Immigration is Good for the U.S. Economy - Any economists out there

[savemefromdumbya]

Is it bad or good or neither?

http://www.murthy.com/news/UDgood.html
http://people.bu.edu/kotlikof/demotransfinal.pdf

[The Magistrate]

1. Short Answer, Sir

It depends on whose economy you mean.

If you are an employer, it is good for your economy.

If you work for a living, it is bad for your economy.

[SPKrazy]

3. It Depends

as well as to what jobs they are doing

regardless of the complaints that people have about the idea that immigrants are doing jobs that no one else will do, let me tell you a story (true)

a little town called Heavener, Oklahoma pushed hard to get a Tyson Chicken processing plant there.
When they got it, the company found that they couldn't find enough people there to work in it despite the fact that they never would have put the company there if they hadn't done studies on the work force and found that there should have been enough people to work there.

So low and behold, the Mexican immigrants were and are willing to work there, and work hard.

Now my objection is that they get screwed because many are illegal. Why should they be illegal when they are just working jobs?

Let's make it easier to come to work here, and secure the borders to stop the criminals that also want to come here.

[The Magistrate]

7. If, Sir

The company erected the plant where there was a sufficient pool of potential labor to staff it, and yet could not find sufficient people to hire in that locale, that simply means the company was unwilling to pay a wage sufficiently high to attract those persons resident nearby to exchange their labor and time for the sum on offer. It is not a question of work people are not willing to do, but rather a question of work people are not willing to do for the pay on offer. If the problem really was an insufficiency of people able to do the work locally, then the proper solution is, again, to increase the wage on offer to a point where it would entice people from elsewhere in the country to move to that locale and take up employment in the plant. It is simply an desire to evade ordinary market mechanisms that moves employers to pitch their jobs to persons from other countries, and entice them to break the law by crossing the border illegally. That is nothing more or less than a criminal enterprise on the part of the employer.

The fact is, there is no creature on earth with less interest in the existance of, and less willingness to participate in, a free market, than the ordinary businessman. There is an old brawler's saying that "If you're in a fair fight, you've fucked up bad," and with a little substitution, that is the actual feeling of every businessman on the subject of a free market. What every business man actually wants is a market tilted in his favor in as many ways as he can contrive, and none are above breaking the law in seeking such a situation.

[SPKrazy]

15. I Don't Know The Wage They Offered

But neither do you sir,

so that is an assumption

all I know is that poultry processing isn't glamorous

and the locals didn't do it

and at what point do you stop raising the wage?

[The Magistrate]

20. No, Sir, It Is Not An Assumption

It is simply how markets work: if the price a buyer ius willing to pay is high enough, the commodity can be obtained; if the commodity cannot be obtained, not enough is being offered in exchange for it. Poultry processing is grim and dangerous work. Grim and dangerous work, in a free market, commands a premium above the general market level of wages, to compensate for the unpleasantness and risk of the employment. This premium draws people to the task, and renders it a desireable occupation. The company simply does not want to operate in accordance with the ways of the market, and wishes to employ people in unpleasant and hazardous work without paying a prmium wage, and in fact, hopes to do so at a sub-standard wage. Naturally, it can then only draw people to the employment offered by recruiting among persons subject to extreme penury, to whom damned near anything is an improvemenmt in their financial lot, and innured to hardship and suffering to a degree ensuring they will find the unpleasantness and hazard it subjects them to nothing too exceptional from their habitual existance.

Your final question strikes me as somewhat odd, for it suggests that you think there is some proper limit on wages, that they should not rise above. At what point would you suggest halting an increase in the profit taken from the gross income of an enterprise by its owner?

[SPKrazy]

21. The Point At Which It Interferes With The Profits Of The Company!

a company can't pay their employees wages that are so high that they will break the company, or that the board, or shareholders won't allow.

this is the real world

poultry plants don't pay a lot of money, unskilled labor

the locals were "too good" to work in the poultry plant

so the Mexicans come in and work

if you don't like that fact that is too bad

I happen to know this is fact

sir

[The Magistrate]

31. Always A Pleasure, Sir, To Hear Tales From The Big World Outside

My acquaintance with it is so limited....

