No demand = No illegal immigration

[funjumper101 15]

ShrubCo has done it again. The "base" and the so called "liberal media" is all wound up with dealing with "illegal immigration", instead of figuring out how to solve the Iraq clusterfuck.

The way you solve the "illegal immigration" problem is to eliminate the demand.

One way to do that is by making any company or individual that hires an illegal immigrant subject to civil and criminal penalties. A $25,000.00 fine for each illegal immigrant hired (first offense) and a $50,000.00 fine and six months in jail for repeat offendors. Officers of corporations should be personally liable for the fines and jail time. Corporate funds could not be used. No weasling out of it. Hire an illegal, pay a bunch of money. Do it twice, go to jail.

It will never happen. It would be "bad for business" and "how is a decent law abiding business owner supposed to check prospective employees?", etc etc. We'll just go after the illegals. They don't vote anyway, so who gives a shit?

California "tried" to do something along these lines with the agricultural indutry. Farmers (landowners)that hire illegal immigrants are supposed to be subject to civil penalties. Now what happens is that the farmers subcontract the field work to labor contractors. The labor contractors hire the illegals and deliver them via van or old school bus to the fields as needed. No muss, no fuss, no liability. The farmer pays a premium for the labor and avoids the liability. The labor contractors operate as LLCs with minimal assets and any money made is quickly pulled out of the LLC. This is a great system... for the farmers. As usual, the farmworker gets screwed.

Any other ideas?

[Gravitymaster 0]

I think we should require all illegal immigrants to serve in Iraq for 2 years and then give them citizenship if they survive.

[masterrig 1]

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I think we should require all illegal immigrants to serve in Iraq for 2 years and then give them citizenship if they survive.

____________________________________

Wasn't something like this, recently suggested by one of or Senators or some politician? I'm wracking my head, trying to remember who it was. He suggested something abou allowing illegals to join the military, serve a min. 3-yrs. and then, they would be allowed an 'easy ride' to citizenship.


Chuck

[masterrig 1]

Years ago, there was a system called the 'Bracero System' where green carded workers met at a central location and farmers could come pick-up as many workers as needed. After the harvest, the workers were returned and went back to Mexico. The farmer had to supply decent shelter where meals could be prepared and toilet facilities. The system worked rather well until it was done away with.


Chuck

[funjumper101 15]

The Bracero system wasn't as good as some people think.

http://www.farmworkers.org/benglish.html

DAGS on "Bracero Program". Lots of hits.

[billvon 2,455]

>where green carded workers met at a central location and
>farmers could come pick-up as many workers as needed.

This system continues unofficially in many places. Our neighbor once referred to this as "going downtown and getting some mexicans" for his gardening projects.

[masterrig 1]

Any of the old timers I've talked with in this area, seemed to like the idea.


Chuck

[masterrig 1]

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>where green carded workers met at a central location and
>farmers could come pick-up as many workers as needed.

This system continues unofficially in many places. Our neighbor once referred to this as "going downtown and getting some mexicans" for his gardening projects.

___________________________________

I've heard 'rumors' of that here, too! I've heard many stories too, some good... some not so good about some of the workers.
A good friend of mine, told of 5, such workers who had a little too much tequila one Saturday night. They got to fighting amongst themselves and tore the 'wet shack' up, pretty good. The next day, they had to repair the damages. When they were done, they got loaded-up and taken back to town. One of the ol' boys had an old pistol and my friends daddy had to take it from him. These five 'workers' got traded for new help. The one who had the pistol went to jail for a while. Like I say, all kinds of stories.


Chuck

[miked10270 0]

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I think we should require all illegal immigrants to serve in Iraq for 2 years and then give them citizenship if they survive.

That seems to be a suspiciously FRENCH solution!... You're obviously a Crypto-Fromage-Mangeant-Singe-D'Reddite"!

Mike.

Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable.

Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

[masterrig 1]

I don't know what you said but... it sounded nice!

