You would think, by listening to just about any major political candidate, that “securing the borders” is the solution to, oh, just about everything? We all know that letting brown people into the country is downright dangerous and destroys our economy, right? The developed world compensates by giving the developing world $70 billion a year in economic aid and that helps ease our conscience. We’re giving them a hand up, not a hand out, right? Wrong. We’re making it worse. Read the February issue of Reason. And if you can’t get it (it’s not online yet), you can check out this NY Times article:
[Lant Pritchett] wants a giant guest-worker program that would put millions of the world’s poorest people to work in its richest economies. Never mind the goats; if you really want to help Gure Sarki, he says, let him cut your lawn. Pritchett’s nearly religious passion is reflected in the title of his migration manifesto: “Let Their People Come.” It was published last year to little acclaim — none at all, in fact — but that is Pritchett’s point. In a world in which rock stars fight for debt relief and students shun sweatshop apparel, he is vexed to find no placards raised for the cause of labor migration. If goods and money can travel, why can’t workers follow? What’s so special about borders?
Want to know more? Read this. It’s Lant Pritchett’s book, and you can download it for free or buy it. It’s 143 pages long and, since most of you are pretty literate, you’ll find it a very compelling read. I’m about halfway through and I’m going to read the rest later this month when I’m stranded in a hotel on a business trip. I am learning that border control is not necessarily the good thing just about everyone makes it out to be. Not even close. Again, you can read an interview with Lant Pritchett in the February issue of Reason Magazine.
Chuck Butcher
Let’s take just one nation, Mexico. Do you see a climate challenged resource impoverished nation? If you do, maybe you need to reference an atlas. So let us see, their rat bastard government impoverishes their people so we should impoverish our blue collar? In the name of exactly what the fuck?
Oh sure, if your income is capital derived, you’ll do great. Me, I’ll load up some guns and do some huntin’, hell I’d give $0.02 for a plutocrat tag.
Do you have any idea what the racist backlash about “stolen” jobs would be like? Maybe you don’t spend much time around, say construction workers, I do. I employ them, I work with them, I have an idea. I also know what’s happening to wages.
Some things are so goddam stupid I can’t believe people mention them withour tongue way in cheek.
MJ
Saying the boarders need to be secured is not saying that the US should stop taking in immigrants or even cutting down on it.
Regarding aid to places like Africa this interview in Spiegel Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati also claims the aid does more harm then good.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html
bpower
No, you’d only think that if you took those right wing race-bating scumbags at face value or if you wanted to create a straw man representing people (on both sides) who have valid reasons for wanting bring immigration under the full control of the state.
demimondian
Jeebus. Hey, Michael, what color is the sky on your planet?
It is an undeniable fact that immigrants have a negative impact on the wages of skilled and unskilled craftsmen and women. Unlike “information workers”, craftsmen work with their hands; they can’t be outsourced. When immigrants come into a community, they serve to artificially depress the wages in that community, as they are willing to accept lower wages, and, if illegal, have no bargaining power over their working conditions.
But you don’t care. After all, harming the honest and hard working is what you get off on.
myiq2xu
There’s a movie where one morning people wake up and all the illegal aliens are gone. Vanished back to Mexico or wherever they came from.
I don’t want to be a spoiler but the gist of the movie is that we need the illegals more than most people realize.
If the GOP nutjobs had there way and we rounded up all the illegals and shipped them back to Mexico, we better have the buses wait at the border because we will need them to bring the workers back.
The problem isn’t illegals stealing our good jobs, our corporations have already sent every job they can to other countries anyway.
If the GOP really wanted immigration reform, they would punish employers that hire illegals, not the desperate worker wannabees.
bpower
I’ve just read the end of your post. WOW, just wow, you’re seriously advocating a open boarder policey, correct if Im wrong but thats a fair conclusion based on this…”I am learning that border control is not necessarily the good thing just about everyone makes it out to be. Not even close.”
Who the hell do you think you are? You’re got the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of families and individuals in your hand and you’re tossing them in air because you’re geting 5/4 on an even moeny shot.
I dont live in the US,but I’m going to speck for most of the voters right now; I dont give a fuck about GDP I care about my standard of living. Is that cool?
Open boarders will have a disastrous effect of anybody in the bottom 30% percentile. earning would hurt the bottom 300
Michael D.
demimondian: Jebus, you obviously haven’t taken the time to even read the introduction tot he book. Now, I know you’r eobviously a partisan Republican who’ll take the “brown people” argument they make at face value, but try reading the fucking link before you make a judgment. Hell, I’m only halfway throughm but I’m changing my thinking as a result. You’re spouting talking point as “undeniable” hoping people will jjst accept them.
Let me ask a question. Would you agree that it would be worth it for American wages to go down a few percentage points if the rest of the undeveloped world’s economy benefited 8-10X as a result?
I would.
But you go on thinking in your little ethnocentric silo.
Michael D.
Nope. Not even close. I’m just asking that you read the 143 pages and think about it. Pritchett is not advocating open borders either.
The Other Steve
The first thing that comes into a country who receives a big influx of foreign aid.
Is a Mercedes Benz dealership.
I have to agree that just giving money helps nobody.
bpower
I apologize for the retarded ending of last post.
Meant to say “In any Western country open boarders will have a disastrous effect of anybody in the bottom 30 percentile”.
nerdism
Im dont know how to represent a percentile
/nerdism
Chris Johnson
I’m reminded of the times that meatpacking industries went to towns, loaded buses up with homeless and indigent people by offering them jobs and housing, and drove them to the town the meatpacking plant was in and unloaded them- on the doorstep of the homeless shelter.
You trust this Pritchett guy? It sounds to me like he’s saying, “Let’s make not only goods subject to ‘free trade’ for the benefit of big capital, but also people!” I do understand that it could be interesting if labor was more mobile, but you’re assuming labor is educated and capable of striking bargains, and I’m extremely sure there isn’t parity of information, opportunity or even basic legal protection between you and “Gure Sarki”. You want slave labor and you should get the hell out of here.
Here’s a gedanke-experiment: if you want to import Sarki- would you want to import 100,000 Sarkis- if they were a LABOR UNION?
How about importing them and teaching them they have a right to band together and bargain collectively, which they may or may not be able to do where they come from?
I’d like to get a little better sense of what Michael is going on about here, and whether it’s naivete or whether he’s actually pumped about the prospect of creating a guaranteed powerless serf class. If it’s the latter, I’m going to politely ask John to kick him the hell off this blog, because this is disgusting and I think less of John for bringing this guy around to boost pageviews by inciting flamewars. John, either be RedState or not- none of this token psychopath business. He doesn’t belong here.
The Other Steve
There was some story on the air about how Arizona started doing that and the illegals went back home to Mexico.
