Mitt Romney's white board speech to the media this hour was fantastic. Detailing how bad Obama's medicare plans are, by combating by saying his do the opposite of Obama without any detail on his plan at all.

Both candidates have stated support for it.

You rule.

Not really, it's just a ploy to curry favor with various special interest groups. Just because these criminals can't vote this time around doesn't mean those are the only votes attached to this bit of insanity.

Ahhh immigration. One of the very, very very few areas me and Jon mostly agree on.

I'll start worrying about illegal immigration when teens start bitching about not getting that picking lettuce of janitorial summer job.

Dramatically relax the rules for legally entering the country, and nix minimum wage laws for certain shit jobs (like that lettuce picker), and we're good, then.

I'm curious what the economic situation would look like without illegal immigration. It drives down wages in that someone would have to pick food and thus you would have to pay a lot as it's a non-desirable job. No, I don't want to pick veggies in a field for $10 an hour. But you want to pay me $30 an hour because no one will take $10 per hour, now we're talking. Same rule of thumb that applies to, say, plumbers: fairly well paid because no one wants to do it.

So it does artificially deflate those wages by having a black market labor pool. However, that, in turn, keeps prices on food relatively low. What would food prices look like? And how would that change our priorities? If we had to pay 2x more for food, we'd have less disposable income for "luxury goods" which range from cable tv to cheap electronics to cars to a shinier house. What part of that model would break? What things would we do without? Because we won't go without food, shelter, or fuel/electricity as those are necessities in the modern era.

I suspect if we had to pay more for food, we wouldn't have had as much of a housing bubble and we'd have a less consumerist society as we wouldn't have money to pay for cheap junk from China, for instance. Or maybe our toys would be cheaper and crappier- we just wouldn't advance consumer technology as quick as there wouldn't be the money in having people buy a new cell phone ever 2 years and a new tv every 5. That wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. But I may be way off in left field as to the effects. There's no way to really know. As someone mentioned on Marketplace the other night "there's no double blind US economy test to put this up against"

SI

Actually, I don't think the laws need to be relaxed, they need to be consistent. Why does one person have to wait 15 years to get their green card when another may only have to wait 1 or 2 years? Especially when nothing out of the ordinary applies to either person and things appear to be equal.

Last I checked/heard, most of the farm workers already make pretty close to minimum wage (that was about 5 years ago in California). Unfortunately, as we've seen upper management salaries skyrocket and 'drone' workers wages stagnate/decrease over the last few decades, minimum wage laws are a necessity. It's either that or we can have more of those lazy, drug using people on welfare or some other kind of government assistance because they can't afford anything.

Which would be equally fine. What I'd like is a solution to allow those who want to come to this country a means to do so quickly, easily, and LEGALLY.


I'll admit I know next to nothing about the pay of most of the jobs that I *believe* are primarily staffed by illegals. At the end of the day, you're going to have to make it financially attractive for the employer to hire people here legally. If they can pay an illegal half the wage for the same unskilled job (that many people don't want anyway, even at higher wages), they're going to.

And I don't have a solution there. I don't know exactly what the disparity of pay is between legal and illegal unskilled labor. If, as you suggest, it's not as large as I gather, then allowing more unskilled labor into the country legally could be a start. So long as the cost per employee is roughly on par, (and the punishments for hiring illegal immigrants are stiff and heavily enforced)...it's a start in the right direction.

If there's a big disparity, there's simply no way to improve the immigration issue without relaxing minimum wage laws.

I really don't need any wage laws relaxed. My lowest paid employee is paid around $10/hour plus I provide rent-free, utility free, paid satellite dish housing for all employees. If I didn't have a house for an employee to live in I'd pay them more or simply pay their rent for them. It comes out to around $30K per year before taxes (yes, they do pay taxes and contribute to social security which they'll never collect).

Others do pay like shit. But they get what they pay for.

Interesting. Which begs a question then...why the hell is it such an apparent huge deal to make it easier to enter legally, if the cost disparity between illegal and legal ISN'T huge?

