It also provides a rare opportunity to test ideas. Anti-illegal immigration people are tired of hearing “...jobs Americans won’t do,” while others insist we need to import cheap labor. Will Arizona collapse without its cheap labor? Or will previously unemployed Arizonans pick up the slack?
Drastically reducing the illegal immigrant population by allowing them free passage home would put this nation to the test. Could we do our own dirty work? We have 10% unemployment in this country and college students who need money; I think we could. Unfortunately, we will probably never be able to test this question at the national level.
Americans Won’t do the Jobs because the Pay is Crappy!
Supply and demand works in the labor market as well. Employers compete for employees by offering pay and incentives. Bring in illegals who can be intimidated and abused into accepting poor working conditions and shabby pay, and the native born American workers are cut out of the market. Back in the old days, labor unions would have called these illegal workers scabs.
The Root of the Illegal Immigration Problem
Pure libertarianism is against immigration impediments. People, jobs and businesses should be free to flow where they will with no border controls. Sounds good, but the thinking person intuits that this will not work.
Milton Friedman explained why:
“You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.”The difference in conditions between the developed and under developed world is just too great. Add in the enormous pay differential and lax law enforcement, and the US is a giant illegal immigrant magnet.
10 comments:
Simple logic suggests that if you take the "cheap illegal workforce" out of the equation, you will have to increase wages to find appropriate resources. Therefore stimulating OUR economy and eliminating one of the reasons for illegal immigration in the firs place.
Question: what is the unemployment rate among teenagers in AZ currently? I would bet it's WAY up there.
Once these criminals leave, I would also bet that the teen jobless rate will plummet.
I know this from experience - illegal aliens took my teen job from me in the 1970's. I used to pick beans, and the 'bean bus' cruised the neighborhoods picking us up and taking us to the fields and back. We noticed a lot of Mexicans in the fields next to us who showed up on their own.
Eventually, the 'bean busses' never came around anymore. And poor old teenage Fredd was out of a job.
I mourn for the education system that has failed to teach students from the 50s on, the difference between "legal" and "illegal" and why one is better than the other.
The impact that the cost of higher wages would have on the economy would be more than made up for by the increase of money that remains in the local economy and the elimination of the billions of dollars lost due to things such as the illegals' unpaid medical bills at hospitals (with the resulting hospital closures that we've had in southern Arizona), crimes perpetrated by illegals, etc.
Precisely. We are living in a false economy built on the backs of exploited labor. I would gladly pay a little more knowing it's honest money going to an honest American worker doing an honest day's work.
I'm so sick of thr lefty NON logic! HAVE A BLESSED WEEKEND my friend!:)))
>a false economy
Of course, by far the biggest element creating the false economy is the intrusion of the federal government. The biggest inflater of prices is the federal government. The price of gasoline is just one example. The profit taken by the government in explicit taxes and implicit taxes (fees, etc.) is far higher than that taken by oil companies. Markets self-correct when left to their natural mechanism, so for our economy to recover, the government needs to stay out of the way. Even with every illegal gone, things won't be right until we get the politicians and bureaucrats 100% out of the way.
Once they leave and the jobs are open, I can pretty much guarantee that those vacant jobs would be happily taken from Americans who have no income coming in.
Americans NEED those jobs. Many are willing to work in the fields, cleaning and even landscaping.
Illegals need to protest in their own countries and those Americans who have betrayed this nation by protesting along side with them should follow the illegals to their home countries. I am sure many unemployed Americans would gladly take their jobs.
I agree with your comment and Leticia's that we'd quickly fill the jobs, and I'd pay more, we all would because it would quickly become the norm, especially knowing all Americans' were gainfully employed.
We make the money up easy in other areas.
The lawncare industry is billions of dollars young American entrepreneurs can't break into for their first business because the Mexicans own it. College kids, high school kids, all unemployed because of Mexican illegals.
Bastiatarian you said...
"government needs to stay out of the way. Even with every illegal gone, things won't be right until we get the politicians and bureaucrats 100% out of the way."
Of course you are absolutely correct here. However, given the progressive collectivistt trajectory this nation has been on for the pat 110 years or so, with acedamia and the media being amongst the biggest suporters, one has to question if we will ever be able to right the ship.
Post a Comment