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Originally Posted by aceventura3
The US is not an island economy. We compete on a global basis. We and you consume on a global basis. We have to be effecient and cost effective. I think we spend too much effort thinking about the "good ol days", rather than competing. Every nation on earth wants to eat our lunch. When did we actually become a nation of wimps, rather than a nation of fighters?........
......Also, I don't get the obsession with companies saving money on labor costs when there is an opportunity. If profits are so great and the companies so evil, why don't the "workers" take over the companies and run them - if they think they can do it better..........If there is a better answer, I would like to know.
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I can't fathom that describing/objecting to a conspiracy to avoid enforcing immigration laws and border and port security, that results in the amassing of a low wage alternate pool of undocumented, illegal resident U.S workers who now are "guessed" to number 11 milion, accompanied by an ongoing risk to "homeland" security that should be more of a concern to those who accept that a "war on terror" exists, and who support those who peddle that "line", would even be countered by someone self described as "right winger".
Wouldn't deliberately compromising border security and turning a blind eye to a steady influx of foreign trespassers; failing to vigorously enforce "homeland security" related laws, during "a time of war", be activities that you would energetically object to.....reverse government "regulation" that threatens the "heightened security" environment that you accept as legitimately existing, while I don't.
How could you support extra-constitutional authority for our president, yet seem so unconcerned about this security compromise of continuing illegal immigration?
aceventura3, follow the money....who benefits from the lax border and port security, and weak penalties levied against employers who hire illegal aliens, and/or who pay them in cash?
Your argument, above, does not respond to the fact of intentional "flooding" of the internal U.S. labor market with a "parllel", illegal, non-American, lower paid and easier to supervise, unaware of their rights and ineligible for labor law protections, labor pool.
If homebuilders, restaurantuers, landscapers, janitorial services, hotel chains, McDonald's, and individual wealthy householders were deprived of this "parallel" pool of workers, how would a shift to hiring the only alternative, labor....higher priced, rights aware, and harder to supervise, legal American
workers, impact negatively on anything of signifigance, other than on the "bottom line" of those who have taken advantage of the "parallel" labor pool, skirted the law, and experienced oversized labor profit margins or lower household service costs? These "parasites" (yeah...that is what they are....) would not be able to pass much of their increased costs onto the rest of us, in our competitive economic climate, and the "bar" would be raised, simultaneously and equally on the cost strutcture of all who have a need to buy these local wage earner's services.
Refrigerators and cars can be manufactured anywhere, but cooks, dishwashers, baby sitters, maids, and crop tillers have to be contracted and employed locally. The opportunists can lay off production workers on a whim, but their local "parallel" labor pool scam doesn't fit heightened security concerns, after the 9/11 hyped farce, "changed everything". Yet these neocon propagandists have been greedy and brazen enough to have it all....costitutional rights robbing "war powers", war profiteering, and continued unguarded ports and borders, and now the sham spectacle of immigration "reform" to cement their "parallel pool" more firmly in residence in "der Homeland".
Consider this unique survey that, since 1974, (2002 and 1999 select results displayed below) polled the opinions of nearly 400 U.S. elite and policy "leaders", and displayed the results along with public polling numbers, for camparison. The public clearly wanted immigration controls and job protection, much more than the "leaders". The public correctly viewed "world terrorism" as a much greater threat, and much sooner (in 1999) than the "leaders" did.
These survey results reinforce my point that the "leaders" serve only the priorities of themselves and of their wealthy sponsors with whom they share common interests, off in a class that is divorced from the priorities of the public that they pretend to work on behlaf of. This is first, a class issue. Control and gaming of the system for the benefit of an elite class, at the expense of everyone else......
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http://www.worldviews.org/detailrepo...tml/ch8s1.html
Overview: Leaders and the Public
Previous chapters have dealt with the foreign policy opinions and perceptions of the general public. This chapter examines the attitudes of a set of influential foreign policy leaders and assesses how well those attitudes do or do not align with the views of the public.
The leaders surveyed agree with the public on a number of issues, including some that are controversial in policy-making circles. On many other issues, however, this consensus breaks down. Many of the divergences between the public and the leaders are large and have endured for decades. Some probably reflect informational differences, but others appear to reflect genuine discrepancies between the values and interests of foreign policy leaders and those of the American citizenry.
This analysis is based on a comparison of views expressed in the Chicago Council/GMF public survey with the views of a sample of “leaders” with foreign policy power, specialization, and expertise, who were asked many of the same questions as the public. Specifically, 397 U.S. opinion leaders and decision makers were interviewed by telephone between May 17 and July 15, 2002. They were drawn from eight distinct groups in society: administration officials in the State, Treasury, Commerce, and other departments and agencies dealing with foreign policy; members of the House and Senate or their senior staff with committee responsibilities in foreign affairs1; senior business executives from Fortune 1000 firms who deal with international matters; university administrators and academics who teach in the area of international relations; presidents of major organizations or large interest groups active in foreign affairs; presidents of the largest labor unions; religious leaders; and journalists and editorial staff who handle international news. For purposes of analysis, data for each of the individual groups were also reviewed separately for comparisons among them and with the leader sample as a whole as well as with the public.
The individuals interviewed (or their immediate superiors) hold key leadership positions. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the inner circle of foreign policy decision makers in the White House or the Department of Defense, few of whom were interviewed. However, many of the interviewees exercise direct authority over U.S. foreign policy, while others may affect policy indirectly, through lobbying, expert writing and testimony, and contributions to public debate.
In all seven previous Chicago Council studies, starting in 1974, simultaneous surveys of leaders and of the general public were conducted, using many identical questions. This chapter focuses on the 2002 data but draws upon surveys from previous years as well.