I don’t think we’re serious about it.
If we were serious, I’d have to mow my own lawn, and I’m not yet convinced I want to do that.
bpower
Thats not fair Micheal, you cant open a debate on a well worn subject and then disqualify anyone who hasn’t read a particular text.
myiq2xu
Management has always used immigrant labor to hold down the wages of workers. Historically, scabs were immigrants brought in by the bosses, not locals.
Dylan
Odd that nobody advocating a closed border policy so far can spell the word border.
I live in a country with a naturally closed border (totally surrounded by water) but I still think these sorts of approaches are worth investigating.
Michael D.
I’m amazed at how many of you were able to read 143 pages so fast before commenting! I actually thought it would be several hours before I got a comment on this post.
Pb
Lant Pritchett has quite the résumé too–LDS and the World Bank? I’m convinced. Let’s have him bring them all back to Utah.
Michael D.
Dylan: While you may or may not agree with me, I appreciate it that you are at least open to talk about it. Sheeeesh!
bpower
One more thing , the opening paragraph of the OP is a mess.
/ lol, i “flamed” someone.
The Other Steve
That might explain their difficulty in finding gainful employment.
bpower
Every body read Dylan’s comment, then read Micheal’s, then point and laugh at Micheal.
Pb
Fuck off, prick. Did anyone modify the pie filter to work on the front page yet?
myiq2xu
My ex-wife worked in the personnel department of a large company. I don’t want to name any names, so let’s just call it, oh . . .World Color Press.
WCP had several printing plants scattered around the country, and at any given time, at least 2 or 3 or them were closed. All of the plants were located in areas with high unemployment and below average wages.
Now if the plant my ex-wife worked at were to unionize, it would be purely coincidence that within a short time that plant would close and one of the closed plants would open.
Think about that the next time you read your TV Guide. Not that this mythical WCP prints them or anything. Just a coincidence.
myiq2xu
I remember the good old days when the GOP would pass laws imposing draconian punishments for hiring illegals and then provide $0 for enforcement.
bpower
Are we really pricking around with the idea that the only two options are “open” and “closed” borders? Engage in the debate or go away.
CDB
Micro Loans. Money travels easier then people.
myiq2xu
Bwaaaaahahahahahahahahaha!
Informed commentary? You’re kidding, right?
Michael D.
OMG! He’s a Mormon! We should discount everything he says! Also, we should discount:
Philo Farnsworth – Inventor of the television
Harvey Fletcher – Invented the hearing aid
William Hall – Inventor of synthetic diamonds
Henry Eyring – Quantum Mechanics! Mormon!!
David Neeleman – CEO, JetBlue Airways
demimondian
Michael — why should I read the introduction? I’ve studied the issue before…as a shop steward. I know about slime like you and him. I’ve beaten your kind in strikes before.
So, to answer your question:
Would you pay twenty thousand dollars for this perpetual motion machine?
myiq2xu
I like pie too!
demimondian
Yes — and they create a competitive market for labor in the recipient communities, creating a virtuous cycle that actually improves the conditions in those communities.
myiq2xu
When our manufacturing jobs went bye-bye to other countries where wages were 5% of ours, did the products get that much cheaper?
Pb
If you say so, boss! But really, did you know anything else about the guy, or did he mention any of it in that mystical 143 pages that you haven’t finished reading yet? These aren’t just any mormons, seems like they’re pretty high up there, which makes it all the more interesting. At least, for those of us who aren’t reactionary idiot pricks who post on the front page. Not to mention any names, of course.
Michael D.
I don’t care about the guy’s religion. I care about the ideas.
CDB
Speaking of Micro Loans..
Check out this little power opportunity.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4224763.html?series=37
myiq2xu
Way too many people use their religion to sell the idea that it’s okay for them the put the screws to their “brothers.”
demimondian
No, obviously, you don’t. His ideas — and yours — are complete crocks of shit, widely discredited, which nobody takes seriously if they know anything of the actual markets involved.
If you took the ideas seriously, you’d go and look up the history of the alleged benefits of Gastarbeitenen to, say Germany. And then you’d crawl away in shame, if you had the slightest capacity to feel any shame.
Pb
Michael D.,
If you don’t care about his religion, then why did you latch onto it? I also mentioned that he worked for the World Bank, where’s the unasked-for strenuous defense of that? Come on, man, don’t go all half-stupid on me.
Jake
Oh do fuck off sweetheart. According to my admittedly gappy memory you’ve run posts about three articles and each and every damn time it has been painfully clear you didn’t read the entire thing.
Result – Michael D. standing before us with his dick in his hand.
Look, if you like standing around with your dick in your hand, that’s fine but I don’t want to see it, so here’s a novel idea: You read the entire book first and get back to us. Off you go, no checking back every five minutes to see what people are saying about your post, you’ve got reading to do.
Tax Analyst
Oh, good…a “Global Guest Worker Program”. We’ll just pluck some poor Nepalese folks up and plop ’em down in L.A. or Houston or NY City or Detroit or Seattle or Fresno or Bumfuck, Nebraska and stick a rake or a hoe in their hands and everybody will be just fine. What at asinine fucking idea.
“Let the Poor Decide” – What a fucking joke. Uh…just when do the “Poor” get to make these “decisions”? And what if those “Poor” decide they might just like to STAY in their temporary work location? Who’s gonna round ’em up, cowpoke?
No, I didn’t read Lant Pritchett’s 143 pages. But I remember the “Bracero” program out here in California. That’s all this is, just a larger version of the same. We use these folks and pay them as little as we can, stick them in shacks or barracks until harvest season is over and then it’s “adios”. Hell, we can probably pay them even less than we pay Mexicans now, right?
This is not a solution, Michael, this is just some strange, libertarian wet-dream and I haven’t got enough handi-wipes to indulge you here.
bpower
Can we confine the debate by say that there’s 3 options ;a, open boarders,b, state closed boarders,or c,state controlled boarders.
Now, can we agree every thing but ‘c’ is bullshit and start debating the nature of ‘c’?
incontrolados
Haven’t read all the comments (again!) but walls don’t work. I had a student last year do a research paper on the immigration walls currently existing around the world. They only equal death, at every level of life.
Walls are stupid, unless they hold up your house.
ImJohnGalt
Yes.
demimondian
Ah, but inc, those walls would work, if you reinforced them with my StuporDuperPurrPetchuel Motion Machine. And for the low, low, price of $20K (plus S&H), I’ll sell you the secret for it.
myiq2xu
I’ll trade you for an almost new 2006 Henway.
incontrolados
Oh, and I’ll float one or two of my pet theories — easiest is that if the U.S. and Mexico wanted to ‘fix’ the ‘problem’ it would have been done already.
