Immigration.....

[Nekulor]

Most of the ILLEGALS are not very well educated. Most of the more educated citizens find quicker routes through the buerocratic red tape to get into this country.

So, yes there are educated people in Mexico. No, most of them do not enter the US illegally.

[Jeppan]

Most of the ILLEGALS are not very well educated. Most of the more educated citizens find quicker routes through the buerocratic red tape to get into this country.

This actually a quite interesting assertion. My belief is that the majority people emigrating by choice are well educated (within limits). Are there any reliable statistics on this? When the Iranians came to Sweden in the early 80´s we got some seriously educated people, unfortunatly they came to the country just before a BIG recession meaning lots of shite like unemployment and racism.

So, yes there are educated people in Mexico. No, most of them do not enter the US illegally.

Wow! Your mind is so agile, you must be republican!

[Valdimir]

...It's all about the greed.

At this point the money interests are so strong and entrenched that nothing is going to change. The US is in decline, simple as that, due to a combination of corporations abandoning it for cheaper labor markets / lower taxes / lack of regulations, and govt policies that make it easy to do so and that give our public wealth to defense and energy companies, who are also headquartered overseas.

True. Greed is the basis of capitalism, from the profit-oriented corporation to the individual worker who demands more than his skillset is worth. In that vein, let's not forget the labor unions that have long out-lived their usefulness by preventing wages to be set at fair market value and forcing companies to look elsewhere. The days of The Jungleare long gone. Why should a manufacturer pay $20/hour to assemble widgets that can be outsourced for $2/hour? Their stockholders, in many cases you and me, would never forgive them. It is bad business. If you live in a capitalist society, you take the good with the bad and finger-pointing is nothing more than hypocritical self-righteousness.

Furthermore, if the US is in decline for those reasons, perhaps we ought to lower taxes and reduce government regulations so defense and energy companies bring their headquarters back to the States?

More to the point, IMO, national security needs to take precedence over labor regarding any future immigration policy. I support anything that works toward accountability for who is already here and screens newcomers. Back taxes and limiting access to government handouts are just a bonus.

[mxlm]

Why should a manufacturer pay $20/hour to assemble widgets that can be outsourced for $2/hour? Their stockholders, in many cases you and me, would never forgive them. It is bad business. If you live in a capitalist society, you take the good with the bad and finger-pointing is nothing more than hypocritical self-righteousness.

I take it you're unfamiliar with American Apparel, Costco, or In-N-Out Burger?

Just to pick a few examples. Relatively high wages are good business, not bad, and the insistence that the opposite is true is both self-defeating and (paradoxically) self-serving.

[Stormseeker]

*looks at the moving of white rogers to mexico and the close of a local plant, the empty shirt factories, the lay off's at gencore as part of the operation is moved to south america, and the outsourcing of title searches from ultimate software to south america* Yep trying to keep up with paying a higher wage sure has helped the area. Good thing these folks can get jobs at the fast food places,walmart, and working in the nursing home/hospital industry.(because of the tourist and retirement folks coming into the area)

[Valdimir]

I take it you're unfamiliar with American Apparel, Costco, or In-N-Out Burger?

Just to pick a few examples. Relatively high wages are good business, not bad, and the insistence that the opposite is true is both self-defeating and (paradoxically) self-serving.

Boy, you are full of examples today that I should be familiar with. I am familiar with the chains. So what? They pay high wages in the service sector? That is much harder to outsource than manufacturing, which I was referring to in my example. Even so, I read recently that a Pasadena newspaper outsourced to two correspondents in India. It won't be long until someone is taking your order for the double-double with cheese "animal style"from New Delhi.

[mxlm]

Boy, you are full of examples today that I should be familiar with.

Fair point. I apologize for the condescending tone.

That is much harder to outsource than manufacturing, which I was referring to in my example. Even so, I read recently that a Pasadena newspaper outsourced to two correspondents in India. It won't be long until someone is taking your order for the double-double with cheese "animal style"from New Delhi.

Actually, AA pays high wages in the manufacturing sector. Starting wage for the people assembling the clothing (in LA) is something like $15, with upper wage being somewhere between $20-$25.

I don't doubt that outsourcing is going to continue. My point is simply that it's unnecessary, though a great many businesses perceive it to be necessary.

[Zakharra]

I don't doubt that outsourcing is going to continue. My point is simply that it's unnecessary, though a great many businesses perceive it to be necessary.

Unneccessary from who's viewpoint? From the business's, it might be neccessary.

[Valdimir]

Unneccessary from who's viewpoint? From the business's, it might be neccessary.

I believe what he is saying is that higher wages bring better quality employees whose stellar performance in turn creates higher revenue. Please correct me if I paraphrased incorrectly.

In some cases, this may be true. Unfortunately, in most cases, it is not, especially in manufacturing. Dropping the bottom line creates profit faster than gambling on higher wages. I think mxlm's argument falls apart when he concedes that outsourcing will continue. Ultimately, if it was a false perception, market forces would bring us back to his premise.