My principal interest in this exchange, at this point, is hearing an answer to my question above, namely whether you feel there ought to be any limit to the proportion of profit taken from the gross income of a venture, as you seem to think there should be on the wages it pays to workers.

This speaks directly, you see, to the standard you raise of what "the shareholder's won't allow" to be paid. That seems to establish that there is some level of return the shareholders must have, whatever else may occur. Why this should be so escapes me, for there does not seem to be any ground from which to state the shareholder has the right to some degree of income whle the worker has no such right.

[jety2k]

43. Poor, poor Tyson not making enough profit..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavener,_Oklahoma

Heavener, Oklahoma

The median income for a household in the city was $23,750, and the median income for a family was $28,654. Males had a median income of $19,848 versus $18,487 for females. The per capita income for the city was $11,313. 26.3% of the population and 23.6% of families were below the poverty line. 32.7% of those under the age of 18 and 12.5% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.

26.3% of the population below the poverty line?

Looks to me like nobody is getting rich working for Tyson. I wonder what kind of tax break, free land or other incentive was given them to locate a plant there? I'll bet a corned beef sandwich and my left nut that they don't have a union.

I also wonder what kind of kick back the local officials got? HEAVENER, come for the chicken... Stay for the impoverishment.

[bush_is_wacko]

53. GIVE ME A BREAK!

Read your history! Research the cases that led to labor laws!

Your "facts" are ridiculous!

I am a fairly highly educated person but I used to love my factory job. It paid a decent wage, provided health insurance and the like and it kept me busy all day. I like jobs where I feel like I had a work out at the end of the day. Truthfully, I would work in a factory in a minute if I could get paid the way I was twenty years ago and have the same benes, pension, retirement, I had, etc. etc. I actually would choose that job over a desk job any day of the week if it paid me! By the way, when I worked for that factory the vast majority of workers were MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS! We didn't have to speak a second language to communicate with our employers or other employees.

NAFTA and CAFTA screwed us. It insured that factory jobs would move elsewhere and that those that remained in this country would HAVE to hire cheap labor to remain competitive! Our immigration problems are a result of NAFTA and CAFTA. They have been perpetuated by greedy business. Besides repealing NAFTA and CAFTA we need to punish employers that don't pay a reasonable wage. LEGAL Americans ought to be able to earn a living doing in this country even if they choose to do factory work. Employers have pushed out LEGAL American workers because they know that ILLEGAL workers will work for less $$$!

Do you also realize that Americans are now PAYING to go to college to do jobs that twenty years ago DID NOT REQUIRE A COLLEGE EDUCATION? Are we more skilled because we PAY corporate America to teach us? Let's face it, all these little colleges ARE corporate America too. They are raking in big $$$$$ to create "skilled American workers." Those workers are then working for just enough money to scrape by on. Some of them aren't really seeing much of a profit from that education either. It is getting worse and worse by the minute. Spending $30,000 on a college education so you can get paid $16 an hour does not make economic sense but we do it anyway cause no one will hire us otherwise!

My mother was a phlebotomist (person who draws blood) 35 years ago. She didn't get a college degree to do it. She just applied for a job as a receptionist (unskilled, HS diploma) and was taught how to do it by her co-workers. All of whom learned the same way she did!



AND BY THE WAY THESE JOBS ARE NOT "UNSKILLED LABOR." It actually does take some skill to run the machines and these jobs involve a lot of DANGER! Before NAFTA and CAFTA employers recognized that fact!

[SPKrazy]

22. Also, How Much Do You Want To Pay For Chicken?

Chicken plants are cold, wet, dangerous, and not the kind of work that most want to do.

Sure if they paid a high wage, there would be US citizens willing to do it.

But they don't, and would be out of business if they did (competition would kill them) and if you put artificial barriers on them, they will move their processing companies south.

If they move their companies South, would you put tarrifs on them?

Then you'd just pay more for Chicken.

You claim to understand the markets, and perhaps you do, but you don't seem to understand how markets are not fair. We can thank a Republican congress, and a Democratic President for that.