1 - Although several members of Congress completed the survey, most of our congressional respondents were senior staff, who we believe largely reflected the attitudes of the members for whom they work.
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2002 Excerpt (below) from results of survey described above:
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http://www.worldviews.org/detailreports/usreport/
<b>More Public Support for Safeguarding Jobs and Well- Being at Home</b>
Although the public and leaders both see benefits from the global economy, the proportion of ordinary Americans who see globalization as “mostly good” is 25 points lower than among leaders (61% vs. 86%). Leaders are more inclined than the public (17% vs. 47%, a 30 point margin) to dismiss economic competition from Japan as a “not important” threat to U.S. vital interests. Leaders are also 24 points more prone to dismiss the threat of low-wage economic competition (7% critical for leaders vs. 31% critical for the public).
Ordinary Americans are far more concerned than leaders about safeguarding American jobs and fending off economic competition from abroad. Figure 8-6 shows that an overwhelming 85% of the public say that protecting the jobs of U.S. workers should be a "very important" foreign policy goal, as contrasted with just 35% of leaders. This has been one of the largest and most persistent gaps in Chicago Council surveys; the gap in 2002 represents the widest gulf between leaders and the public since CCFR began polling in 1974.
Immigration—widely seen as a threat to low-wage American workers and as a possible source of terrorism —draws remarkably stronger reactions from the public than leaders. The foreign policy goal of reducing illegal immigration is a far higher public priority by a 48 point margin. The public is substantially more alarmed by immigrants and refugees coming into the United States as a critical threat to U.S. interests by a 46 point margin (60% of the public versus only 14% of leaders). By large, 39 point gaps, the public is more favorable to decreasing legal immigration (57% vs. 18%) and to combating international terrorism by restricting immigration from Arab and Muslim countries 79% vs. 40%).
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http://www.ccfr.org/publications/opi...ort%201999.pdf
Page 39 of 41
<b>Figure 6-4: Gaps in Opinion Between the Public and Leaders</b> 1999 Survey
Domestic Concerns
.....Large Numbers of immigrants are a critical threat. Public, 57% Leaders, 18% Gap, 38%
.....Economic competition from low wage countries is a critical threat. Public, 42% Leaders, 16%
International terrorism is a critical threat. Public, 86% Leaders, 61% Gap, 24%
Protecting the jobs of American workers is a very important goal. Public, 83% Leaders, 45% Gap, 38%
controlling and reducing illegal immigration is a very important goal. Public, 57% Leaders, 21% Gap, 36%
....Tariffs are necessary to protect certain manufacturing jobs. Public, 60% Leaders, 36% Gap, 24%
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Would the GM union workers have fared any better if they had "cooperated" with management via wage/benefit givebacks. Everything that management fed to U.S. workers over the last 20 years to persuade them to produce more and settle for lower compensation, was B.S. The workers saw their jobs move briefly, to Mexico first, and from there, to Asia. The greedy. former U.S. domeciled corporations, repatriated themselves to Bermuda corp. charters (as in, Tyco...), and left the U.S. with declining wages and a trade imbalance hemmorhage. Our "leaders" sided with the CEOs' greedy B.S.
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http://ssl.thenation.com/docprint.mh...2&s=wypijewski
GE Brings Bad Things to Life
by JOANN WYPIJEWSKI
[from the February 12, 2001 issue]
....This "Cadillac of refrigerators" (up to $2,449 retail) has been rolling off Bloomington assembly lines under the label GE or Hotpoint or the redoubtable Kenmore at a rate of 230 an hour, 4,700 a day, 1.6 million a year....
....In 1999 plant management announced that profitability was falling, that $65 million in cost savings was needed, and it was the job of members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2249 to come up with the money. When they did, the company said it wasn't good enough. Half the production would have to be moved to Celaya, Mexico, where instead of $24 an hour in wages and benefits, labor can be bought for $2 an hour....
...What will it take to match fire with fire at GE, not just in Bloomington but everywhere? Twenty years ago, Jack Welch openly articulated a strategy for taking the company to where it is today. The GE unions never developed a parallel strategy, and 100,000 lost jobs later, most of them still haven't shed their faith in what the AFL-CIO likes to call "high-road capitalism." During the 2000 national contract talks, Robert Thayer, the Machinists' representative on the CBC, was trying to convince the company to agree not to interfere in future unionization drives, arguing that "a contract is a partnership, not a hindrance." To which the company coolly asserted, "GE has never been neutral and doesn't intend to be neutral."
Now that Welch has said, <a href="http://bernie.house.gov/documents/releases/20040226182720.asp">"Ideally you'd have every plant you own on a barge,"</a>....
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<b>It wasn't the Florida legislators or the governor who represented the best interests of minimum wazge earners. It was the voters of Florida themselves, overwhelmingly, who changed the law, in spite of the oppositions from their elected officials...:</b>
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http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...um#post1926774
Christopher Caldwell: Social logic of a living wage
By Christopher Caldwell
Published: October 21 2005 20:33 | Last updated: October 21 2005 20:33
.......There is evidence of just such a perception of a stacked job market. America now has a strong grass-roots political movement that is claiming a level of compensation that cannot be justified by the laws of supply and demand. Last November, a Florida referendum to raise the state's minimum wage to a dollar above the federal one got 71 per cent of the vote. The Association of Community Organisations for Reform Now was instrumental in the initiative. The group, which many dismissed a decade ago as a remnant of 1970s progressivism, is once again a force after campaigns in dozens of cities and states to pass "living wage" laws. One-third of states now have minimum wages above the federal level.
This is not an economic but a political victory. It does not mean that, say, wrapping hamburgers is worth a dollar an hour more than we thought it was. But it may mean that social peace is.
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