Immigrants accept the wages Americans won't accept.

[Taxloss]

It's nothing to do with jobs, it's to do with poverty and inequality. It's not that Americans don't want to get their lilywhite hands dirty - it's that Americans have the dignity, the self respect, the (dare I say it) civilisation to insist that they are paid a decent wage - even though that wage itself is often only a fraction of what it should be. The developing countries, however, have had that dignity robbed from them by poverty and the inequities of the global system.

The problem here is not immigration, or race (although that has a part to play), or over- or under-population. It is the present system of global capitalism. Capitalist employers will always seek the lowest-cost employees, and thus the system maintains this vast reservoir of desperation that the greedy can draw on.

Sorry to get all "class war", but to me this situation is as plain as day.

[rman]

1. agreed

plain as day indeed

[T_i_B]

2. I agree with you 100%

I see a lot of Alf-Garnett style anti-immigrant ranting where I am and it's all cobblers. And in my experience a lot of the anti-immigrant people do not like you mentioning that the work that immigrants end up doing is the work that the rest of us don't want to do.

[Minnesota Libra]

19. There is NO JOB Americans won't do if given the chance. Employers........

.....won't give many Americans a chance though because eventually Americans might want better working conditions. Illegal aliens on the other hand do the work and don't ask anything but some green backs in return.

When are people going to get off this "jobs Americans won't do" kick.

Next thing people focus on is race but notice I have said NOTHING about any particular race. Illegal aliens are illegal aliens regardless of race and regardless of which border they cross.

I wish we could adopt the Lou Dobbs approach to illegal aliens - problem permanently solved.

[formernaderite]

23. That's just not true

it's not necessarily about the money...it's about the "type" of work that Americans NOW look down on. I made money in college doing backbreaking digging work for a landscaper. I made fifty cents more than minimum wage back then, which made me gleeful. Today I can offer more than two times the amount of minimum wage and won't get an American to come dig. Sorry, I know large employers who do road construction and pay well for menial labor, run labor recruitment drives in DC...and never find an American of any color who wants to do this work. When I've tried to hire high schoolers for my small contracting business, they actually tell me it's embarassing, if they have to start out doing grunt work. I don't care whether these guys are here with Americas blessing...they are the only ones willing to do the work. Most of them have ss#'s from who knows where, and alot of them work for large companies full time, and get health insurance etc.

[Coexist]

26. that may be your particular experience

but I do not think that is true of the workforce overall.

My husband is a Project Manager for a large construction company, and their day-laborers are majority born-heres.

[formernaderite]

35. Here in the DC/Baltimore region...most are not day laborers

but employees. I think the day laborers are a completely different story. I'm simply stating that in some of these booming housing markets, the menial labor force is just NOT american, and we've tried to organize buses to interest inner city folks...but no luck.

[Minnesota Libra]

34. formernaderite, anyone having this experience is very, lucky but........

.......it has been my experience that AMERICANS will do virtually any and every job to feed their families. In fact, MANY AMERICANS must hold down two and sometimes three very low paying jobs to feed and house their families. To me that is just plain wrong.

[formernaderite]

37. that is wrong....maybe people should move down here

housing is probably more expensive, but if you're willing to live a bit further out, you can find very well paying jobs all over, without having to work two jobs.

[Selatius]

3. I'm sorry, but you sound too close to a communist.

The point of the American Way of life is to work hard, succeed, and pass on the fruits of one's labor to the next generation.

If a person is worth billions of dollars by the end of his life, it is not that he robbed the poor as the communists and the socialists would have you believe. It is because of his ingenuity, his intellect that allowed him to succeed. With hard work, everybody can achieve the good life, but that is not possible because people make mistakes, and they pay the price for their mistakes as they should.

Why should I have to pay taxes to support lazy people who suck off of society and bring it down? This country has and will always reward hardwork, and I'll be damned if socialists and communists turn this country into another vast welfare state that rewards laziness and mediocrity and punishes excellence and hard work.

Everyday I wake up, and I have one foot planted on the ground and another foot planted up the ass of a 12 year-old Indonesian girl. If it weren't for labor unions and child labor laws, maybe this generation would learn a thing or two about hard work.

:sarcasm:

[Taxloss]

4. Ah, I see!

So the immigrants have manged the "hard work" part, but they can't manage the "succeed" part. Losers. I'm sorry I ever stood up for them.

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
– Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop

[Heidi]

5. So, you're saying that poor people _choose_ to be poor?

Are you saying that people are poor because they, essentially, _choose_ to be poor, because they may make mistakes and poverty is the price they pay?

So, do you generally support progressive ideals?

[Taxloss]

7. Selatius was being sarcastic, I think.

Something about his tone seemed to indicate that. And hi use of the :sarcasm: button.

[Heidi]

15. I get it now.

Thank you, Taxloss.

[Selatius]

12. Relax! I'm using irony to show how ridiculous the propaganda is!

(Note the :sarcasm: icon in my previous post)

Nobody wants to be poor in this society, but the fact of the matter is in an "ownership society"--something Bush is always touting--you fall into one of two categories:

You either own, or you are owned. You either exploit, or you are exploited for your labor. Most people are owned. The vast majority of people work to make somebody else (i.e. their employer/owner/boss) more money. They, in return, get a pittance for their effort, while the people at the top rake in the profits.

There are people who have worked hard their entire lives, and they never rose above poverty even though they may have worked more hours and put in more effort than their bosses ever did, and there are people who have done nothing but lie and cheat and steal, and they are rewarded for stomping out the competition with market share and million dollar salaries.

A system that advocates that people are pitted against one another in unmerciful competition be it in the market or on the battlefield is an unsustainable system not just for humanity but for the planet as a whole, and a system that rewards greed and exploitation with exhorbitant wealth is an unjust system.