My other theory is more cynical. The immigration problem has always come up when the U.S. wasn’t fighting some other party. this time it came up because the U.S. is losing the fight the Bush admin got itself into. When the wingnuts can’t win one fight they look for another. And they usually find the weakest one to pick on.
If the immigration issue points it’s stupid head into the Democratic race fro president, then the nuts have won. Unless of course the dems push it back on the 7 years of failed immigration policy. But that gets all into homeland security.
I work with internationals. You have no idea how bad it has gotten as far as those even here legally are working illegally since the Bush administration.
incontrolados
You mean mo’ better? At killin’ or some other nonsense?
tBone
People, people, haven’t you learned anything yet? This is just another honeypot post by Michael D, so he and his coworkers can laugh at the reactions (briefly, because obviously they’re too busy to sit around reading blog comments all day, unlike you losers).
I mean, c’mon. Obviously he’s not serious.
myiq2xu
This is one of those areas of political cagnitive dissonance.
The GOP Moneycons want cheap labor. The shock troops of the GOP are blue-collar workers.
The GOP leadership uses appeals to racism to motivate the shock troops (the scary brown people are coming to destroy our way of life) but the Moneycons want those scary brown people cuz they’ll work cheaper than “real” Americans.
That’s why G-Dub pushed immigration reform (to please his filthy-rich pals) and why it blew up when the rank and file found out (they want to keep their jobs.)
incontrolados
Thanks tbone, I’m finally awake enough, no other crap to catch up on, and I know something about the topic, and you shut me down.
incontrolados
That’s why G-Dub pushed immigration reform (to please his filthy-rich pals) and why it blew up when the rank and file found out (they want to keep their jobs.
incontrolados
well, that didn’t work out how I had thought it would.
myiq2xu
Many of the ones that are bellyaching aren’t in danger of losing their jobs, but they have been made to think they are.
That’s what I meant about them being told to be afraid of the scary brown people. Many of them really ARE afraid. Fear and ignorance often travel in the same cart.
Anne Laurie
Would you agree that it would be worth it for American wages to go down a few percentage points if the rest of the undeveloped world’s economy benefited 8-10X as a result?
Would I agree that it would be worth Michael D’s wages going down a few percentage points in order to raise the “undeveloped world’s” economy by a factor of just 1%? Oh, absolutely — if Michael gives his day employer the same quality he’s providing John Cole, then MD is way overpaid, no matter how low his salary.
Would I agree that my neighbors currently trying to survive in the bottom 20% or so of the American economy should give up another “few percentage points” so that Sam Walton’s heirs and Dubya’s frat buddies can increase their fortunes geometrically, again? Even if they dress up the ideology for their new Guest Worker program with some long-winded bullshit about how Labor, like Trade, Longs to Be Free? Bullshit, sir, I would not. As Demimondian and others have already said, we’ve heard this song before and it doesn’t get any less ugly with age.
Stealing from those who have least, by undercutting already sub-survival wages and creating a new class of indentured servants, is never going to “improve” global economic standards. The last thirty years of Gilded Age Mark II: Race to the Bottom of the Global Economy has made that much clear, even to the stereotypical Redstate Heartlander who’s been downsized, offshored, and productivity-improved to within the narrowest margin of his economic survival. Playing the Liberal Guilt card (“If you don’t let AMD import subminimum-wage seasonal workers, it proves you hate starving African babies”) is the last resort of a whole bunch of greedy, thieving scoundrels. (And Republicans. But I repeat myself.)
Tax Analyst
But, hey, you were close, right?
Tax Analyst
What about if Michael D agreed to serve as a conjugal substitute for a guest worker’s goat back in their homeland?
Somebody’s got to keep that fellow’s goat warm at night while he’s over here making chicken patties.
McDuff
It’s funny, the things that “everybody knows”. The things that are “common knowledge”. It’s also funny how things that “everybody knows” tend to be the things that people get most vociferous about defending as principles rather than side of an argument.
Fun facts, kiddypops. We live in a global economy now and all the wishing upon your magic All American Star ain’t gonna put that genie back in the bottle. Capital has been truly, properly global probably since just after WWII, although drawing a clean bright dividing line between the eras isn’t as easy as all that. Amazingly, in all that time the economic benefits which are held to be so self evident from moving capital around to capital weren’t ever looked at in the labour market.
Demimondian snides that we should look at the terrible economic havoc that a guest worker program has wrought on the third largest economy in the world and the largest economy in Europe. And I’m looking, but what am I supposed to be looking for? Economic collapse? Sure, unemployment is high, but then French unemployment is higher and both are quite strongly linked to the internal regulation of the labour market that puts a drag on job creation. So, tell me, what hideous evils did letting all the foreigners bring to Germany (currently ranked 5th globally by PPP)?
Amazingly, this is one of those things that isn’t obvious at all. Immigration produces net economic benefits. Nothing produces zero negatives, but the simple and godawful truth of it is that immigration benefits more people than it hurts.
“Managing” immigration is also a canard. It’s a foreign policy issue which means the all-powerful sovereign government of your nation is at the mercy of events. If there’s migrationary pressure from one area to another then until the US government can magically fix everyone else’s economy (just like it can magically fix its own, ha ha ha) then that’s just the way things are. Putting up barriers moves the bubbles of pressure around but doesn’t get rid of them, and it doesn’t solve the problem. “Managing” immigration isn’t about making all the foreign people go away, it’s about ensuring that the inevitable flow of humanity from one geographic spot to another equalises that pressure as gently as possible and with the minimum of harm to all concerned.
You can no more expect to protect every single job against migrationary pressures than you can expect to protect them against recessions. This is not to say that blue collar workers should be thrown out onto the street, but it is to say that people need to be realistic about what governments can and cannot do to manage broad economic trends. Complaining that it’s all the fault of the brown people is nothing more than letting the nativists take hold of an economic factor and using it to spread their racism. Migration is a symptom, not a cause, of the economic harshness on the bottom rungs of the ladder.
Amusingly, although it’s terribly Marxist to say that the working poor in America and Mexico probably have more in common than the top 1% in either country, the top 1% have absolutely no problem whatsoever seeing themselves as part of a global class. Viva la revolucion.
Dustin
I know I’m going to come off as a prick: but fuck no. The American middle class has been in a nosedive and you want us to take a fucking pay cut? Sorry, but I’m a big fan of kin altruism and the idea that governments serve the interests of their citizens first.
When the American people’s standard of living stops dropping we can consider helping everyone else. Until then they can handle their own fucking problems; we’ve got our own.
McDuff
“Would I agree that my neighbors currently trying to survive in the bottom 20% or so of the American economy should give up another “few percentage points” so that Sam Walton’s heirs and Dubya’s frat buddies can increase their fortunes geometrically, again? Even if they dress up the ideology for their new Guest Worker program with some long-winded bullshit about how Labor, like Trade, Longs to Be Free? Bullshit, sir, I would not. As Demimondian and others have already said, we’ve heard this song before and it doesn’t get any less ugly with age.”
