regarding Japan. Do you see this as a possibility? Any stumbling blocks to this prediction?

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woj

Getting rid of them seems like a good idea, but
1. real estate market is weak as it is, less population = less demand = bubble may burst, and shit may hit the fan
2. No matter how things are spun, getting rid of illegal immigrants will cause prices of many goods and services to go up.. In theory, wages will go up to compensate for the higher prices, but then this will fuel inflation, fed will continue to raise interest rates to fight inflation, and then RE estate owners will be even more fucked... causing shit to hit the fan even harder...

In my opinion this is all polititical bs, the economy is pretty weak and fragile as it is, and there is no way doing major changes to the labor market like this will not cause economy to collapse...

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KRL

I can't believe how many are so arrogant to think you can simply take out 12 million people doing the most menial jobs in the country and somehow get 12 million "Americans" to start doing these jobs and the economy will be just fine.

You guys need to take some refresher courses in Economics. Seriously.

And anyone who buys that these folks are going to all of a sudden trust the US Government and go and register their identity is really in la la land.

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com

when the irish first came here LEGALLY we took what we could get; no matter what that may be.

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KRL

WASP's "own" the companies.

JEW's "run" the companies.

and the ITALIAN MAFIA "works" the companies.

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Odin

You can't suddenly do anything. Everything is a process, everything takes time, everything is always a struggle, competition, and involves work and ingenuity. But ultimately I personally believe and know there are workable solutions to this problem, just like the thousands of other challenging issues facing our societies every day. Can you throw 12 Million people out in one day and think everything will be exactly the same? No. Can you systematically protect your borders, reduce illegal immigration whilst maintaining economic strength? Of course. It is equivelent to saying that people at the time could never survive without slavery, (this arguement was of course often made), but of course in the end just about any issue can be overcome if people are serious about solving the challenges in overcomming it. There is however, unlike in Japan, just a complete lack of polticial will on this issue.

Alex

You make it seem as if all of the migrant wokers and "sweat shop" workers ARE illegal immigrants.

A lof of them arent.

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Drake

Illegal immigrants are necessary to sustain our current economy in its current form but do we want to sustain it in its current form. Does America suffer or gain from illegal immigration? I don't think anybody really knows because nobody is able to compare the benefits (money saved on goods due to cheap labor) versus the costs (healthcare, education) accurately.

I somehow think that the people benefiting most from illegal immigration are large companies that employ them. I don't think we save money on goods because of cheap labor, I think that just translates into higher profit margin for companies. Illegal immigration isn't much different than outsourcing, except that your "outsourced" labor is actually in your backyard undocumented. I agree with others who say the companies should go out of business if they can't handle highering fair priced labor, after we enforce and stamp out illegal workers to make the playing field even for all competitors. Nbody cares when the average joe gets laid off because a company needs to cut back costs leaving that average joe in destitute. Well, the same should apply to companies... if you can't make it by legitimate means, sorry but you're going to have to find another business to get into. No more free ride.

minusonebit

All of these problems you point out can be traced back to our departure from the gold standard. You see, there should be no federal reserve. The US Dollar is worthless as it is, Mexicans or no Mexicans. Everyone wants to keep the lie going a little longer, and they'll let all kinds of insane and illegal things happen so they can have a few more years of ignorant bliss. I say let the damn economy collapse. Maybe next time people wont be so stupid and allow the government to put such a scam in place and call it an economy.

Drake

Those people arguing about legal immigration and what their Irish immigrants did in the past is really not a valid comparison to the current illegal immigration issue. Mexico is a neighbor to the US, so jumping from one piece of dirt on to another is a lot easier than sailing across an ocean. If your family is in poverty and you can make good money by hoping across some unseen line in the sand, you'll do it.

jjjay

I heard that immigration is one of the key factors in keeping inflation in check

Snake Doctor

Gee you're right, I don't know anything about macroeconomics

So I guess my statement was totally off base that when you flood the market with supply (illegal immigrant labor) it causes prices to go down or stagnate?

Just because I didn't explain supply and demand in the exact same way the textbook does, doesn't mean I don't understand it and that the principle doesn't apply to my argument about labor.
I was paraphrasing off the top of my head. Get a grip man.

Snake Doctor

This is the best comparison I've seen so far in regards to the illegal immigrant labor issue.

