The American middle class is defined by its ability to create wealth and by the wealth that it has accumulated. Right now the focus is on what to do with the eleven million illegal immigrants in the U.S. But the eventual outcome of this process, with its "guest worker" provision, is likely to be a flood of Latin American immigration that will shortly number 100 million or more. Flooding the U.S. labor pool will drive down wages as more people compete for the same number of jobs.
Furthermore, the new mass of immigrants will be relatively needy and they will vote for the fulfillment of their needs. There will be a clamor to get their votes, and the way power hungry politicians get the votes of the needy is to buy those votes. The money to buy votes is in the wealth of the middle class. So the demands of the immigrant needy will be satisfied by a transfer of the existing wealth of the current middle class of American citizens. Wealth transfer is how politicians empower themselves, and this enormous transfer of wealth will empower the political class to the point of turning them into a permanent ruling class.
Due to the large size of the needs of the immigrant class compared to the wealth that will be transferred from the middle class, the immigrant class will be only slightly enriched, but the middle class will be fully eliminated. This dynamic will leave the United States with only a ruling political class, a small but very wealthy upper class, and a poor service class. The wealth that defines the current middle class will disappear like bird food among hungry Starlings.
Flooding the U.S. labor pool will drive down wages as more people compete for the same number of jobs.
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This is true brother, well said. In this post, you said that these immigrants will destroy the American middle and I cannot agree with you more. These immigrants take their wealth that they have made here and transfer it over to Mexico or where ever they live. Illegal immigrants come over here to get rich quick and in turn destroying the American middle class.
You must turn on, tune in and drop out.
Timothy Leary
I reserve the right to be ignorant. That's the Western way of life. The Spy who came in from the cold
Mama always said life was like a box a chocolates, never know what you're gonna get.
Perhaps what's killing the middle class is that the mnimum wage hasn't been raised since 1997 and taking into account inflation, people are making as much as they did in the 1960's because the upper class just can't pay anymore, they need to continue to pay people a pittance despite it being well below inflation.
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
- Bill Cosby
The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed.
- Gordon Parks
This artificially cheap, illegal labor lowers all skilled and unskilled labor wages with just one notable exception: It does not lower the minimum wage for legal labor. It lowers all wages, high and low, for legal labor, but not the minimum wage. Moreover, for illegal labor, the minimum wage cannot be enforced, so there is no minimum wage for them.
To only view this as compassion for honest, hard working Mexicans is missing the bigger picture. U.S. businesses using distressed, illegal, foreign labor is the height of exploitation that benefits the fattest of fat cats. It is easy to see why the Republicans support it, but it’s a mystery to see why the Democrats do.
Inner City Blues said this in post #7 :
I refuse to answer any more dumb questions.
I don’t think it’s a dumb question at all. I think it’s a very logical follow up question to your suggestion that we “go after the employers and not the immigrant” because the premise of that proposal is basically impossible. You cannot punish the employers for hiring illegal immigrants without punishing the illegal immigrants as a consequence.
I see two distinct ways of going after the employer. One way would be to fine them heavily for hiring illegals. Another way would be to force them to pay the legal minimum wage or even the prevailing wage. I’m guessing that you would be for the latter, but not the former. Certainly the illegals and their advocates would take that position if they had to choose between the two.
Fining the employers would end the employment opportunities for illegal immigrants. Then they would be better off just going back to Mexico. Whereas, forcing employers to pay higher wages would increase the incentive to immigrate to the U.S. The problem is that forcing the employers to pay equitable wages would also end employment opportunities for illegal immigrants unless we also force employers to hire illegal immigrants.
Forcing employers to pay illegal immigrants the same wage as legal citizens eliminates the illegal immigrant’s ability to get the type of work that they may not be qualified for by underbidding qualified, legal citizens.
IF we TELL employers to only hire legal immigrants, they would but, we have to make the illegal ones legal first.
Once that happens, a portion of the income goes back into our ecconomy instead of Mexico's. They get better work protection and who knows, maybe even some kind of work benefits? Also the missing taxes will be paid to the state and federal government.
Also, maybe even Americans will want to do some of those jobs then and put more people to work.
Unfortunatley, our production costs will go up in a linear fashion and be passed on to the consumer. This is an inherant problem with raising wages.
"Those who know nothing of Islam pretend that Islam counsels against war. Those who say this are witless." ~Ayatollah Khomeini
USA1 said this in post #9 :
Unfortunatley, our production costs will go up in a linear fashion and be passed on to the consumer. This is an inherant problem with raising wages.
That is true, but that higher cost is the true, free market cost if it were not being lowered by illegal activity.
04-06-2006 07:40 PM