I like Clinton, but NAFTA was not and remains not, fair.

But then, life ain't fair now is it?

[The Magistrate]

32. As You Say, Sir

If the company paid a higher wage, it would have no trouble hiring U.S. citizens to do the work. That is precisely the proposition you were earlier treating with some scorn.

Whether or not a company would be out of business if it paid a higher wage is of no importance. A company has no right to stay in business; an investor has no right to a profit, or even to preservation of invested capital. If money is invested in a concern that cannot produce a product people desire to buy at a particular price, then that is their look-out, and their loss. If a concern cannot do this without either paying wages that leave its employees eligible for government assistance, or colluding in the breaking of the nation's laws on immigration, then it has no business being in business in the first place. In the first instance, it is actually dependent on government subsidy for its profit, namely the assistance rendered by tax-payers to its under-paid workers, who would not be able to make ends meet otherwise, and so could not afford to work for that company, and in the second, its profits are the fruit of illegal activity that it certainly knows of and colludes with, and they should rightly, like the fruit of any other criminal activity, be forfeit to the state, along with whatever was used to gain profit from the criminal behavior.

Nor is my willingness to buy processed chicken at one price and perhaps not at another of any importance. If the stuff is not supplied at a price that seems worth paying to me, it will not trouble me to forgo purchasing it. Whether or not companies exist to supply it at any price is a matter of complete indifference to me.

[QC]

23. "the locals didn't do it"

Ah, but the locals did, for many years. But they had the unmitigated gall to expect a living wage and some basic safety regulations, so they had to be disposed of.

[SPKrazy]

26. In This Instance, I Think You'd Have To Truly Know It

and I know it since it is nearby.

The local workforce is infested/infected with methamphetamine.

Something that Poultry plants don't necessarily not like, as long as you can come to work.

Speedy workers, = more productivity.

The truth is that these poultry plants have always had the attitude that workers were a dime a dozen.

Then they found that locals wouldn't work for what they were paying (unskilled labor)

and that Mexican immigrants would do it.

I think that Mexicans are being exploited for their willingness to work.

[QC]

28. Yes, the Mexicans are being exploited,

and local workers are being fucked over as well.

Beef and pork packing used to be a union job with good bennies. Now that the management has discovered cheap imported labor, it's one of those "jobs Americans won't do." Same for construction.

[SPKrazy]

30. At This Point In Time, What Is The Solution Then?

forcing higher wages will just drive the companies out of the country

We're all fucked as the economy goes global

it will take a long time for wages to stabilize worldwide without global agreement through treaty

so I suspect we can all expect lower wages over the next 20 or so years in America while we watch the rest of the world's economy and wage base improve.

[QC]

37. It might be time for a return to good old-fashioned protectionism.

If you want to do business in this country, you pay taxes and employ people in this country. Otherwise you can try to sell your plasma teevees to the people who are making them for 50¢ an hour.

[mistyeye]

40. the CEO of Tyson is worth 500 million dollars. Not the company, the CEO

HIMSELF is worth 500 million dollars. So whatever wage was offered, in my estamation, could have been a little more.

[The Magistrate]

41. A Point Well Worth Noting, Sir

If there must be a point at which the worker must accept the wage is "enough", and no more can possibly be got, as some will claim, is there not also such a point for the boss?

And by the way, welcome to the forum, Sir!

[jety2k]

42. At what point do you stop raising the wage?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavener,_Oklahoma

Heavener, Oklahoma

The median income for a household in the city was $23,750, and the median income for a family was $28,654. Males had a median income of $19,848 versus $18,487 for females. The per capita income for the city was $11,313. 26.3% of the population and 23.6% of families were below the poverty line. 32.7% of those under the age of 18 and 12.5% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line.

26.3% of the population below the poverty line?

Looks to me like the nobody is getting rich working for Tyson. I wonder what kind of tax break, free land or other incentive was given them to locate a plant there? I'll bet a corned beef sandwich and my left nut that they don't have a union.