The southern farmers and plantation owners did indeed say they would go bankrupt if we all of a sudden freed millions of slaves and they would have to pay prevailing wages to get people to work in their fields.
Seems like it all worked out just fine though.

Snake Doctor

As far as prices and inflation go. Where did you get the idea that the average American wants to exploit people for lower prices?
If you read the polling data the vast majority of Americans are against illegal immigrant labor and against the outsourcing of jobs, even if it means they'll have to pay higher prices. (Because if these two things didn't exist wages would be higher, so what we pay for goods as a % of our income would be roughly the same)

Of course Americans are going to buy products where they're the cheapest (Wal Mart) but that doesn't mean that when prices go up we'll start screaming to bring the immigrants back. That's absurd.

In regards to inflation. Inflation isn't all bad regardless of what you may have heard on fox news.
Inflation is bad for lenders, but good for borrowers. As long as wages keep pace with or outpace inflation then there's really no problem, you don't lose any of your purchasing power and you get to pay back today's loans in tomorrow's dollars.
What we really need to be afraid of is deflation, which is what happened during the great depression.

Plus none of these arguments address the core issue which is American companies are breaking the law in order to increase their profits and Bush is trying to give them a free pass. I'm asonished at the lack of outrage over this.

jjjay

I'm not getting into an argument with you, and don't watch fox fyi. I was just repeating what the chairman of the bank of england said - that immigration has helped keep inflation in check, especially wage inflation. I think he might know his stuff. look it up if you don't believe me

Drake

That may be because while slaves were free legally, they were still slaves since they had to continue working to earn a living in essentially the same conditions and wages as when they were slaves. The process has been ongoing for 150 years now.

tony286

Your kidding me right one word Walmart lol

The Factories of Lost Children
By KATHARINE WEBER

Bethany, Conn.

NINETY-FIVE years ago, March 25 also fell on a Saturday. At 4:40 p.m. on that sunny afternoon in 1911, only minutes before the end of the workday, a fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Asch Building, a block east of Washington Square in Manhattan.

The Triangle Waist Company occupied the top three floors of the 10-story building. There, some 600 workers were employed in the manufacture of ladies' shirtwaists, most of them teenage girls who spoke little English and were fresh off the boat from Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy. The fire, probably caused by a carelessly tossed match or cigarette butt (there were perhaps 100 men working at the Triangle), engulfed the premises in minutes.

The factory owners and the office staff on the 10th floor, all but one, escaped onto the roof and climbed to an adjacent building on Waverly Place. But on the eighth and ninth floors, the workers were trapped by a deadly combination of highly combustible materials, workrooms crowded by dense rows of table-mounted sewing machines, doors that were locked or opened inward, inadequate fire escapes, and the lack of any plan or instruction.

Before the first horse-drawn fire engines arrived at the scene, girls ? some holding hands, in twos and threes ? had already begun to jump from the windows. The hundred-foot drop to the cobbled street was not survivable. The firemen deployed their nets, but the force of gravity drove the bodies of the girls straight through to the pavement, and they died on impact.

The ladders on the fire trucks were raised quickly, but the New York City Fire Department of 1911 was not equipped to combat fires above six stories ? the limit of those ladders. The top floors of the Asch Building, a neo-Renaissance "fireproof" warehouse completed in 1901 in full compliance with building codes, burned relentlessly.

The workers trapped near the windows on the eighth and ninth floors made the fast and probably instinctive choice to jump instead of burning or suffocating in the smoke. The corpses of the jumpers, by some estimates as many as 70, could at least be identified. But the bodies of most of those who died inside the Triangle Waist Company ? trapped by the machinery, piled up on the wrong side of doors, heaped in the stairwells and elevator shafts ? were hideously charred, many beyond recognition.

Before 15 minutes had elapsed, some 140 workers had burned, fallen from the collapsing fire escapes, or jumped to their deaths. Several more, critically injured, died in the days that followed, putting the official death toll at 146.

But what happened to the children who were working at the Triangle Waist Company that afternoon?

By most contemporary accounts, it was common knowledge that children were usually on the premises. They were hidden from the occasional inspectors, but underage girls, as young as 9 or 10, worked in most New York garment factories, sewing buttons and trimming threads. Where were they on this particular Saturday afternoon?

