Immigration Impact on America

So you admit that you don't fully understand the problem, but you are in support of using government force to implement the solution?


Wouldn't you agree that a low number of jobs will keep wages down.
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Check the respective unemployment and economic growth rates in the relatively free-market United States, and then compare them to a random Western European country with "evolved" labor regulations, high business tax rates, public health care, rent control, and extensive welfare and public education systems. Take Germany or Sweden, for instance. Then draw your conclusions from there.
 
What's more immoral
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For me it's someone who pays $5 for a kid in a sweatshop living in poverty
to make a pair of junk shoes bring them to this country and sell that
product for $100. My feeling is "most" people know what the limits are
however they simply don't care because the dollar means more then
standards, morals or any label you care to put on it. I call it greed and
will continue to do so. :barf:
 
So you're saying sweatshops are actually a gift to Mexicans and others.
I do believe that laws are the only thing that will stop outsourcing. You think outsourcing is okay, so that is why you have not offered an alternative. I must say that I would love to see you work in a sweatshop for 5 years and come back and give me the numbers and figures thesis.
 
Marko

Just how much is the RNC paying you?
Criminals are criminals, it makes no difference if they are criminals entering our country illegally or criminals hiring them with a wink and smirk as most businesses I have been around do .
Don :barf:
 
Marko,

I can not see how a government that has allowed a huge portion of our manufacturing industry to be exported at the expense of citizens in this country - and allows this to proceed in most other areas - can be said to be loyal to this country or it's people at all.

Congress does have a mandate to regulate interstate commerce and along with the Federal goverment is supposed to be making sure that our international trade benefits the whole country. Not the bottom line of the owners of corporations whose loyalites lie with no nation in particular.

The way things are going in this country the only paying jobs left will be Federal, State and other local government. There is very little or close to nothing that is made, or business services, that can not be made or run cheaper in a great number of foreign countries for a fraction of the price.

Just where do you think this is going to end?
 
Just how much is the RNC paying you?
Criminals are criminals, it makes no difference if they are criminals entering our country illegally or criminals hiring them with a wink and smirk as most businesses I have been around do .
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First of all, what gave you the idea that I am a Republican?

Second, I wasn't aware that we were talking about illegals here. I thought I was having a discussion with GeorgeStraub on economic principles and laws regarding outsourcing.


I can not see how a government that has allowed a huge portion of our manufacturing industry to be exported at the expense of citizens in this country - and allows this to proceed in most other areas - can be said to be loyal to this country or it's people at all.
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The only alternative to us "allowing" business to operate on market terms is to institute laws that let the government tell them who they can and cannot do business with. You are saying that loyalty to our country requires us to use force in oder to tell business owners that they can hire person A, but they cannot hire person B, or do business with person C?

Assume I run a business, and I have a choice of contractors to supply me with part X. Company A is based in the US, and offers part X for $20. Company B is based in China, and offers part X for $10. If I use Company A, my product will cost twice as much as the same product made by the competition from Canada. Nobody will buy my product, and I will go out of business in six months.

So now you come along and tell me that I have a patriotic duty to go out of business? I should somehow sacrifice myself to the collective, just because the owner of Company A has an American passport, and the owner of Company B does not? You think that we ought to have laws that prevent me from doing business with Company B?

That's not freedom or capitalism, that's unbridled socialism, and a nationalistic version thereof to boot.

I love my country because it is still the most free nation on Earth. It is that way because this is the only nation in the history of the world that has recognized the source of wealth, and the nature of personal freedom. "Making money" is a uniquely American term. Most other nations seem to think that wealth is not made, but rather something to be plundered, extorted, or redistributed. The Bill of Rights is unique in the world because it recognizes that people have rights, and governments do not. That's why I love America.

If you are willing to destroy those personal and economic freedoms by instituting the same socialist control of the economy that has bankrupted the Soviets and (in more diliuted form) is slowly choking the life out of the European economies, then you do not love America for the values it represents...you just love it because it is America.
 
Bravo, Marko.

I can't count the number of times I've caught myself, on important issues like this, starting out in the socialist, selfish, parochial, gut-reaction mode. But I was fortunate in my education and upbringing. In the 70s, the universities in the South had not yet been over-populated with the college campus hippies of the 60s/70s. My family instilled a strong work ethic. Both taught the necessity to analyze a siuation to it's logical end. In doing that one naturally runs up against some "likely" results vs some wishful thinking. It takes practice and some years being wrong help. Being your own jury can hurt your feelings, but in the end, you can hold your head up and look your fellow man in the eye.

Marko has posted some simple examples of economics at work and their logical results. In response, he has gotten anecdotal social "Stop right there!" replies that don't get to the end of the analysis, they hang up on an interim result.

Try taking your analysis to the end. I submit that if your mind is made up, it will be nearly impossible for you to do it. I also submit that if you are anarchist in your views of government, or far left, then your mind is probably made up and it will be nearly impossible for you to do it.

Remember, government is not inherently evil, but it is inherently flawed and should be distrusted, as it is an instrument devised by men. Does anyone here seriously believe that we would not still be a dominant competitive economy if there were truly free international trade?

The social engineers in the news room today will shine their morality spotlight on the "sweat shop" injustices.