I assume you know what begging the question is, right? What evidence do you have that the problems faced by the bottom 20% of the US Economy are the fault of the bottom 30% of the Mexican economy? Are there no domestic pressures that might well account for the increasing inequality? Maybe something to do with taxation, coporate welfare and a reliance on insurance for public healthcare? Perhaps it might be related to underinvestment in inner city or rural infrastructure, where the poorest live? With all these factors and more in the domestic economy conspiring against the bottom 20%, it’s amazing how the one factor that is going to be really, truly, horrifyingly devastating is the one that talks Spanish.
incontrolados
I try Tax man!
Let’s look at this from another point of view. (Before I hav eto get to sleep in order to take care of the 4 charming puppies that I have that need quality homes.)
The undocumented workers who have come here are needed in the sense that companies need people to do nasty work that is physically hard and they want to pay the least they can.
Look at the people that are talked about most here. Sully, for example, produces nothing. Greenwald writes and inspires, but in the end, all of his sweat produces little more than nothing. (Look at what happened in N.H. last night.) People BJ mocks — they add nothing to the economy. Limbaugh, Hannity, Gallagher, Medved, Praeger, Hewitt, none of them add anything to the economy. Most of them have the same commercials. Who buys that shit?
I left out wingnut welfare, but please, immigrants, legal and illegal add more to this country’s success than all of those word wanks.
Nancy Irving
No GUEST workers. If you want them to come and cut your lawn, let them come the same way our immigrant ancestors came, with the same right to become citizens if they wish.
Anything else is exploitation and will create a class of second-class non-citizens; it’s un-American.
incontrolados
How about everybody cut their own lawn?
Or make your kids do it.
D. Mason
I’ve been sitting here staring at my monitor for at least 5 minutes trying to think of a way to describe the stupidity of this post without being a total asshole.
It’s not possible.
I haven’t read everything here by far, but I’ve read some stupid fucking shit on this blog. I think this is the biggest, steamiest pile so far.
what percent of YOUR paycheck do you send off to developing nations every month Michael? Don’t tell me you’re floating the stinker that EVERYONE should give up “a few percent” without already giving ’till it hurts yourself.
Anne Laurie
In the Times article, Prickhett speaks with admiration of the “excellent job” the Great Hunger did in reducing Ireland’s population pressure. Of course, at least a million Irish citizens died while another million were forced to leave their homes forever (all while tons of food were being exported most profitably for Ireland’s non-citizen landlords), but hey! Global economics is no place for sissies! And 150 years later, just look at how clean & well-spoken & economically advanced Ireland is now! It’s not like the famine and the diaspora had much of an impact on Irish (and American) politics between 1850 and 2008…
Also from the NYT article:
I remember when that memo was “leaked”; Summers spent a good two weeks defending the libertarian utility of offshoring toxins to poison present & future generations of Zambians rather than producing less poison here in America (and maybe poisoning fewer Americans, or undocumented-Americans). Only after it became clear that the Bucks Over Bodies argument wasn’t going to earn Summers any points at Cambridge cocktail parties did he decide to go with the “Just a joke, I kid, ha-ha!” defense. Only when the “Swiftian satire” explanation failed to stop the harsh comments did Summers blame the whole memo on a “young intern” left unnamed IIRC at least by the Boston Globe.
These people are not “contrarians”; they are monsters. It speaks to the moral coarsening of our modern culture that they are not
beaten with heavy volumesshunned by decent people for consistently shilling this kind of filth.myiq2xu
Okay, it’s not just me. I wasn’t gonna throw this out there but . . .
Ya know, Mikey, if you get you jollies getting abused by total strangers then you don’t have to offer up totally dumb-ass posts so people will want to get their freak on explaining to you exactly how insipid, puerile and groveling your stupiditude actually is.
Come out here to California, and I’ll take you to some places in the SF Bay area where the two of us can make good coin with your desire to be abased and humiliated.
Either that or pull your head out of your boyfriend-for-the hour’s rectum and SHOW SOME FUCKING INTELLIGENCE AND CREATIVITY!
There are at least three or four trolls that frequent this place with much more talent at provoking discussions. They work for free, while you presumably get some fiscal benefit for acting retarded.
C’mon, let’s see your “A” game. Cassidey and Psycheout could make better posts while hungover and
running from the copsdriving through rush hour traffic. Dreggas is more disturbing than you when he’staking his medstrying to behave. And TZ, well, you’re not even in the same zip code as him.Let’s see some of that nasty cheese you keep hidden in the drawer next to your bed. Bring out your best (or even better, your worst) Either thrill us with your wisdom or piss us off with some intelligent conservative skank.
But stop with these lame-ass threads. Puh-leeze!
Pb
ImJohnGalt,
Thank you for the link; installed! :)
rachel
I’d post all this to otf_wank if it were funny, but it isn’t. :-(
Ted
Oh. my. fucking. GOD! Michael D. unveils his Randroid circuitry once again. Jesus. Sure! Let’s just migrate jobs all over the fucking place! What do you do, Michael? Is there anyone in the world qualified to do it remotely for 10% your pay, no health care, and a cinder block room to live in? I’m sure there is! Let’s find him or her and get rid of your ‘leeching’ and ‘mooching’ job!
I work in software development, and I don’t happen to want to live in India, or Thailand, or China. So you’ll forgive me if I speak for all who work in this highly offshorable field when I tell you to please shut the fuck up about this Randroid, middle-class obliterating bullshit here. It’s enough to turn me off reading the proprietor as well..
Ted
Dear god, you fucking ruin this blog. Look, asshole, if you want to shut down debate on an idiotic topic your demented brain brings up because people haven’t read the coloring book you decided to shill for, you need to go back to kindergarten where you belong.
SM
Michael, small programs like the one your author described are already happening. There is a major labor shortage in the hospitality industry, and foreign labor is being brought in to reduce the amount of overturn. Here is one article about it.
A lot of people at this thread complained without giving specific reasons other than how things will affect the poor. Right now, immigrant labor is cheap because the labor force has very little sense of agency. There are a limited number of immigrants making remittances to their home countries. Once the borders are completely open, some structure will have to develop to support people not getting paid by their employers, not having access to health care, etc. Once enough remittances are made to the home country, the home country will build up its own economy (unless all the money is being stolen by a corrupt government) and migrating will lose its appeal.
Also, if the economy that the laborers work in is the completely cash economy, which it is in a lot of cases, the US government loses money and is less able to support whatever it is doing.
John S.