Chuck

[Nightingale 0]

Sure. Eliminate the minimum wage. Let employers pay employees what the job is worth rather than the state's artificially inflated value. Raising the minimum wage (or even having one in the first place) just causes inflation rather than improving the standard of living. If the poorer people have more money, demand for items goes up because they can now afford them, so price goes up because of the higher demand.

Get rid of the minimum wage and you get rid of a huge part of the incentive to hire illegal immigrants.

[Nightingale 0]

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I think we should require all illegal immigrants to serve in Iraq for 2 years and then give them citizenship if they survive.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with the military offering fast-track citizenship to people who enlist for at least a few years. I wouldn't force them to serve, but if they want to, citizenship seems a reasonable reward.

[Richards 0]

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Sure. Eliminate the minimum wage. Let employers pay employees what the job is worth rather than the state's artificially inflated value. Raising the minimum wage (or even having one in the first place) just causes inflation rather than improving the standard of living.

Get rid of the minimum wage and you get rid of a huge part of the incentive to hire illegal immigrants.

I agree that having an unrealistically high minimum wage can adversely affect the willingness of employers to hire legal workers, and therefore minimum wage should truly be the minimum that one can sustain themselves on. Eliminating the minimum wage however could have serious secondary consequences, in that you will create mass poverty on your lower skilled workers. It is tantamount to saying "to avoid having business owners import third worlders we should turn our own low skilled citizens into third worlders". This would result in more people just going on welfare or turning to criminal activity to supplement thier income, which will have negative effects on the US. Your point does have merit but as an advanced society we can at least ensure that our weakest members are able to sustain themselves in lower end jobs. A middle ground solution that alleviates the burden of excess costs to employers while not turning our lower skilled workers into third worlders is required.

Richards

My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

[Nightingale 0]

No. Increasing (or even having) minimum wage doesn't make it so people can survive. It just makes everything more expensive. Example:

Farmer hires 8 workers at $7.50 an hour. If those employees work picking strawberries 40 hours a week, he's paying them $2320.00 overall. If they each pick two flats of strawberries (16 baskets) a day, the farmer would have to charge $20.71 for each of those flats to break even just on what he's paying the workers. That's not counting all his other business expenses, insurance, etc.

Farmer hires 8 workers at $2.25 an hour. Given the same info as above, he's now paying out $720.00 a week. Now, to break even on what he's paying the workers, he'd have to charge $6.42 per flat. When you add on the farmer's insurance and such, you're still paying a reasonable price for strawberries.

If the farmer pays the minimum wage, those workers have more money to spend. But, the strawberries cost a lot more. If you expand this to any farmer growing crops, all your fruits and veggies will cost at least three times as much. So, those workers getting paid more have to spend more to buy food. Their landlord will charge them more because the landlord's gotta eat too, and his cost of living has gone up. The people who work in offices are asking for cost of living raises because their expenses have gone up. So, your dollar buys less than it did before, and the farm workers aren't any better off.

[Richards 0]

I realize the logic behind your argument and it has validity, however I am not sure how someone could survive at $2.25 and hour. Never mind not being able to rent your own appartment, you will not even be able to afford to share accomodations at the going rental costs in most cities or towns, never mind being able to pay for food.

If paying a sustainable rate for farming is unrealistic in the US then perhaps farming might be something best suited for Mexico where the cost of living is extremely low, and the US should focus on developing higher paying industries. It is about specialization in trade (one of the desired aims of NAFTA), and the US is gradually becoming less of a resource based economy.

It's not that your argument does not hold up in traditional economic theory, it does. The problem is that basic macroeconomics is based greatly on many assumptions and ignores human realities. realistically $2,25 an hour will not sustain anyone in the US to the best of my knowledge.

Looking forward to your perspective on this.

Cheers,

Richards

My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

[Nightingale 0]

I agree that $2.25 an hour won't sustain anyone. But, neither will $7 an hour here in California. They'd only be making $280 a week. That's nowhere near enough for even a studio apartment and utilities in many areas of California, nevermind transportation expenses and food and clothing and all that. If we hadn't increased the minimum wage to begin with, that $2.25 would probably buy close to what the $7 does today.