The extremes tend to control the discourse on immigration. Either let everybody in or nobody at all. All I'd need is a slight reform of the current H2A visas. Right now they are setup for seasonal migrant workers only (6 months? not sure the exact number). Have an option for a two or three year permit and it'd suit my needs.

Exactly how I feel. You said it much better than I was able to. :)



It's kind of weird to me. I can't blame anyone for wanting to better their lives. Yes, I don't deny there are a certain percentage of these people that come here for less than honorable reasons, but, I think the ones that do come here and just want to make a better living for themselves and their family, I really have no problem with. They just shouldn't have to do it illegally.

We have a people shortage I'm not aware of or something? We actually have just the opposite, a significant surplus. Just about the last thing we seem to need is additional general population.

I dunno, I'd argue that there is a shortage of employable people in certain areas. Yeah, yeah, cut off all entitlements. That'll fix everything.

Talk to me when that's even a remote possibility.

Is that a feature or a side effect, tho?

If wages were high enough, would there be people migrating to work (i.e. North Dakota and insane natural gas wages)? Tho it all goes back to the post I made earlier where that will have some serious downstream effects on our economy.

SI

Which I am also not in favor of grossly overpaying people to do unskilled labor. To quote Caddyshack, the world needs ditch diggers. There's always gonna be shit jobs that pay pennies, and we do not need to be artificially inflating those wages to attract workers. It WOULD have a catastrophic affect on our economy, I believe. There's people out there who'll do the job. Right now, a lot of them happen to be illegally in this country - a situation I strongly dislike.

If the people who are willing to do shitty jobs for low wages happen to be largely illegal immigrants, find a way for them to enter the country and legally do it. Fix that, and then lay the hammer down on the remainder in the country illegally.

Hard telling. It's just strange to me that in the past four years of high unemployment, the only non-Latino that's actually sought out work from me couldn't even be bothered to look for the work himself. Instead he sent his girlfriend out looking for jobs for him.

There would probably be some severe consequences with food prices as mentioned earlier. It's not a high margin industry. Double or triple the labor costs and it's going to be passed on, no doubt. I know some would like to get the idea ingrained in people's heads that we pay our help next to nothing while we sit around just raking in the cash.

Judging by people's reactions to the drought this year and the potential corresponding rise in food prices, I'm not sure as a whole people would be willing to stomach the rise in prices it would take to pay low-skill labor $30/hour. Throw in a year of bad weather like this year and you've really got a recipe for strife. Hungry people tend to cause problems.

Until the option of using illegals is gone, illegals will be used.

Fixed.

Right. If I'm a land owner and I sell lettuce, I'm not paying some dude $10 an hour if I can pay some illegal migrant $2 an hour.

1. Effectively lock down the border so immigration falls to a trickle.
2. Legalize those that are fortunate enough to have come here so we can provide them basic human rights protections.
3. Subsidize the hell out of farmers so they don't go out of business paying their American workers minimum wage.

Some would argue we are already subsidized to hell :)

Lungs may well be an exception rather than the rule, but I did find it ironic that these posts were back to back. Weren't there stories in Georgia about farmers having a hard time finding enough workers after a big crackdown on immigrants? As always, I just don't think its that simple.

Then perhaps some areas aren't suited for certain businesses/operations.


It's always a possibility (just about anything in the spectrum is a possibility) whether or not an adequate number of people have the courage to do it is a different question.

This. To be honest, I don't think I would even be able to hack being out in a field for 12 or more hours, picking stuff out of the ground or chasing farm animals around. However, your comment tends to confirm my suspicion that these jobs aren't being taken away from anyone that was born here and I know of no one that has lost their job due to their employer hiring an illegal.

Here is an article about Georgia from Forbes that claims there were $140 million in losses due to crops rotting in the field due to a labor shortage.

One important point it talks about is the actual skill sets involved to do these jobs. No, it doesn't take high education but certain jobs do have a different set of skills involved. My right-hand man comes from a beef ranch in Mexico. He's been around cows his whole life. Same with a lot of my milkers. They come from farms in their countries too.

I'll also add that it's mostly troublesome finding people to work with livestock. Finding people to drive tractors and work on our cropping side of things is not a problem at all. Something more appealing about sitting in an air conditioned cab of a tractor than getting kicked or shit on by a cow.