The United States is already bleeding money overseas from every possible orifice. Here is an excellent summary I came across yesterday that seems to describe our present clusterfuck (and Michael’s wet dream). An excerpt:
And all the glibertarians line up and glibly say, “More of this please! Would you agree that it would be worth it for American wages to go down a few percentage points if the rest of the undeveloped world’s economy benefited 8-10X as a result?”
The economy of underdeveloped countries may go up, but this will mean fuck all to the average citizen of those countries, just as the benefit of all the cheap labor and depressed wages hasn’t benefited American workers these past 5 years despite GDP going up.
The rich folk in underdeveloped countries will pocket all the wealth, just like they do here. And laissez-faireophiles like Michael will point to a chart that says the GDP of Mexico went up 100% last year and cite how fabulous that is
ithaqua
My goodness, one mention of immigration and suddenly all the commenters here start channeling Pat Buchanan.
D. Mason wrote:
Hey, Mason, how much of your paycheck do you spend buying medical insurance for poor strangers? Care for the elderly? Because don’t try to tell me I should support Social Security or Medicare unless you’re giving ’till it hurts yourself.
(That was sarcasm. Just in case you find the argument convincing. I wouldn’t want to argue you out of supporting SS, after all.)
Tax Analyst wrote:
News flash, genius: they’re already IN Houston and Detroit and so on. And believe it or not, some of them didn’t need guns pointed at their heads to get them there. Really.
The entire “We have to keep the immigrants out to stop people from exploiting them” argument is utterly ridiculous. What allows for the exploitation of immigrant labor is the threat of deportation – labor law violations go unreported because nobody dares complain to the government enforcers thereof. An unregulated market is going to be abusive, and an illegal market is de facto unregulated. I can’t see why liberals, of all people, should have trouble understanding this concept.
(Admittedly, a ‘guest worker program’ that requires workers to remain employed or be deported is just as bad in this regard.)
Dustin wrote:
So Dustin might – MIGHT – consider policies that benefit the rest of the world, but only after America is done stomping all over them in order to make the highest standard of living in the world even higher. How generous. I suppose you support Bush’s attempts to secure the supply of Middle East oil for America – after all, when gas prices are high, it’s poorer Americans who suffer most, right? :)
McDuff wrote:
This. Although I’d say that the benefits – to labor – are well known to the people moving the capital, and they don’t want none of that shit. There’s no fucking point to closing an American factory and opening a Mexican one (for example) unless you can exploit $1/hour Mexican labor, and you can’t do that if the labor can go mow lawns north of the border for $10/hr.
myiq2xu
The biggest danger to free-market capitalism is successful capitalists. Huge concentrations of wealth are a threat to democracy too, which is why Jefferson eliminated primogeniture in Virginia.
BTW – One myth of “wealth” is that people who have it “earned” it. Invariably there were a lot of other people involved who worked just as hard or harder, and didn’t get to share the pie.
les
Whatever the merits of MD’s post–and it certainly speaks to his penchant to lead off with provocation and back it up with ignorance–it has certainly brought out the stupid along with the vitriol:
Good luck with that, fool; if you think they aren’t connected…
Where do you think foreign aid comes from, dipshit?
Talk to your employer, who’s lobbying for more HB1(?) visas, nitwit–or take your jackalope to somebody who cares. Or think about this–if labor could move, maybe those programmers would want to come here, and demand salaries commensurate with US standards–then you’d just have to be better at your work, instead of just whinier.
And the solution is to kick out the people who spend the greatest percentage of their income locally? God, teh stupid. While most things might be related somehow, you might find that federal deficits and trade deficits are shipping dollars overseas at a rate that sorta dwarfs day labor remittances. We’re fortunate that some of that money comes pack through purchase of assets here; although profits going out aren’t the best thing, at least taxes and expenses stay home.
And why is that? Because, just like massive foreign aid gets skimmed at the top, repub tax and corporate welfare policies have let the wealthy skim the cream here. These numbers might not be exact, but something like 65% of income increases over the bush/reagan era have gone to the top 5% of income earners. The disparity in wealth ownership is now bigger than it’s been since 1930–ring any bells? The fact that you buy the repub attempt to blame it on the scary brown person problem doesn’t speak well for you; I can only hope you don’t vote. Laborers, on the other hand, send money to their families, who buy things and elevate the economy at home. See any difference?
McDuff, thanks for trying to inject information. But between the trolls, the anecdotists and Michael’s drive to start conversations he can’t participate in, there’s not much to hope for.
McDuff
Nancy Irving
If you want them to come and cut your lawn, let them come the same way our immigrant ancestors came, with the same right to become citizens if they wish.
So that’s either “travel first class” or “turn up at the border, pass a six second physical examination and answer a simple questionaire”? Unless you have some real good evidence that the Mexicans turning up at the border wouldn’t have got through Ellis Island (hint: I’ll take that bet for $1,000), you’d be better off finding another argument.
John S
So not only is immigration wrong, but foreign investment is wrong too? You don’t want any foreign people to be involved at all? What about importing raw materials? Can I buy something over the internet from America with my credit card? Did you get this pissed off with the DaimlerChrysler merger?
Seriously, when you’re raging against foreign investment because the flow of capital isn’t staying 100% within the US border you’ve got a really fundamental problem with some basic economic principles. Like how even foreign-owned hotels and immigrant workers pay taxes and buy things while they’re here.
If that’s the level of economic understanding, well, no wonder you’re all shouting at Michael like a bunch of five year olds. Seriously people, “wah wah foreign people bad” is not an argument.
Kynn
Michael D’s co-workers are laughing at us, and we’re all laughing at Michael D’s co-workers.
D. Mason
I pay in the prescribed amount of my taxes to such programs, just like I suspect you do. I have yet to collect a fucking dime from the state though, or request one for that matter. You see, despite paying for other peoples state assistance for quite a few years I am loathe to request unemployment compensation even though I got laid off a few weeks ago. Why? Because I am young and able bodied and I know I will find work before my meager savings fails to pay my monthlies. So fuck yourself.
I also have a close relative who got disabled back in November after paying into social security for 42 fucking years and now they’re giving her a hard time trying to collect her benefits. So yeah, anyone who wants to take a few more percent from me or mine to help some “less fortunate” can cook in hell.
I don’t have health insurance and haven’t been to the doctor in over 10 years because I take care of my health and don’t need the expense. I, like everyone else, am not immune from hard times and would like to continue putting back something to TAKE CARE OF MYSELF, when it happens.
I am a reasonably intelligent, naturally born American who is not afraid of a days hard work. Why should I smile about having to struggle while Gure Sarki picks my pocket on the front end and my sweat pays for his families health care on the back end? Answer that question if you can.
HyperIon
TZ watching the first three episodes of the wire is more likely than somebody reading 143 pages to get your point.
