Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > Political/War Lounge > Obama bows to the Mexican President and throws the US under the bus again

Obama bows to the Mexican President and throws the US under the bus again
Thread Tools
BadKosh
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 20, 2010, 10:54 AM
 
YouTube - President Obama Tells Mexican President "We are Not Defined by Our Borders"

Our idiot president, who hasn't read the AZ law or even the Federal version is spreading lies again. I thought he took an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. He also doesn't seen to get the "illegal" detail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytrKw...layer_embedded
     
The Final Dakar
Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 20, 2010, 10:56 AM
 
So, did he actually bow, or is that some kind of metaphor?
     
BadKosh  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 20, 2010, 10:58 AM
 
metaphor. He's still a disgusting sell-out.
     
SpaceMonkey
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington, DC
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 20, 2010, 10:59 AM
 
Originally Posted by BadKosh View Post
Our idiot president, who hasn't read the AZ law or even the Federal version is spreading lies again. I thought he took an oath to uphold the laws of the United States.
You're right, he did not take an oath to uphold the laws of Arizona.

"One ticket to Washington, please. I have a date with destiny."
     
OreoCookie
Moderator
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Hilbert space
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 20, 2010, 11:51 AM
 
What are you throwing a fit over: Obama says `in the 21st century, we are not defined by our borders, but by our bonds.' It's a platitude, but I don't think it means what you make it out to mean. You really have to take a subclause of what he says out of context to make a connection to the immigration bill that AZ has introduced recently.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
SpaceMonkey
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington, DC
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 20, 2010, 11:56 AM
 
A platitude, but certainly made knowingly in the context of the AZ law, considering the Mexican government's reaction to the AZ issue. It's still silly to throw a fit over it.

"One ticket to Washington, please. I have a date with destiny."
     
BadKosh  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 20, 2010, 12:14 PM
 
The Mexican president needs to STFU. He's just here to parrot the liberal talking points and beg for a ban on Assault weapons. He's blaming his inability to get tough on his own criminals on us and the libs are standing and applauding him.
     
SpaceMonkey
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington, DC
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 20, 2010, 12:29 PM
 
I know right!?!?!? It's like he thinks he shares a border with us or something.

"One ticket to Washington, please. I have a date with destiny."
     
BadKosh  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 07:47 AM
 
He doesn't think there is a border. He's worried that the enforcement of the border will cut him off from the money sent back to mexico from his countrymen in the US. He needs a book on manners too.
     
Doofy
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vacation.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 08:09 AM
 
Why doesn't someone ask the Mexican president why he doesn't crack down on donkey shows? And then ask him if he wonders why the rest of the world laughs at his grotty little country.
Been inclined to wander... off the beaten track.
That's where there's thunder... and the wind shouts back.
     
Big Mac
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 08:19 AM
 
I love how the libs absolutely don't care about the draconian penalties Mexico imposes on its illegal immigrants, while encouraging illegal immigration of its citizens into the United States.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
Oisín
Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Copenhagen
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 08:21 AM
 
Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
Why doesn't someone ask the Mexican president why he doesn't crack down on donkey shows? And then ask him if he wonders why the rest of the world laughs at his grotty little country.
Little?

This is from memory, so it might be slightly off, but:

UK ≈ 244,000 km2.
Mexico ≈ 1,973,000 km2.

Little?

     
SpaceMonkey
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington, DC
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 11:16 AM
 
Originally Posted by BadKosh View Post
He doesn't think there is a border. He's worried that the enforcement of the border will cut him off from the money sent back to mexico from his countrymen in the US.
Well, duh. Are you mad at him for looking out for his country's interests with respect to his bilateral relationship with the U.S.?

"One ticket to Washington, please. I have a date with destiny."
     
BadKosh  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 12:21 PM
 
No, I'm pissed because our spineless idiot president stood there and let him insult the US. The democrats who stood up and clapped should be gone in November.
     
SpaceMonkey
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington, DC
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 12:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by BadKosh View Post
No, I'm pissed because our spineless idiot president stood there and let him insult the US. The democrats who stood up and clapped should be gone in November.
I'm curious to know what you thought was insulting.

"One ticket to Washington, please. I have a date with destiny."
     
Phileas
Mac Elite
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Toronto, Canada
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 01:00 PM
 
Originally Posted by Doofy View Post
grotty little country.
I'd expected better from you.
     
CRASH HARDDRIVE
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Zip, Boom, Bam
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 01:58 PM
 
WOLF BLITZER: All right. Let's talk a little bit about Mexico's laws. I read an article in "The Washington Times" the other day. I'm going to read a paragraph to you and you tell me if this is true or not true. This is from "The Washington Times": "Under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to reenter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six year terms. Mexicans who help illegal immigrants are considered criminals."

Is that true?

FELIPE CALDERON: It was true, but it is not anymore. We derogate or we erased that part of the law. Actually, the legal immigration is not a -- is not a crime in Mexico. Not anymore, since one year ago. And that is the reason why we are trying to establish our own comprehensive public policy talking about, for instance, immigrants coming from Central America...

BLITZER: So if...

