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Originally Posted by flstf
I agree with this analysis. There are many people from poor countries who are willing to work for slave wages and many employers here who are willing to hire them. If the managers and higher paid (skilled) workers from these companies were losing their jobs there would be a large outcry to stop it. Its as if we believe that lowering the wages of our blue collar workers is good for the rest of us.
I wonder what the reaction would be from our white collar workers if we allowed an influx of illegals that cut their wages and benefits in half? Would we be talking about the advantages of lower prices for those of us still able to make a decent wage? Maybe that is the next step, after all it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to do most of the paper shuffling jobs in corporate America. Lower wages = lower prices + higher profits, what could possibly go wrong?
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You know, I think this is the first time we are on completely opposite sides on something flstf. I'm generally against protectionism and that includes job protectionism. When a foreign company buys a US one, few worry about the plight of the executives displaced, you get some about American interests, and the like but no one really cares about they management guy now out of work. I'm also not saying they should care, and while they may make less money, these tend to be skilled people who can find a job elsewhere even if its less pay.
Now, the problem we are talking about here are unskilled workers, the bottom of the labor food chain, being replaced by mexicans. Lets not beat around the bush and say its illegal immigrants, its Mexicans mostly. They work hard, generally show up for work, and stay out of trouble. Not all of course, but having worked in food service for several years while in school, despite having half the kitchen staff being mexicans of unknown legality, the problem employees tended to be the non-mexicans, mostly for theft or not showing up for work.
With the "Everyone is special" mentality the last few generations have had, few are willing to do what amounts to a lowskill dirty job for any sane amount of pay. They might have no viable job skills, but work at McDonalds, do yard work, pick crops? Not me man!
Whats interesting is just how many these legals and illegals I've known who have made SOMETHING of themselves. Minimal state assistance, and yet they created their own American dreams from hard work.
I have to wonder if thats perhaps what scares some members of the left. Where did this 'nationalism' come from on the left where suddenly they are worried about US citizens? Could it be that America still works, and it doesn't require a pile of socialist programs to work for even the 'lowest' members of the economic food chain?
Perhaps these people are an embarrassment to some mindsets of the left where it shows their socialist programs are unneeded to succeed in America. They then wrap their arguments in an almost jingoistic reactionary veneer of protecting American jobs.
My only desire is to keep it fair competition wise. Thats why I support a guest worker system where paying under the table (aka tax free) can be lessoned and VERY stiff fines for those using illegals to avoid taxation. Take out the taxes and I can hire an illegal for less while paying him MORE than I would a citizen which isn't fair competition.