D. Mason
My question wasn’t about foreign aid dipshit. I pay taxes too. This clown is asking me to give up ANOTHER few percent. All I’m trying to find out is if it’s important enough to him for him to already be going above and beyond or if he’s just being flippant with my money/lifestyle because he didn’t have to work for it. Place your bets.
John S.
McDuff-
You’re quite the mind reader if you managed to gleen all of that from my post. I guess I would bother to waste my time crafting a response, but you seem to be such a smug prick that I won’t bother.
Use your mind-reading powers to figure out what I’m thinking and then respond accordingly.
I’ll even give you a hand:
No. No. Ok with me. Yes. No.
You may now resume your love for the invisible-hand of the free market at the expense of those of us that don’t really ‘understand’ economics.
les
And here we see the full fruition of the republitarian con job. As a society, we make a deal; we all spend a little, so that there’s something available when bad shit happens to one of us. And they’ve managed to convince folks like D. Mason that it’s demeaning and unAmerican and faggy and wimpy and, worst cut of all, not self reliant to make use of a benefit he’s paid for. And therefor he’s a better man than those soft-ass illegals and hippies and dregs who would use it. How you convince otherwise apparently sane people to act and vote against their own self interest is a phenomenon future historians will study and marvel at.
John S.
I love how pointing out a problem is seen as advancing a solution. The stupid truly does burn.
Wow, more conjecture. You’re another fine mind-reader. I have no problem with immigrants or their contribution to our labor market. What I have a problem with is glibertarian theories of economics that postulate that lowering wages here will somehow magically benefit people in underdeveloped nations. If you buy that, I can only hope that you not only don’t vote but haven’t procreated, either.
And pay exorbitant fees to check cashing stores and Western Union for that privelege. Nobody doubts the benefit that whatever money is left has on the people receiving it, but lowering wages here isn’t going to put any more money into their pocket.
D. Mason
Wow you sure have me pegged to the T dontcha smart guy. Maybe you never stopped to think that it has nothing to do with how it might make me feel. It’s a lot of bureaucratic red tape to go through for a few hundred dollars and would also let the government have a say in my ongoing job hunt. In other words, the cost for taking such assistance simply isn’t worth it to me, despite having already paid a significant price under duress. If I were desperate, of course I would take the little assistance they provide. I live a frugal, simple life so that I don’t have to go begging for state assistance and the myriad of shit that comes along with it at the first sign of rough times. I choose to be self reliant because I believe it’s better than relying on a government that may or may not be willing to help me when I need it. If I relied on and got denied unemployment there’s not shit I could do about it and then I would really be fucked.
The relative I spoke of relied on social security to be there were something to happen to her. It did and now she is in danger of losing everything she owns because of her foolish reliance on them. I will end up spending resources I don’t have to spend just to help her keep her house. I guess you would rather I send that money off to Gure Sarki where it could do some “real good” instead of keeping someone I love from being homeless while she waits for the money she is owed.
Now you want to tell me that if I just give a few more fucking percent everything will be peachy. I don’t believe you. I don’t believe poverty is a problem that can be solved and I don’t think I should shit away the rest of my own life struggling to solve a problem to which there is no solution. If you believe in it so much then YOU should struggle. Give until it you bleed, I don’t give a shit how you spend your money. I do wish you goddamn communists would stop trying to tell me how to spend mine.
I am under no obligation, moral or otherwise to work day in and day out to put food on someone else’s table. I do genuinely care that there are people suffering in other parts of the world, it breaks my heart to hear of children starving, but I won’t join them so I can pretend I’m some kind of humanitarian.
Chuck Butcher
Michael do you ever look at anything other than some advocate’s text? Like the government’s own numbers? Non-union construction wages are a dollar match to 1984, inflation since makes that dollar worth $0.50 so it isn’t your 1-2% it’s a matter of 50% numbnuts.
If you’re some kind of market capitalist try this, up to 20 million illegal immigrants with 30% working in construction. What do you think happens to the wage market?
I’ve been in construction for 35 years, I have first hand experience with the consequences of illegal hiring. You and some of your’s seem to think these people pick strawberries and mow lawns, utter bullshit. Every hard dirty blue collar job is under assault and the wages are plumetting. You may get 1-2% by measuring against the entire income structure, but that’s not where the impact is.
Walls are stupid, removing the incentives – employment and services is effective. Yes, having some control over our border is reasonable, but that is one hell of a lot easier to do without a flood of job seekers complicating the picture.
You ought to be grown up enough to separate agenda from reality and outcomes. I’ve defended you before, but this is just plain stupidity.
Tax Analyst
ithaqua – exploitation is not the only issue and I was not suggesting keeping all immigrants out. As others have suggested, you need to fine-tune your mind-reading talents a bit before you make blanket assumptions. I don’t really think you deserve a full rendering of my thoughts, nor do I have time to fill you in. Rest assured, xenophobia is NOT one of my personal issues.
I am, however, trying to do better in the area of “suffering fools gladly”, but I fear I still have a long way to go.
Anne Laurie
Dubya’s Saudi buddies have come up with a *wonderful* template for him on this: Legalize a permanent cadre of “homegrown” mercenaries to intimidate, arrest, brutalize, deport, and/or murder guest workers who are desperate enough to get out of line. This serves the dual purpose of saving Pierce Bush and Mary Cheney from having to waste their beautiful minds on the servant problem, and providing the less fortunate natives with a constant reminder that things could always get worse (say, if we were to try organizing labor unions). I understand that Blackwater already has thousands of resumes from ex-soldiers, ex-construction workers, and ex-factory hands on file, pre-sorted by security levels for every slot from “chain gang foreman” to “neighborhood security mole”…
Dustin
Simple truth time: It’s not the job of the government of the United States of American to raise the standard of living of other nations citizens. It is their job to look out for those of us who are American citizens.
If it is in the long-term interest of Americans to help other nations then great, do it. If it’s more effective, in the long term, for the American government to waste money fighting in the Middle East for oil instead of devoting that same money to self-sustaining energy supplies then I’ll agree to the war. The fact of the matter is though that Bush’s war is not good for the American people, either in the short term orthe long. Neither is it in the American people’s interest to raise the standard of living of other nations if it adversely effects our own. We live in a zero-sum capitalistic economy with top players looking to exploit everyone below them for maximum gain. What you’re proposing would basically drop the American people’s living standard to that of a 2nd or 3rd world nation. No thanks.
And as has been mentioned we’re not looking at “a few percentage points”; we’re looking at massive decreases in standards of living. No government should support positions with that sort of negative impact on their citizenry.
Ted
Hey Mason. A recent study found that the most libertarian country/economy on the planet is Estonia. So pack up your Rand books and other wanking material and get the hell over there.