CALDERON: -- (INAUDIBLE).

BLITZER: So if people want to come from Guatemala or Honduras or El Salvador or Nicaragua, they want to just come into Mexico, they can just walk in?

CALDERON: No. They need to fulfill a form. They need to establish their right name. We analyze if they have not a criminal precedent. And they coming into Mexico. Actually...

BLITZER: Do Mexican police go around asking for papers of people they suspect are illegal immigrants?

CALDERON: Of course. Of course, in the border, we are asking the people, who are you?

And if they explain...

BLITZER: At the border, I understand, when they come in.

CALDERON: Yes.

BLITZER: But once they're in...

CALDERON: But not -- but not in -- if -- once they are inside the -- inside the country, what the Mexican police do is, of course, enforce the law. But by any means, immigration is a crime anymore in Mexico.

BLITZER: Immigration is not a crime, you're saying?

CALDERON: It's not a crime.

BLITZER: So in other words, if somebody sneaks in from Nicaragua or some other country in Central America, through the southern border of Mexico, they wind up in Mexico, they can go get a job...

CALDERON: No, no.

BLITZER: They can work.

CALDERON: If -- if somebody do that without permission, we send back -- we send back them.

BLITZER: You find them and you send them back?

CALDERON: Yes. However, especially with the people of Guatemala, we are providing a new system in which any single citizen from Guatemala could be able to visit any single border (INAUDIBLE) in the south. And even with all the requirements, he can or she can visit any parts of Mexico.


Hypocrisy so blazing you simply HAVE to be a mindless drone lib to miss it! It'd be funny if it weren't so freakin' sad. Lectured by this two bit tinhorn who makes no bones about the fact that HIS country enforces its own illegal immigration policies. How RACIST! But of course, none of this has a thing to do with the fact that his OFFICIAL position is that the US is Mexico's dumping ground for their own criminals and the defacto welfare system for the poor that the world's 13th richest nation doesn't want to deal with themselves.
     
Doofy
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Vacation.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 01:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by Phileas View Post
I'd expected better from you.
That's right - pick on my phrasing and completely ignore the fact that mexican society thinks it's OK for trafficked women to blow donkeys.
Been inclined to wander... off the beaten track.
That's where there's thunder... and the wind shouts back.
     
The Final Dakar
Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 01:59 PM
 
Pix or it didn't happen
     
lpkmckenna
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Toronto
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 21, 2010, 08:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac View Post
I love how the libs absolutely don't care about the draconian penalties Mexico imposes on its illegal immigrants, while encouraging illegal immigration of its citizens into the United States.
We do care. We don't think the US should stoop to the level of Mexico.
     
Taliesin
Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2001
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 24, 2010, 03:53 PM
 
Both, the US-governments and Mexico-governments know for a long time that the US and Mexico are in a sort of symbiontic relationship: Mexico needs the US to offload its ever rising population, knowing well that Mexico itself can't provide jobs for all and needing the money that comes back from mexicans working in the US.
The US needs Mexico for the influx of illegal immigrants that are willing to work long and hard and for little money to boot and doing work no legal american would do.

That is the reason why the US-governments will never impose draconian laws to prevent the illegal immigration efficiently. The governments and industries know all that, it's the US-public that doesn't know it or more precisely doesn't want to know it as it would paint an ugly picture of its economy and society that they can't stand to look at.

Taliesin
     
BadKosh  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 24, 2010, 03:59 PM
 
Without illegals lowering the wages through accepting those jobs, the cheap-ass employers would pay the higher wages the American's would do that job for.
     
ebuddy
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: midwest
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 25, 2010, 06:48 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Pix or it didn't happen
I'm dyin' over here!
ebuddy
     
ebuddy
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: midwest
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 25, 2010, 07:07 AM
 
Originally Posted by BadKosh View Post
Without illegals lowering the wages through accepting those jobs, the cheap-ass employers would pay the higher wages the American's would do that job for.
Bingo!

See... that's what people aren't getting here.

Jobs Americans aren't willing to do.
You mean, hang outside a Home Depot for work Americans won't do? Wrong. They'll do them, they just won't do them as cheaply. Once again, an argument for slave labor. There is no shortage on unskilled labor to require an additional several hundred thousand new workers annually. If cheap labor is a good excuse to ignore Federal law, child labor would be much more acceptable in this country. That doesn't make it right and it certainly doesn't make people who enforce or support the laws "Draconian" or "agist".

The American left wants the voting bloc, the right and left want the cheap labor and both have fallen prey to corporate whimsy. Enforcing immigration policy is not Draconian, it is a necessary byproduct of ensuring your legal residents have work and a living wage; Latinos, blacks, and whites alike. Enforcing immigration policy is compassionate, disciplined, and sensible.
ebuddy
     
ebuddy
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: midwest
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 25, 2010, 07:14 AM
 
Originally Posted by lpkmckenna View Post
We do care. We don't think the US should stoop to the level of Mexico.
Why is enforcing immigration policy "stooping"? I'm sure even Pol Pot would've appreciated a puppy dog, does that make liking puppy dogs bad?
ebuddy
     
CRASH HARDDRIVE
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Zip, Boom, Bam
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 25, 2010, 01:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
Bingo!
See... that's what people aren't getting here.
Exactly. Anyone still spouting that old "jobs Americans won't do" crap, is simply regurgitating a talking point, not engaging in an actual real-world argument from 2010. It's long been proven that illegals are not only doing any mythical "jobs Americans won't do"- far from it- they're merely working for "Wages Americans won't work for."