So extrapolating this comment into something more here..... If production agriculture cannot be sustained without hiring outside workers, should it be sourced to another country? For example, instead of Mexicans milking cows here, why not move the industry to Mexico itself?

And that's a decision for the market to make. Some things simply aren't worth what they realistic cost of production is. {shrug} If the cost of, say, lettuce ends up being $7 a head at the market, then it's probably time for most folks to get out of the lettuce business. I'm confident the consumers will ultimately survive without another head of iceberg (or even that really gnarly stuff that looks & taste like lawn clippings).

I think it's absurd to say that's artificially inflating wages. If the inflation is artificial as you claim then why does it require a black market to fill the labor pool.

Why is it ok to have "shit jobs that pay pennies"? If it's a "shit job", shouldn't it pay more than "pennies"? Is it a "shit job" just because it's not something one of us wants to do? Is being able to be in a field for 12 hours a skill?

C'mon, all 3 of us work various computer jobs in an office if I'm not mistaken (me, CW, JK). Yes, there's a steeper learning curve, arguably more intelligence required, and higher entry barriers into learning computers but what about the result? What is our great "skill" are we bringing to people and what value is it to those in our country (i.e. what you should be looking at if you're making public policy)?

SI

I think the market would dictate that anybody outside the upper crust would be eating gruel. Though I'm sure you'd be fine with that.

I don't really disagree with you. Just because the job is more labor intensive as opposed to slaving over a hot keyboard all day, doesn't mean that that more labor intensive job is worth less pay. If I was breaking my back 12 hours a day, I'd want more than 10 dollars an hour for it. But, I'm not from a country where 1 dollar an hour is a huge sum to be paid for working the same job. So, I guess part of it is relative. I don't demean anyone that does jobs like farm laborers or janitors or other crap jobs. Yes, someone has to do the shit jobs, but, that doesn't mean they should get less respect than the CEO of some mega company or some spoiled actor.

Admittedly, my job contributes jack squat to society other than allowing people to produce intangible things that people watch. I don't feed people, I don't house people, I don't clothe people and I don't heal people. So really, if there was a purge of useless professions, I wouldn't be shocked if mine was one that got purged. From my perspective though, I would argue that it's not useless because it feeds me, clothes me, houses me and in a non direct way, heals me. Sounds selfish, but, I don't ask or expect anyone else to take care of me, since I feel it's my responsibility to make sure that I'm able to have all those things.

And I do my profession for two reasons: I like learning new things while computers have always fascinated me in some way and because it will be income. In my last job, I was a supervisor and I would occasionally ask the guys why they were here. And "to pay the bills" was a legitimate answer but, at the end of the day, there were a lot of ways to pay the bills and it's not like this was the only job out there.

But we're not talking about this in a simple individualist sense and I realize you recognize that. These are people, too, who also want a job to feed them, clothe them, and heal them- they want to take care of themselves and their families.

So, in a much greater sense, what makes their job worth less than our jobs? The market?* That means that being a rich stock broker is a useful skill. They have a lot of money so they must be valuable to society. Lawyers? Yes, it takes a lot of time, effort, and money but where is the value to society there?

SI

*A market where values and rules are shifted daily by those who have the power and wealth to extract it from others? After all, if we're talking in the simplest Adam Smith invisible hand terms: that makes them a rational agent just acting in their own best interest. Is that necessarily in the best interest of the society as a whole?

Me too. I love learning new things and being completely honest here, not bragging or anything like that, I get to play with freaking Star Wars and they pay me to do it!!! :D But yes, there's tons of ways to pay the bills, some get lucky enough to do get paid for doing something they love. Mostly though, it seems to be more of a means to an end for a lot of people. I've been there and it sucks.

I think part of it is market/demand to a degree. I think another factor is, "can anyone do this?" which effects wages for that job. I think there's two kinds of worth when it comes to a job. The worth as in wages and worth as in the big picture. There's no easy or quick solution. I don't like seeing people suffer because of the hand they were dealt, but, I have less empathy for someone who threw away a good hand and are now suffering because of their own doing. Especially if they come from a more privileged life.