I also wonder what kind of kick back the local officials got? HEAVENER, come for the chicken... Stay for the impoverishment.

[Heidi]

44. It isn't _just_ about the wages.

Companies benefit from imported, illegal labor in other ways:
- Employees who don't speak English and don't know their rights are much less likely to organize or to report unsafe work conditions to OSHA.
- Employees who are desparate and afraid due to their illegal immigration status are much less likely to file worker's compensation claims when they're injured, or for unemployment when they're fired or laid off.

Meatpacking (including poultry plant work) is among the most violent and dangerous jobs in the US. I lived in a meatpacking town for 15 years in the Midwest.

[Neil Lisst]

24. You did so well in the first paragraph, but not the second.

You're not a business owner, I take it?

Such gross generalizations about business people usually come from those who are not IN business.

Here's your paragraph where you ran badly into the ditch:


The fact is, there is no creature on earth with less interest in the existance (sic) of, and less willingness to participate in, a free market, than the ordinary businessman. There is an old brawler's saying that "If you're in a fair fight, you've fucked up bad," and with a little substitution, that is the actual feeling of every businessman on the subject of a free market. What every business man actually wants is a market tilted in his favor in as many ways as he can contrive, and none are above breaking the law in seeking such a situation.

[The Magistrate]

33. You Have My Thanks, Sir

For the reposting of my comments: repetition is one of the great keys to persuasion, and you have given some here the unlooked for opportunity to read through that expression of my views twice. The assistance is greatly appreciated.

"No matter how your day's going, Jack, you're always a pleasure to conversate with."

[Neil Lisst]

34. Thank you.

Thanks for admitting you intentionally accuse all business people of operating as borderline criminals who will do anything to make a buck.

If you want to know why the Democratic party loses so many elections, you need only read your last paragraph again. It's far from reality, and highly offensive to the people in this country who create all the jobs.

[The Magistrate]

35. In Matters Of Human Behavior, Sir

It is always best to close one's ears to the cant issued from the mouth, and note the set of the feet and the gleam in the eye....

[Neil Lisst]

36. I'll explain it.

Let's use a little logic and perhaps others will see it clearly, even if you don't, which I hope you will. You're harboring some biases about business that are unwarranted.

1. According to you, Businessmen in America will do almost anything to make more money, and don't want to have any competition.

2. The owner of this site is an American businessman.

Therefore, according to you, the owner of this site should be willing to do almost anything to increase his bottom line, including limit competition. That would mean he would not allow any mention of competing sites, such as KOS, it would mean he'd use illegal workers, and resort to just about any tactic that increases his bottom line.

We know that isn't true, don't we? Therefore, your generalization is proved wrong.

See how inappropriate those kind of absolutes are?

The fact is most business people in America are nothing like you described. Those are the kind of lines used by those who look askance at business, not those who are a part of it.

[The Magistrate]

39. Every Generalization Has Exceptions, Sir, Including This One

You are quarreling with the following statement:

"The fact is, there is no creature on earth with less interest in the existance of, and less willingness to participate in, a free market, than the ordinary businessman. There is an old brawler's saying that "If you're in a fair fight, you've fucked up bad," and with a little substitution, that is the actual feeling of every businessman on the subject of a free market. What every business man actually wants is a market tilted in his favor in as many ways as he can contrive, and none are above breaking the law in seeking such a situation."

You imagine this to be a product of bias only, and not of experience and study, though on what basis you make this assumption is unclear. After all, in some earlier exchanges, you claimed that my expounding on the nature of monetary value demonstrated me to be involved in the sale of paper securities, or serving as a shill for the stock-market. It would seem that my being has many aspects, and alters greatly depending on the angle of view you adopt.

You do not make any attempt to engage the points of the statement you quarrel with. This discussion, remember, began over the question of the employment of illegal immigrant labor by businessmen, or, in other words, of the common practice among businessmen of flouting the law of the land to increase their profits through paying lower wages than U.S. citizens will readily accept in many employments. You do not deny that this is a common practice, and hardly could, as it is a very well established fact. You do not seem to be prepared or disposed to argue that profits gained by the practice are anything but the fruit of criminal behavior, and must be aware that without the inducement of such employment the breaking of the immigration laws would be a tiny fraction of what it is. You do not, either, seem to be prepared or disposed to argue against the proposition that this practice is anything but a refusal to accept the ordinary market mechanisms of supply determining price in application to the price of labor.