D. Mason
Ted, I just want to make sure I have this straight. You’re arguing against saving money for a rainy day. The reverse of which is… I should look to the government to bail me out for every little hiccup on my road to retirement? The same government that brought us Iraq and katrina. That’s you’re sage fucking advice. Oh and I’m a Randian jerk-off. Haha.
Ted
Actually, moron, I gave no advice on any topic. WTF are you even blabbering about?
Chris Johnson
I still say- have the courage of your convictions.
Open the borders, let the people come, give them CITIZENSHIP and help them organize a UNION.
Otherwise you are just a slave trader, and when I was growing up that was out of style. The more things change…
McDuff
John S
Aww, you’re so cute. Here, let me help you out with where you’re going wrong.
What you quoted earlier as a serious problem:
BUT WAIT!!! Since we then started talking about how all that money streaming out of the US would, in fact, help other economies (with the principle that this would be a good thing because economics isn’t a zero-sum game and so richer neighbours makes for a richer USA, although I’m sure you understood that implicitly), you went off on how that doesn’t work *either*:
So, I dunno, maybe it’s because I’m a mind reader but there’s definitely something here which makes me think there might not be a fully comprehensive conception of why moving money around benefits people all over the economy bouncing around in that little noggin of yours. I mean, I just guessing that the way you directly contradicted yourself is evidence that you don’t know what you’re talking about, but that’s my silly reliance on logic and induction talking. Maybe I should just start getting angry and calling people morons rather than trying to engage substantively with the issues. That’d probably be much more betterer, wouldn’t it?
I mean, I could be wrong. My mind reading powers obviously let me down when I assumed that because you posted a simplistic argument directly criticising direct foreign investment in the USA as being a bad thing because some of the money left after it came in that, I dunno, you actually thought foreign investment was a bad thing. Thing is, since my mind reading powers are so obviously flawed, you might want to help us readers out by not posting things you don’t understand or would disagree with if you’d read them for any other information than “hey, this guy’s criticising foreigners!” Or I suppose the alternative is you could just keep posting random bullshit about how foreign people are bad and we could just give up pretending there’s anything more substantive to your criticisms than that. That suits me just fine.
As for accusations of me being in love with the free market, well, I guess when I talked earlier about how migrationary pressures were a symptom and that maybe you could look at domestic policies like raising taxes on the top brackets, reforming healthcare to increase flexibility and reduce income volatility for the lower-middle classes, taking money from rich suburbs and investing it in poor schools… nah, actually you got me. Those are the hallmarks of an economic free market fundamentalist, sure as can be. Guess I should just go back to feasting on the blood of the workers and stop bothering you all.
Before I do, though, mind if I just get one NYC resident to ask one simple question?
I’m just trying to think of the cities I know with the largest numbers of immigrants in them… London, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Manchester, Sydney… and, y’know, the phrases “destitute” or “economic collapse” aren’t the first ones that spring to mind. My lily white backwater full of racists hometown, on the other hand, somehow manages to be full of unemployed people without any immigrants there to steal any of the non-existent jobs. Funny that. It’s almost as if immigration wasn’t the most important factor after all. But, if economic problems aren’t the fault of foreign people, how come rich white guys who own newspapers are always trying to tell us it is? I wonder what the answer to this intractable mystery could possibly be…?
D. Mason
Blame the rich white guy… that’s your complex answer huh. Wow. That seems almost as simplistic as his assumed blame the poor brown guy. The application of a little common sense here might enlighten you both. The rich white guy has been using the poor brown guy to put the squeeze on the middle class for decades now. You can call people who get sick of that shit racist/xenophobic, or hint at it, all you like, but that doesn’t make it true. The post at the top is just another rich white guy(he’s part of the world bank) floating his plan for robbing the middle class. It doesn’t matter if you’re supporting it because you like the rich white guy, because you like the poor brown guy, because you like wide open borders or because you think global economies are best. You’re still pushing something that forces more of the middle class into the lower class. Maybe that’s the point from the start.
John S.
D. Mason-
Well said.
There’s a lot of assumptions going on in this thread, and we all know the saying about how well that works out. My only contribution to this thread has been that the notion Michael floated is a turd. That’s about it. Any other tea leaf reading is absurd, particularly on the part of McDuff. But hey, those free market capitalists are always right about everything, so I guess there is no point in arguing with them.
Jamey
I call “bullshit.”
Jamey
myiq2xu:
Will the 2006 Henway work with a pre-2005 Dikfor?
McDuff
It’s amazing what qualifies you for being a free market capitalist these days. Calling for high taxes on the rich and redistribution of wealth used to be socialist, and the notion of an internationalist working class, well, that was positively Marxist just last Tuesday. I really should learn to keep up with the classification of idly thrown political insults.
I’m not quite sure what the objection to this apparent “turd” is because it keeps changing. Up to now I thought it was the working class that were being squeezed, and that was a criticism that actually had some weight to it – immigration really only having a measurable negative effect on unskilled wages, and that only in certain circumstances. But apparently now the brown people are being “used” to get at the middle class too, which is news to me. I wasn’t aware that the middle class were that badly affected by the lack of opportunities to be maids and orange pickers, or by the passing on of those savings to them at the local Kwik-E-Mart or Motel 6. I mean, maybe it happens, I’d just love for someone to detail the mechanism by which it happens rather than just, y’know, declaring it true by Internet Fiat. Also, seriously, even though I just don’t get this fact because, y’know, aforementioned free market capitalism is blinding me, it really is just the foreign people. Taxation, healthcare, education, infrastructure, investment, welfare, none of these things matter. In fact, even suggesting that domestic policies could possibly have as much of a depressing effect on the working class as working class people from other countriesmakes you nothing more than a dirty commie fascist free market capitalist! Unlike everyone else in the USA, which is, after all, the last bastion of true Communism.
Seriously, is there any chance the thread’s going to turn the way of evidence and people addressing substantive arguments any time soon? Or will there just be another round of name-calling? Amazing how nobody is really spotting the irony of filling a comments thread with post after post of “I don’t know much but I know Michael’s a turd, and so does everybody” when the original post was pretty much “actually, what you think is common knowledge might actually not be true.” But then people do get awfully attached to common knowledge, especially when it’s not true. It’s one of those fallacious gifts that keeps on giving, I guess.
McDuff
Oh, and well spotted that I’m just blaming the rich white guy and that, yes, the sum total of my entire argument was “rich white guys r teh suxorz lol”. I thought I’d hidden that nugget beneath the discussion of economic pressures and policy concerns, but it’s good to see people are, indeed, paying attention to the important stuff.
D. Mason
As long as you declare them untrue by internet fiat someone else can claim them true by internet fiat with just as much weight and honesty.
