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Illegal Immigration
fredster:
Minimum wage has nothing to do with it. If there was a real minimum wage it would be around $11 an hour.
I don't know where you guys live, but it doens't take a genuis to figure out that rent at it's cheapest is about $300 a month. If you are going to have a car and all the tags, insurance, and care it's going to cost you at least $200 a month, and for gas, food, and clothes and utilities you add another 400 or 500 a month. With taxes and all, it's way over 5.50 an hour if you plan to do anything besides get up, work, and sleep.
My point is that if an employer can't find people to work at a certain wage, he has to raise it. He raises his prices to his customer. If they won't pay, he has to find better ways of doing his business. If that doesn't work, he goes out of business.
That's "Lazie faire" in it's pure form. But we have given life support to companies that shouldn't be here because of this.
First, get the employers. Adjust the wages to where they need to be. I believe that the mexicans are one of the reasons we have a CEO making $100,000,000 and an employee making $10000. That Big $ salary is being proped up by the mexicans. And it isn't fair to the rest because the balance of wages is way out of kilter.
Get rid of the low cost labor and the mix changes. It means higher prices in some things and possibly the death of dinosaur businesses that shouldn't be operating anyway.
Again, I don't have a thing against legal immigration. That's fine. But the worst thing is that these people break the law by comming here in the first place. They break laws while they are here by identity fraud. They cause neighbor hoods to collapse by the influx of these illegals. If anything happens and they can't hold a job (like they get hurt, etc) then there are big problems. Lots of people with no money also equals crime. Drugs are a way of making money, and they are bringing them in also.
What's the % of illegals in jails now? It should be 0, but what is it? 20% 30%, what?
It's not fair to them, but they are so despirate to make more than $10 a year in Mexico they will cut their own lives short for a chance at the big money. And for the people who do come here legally and follow the rules it's just not fair.
Grasshopper:
OK, another perspective from the UK.
First of all, I agree with most of what's been said so far.
The main reason for allowing immigration is essentially altruistic i.e. to allow people from other countries to escape from poverty and/or political repression. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, after all we have screwed the third world for hundreds of years, and it's about time we gave something back. But immigration has to be tightly controlled to maintain social cohesion, and to protect the environment and infrastructure.
The problem is that the pro-immigration lobby don't present their case in these terms. Instead we get a load of BS about how the economy would collapse without immigration.
The two biggest lies are that immigration is necessary to counteract the economic effects of an ageing population and to deal with the mysterious 'skills shortage'.
The only sustainable way to deal with an ageing population is to raise the retirement age. No one ever seems to ask what happens when the immigrants themselves retire. All immigration does is pospone the problem and potentially make it worse for the next generation.
What irritates me even more is business leaders bleating on about the so called 'skills shortage'. In a properly functioning market economy a skills shortage should be self-correcting.
Basically far too many companies are perfectly happy to pay preposterous salaries to their top executives, but don't want to pay the market rate for skilled jobs lower down the corporate ladder, or to pay for in-house training. It's blatant hypocrisy. If they paid the market rate then potential employees would be prepared to invest in getting the necessary skills for themselves.
tommy:
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Certainly not principles relating to the sanctity of marriage (Schiavo case).
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I find it astonishing that you see that case as a sanctity of marriage issue.
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RayB:
One point I want to make to no one in particular. There are many more illegals than just "the Mexicans". They are just more visible. It's not right to target them. If only you kne how many white people around you... perhaps the waiter you just served you, or heck maybe even the guy in the next cubicle who does the same job you do. Illegals come from all countries and come in all colors. But one thing I do know, is that not too many people who come from cushy middle class Californian cities would want to be out in the fields picking vegetables in 90' heat.
fredster:
Yep, RayB, but they are high on the list okay?
--- Quote ---It's not right to target them.
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Sure it is. Let's do a pareto diagram and go from #1 to #10. Let's see, who's number one? AH, people from Mexico!
--- Quote ---If only you kne how many white people around you... perhaps the waiter you just served you, or heck maybe even the guy in the next cubicle who does the same job you do.
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Nope. Not a one. Not a single one here. What white guys immigrate here illegally? And if they do, what country do they come in from? Canada or Mexico?
--- Quote ---But one thing I do know, is that not too many people who come from cushy middle class Californian cities would want to be out in the fields picking vegetables in 90' heat.
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Then they have a job don't they. But there are a lot of people who don't have jobs. I don't mind LEGAL immigration, worker passes, etc. It's when they jump the fence and just come in that I take exception to.
If no one harvested the crops, they would find a way to up the pay or we'd do without wouldn't we? We are enabling this situation by justifying it. We have made up production by technology. We'd figure a better way. I grew up on a farm. Back in those days they have very few migrant workers. There were lots of Americans that did the seasonal work.
Build the wall, stop the flow of illegals from the southern border, and then we can begin to manage the situation. I'm talking about Control, not exclusion.