In a nut shell, I don't disagree much at all with what you're saying. :)

I think that's a wrong answer. As long as you are in a free-market, capitalistic society, you have the freedom (if you have the incentive) to make something or offer something of value (e.g., service) that others could give you money for. Incentive could be as basic as wanting to eat better (or more) up to wanting have a lot of disposable income - all powerful motivations. The government will not take all of your earnings, a dictator and his thugs will steal all of it and the wealthy will not take all of it either. Otherwise, there is no incentive. As we have seen in our lifetimes, lots of people are willing to pay lots of money for just about anything, whether it's an old thing repackaged or a new thing. The government cannot tell you, for the most part, what you can or cannot buy (just where) or to work. If your skills are not in demand (and/or the supply is too great), then it will be hard and you could fail. But the freedom and opportunity exist in this country to succeed, as we have seen countless of times, and to actually allow you to keep most of your success.

I wa reminded of this recently when reading about a local entreprenuer expanding his coffee shop Why did the coffee shop cross the road? For more space | ryan, shop, coffee - Colorado Springs Gazette, CO as well as another couple who started a coffee shop from scratch and now looking to open a second location.

The business will just go to another country. There's a reason we get our ass kicked in so many industries.

Because most consumers (retail, commercial, industrial) will not, does not or can not pay more goods unless a compelling reason - good, bad or indifference.

Obama vs Ryan's Medicare plan. Beats me which one is better but does remind me of Bush's plan to allow portions of SS into private sector investing (which I supported but in retrospect, would have been disasterous with our lost decade).

http://money.cnn.com/2012/08/16/news...html?iid=HP_LN

Absolutely true story. My 92-year old grandmother had a minor stroke last week. She's improving, but was having some trouble with her speech. She could think of words, but couldn't verbalize them. So they brought her into simple "speech therapy".

They show her a photo of a ball. She struggles, can't get it.

They show her a photo of a flower. She struggles, can't get it.

They show her a photo of a bike. She struggles, can't get it.

They show her a photo of Barack Obama. She says, with perfect articulation, "that's the guy that's taking all my money!" She's been fine with speech ever since. My aunt is literally carrying around a photo of Obama in her wallet, because clearly whatever anger/emotion is invoked there helps her to fire off the right synapses.

Funny and a little sad. My grandmother watches FoxNews pretty much all the time. I think it's actually keeping her mind pretty sharp (not necessarily sharp in a logical sense, but you know what I mean, she can discuss politics and everything from that perspective pretty impressively for a 92-year old). And of course, Obama hasn't even succeeded in taking any more of her money, but gosh darn it, she BELIEVES he does. There's some lesson here about strong emotion and healing, and also about how divided our country is and how we're just so latched into that to such an intense degree that it apparently cures strokes.

Edit: My mother, from the other side of the political aisle, had a similar experience, a while ago - it was some kind of cognition/memory/awareness test after some health procedure she had (she's fine now), and they asked her the name of the governor of MA, and she couldn't name him (Romney), but she knew she didn't like him.

Pretty cool (and funny) story. Hope she is continuing to do well.

That makes me just a little sad

SI

Quite possibly.


Yep, several of them (reasons, that is) as a matter of fact.

I do think bailout of auto industry was the right thing to do at the time. I think the article overstates it (focusing on D-segment Malibu failure) but it won't be good for Obama's legacy if Government Motors does not recover.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiswoo...kruptcy-again/

Hmmm let's see. If we look back in hindsight and say, "do the bailout, it'll cost you less than 20 billion when it's all said and done and it will save the auto industry in the US." We probably take it.

I wonder what the total collapse of the industry and all subsequent suppliers would have cost?

GM is the entire auto industry in the US?

I think the second demise of GM is a bit premature.

SI

But you also have to add in to the equation the fact that we now live in a socialist dystopia. Wouldn't we trade the auto industry just to have 1/10 of the freedom we had four years ago?

sorry it's a bit more.

While Ford, who decided not to take bailout money after all, is doing fine.

fixed.