You are doubtless aware of the great sums spent by business lobbies at all levels of government, and what do you think these sums are spent for? They are spent, in every instance, in an attempt to get the governing authority to bend the market into something more favorable to those who spend them than it otherwise would be. They are petitions for various forms of government granted advantage over competing industries or competing concerns, petitions for subsidies for those who spend the sums and extra costs for others. In virtually every instance, these expenditures are bribes as a matter of practical fact, though through artful crafting and reading of the law they usually manage to come up just short of actual legal liability as such. But that is mere sharp practice, not exonneration, and merely illustrates the old adage that often, it is what is legal that is the real crime.

Until you manage to engage successfully against such items as these, and numerous other illustrations that could readily be mustered were my time not more devoted to other interests just now, the statement will simply have to remain standing as an accurate enough description of the actual state of affairs.

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable”

[Neil Lisst]

46. Thank you, Sir, for acknowledging that error.

I'm glad you recognized you'd overstated the case.

Of course, the harsh generalizations you made don't apply to 95% of the businesses in the US, if not more. They don't control enough business in a large enough geographic area to restraint or control their markets.

There are very large businesses, of course, who would run amok without serious government regulation, and it's a good thing we have government regulation to restrain their unbridled greed. But that begs the question. It's like those who think all corporations are bad because BIG corporations are bad.

We must always control the strongest to make sure they don't prey on the weakest. But that doesn't make the average businessman an ogre who constantly seeks to limit competition. Only among the theoretical are such comments heard.

[The Magistrate]

47. It Quite Escapes Me, Mr. Lisst

Where you detect in my comments any concession on the statement "The fact is, there is no creature on earth with less interest in the existance of, and less willingness to participate in, a free market, than the ordinary businessman. There is an old brawler's saying that "If you're in a fair fight, you've fucked up bad," and with a little substitution, that is the actual feeling of every businessman on the subject of a free market. What every business man actually wants is a market tilted in his favor in as many ways as he can contrive, and none are above breaking the law in seeking such a situation."

You call that statement a harsh generalization, and do so in tones that suggest you think that is a bad thing. It is not. Political discourse is successfully conducted in broad strokes and bold colors. Brutal speech is effective speech: it grabs the attention and sticks in the mind, thrilling those who agree and galling those who do not. Both results are desireable and useful in the enterprise.

My purpose is to rally fellow leftists to the disparagement of the posture of adoration towards St. Entrepreneur you have taken to pressing here. The deification of "The Market", the claim that society exists to serve the market, rather than the market being one of the many available tools for society to employ towards the common good, is one of the greatest immediate dangers to our people and our country, and to the world itself. In that deluded and idolatrous faith, the fact is that St. Entrepreneur is the patron of grifting, and St. Shareholder the patron of leeching: they are not angels of the light but demons disguised in the appearance of such messengers from the Lord.

In discrediting any faith, the first line of attack to be employed should be the fact that its acolytes do not live up to the doctrine they would enjoin others to follow. The continual efforts of the business class to warp the market to their private advantage, and to call that distorted playing field "the free market", is an excellent and valuable line to press, for it demonstrates exactly that the preacher of the doctrine has no interest at all in playing by the rules he demands his flock obey. Pressing it strikes the enemy from a quarter he is ill-prepared to receive a blow, and makes him fight on unfamiliar ground that cannot be defended without some concession to the point. You have yourself, in arguing against it, had to concede that large businesses seek to restrain and control the markets they enter, though you deny small businesses attempt this, but even that concession effectively cedes the point, because large business utterly dominate the economic scene, and determine the patterns and practices of all markets. To speak of "small business" as an economic force is a joke, for every small business is utterly dependent on the operation of large businesses, and can operate only in those interstices between them left by their occasional rough fits with one another, or only as the final step in their distribution chains or first step in their supply chains. And just as every kitten dreams the life of a tiger, any small businessman would act exactly as the giant predators do, if only he had the scope and opportunity. In terms of chiseling on his taxes, skirting health and safety regulations and fair labor practice regulations and the like, he may be relied on to do what he can: in many cases, he could not remain in profitable operation if he did not.