The living wage argument just doesn't work, because if you give more money to the folks that are on the bottom of the economic scale, it makes everything more expensive, and the people you're trying to help aren't any better off. In a society built on capitalism you just can't have everybody earning a "living wage" because the more you increase paychecks, you increase demand, lessening supply and raising prices. Other countries have looked towards systems that are slightly more socialist, but the people there pay a much larger percentage of their income in taxes, so you pretty much have the people making more money subsidizing the people making less.

[Richards 0]

Fair enough. Since we would rather not see people starve, what about an investment in developing human capital towards more productive uses? For example making University/College education more attainable so that people are more capable of developing the skills to earn a higher wage rather than depending on wage laws.

What is your take on exporting that sort of work out to Mexico where it is more cohesive with their economy. If a farmer here cannot get people to work for him without hiring illegals because it is almost impossible to live on the wages he can afford to pay, then maybe the farmer himself should consider a new business. We are trying to keep industries alive which cannot sustain themselves without illegal workers. It would make more sense to let farming die off in the US and allow most of our produce to be imported from latin America while the US restructures it's economy and workforce to focus on more skilled industries. Again specialization in trade could benefit both the US and Mexico.

The reality is that there are many unskilled labourers in the US and the issue of employment needs to be addressed. If you want to cut minimum wage so that salaries are based on what is competitive, then employers should be limitted to employing from the American workforce without employing illegal immigrants. If they cannot cope at the competitive wage (not government enforced) going on the market then those industries are not sustainable and should die off.

Just my thoughts. Anyway let me know what you think. If you come up with a solution to this economic issue, I would gladly vote for you when you run for president.

Cheers,

Richards

My biggest handicap is that sometimes the hole in the front of my head operates a tad bit faster than the grey matter contained within.

[Nightingale 0]

My solution:

Lose the minimum wage. It's pointless and doesn't do what it's intended to do. There's just no reason to have it.

Cut all social welfare/security programs from government, and pay people back what they've paid in. If we can finance a war in Iraq, we can afford to pay people back, plus interest. We can't get rid of the programs without reimbursing the people who won't see any benefit (not that there was much benefit to begin with, but it's a show of good faith).

Cut taxes as much as possible, as the government will no longer be paying for social programs that don't work.

Give people up to a 50% tax credit (not a deduction, a credit.) for donations to organizations that provide food/job training/shelter/charity/medical care for people that need it.

The reasons: The government wastes too much money paying people that create red tape and wasteful policies. Private organizations have been feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless a lot more efficiently, accomplishing a lot more with a lot less money (because they have people that volunteer, and because they don't have the governmental red tape and bureaucracy, and they're just more thrifty to begin with in most cases) and they're local people involved in local causes who understand the needs of the community. We just need to provide the incentives for people to donate to these charities. If people know that the money isn't going to be kept by them anyway, they might as well give it to the food/shelter/job training/medical care charity of their choice rather than to the government who will spend more money doing less of the same thing.

So, people will be taken care of, charities will have more money to do it, and the government will no longer be wasting our money doing what private charities do a lot more efficiently and effectively.

[Richards 0]

I love it....almost.

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Lose the minimum wage. It's pointless and doesn't do what it's intended to do. There's just no reason to have it.

OK

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Cut all social welfare/security programs from government, and pay people back what they've paid in. If we can finance a war in Iraq, we can afford to pay people back, plus interest. We can't get rid of the programs without reimbursing the people who won't see any benefit (not that there was much benefit to begin with, but it's a show of good faith).

Don't get me wrong, I have always worked and never taken assistance, however I would be a little uncomfortable about issues like single mothers who are not able to work (I am all for going after the deadbeat dads but sometimes these guys are uselessly unemployed). I would be worried that young children would pay the price because of their useless parents.

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Cut taxes as much as possible, as the government will no longer be paying for social programs that don't work.