There are no descriptions of children surviving the fire. Various lists of those who died 95 years ago today ? 140 named victims plus six who were never identified (were some of those charred remains children?) ? include one 11-year-old, two 14-year-olds, three 15-year-olds, 16 16- year-olds, and 14 17-year-olds. Were the ages of workers, living and dead, modified to finesse the habitual violation of child labor laws in 1911? How many children actually died that day? We will never know. And now 1911 is almost beyond living memory.

But we will also never know how many children were among the dead on May 10, 1993, in Thailand when the factory of the Kader Industrial Toy Company (a supplier to Hasbro and Fisher-Price) went up in flames. Most of the 188 workers who died were described as teenage girls.

We will never know with any certainty how many children died on Nov. 25, 2000, in a fire at the Chowdhury Knitwear and Garment factory near Dhaka, Bangladesh (most of the garments made in Bangladesh are contracted by American retailers, including Wal-Mart and the Gap), where at least 10 of the 52 trapped in the flames by locked doors and windows were 10 to 14 years old.

And we will never know how many children died just last month, on Feb. 23, in the KTS Composite Textile factory fire in Chittagong, Bangladesh. The official death toll has climbed into the 50's, but other sources report that at least 84 workers lost their lives. It's a familiar story: crowded and unsafe conditions, locked exits, hundreds of undocumented female workers as young as 12, a deadly fire. There may never be another tragic factory fire in America that takes the lives of children. We don't lock them into sweatshops any more. There are child labor laws, fire codes.

But as long as we don't question the source of the inexpensive clothing we wear, as long as we don't wonder about the children in those third world factories who make the inexpensive toys we buy for our own children, those fires will occur and young girls and boys will continue to die. They won't die because of natural catastrophes like monsoons and earthquakes; they will die because it has become our national habit to outsource, and these days we outsource our tragedies, too.

Snake Doctor

I totally agree that illegal immigration does help to keep inflation in check. What I was pointing out is that inflation isn't all bad, and that the overall cost to our society is more than what we save vis a vis lower inflation.

jjjay

I'm no economics major so I can't really debate the pros and cons of low/high inflation, but - the bank of england's inflation target is around 2% per year. to paraphrase them "controlled inflation is good for the economy"

Snake Doctor

I don't think that most Americans truly understand the exploitative nature of Wal Mart's business practices.
Also, when you live in a rural area like we do Wal Mart is the only place to shop, even though we despise them we have no other choice. (They've put everyone else out of business and they're the only game in town)

Also, like I stated earlier. Americans are naturally going to shop at the place in town with the lowest prices, they'd be stupid not to.
However if we got rid of illegals, and prices and wages went up as a result, people wouldn't start screaming to bring back the illegals because a loaf of bread costs 10 cents more.
The percentage of income the average person would have to spend on household goods would remain roughly the same because wages would go up along with prices.

Snake Doctor

Ok, well then let's send the 12 million illegal immigrants we have to England, then they can have all the low inflation they want.

wyldblyss

I don't know of too many people willing to work in a field all day in the sun doing backbreaking work for even minimum wage. Oh hell, not many of them would do it for $10/hour. That is tough friggen work. If someone wants to work hard, they can get a high paying dirty job, why bother with the low paying one.

Brad Mitchell

I believe all illegals should be removed and we should put real borders up between Mexico and the US.

Perhaps since manufacturing has gone the way of being outsourced to Southeast Asia many of the unemployed poor in our inner cities who already have some of the lowest quality of life would naturally end up finding work in agricultural positions in other parts of the country... in areas where people are otherwise leaving, where quality of life is higher.

The US is very resilient. I won't believe any argument that removal of this workforce would end any industry that doesn't already deserve an adjustment or natural death. I don't like my tax dollars subsidizing bad business. One way or another I am still paying. If I wasn't paying for all of the social services help and healthcare for illegals perhaps I wouldn't mind paying another 50% for strawberries in the store.

It's just a fucking joke. Maybe we'll end up turning this into a conversation here about farm subsidies, too, that would be interesting to discuss further how the richest country in the world pays farmers to not grow crops and continue inefficient business practices... whereas in any other industry with any other business the owner would just go out of business and someone else would figure out how to make lemonade out of lemons.

There's just too much to discuss on this subject for any of us to get all of our thoughts out. There are tens of millions living below the poverty line and what it all boils down to is that you people who want the illegals are placing a priority on people that aren't even citizens of the United States.

Brad

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tony286

The sad part they are using this as a smoke screen and we are all biting.