The current brouhaha over illegal immigration offers an excellent opportunity for the left. Though the politics of the thing are extraordinarily dicey, a salient feature of the outcry is that a great many people who consider themselves rightists, and would angrily reject anything they viewed as emanating from a leftist source, are in this matter adopting a view that is essentially a left view: they are loudly crying that employers are using a foul means to drive down the wages they pay to working people. "We're being screwed by the bosses!" is the cry of the hour in many a rightist mouth, and no old line Socialist agitator could have phrased the thing any better. These people are in a mood that allows them to be reached by the traditional economic arguments of the left; they are open to the idea that the "Free Market" damned sure does not work to their benefit as working people. It is hardly the time for us on the left to be indulging in apologias for the business class....

"Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.”

"To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature”

[izzybeans]

49. Bravo!

There is quite a manifesto brewing in those words.

[The Magistrate]

50. Thank You, Sir

There have been some excellent articles published recently on unspoken religious underpinnings to the current "freemarketeer" philosphy, as well as dealing with the degree to which it serves as practically a religious faith to its devotees....

[izzybeans]

51. If you have the refs I'd love to check them out.

I've got the resources most probably.

I have seen some discussion of market as "institutionalized cultural form"; hence collective representation. But most of it has made no linkage to "field" power(in the form of ideology or legitimation) or organizational hierarchies.

[PsN2Wind]

25. You have to quit coming here

making reasoned arguments coupled with politeness. It makes it difficult for many here to comprehend.
Thanks Magistrate for being you. Someone I don't always agree with but always respect for your attitude toward others and obvious intelligence.

[patdem]

9. Most chicken processing plants are in the south..low wage south

and the working conditions atrocious...so how could a processing plant in Okalahoma find enough illegal workers in time for their grand opening? Think they advertised in Tiauana (SP?) or Mexico City before they considered opening a plant in Okalahoma? Probably!

[The Magistrate]

12. Rumors Are Certainly Spread, Ma'am

The smuggling gangs often have particular destinations for their human cargo, for they often take their pay as a levy on future wages. The chances businessmen do not collude at some level with these crimianal operations is not worth wagering a dime on....

[im10ashus]

16. What's with the "sirs" and "ma'ams"?

Trying to make us feel old? :-)

[savemefromdumbya]

18. LOL!

[raccoon]

52. Darn right the working conditions are atrocious--heard of this?

(On September 3, 1991), 25 workers were killed and 50 were injured in Hamlet, North Carolina after being trapped in a burning chicken factory. Factory owners had locked the doors from the outside to guard against theft but instead trapped about 200 employees inside when a hydraulic line spilled flammable liquid onto a hot fryer.

State investigators called the Imperial Foods Chicken Plant a "death trap." Eighty safety law violations were found including, no sprinklers, no fire alarm or fire safety plan. The business was fined 800,000 dollars, left bankrupt and the owner spent four years in prison.

As a result of the tragedy, North Carolina revamped their health and safety inspection program, from one of the worst to one of the best in the country. Unfortunately, the fire did not prompt national reform in safety and health law.


http://www.ufcw.org/workplace_connections/meatpacking_and_poultry/safety_health_news_and_facts/memorial.cfm

[converted_democrat]

11. As usual, you're on the money.. n/t

[savemefromdumbya]

19. I'm not

not a sir but a ravishing blonde LOL!

[spag68]

2. Immigration

Of course it's good for our country. The real question is, can we get employers to pay a living wage to anyone at work in this country. this is not an immigration problem, as it is the age old struggle between the working labor class and the elite governing class. Never give up , we aave now and always had the moral high ground and the progressive ideas. the repubs. serve a much smaller group and their motive is always profit.