[Heidi]

14. Thank you.

My apologies for misunderstanding. I agree with you completely.

[JI7]

6. illegals don't have the legal means that citizens and legal immigrants do

they are illegal so it's either get deported or put up with doing cheap labor since that's still better for them than the alternative.

as soon as they become legal immigrants or citizens they most likely wont put up with doing cheap labor when they have a legal right to be paid more than that. this includes people from developing countries who have experienced the inequities of the corporate system.

[Taxloss]

8. Which makes you wonder about those citizenship rules.

And also about the plight of people who are desperate enough to abandon everything familiar in the knowledge that they will be doing back-breaking work for a pittance if they are lucky.

[oscar111]

9. Americans CANNOT live on dollar/day, but mexicans w/ fams in Mex can

that is the real reason we dont take those jobs, not what you listed in the OP

You mean well, i am not critising you, just expanding the list of reasons.

Our families do not live in a dollar a day nation, so we CANNOT take those jobs...

also, many mexicans i suspect, are bachelors. When all the bachelors of a neighboring nation flood us, we ... with family men... cannot compete in the contest for low wages.

[Taxloss]

11. "Flood" - wrong term.

I know you mean well also, but we deal with this shit all the time in the UK - being "flooded", "swamped", "overrun". It's all bullshit. Those are emotive terms designed to provoke a fear response.

Also, I would point out that there are American single men and many, many, female immigrants.

[fasttense]

10. Just wait until the economy gets worse

If you think bashing illegals and immigrants is rampant now, just wait a year, it's going to get worse.

US citizens are on the brink of losing their dignity and poverty is about ready to catch up with them. They'll be glad to clean toilets and pick fruit for anything they can get. This is the new ownership society brush has planned for us.

[Boredtodeath]

13. They're afraid to go to the authorities

My landlady told me she rents to the illegals downstairs because they won't turn her in for ripping them off because "they can't go to the authorities because they'll be deported."

And, there, you have THE republican mantra - "we like illegals because they can't turn us into the authorities no matter what we do to them."

[liberal N proud]

16. Now you are getting there

The reasons the immigrants will work for those wages is because it is better than what they had in Mexico.
If you notice, Immigrant workers usually live several families in homes that we consider single family dwellings. Usually in the section of town were the homes are run down and rent is less.

[twiterpatted]

17. Absolutely wrong. Not about Global whatever or capitalist ya-da

ya-da, it is about white collar crime. This is about small and medium sized American business paying undocumented workers a low wage because those laws that would restrict such crime are not enforced. It would take billions and billions of dollars to enforce the laws and the cost to do so has yet to prove worthwhile. This means that the cost to enforce the laws is more the costs associated with illegal immigration.

[Taxloss]

18. And so why do those laws exist? A token gesture?

Surely the economy would benefit from cheaper labour - certainly those businesses you mention seem to think so. Well, the capitalist economy, that is.

[twiterpatted]

39. You lost me! "the economy would benefit from cheaper labor",

that blanket statement carries no meaning. It could equally be said that if labor is to cheap, no can buy the goods to produce growth. Are you being sarcastic?

[Neil Lisst]

20. Inciteful post.

No, not insightful, inciteful.

Try responding with some manners.

And for the record, the OP made a better point than you did.

You did make one good point, which is cost of enforcing the law versus risk, but you missed the mark on employers. If the govt. were to take down the top employers of illegal immigrants in every market, the smaller capitalists in the area with run like cockroaches.

[twiterpatted]

40. I don't under stand what you mean, "the smaller capitalist in the area

would run lick cockroaches". Would they run, or obey the law?
I truly may not understand your point. Please break it down for me.

As far as my manners, you may want to check you own. You post, directed to me personally, was sarcastic, snide, cheap and speled corectly.

[Inland]

21. Yeah, Bush doesn't enforce laws against business for our own good.

Doesn't have anything to do with wanting to line the pockets of business at all, right?

Funny, I don't remember anyone saying that laws shouldn't be enforced. They seem to have decided that all in secret without telling anyone. Hmmm. Wonder why? Maybe it's because it never happened and nobody really thinks that way, and our government is just a sack of lying pro-business anti labor shit.

[Neil Lisst]

22. If Bush were serious about it, he'd spank Walmart

so bad everyone else would get into line

[Inland]

30. Take a guess at the number of workplace arrests by INS in 2003.

http://www.harpers.org/MostRecentIndex.html

Number of workplace arrests made by U.S. immigration authorities in 1997: 17,554


Number in 2003: 445


source: Harper's Index Feb. 06

[Neil Lisst]

36. Because Bush's base are the biggest violators

pay off on their contributions

[Taxloss]

38. Of course.

The right-wing rich just LOVE cheap labour. It sends them into paroxysms of delight.

[Virginia Dare]

24. Why don't we just invade Mexico?

Mandatory draft, that gets our unemployed hoodlums off the streets. Go down there and kick some ass, shock and awe, it will only take a couple of days to occupy the whole damn country. Enslave the entire population. Solves all our problems, no?
:sarcasm:

[Taxloss]

25. Why bother invading?

It's already working very nicely as a US client state and economic colony.

[Virginia Dare]

32. Halliburton could make some tidy profits? EOM

[Taxloss]

33. They don't already?

Oh, sorry, forgot. Not ENOUGH. Never ENOUGH.

[Inland]

27. Hmmmmm (stroking chin)

Will there be oil involved?

[Neil Lisst]

28. Grim Reality: cheap labor trumps National Security and lawful businesses

[Taxloss]

29. Welcome to capitalism, kid.

It's a bit crap.

[Inland]

31. Merely cheapER labor.

It trumps that whole, "we're all americans in this together" shit too.