Marko has also issued a very interesting challenge:
When you are ready to stop buying item X at WalMart for $9.99, and you go and voluntarily buy a similar item of lesser quality for $19.99 at All-American hardware down the street instead, and do so for every consumer good you buy, then you have a leg to stand on when you denounce outsourcing American businesses as "greedy".
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to which there has been no serious reply.

BTW, "Buy American" is not the only un-American aspect to this. Equating profit-taking with greed is also un-American. If you sell your house, do you plan to forego your equity gained over the years? Or will you sock it to the poor buyer and make him pay you your evil, greedy profit? What if your property has tripled in value? See, you can't have it both ways. You either believe in the capitalist system, or you don't.

Which reminds me of another question Marko has asked: who defines the difference between acceptable profit and excessive profit, i.e., greedy profits? An agency of the Government? Well, that reminds me of another un-American-American saying: "There ought to be a law!" I guess some of us think we need a law for everything. That's simply a way to abdicate responsibility. The lazy way out.

Show me a law that does not diminish, limit, destroy, disassemble, or prohibit your and my exercise of liberties and efforts (i.e., profits).
 
The simple truth is that there can be no personal freedom without economic freedom. I can speak my mind, carry a gun, go to the church of my choice...but if I am not free to make a living and dispose of the fruits of my labor any way I see fit, then I am not free. Whoever controls my economic output effectively owns me.
 
The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
 
bergwerk,

The fallacy of "Corporate Taxes" (from an earlier post of mine):

(Example: The government decides that it will fund the "Diapers For Needy Babies" program by taxing I.N.C. Inc.'s baby diaper division $1,000 dollars per year, since it is an evil big corporation. Where does I.N.C. get this extra $1,000? By waving a magic wand? No, by raising the price of its diapers by $500 and by laying off $500 worth of employees. Now you have more needy people, and more expensive diapers.

Does this generate a net good for society?)
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Silly Tamara! The obvious solution is to tell I.N.C. how much they can charge for their diapers. Call it the "Diaper Fair Price Act", look good to your constituents, and solve yet another societal problem caused by corporate greed.
 
...which, of course, causes I.N.C. to slash the full $1k out of payroll by relocating its diaper division to Indonesia, or shutting it down altogether as unprofitable. :D
 
"You either believe in the capitalist system, or you don't."

Is there no room for a middle ground? Do you advocate doing away with the anti-monopoly laws for instance? There are other good examples of limitations placed on capitalism.

I know, I know..."Let the Marketplace sort it out." Trouble is, that's after a lot of the damage has been done.

John

P.S. - "Show me a law that does not diminish, limit, destroy, disassemble, or prohibit your and my exercise of liberties and efforts (i.e., profits)." The one against rolling odometers back comes to mind. It hurt the used car dealers, but only the part of their profits earned by cheating and stealing.
 
The cunudrum here seems to be...do you want the wide open exercise of amoral capitalism, complete with the
benefits and the hazards or do you want some oversight that will help minimize the social damage.

I'm speaking of things like sweatshops, child labor, unsafe products (including vehicles, tools, meds. and foodstuffs) and worker safety. I'll be the first in line to vote to radically limit government intrusion in our lives, but I also don't want to lose that life to shortcuts meant to increase profits.

It seems to me that one of the previous points cuts both ways...when you are ready to live your life only using those products and services that come from a truly amoral, capitalist infrastructure with no governmental intrusion, then you have a leg to stand on when criticizing the current system. For example, I want to have a substantial chance of not catching botullism the next time I eat a can of soup, or be fairly certain that the ammo I use won't be subject to catastrophic failure, etc.

I realize and accept that the current system is insane with govt. regs. They are a drain on production and profits; but the business of business is business, not worker safety, not product safety, not consumer safety.
Altruism and a love for fellow man will not change this.
Death, disease and disfigurement is too high a price to pay while waiting for purely market driven corrections.
ymmv
 
The cunudrum here seems to be...do you want the wide open exercise of amoral capitalism, complete with the
benefits and the hazards or do you want some oversight that will help minimize the social damage.
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You assert that capitalism is amoral. I am trying to tell you that capitalism is the only moral economic system, because it rewards ability and makes people deal with each other on the basis of contract rather than force.

What's amoral is the notion that anyone has the right to use government force to advance their notions of fairness and proper economic transactions. Call the system socialism, communism, planned economy, rent control, fair wage laws, import tariffs...it all boils down to some folks claiming the right to use the guns of the state to command the economic output of others. If you have control of a man's livelihood under threat of force, for whatever lofty purpose, you effectively enslave him, and no amount of "social justice" rhetoric will change that.

My social responsibility is to deal with my neighbor by reason, by exchanging values via contract, and to never initiate force against him. Everything else springs from there. I do not have the right to my neighbor's paycheck, nor does he have a right to mine. That is where my social responsibility ends. I do not claim a right to commandeer 40% of my neighbor's income in order to give it to someone else in the guise of fairness, or equality, or what have you. That is not the action of a socially responsible person; it is the action of a parasite and a slavemaster.
 
We have similar migrant issues in Australia. The issue to me is whether the person chooses to ;become an American' or become an Australian as the case may be or whether they choose to fall into ethnic ghettos and fail to identify with their host country.
 
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