[mxlm]

I think mxlm's argument falls apart when he concedes that outsourcing will continue. Ultimately, if it was a false perception, market forces would bring us back to his premise.

If the market were infallible and high wages were unequivocably superior to low wages, this would be correct.

I'll be the first to admit you can get far exploiting your people--see Carnegie, Rockefeller, Walmart, etc. I'd even concede you can probably get farther exploiting your people than you can by being nice to them (oversimplification, I know). However, you can be profitable and be 'nice' to your people at the same time. Even in manufacturing.

You can even be profitable and competitive by being 'nice'. What you can't do is have the sort of compensation system that enables Jack Welsh style earnings for the upper levels and be nice at the same time. By and large.

[Valdimir]

...However, you can be profitable and be 'nice' to your people at the same time. Even in manufacturing.

You can even be profitable and competitive by being 'nice'. What you can't do is have the sort of compensation system that enables Jack Welsh style earnings for the upper levels and be nice at the same time. By and large.

I never asserted that an employer cannot turn a profit without paying fair, or even generous wages, in certain sectors. In the long term, it may even be healthier for the companies. The happy medium is the ideal for both camps.

Unfortunately, in todays business world of publicly traded stocks, the focus is on the short term profit and the fastest way to gain that is by cutting labor costs. For that matter, this instant gratification often sacrifices long term investment by companies. If the trend turns toward private vice public owned companies, perhaps we will see a change. Until then, I expect us to get more and more of our widgets from China.

[Mulu]

Sounds like a good argument for regulation to prevent companies from engaging in short-term activities at long-term expense.

If you want to talk about Capitalism and its problems/solutions, you have to start with the Great Depression. But I thought this was a thread on immigration?

I'll be the first to admit I'm a bit of a protectionist. I see no reason to enrich India at America's expense, even if Wall Street gets short term profits from it. The vast majority of Americans do not benefit from Wall Street's profits. A true patriot wants a better life for all US citizens.

[Valdimir]

Sounds like a good argument for regulation to prevent companies from engaging in short-term activities at long-term expense.

More regulation? Gah! You can see what that has done for French and German economies...

If you want to talk about Capitalism and its problems/solutions, you have to start with the Great Depression. But I thought this was a thread on immigration?.

We can talk the Great Depression if you like. I think we have moved beyond the "immigrants are stupid" debate to the true impetus behind most legislation, money. Should we start a new thread debating capitalism and socialism? I am sure some of our Euro brethren have some interesting perspectives.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a bit of a protectionist. I see no reason to enrich India at America's expense, even if Wall Street gets short term profits from it. The vast majority of Americans do not benefit from Wall Street's profits. A true patriot wants a better life for all US citizens.

Protectionism has never, and will never, work. It is a crutch for those that cannot compete globally. I too want a better life for all Americans, but I don't think it is my responsibility to bankroll a robust welfare system or to pay more for my goods and services. I don't think that makes me less of a patriot.

[fluffmonster]

The notion that illegal immigrants is at the expense of the nation, or even workers at large, is somewhat thin. Only a very small portion of the US labor force is directly impacted in a negative way because the majority of illegals do work that simply wouldn't be done by domestics, such as picking fruit. For these people, yes, illegal immigration is essentially a transfer from the domestics to the illegals. That leaves out a lot of pieces of the puzzle however. Those foreign workers make other resources more productive, including some other workers. The primary benefit is not higher profits for firms but lower prices for consumers. On net, the country is better off with those foreign workers.

However, there are real problems that come from the illegal nature of the immigration. Taking welfare handouts is generally not one of them and is not really a credible complaint (depending on what is meant by "handout"). What immigrants do use is primarily education and to a lesser extent health care. Illegals do pay more in taxes than they use in services, but the taxes are sales taxes which go to the state coffers while the services (and associated expenses) are at the local level. This creates fiscal problems, but this is primarily a problem of public financing which screws plenty of Americans in ways completely unrelated to immigration.

[mxlm]

Unfortunately, in todays business world of publicly traded stocks, the focus is on the short term profit and the fastest way to gain that is by cutting labor costs. For that matter, this instant gratification often sacrifices long term investment by companies. If the trend turns toward private vice public owned companies, perhaps we will see a change. Until then, I expect us to get more and more of our widgets from China.

We can't blame publicly traded stocks for the 'cut labor' mentality, since it's been with us since the Industrial Revolution. What we can blame, if blame is the right word, is society. The notion that 'greed is good', that it's acceptable to focus purely on maximizing one's own gain, that our vices are in fact virtues, and so on.

Protectionism has never, and will never, work

This is incorrect. Protectionism is necessary for developing economies to get to the point where they can compete globally. There's a reason all the countries that have dropped their walls at the IMF's behest have met with disaster, and it's the same reason that China--which laughed off the IMF--has been such a success.

See Stiglitz's work if you care for a more detailed explanation.