[TahitiNut]

4. Immigration or Illegal Immigration ?

They're NOT the same. (Copulation with consent is called 'love'; without, it's called 'rape.')

[RagingInMiami]

5. Copulation with consent is called sex

Copulation without consent is called rape and it is a violent felony crime.

Illegal immigration is hardly a violent felony crime.

[savemefromdumbya]

17. Think they are lumped together in economic terms?

[TahitiNut]

29. Nope.

[terryg11]

6. good and bad

employers can hire them for less pay and then are able to charge less for their product or can just keep the difference.

Would you hire someone for ten dollars an hour or six dollars an hour if given the choice?

[spag68]

8. employers

My vote is that they keep the difference.

[converted_democrat]

10. I own my own business..

It will be okay for me, but it will be really bad for my employees.. They will either have to take a serious hit in pay, or they will have to go elsewhere for work.. I pay a very fair wage right now, but I will not be able to maintain a competitive edge unless I shed some major digits on my payroll..


On edit- I don't relish the idea of slashing my employees pay, but if my business is to survive, I have little choice... (In fact, the idea makes me ill..)

[SPKrazy]

27. This Is The Story Everywhere

and some people don't seem to understand that this is what is happening in our country

Demanding that you pay a higher wage, or maintain what you pay, will just mean that you will lose your ability to compete, prices will go up, or your business will go broke

[Solon]

38. BS argument...

If you can't even maintain the payscale you have now, you don't deserve to be in business in the first place. It really is that simple, if you cannot employ CITIZENS at a living wage, don't even try to start a business. If you have to slash pay, then you are doing something seriously wrong, or you are simply INCREASING the bottom line. Let's be honest here for once, in the Corporate world, profits are SKYROCKETING, and that's in an economy that's SLOWING DOWN. I think something here just stinks.

[converted_democrat]

48. That's not completely so.. I employ at a decent living wage.. I pay

15.00 to 45.00 an hour, depending on several factors.. My direct competition on the other hand uses illegal labor for their unskilled labor force.. I'm having a tough time competing with that.. My business has been in business for several years, and I built it from the bottom up.. If I wish to be competitive in my market I will have to slash pay, or fire the vast majority of my workers and get new people that will work for less.. It tears me up, but that's just the way it is..

on edit- I also give benefits, but I will have to get rid of those too..

[TreasonousBastard]

13. Ultimately good...

if one assumes that the normal state of a developed economy is economic growth beyond fertility.

What I mean is-- if the economy grows at 4% a year, but the population grows at only 2% a year, there will be a shortage of workers at some point when all the technological and productivity tricks run out. The only answer is immigration.

The US and Europe have been through this several times in history, and the millions of Turks in Germany Arabs in France, and East and West Indians in Britain are there simply because there were labor shortages.

The US actively recruited former slaves to work in the industrial plants in the North and the Western territories. After that internal migration was over, we went to China and Europe for warm bodies to fill the mines and factories. FWIW, we didn't treat the former slaves or immigrants very well back -- probably a lot worse than we now treat our more recent arrivals.

The problem is when there is no longer full employment and those extra bodies are not needed. After the railroads were built, the Chinese were pretty much left to fend for themselves. What happened to those Europeans who filled Ellis Island in the '20s ten years later?

Right now, we are in one of those flux periods when we effectively have a labor surplus, but the definition of labor is also shifting and we are looking at around 30 million new retirees within the next ten years-- over 10% of the population is going to leave the labor force. That is over 20% of the labor force just disappearing, and must be replaced somehow. But, for the time being, immigration is being used as a wedge to drive wages down.

The biggest problem I have with the whole debate is that no one, myself included, is capable of being honest and not letting their own prejudices jump in somewhere. The subject is complicated enough without the emotional baggage.

[KittyWampus]

14. Krugman points out the difference between Skilled and Unskilled Labor

Skilled labor is good while unskilled labor drives down wages and reduces jobs available for those starting in the workplace.

He says the value added to our economy by immigration is less then 1%.

[mmonk]

45. Anyone remember the post

concerning tax dollars and how it is a net gain? I would like to see that post again.