Hey, I never said you were some free market capitalist, I just said your implied blame for the elusive rich white guy was not the whole picture. The same thing you seem to be saying except, you know, you’re pretending like the illegal immigrants are in no way a part of the problem.
I can only speak for myself but the part of Michael D’s position I have the most problem with is this.
But your counter arguments didn’t address this at all, you seem to have assumed that there would be no such cost involved. If you can make that argument go ahead. As long as this cost is assumed I will argue against this “plan”. If you can’t understand that, it’s your problem not mine.
Sam Hutcheson
Seriously, is there any chance the thread’s going to turn the way of evidence and people addressing substantive arguments any time soon?
No. Which is sad, because this is probably the most thought provoking link I’ve seen on BJ in a while. I mean, it’s fun to watch John eviscerate Hewitt again and again, and Tim’s science posts are pretty cool sometimes, but this is a topic well worth _political_ consideration. Unfortunately, folks here seem to be more interested in calling Micheal names.
Yes, that’s an insult.
Anne Laurie
Sam, shorter me: This economic “experiment” has been tried many times over the past century-plus, extending into the present. *Every single time*, it’s turned out to be a Big Win for a very tiny number of people at the very top of the local economic ladder, a Dubious Blessing for the “guest workers”, and a HUGE FAIL for the local inhabitants in between those poles. The Rich use the Guest Workers to push down wages, environmental standards, and political freedom at the expenses of the Working Class, who become Poor, followed by the Middle Class, who drop into whatever remnants of the working-class niches not filled by guest workers. This has happened so often, and with such unvaryingly AWFUL results, that anyone who proposes a new “trial” must be considered either naive, stupid, or an apologist for the tiny portion of the top economic class who will profit from such an experiment.
Choose your category — fvckwit. “Yes, that’s an insult.”
Kerry Howley
Many of the arguments here echo the arguments against free trade made in the first half of the last century. But the vast majority of you are surely better off because we do not, in fact, lock foreign goods out of our economy. We do not consume a fixed number of goods and services so that all of our needs are suddenly met by Chinese factories when we allow them to compete. And the United States does not contain a fixed number of jobs that will be “filled up” by Mexicans when we finally create a common labor market. If you keep thinking of the economy as a bunch of slots waiting to be filled, you’ll live in needless fear forever. Immigrants are entrepreneurs, and they will bring new job opportunities with them, as they always have in this country.
Nor will the wages of people in Mexico and people in the United States suddenly equalize when we stop restricting the flow of labor. Connecticut shares a common labor market with Mississippi (which many of you would surely have argued against at this country’s founding) but average wages in Connecticut and Mississippi do differ.
And enough with the claims that showing a concern for hungry Nepalis is “elitist.” If anything is elitist, it is surely the desire to lock very poor people out of this country for the imagined benefit of some Americans.
McDuff
Well, for a start, I did address it:
But if you want details, well, details I’ve got.
To reiterate: immigration does have a short term depressing effect on unskilled wages. It doesn’t have a significant effect on unskilled wages. However, objecting to immigration reforms based on this is assuming a policy in a vacuum. My argument here is not simply for immigration per se, but for a removal of the idea that immigration is the most significant factor affecting the economic wellbeing of the working class, and that the economic benefits of immigration are therefore worth sacrificing to protect this class.
Even just thinking about the fact of foreign vs. native workers, there are reasons – actual economic mechanisms – for tight restrictions on labour movements being a bad option compared to the alternatives.
Take outsourcing. Here the jobs still go to foreign people, often at an even lower rate than you get by hiring immigrants. However, the effect is exacerbated by removing restrictions on capital while keeping them in place on labour, the very definition of a distorted market. Removing restrictions on labour movement eases the pressures caused by outsourcing. Not costless and not enough to nullify the costs, but still significant enough to remove some of the downward pressure.
Also, consider that there is already significant downward pressure on unskilled wages caused by the vast numbers of illegals. Illegals, however, exert a greater downward pressure on wages than legal migrants because they are excluded from collective bargaining and more vulnerable to exploitation. People who complain about Mexicans working for $3.50 an hour but who won’t let them organise or work legally are cutting off their nose to spite their face. Decreasing controls and allowing people to work in the country legally will cause an initial glut of migration, which will equalise over the medium term, but it will also nullify the existing pressures caused by the illegality of the most vulnerable part of the labour market.
Also, sometimes downward pressure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Take the example of the UK’s “Polish Plumber.” The UK as a whole has been shifting to a more service-oriented economy through the 90s, and this brought about a significant shortage in the numbers of skilled tradesmen – plumbers, electricians, plasterers, carpenters and the like – that were being educated locally. Those that did exist were able to make quite a lot of money, but the problem was that those who needed their services had to pay more for what could often be substandard service, if they could even get hold of one. With the expansion of the EU lots of Poles came into the UK, a huge migratory glut. A lot of them found gainful employment in this gap in the market, as plumbers, electricians and plasterers. Hence wages for those sectors were depressed slightly to where they probably should have been in the first place, with the result of an overall economic benefit for everyone.
So that’s just dealing with foreign people. Take other domestic policies. The big deal in America at the moment is healthcare – it’s a time and bother as well as financial cost, which drastically affects the working class. There’s also the decreased flexibility and increased income instability in both the working class and middle class caused by people with benefits being tied to their jobs to preserve their healthcare. Change that, watch the lower rungs receive net benefits that outstrip anything migration can do. Then alter the tax code. Strip out the cap on payroll tax and make it more progressive. Bing, sudden increase in freedom of agency at the working classes from three or four different sides.
Add to this mix a direct attack on any residual problems caused by immigration. If the depressing effects that aren’t counterbalanced or necessary are estimated to be 3% on unskilled wages, say, let’s also say we hike up the top tax rate and redistribute it down as tax credits to that group – a sliding scale starting at 4%, perhaps, so as to be sure that we’re nullifying the effects as much as possible. The cost is still real, but we pass it onto the people who a) can afford it and b) will apparently be the ones benefiting from a move like this.
Meanwhile, what do we get for that cost? A normalised labour market which can cope with the migrationary pressures of having Mexico’s economy next to the USA’s without developing the huge black market for illegal labour which so completely distorts the labour market at the moment. Increased fiscal stimulus for Mexico itself, which reduces the migrationary pressure over the medium to long term as well as provides new markets for American goods as the economy develops.
So, as a policy mix I happen to think that doesn’t sound bad at all. You’d have to be careful not to shock the system by phasing it in, and it will be better all-round for it to happen at the right stage in the economic cycle (so not right now when there’s a global recession about to kick in), but it doesn’t seem like voodoo economics or lack of concern for the working classes to me.
So, in that context, yes I think we can perfectly adequately deal with a short-term depressing effect in wages in order to get a much more flexible economy without a huge black labour market in it. And I’m willing to pay for it.