I like that!

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Give people up to a 50% tax credit (not a deduction, a credit.) for donations to organizations that provide food/job training/shelter/charity/medical care for people that need it.

Great

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The reasons: The government wastes too much money paying people that create red tape and wasteful policies. Private organizations have been feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless a lot more efficiently, accomplishing a lot more with a lot less money (because they have people that volunteer, and because they don't have the governmental red tape and bureaucracy, and they're just more thrifty to begin with in most cases) and they're local people involved in local causes who understand the needs of the community. We just need to provide the incentives for people to donate to these charities. If people know that the money isn't going to be kept by them anyway, they might as well give it to the food/shelter/job training/medical care charity of their choice rather than to the government who will spend more money doing less of the same thing.

Makes perfect sense

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So, people will be taken care of, charities will have more money to do it, and the government will no longer be wasting our money doing what private charities do a lot more efficiently and effectively.

[Amazon 7]

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I think we should require all illegal immigrants to serve in Iraq for 2 years and then give them citizenship if they survive.

I think EVERYONE should have to do that... to get citizenship....serve 2 years.. then you have the right to vote. More people would be invested in doing something for their country.

[rickjump1 0]

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I think we should require all illegal immigrants to serve in Iraq for 2 years and then give them citizenship if they survive.

I think EVERYONE should have to do that... to get citizenship....serve 2 years.. then you have the right to vote. More people would be invested in doing something for their country.

I guess this includes the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots aka politicians.

Do your part for global warming: ban beans and hold all popcorn farts.

[Nightingale 0]

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OK you have a pretty rock solid plan. I agree wholeheartedly with your view on taxation going to government beauracracies that create red tape ( Oh I just love hearing someone with common sense).......so should I expect you to be the first female POTUS someday??

Vote libertarian.

http://www.lp.org

I think you'd find the party platform quite interesting.

[Richards 0]

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Vote libertarian.

http://www.lp.org

I think you'd find the party platform quite interesting.

[masterrig 1]

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I think we should require all illegal immigrants to serve in Iraq for 2 years and then give them citizenship if they survive.

__________________________________

I read an interesting article in the newspaper the other day where, 'street gang' members have joined our military so as to smuggle guns and other weapons back to their gang. Also, this past Thursday evening, our town held a 'round table' discussion in regard to 'securing our borders'. On that 'round table' were; CNN news anchor Randi Kaye (moderator), The Sheriff of Webb County Texas, Chief David V. Aguilar of the U.S. Border Patrol and Assistant Secretary of State for Homeland Security Susan Burk. Daniel Benjamin, Chief U.S. Customs inspector in El Paso Belen Robles. Also, in attendance were about 1,000 people. Chief of the U.S. Border Patrol Aguilar stated that; Out of 1.1 million illegal immigrants, 145,000 criminals crossed into the United States through ports of entry, last year. Along with that came 1.3 million pounds of drugs. Into this chaotic , cluttered situation came people looking to harm our democracy!" Chief Aguilar is in charge of 12,000 Border Patrol Agents covering 4,000 miles of U.S. - Canadian border and 2,000 miles of U.S. - Mexico border. This country admits 319,000 people a year through it's ports of entry, 89 million at seaports and 280 million at airports. Aguilar also stated that; "We did not get here overnight. Our borders were ignored for a very long time."


Chuck

[Gravitymaster 0]

Quote

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I think we should require all illegal immigrants to serve in Iraq for 2 years and then give them citizenship if they survive.

I think EVERYONE should have to do that... to get citizenship....serve 2 years.. then you have the right to vote. More people would be invested in doing something for their country.

Are you ready for this?...................................I couldn't agree with you more. Damn right!!

Many of the problems in the US come from peoples uninvolvement with the way the country is run. They have no real vested interests or desire to become Americans. They are simply coming to take advantage of all the US has to offer financially, and to send the money they make back to their native country. I read somewhere that next to tourism, money illegals in the US send back to Mexico accounts for their second largest revenue stream.