There's a HUGE difference, and it has nothing to do with any pretend civil rights movement, and it's ONLY about increased profits for business and exploitation of a non-citizens willing to work below a line far below the minimum line for native workers. Beyond that, the left hopes for votes, and the right is interested in more exploitation.

To me it hammers home something I've long believed- if the current Democrat party could snap its fingers and *poof* the original slavery had never existed... BUT the 'downside' for them was that blacks had no need to grant them a guaranteed voter block and were just as diverse a vote as any other- GUARANTEED Dems would choose not to snap their fingers. They'd NEVER give up the votes- which is more important to them than any consideration about slavery or Jim Crow of the past, etc.

Likewise, currently, the 'modern slave trade' which is the exploitation of illegal workers, without the mess of pretending to 'own' people, or expense of shipping people in, as opposed to luring them in willingly, is something the current Dems instinctively know can't end well. It does foster another underclass, and it will lead to even bigger problems in the future.

But these are all things that the left WANTS. They want to be able to exploit all the current and future turmoil that's created, for another guaranteed voter block that looks to Democrats for salvation. Any conservative is an idiot to go along with it just for the temporary "benefit" of profit in exploiting the labor, just as anyone would have been foolish not to see the original slavery model could never end well for anyone who cared about having a free country.
     
olePigeon
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 25, 2010, 03:18 PM
 
I'm confused why you guys are attacking the free market. If a group of people won't do a job because they think the pay is too low, some other group will do it. Now if you get rid of the Federal regulations you hate so much, employers will pay even less because they won't be stifled by minimum wage requirements.

What interest does a business have in paying people more money for potentially less work, making their goods more expensive?
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
BadKosh  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 25, 2010, 04:17 PM
 
What part of ILLEGAL don't you get? The 'some other group' Is ilegally invading the US. How about enforcing those regs?
     
CRASH HARDDRIVE
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Zip, Boom, Bam
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 25, 2010, 05:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by olePigeon View Post
I'm confused why you guys are attacking the free market. If a group of people won't do a job because they think the pay is too low, some other group will do it.
It's not the free market, as a truly free market also relies on rule of law. IE: There have to be laws in place that are adhered to, otherwise the Mafia becomes the most logical business model, since its the path of least resistance.


Now if you get rid of the Federal regulations you hate so much,
What are you even yacking about- your side doesn't even recognize Federal LAWS as legit, let alone regulations or minimum wages.
employers will pay even less because they won't be stifled by minimum wage requirements.
That's exactly what you're arguing in favor of.

What interest does a business have in paying people more money for potentially less work, making their goods more expensive?
Exactly- they don't. It's up to the labor itself to demand high wages and be unwilling to work for less- OR allow anyone else to work for less illegally. IE: exactly the way organized labor doesn't allow scab labor to freely take over their jobs.
     
olePigeon
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 25, 2010, 05:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
It's not the free market, as a truly free market also relies on rule of law. IE: There have to be laws in place that are adhered to, otherwise the Mafia becomes the most logical business model, since its the path of least resistance.
Legal migrant workers are the ones that are going to take up those jobs, even if you remove the illegal ones. That is, unless you want to pay $18 for a head of lettuce.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
What are you even yacking about- your side doesn't even recognize Federal LAWS as legit, let alone regulations or minimum wages.
What is my side? What Federal laws are you talking about?

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
That's exactly what you're arguing in favor of.
I'm not advocating for illegal immigrants to take jobs. Legal migrant workers are willing to do the jobs for a lot less than Americans. They will take the Federal minimum wage and work their asses off in the fields, or construction, or whatever. My uncle hires visa workers every day from a labor pool for his orchard. He's 100% legal. He negotiates rates through the labor boss, paying them more than minimum wage. None of the people in the labor pool are Americans.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Exactly- they don't. It's up to the labor itself to demand high wages and be unwilling to work for less- OR allow anyone else to work for less illegally. IE: exactly the way organized labor doesn't allow scab labor to freely take over their jobs.
So you're for labor unions? I'm confused. Maybe I just don't know your history regarding labor unions, but most of the Conservatives on here think unions are the source of nearly all our financial problems.
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
olePigeon
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 25, 2010, 05:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by BadKosh View Post
What part of ILLEGAL don't you get? The 'some other group' Is ilegally invading the US. How about enforcing those regs?
I support a stronger position regarding illegal immigrants. I don't think you understand that stopping all the illegal immigrants isn't going to change that most people don't want to work labor for 10 hours a day at minimum wage.
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
CRASH HARDDRIVE
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Zip, Boom, Bam
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 25, 2010, 11:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by olePigeon View Post
Legal migrant workers are the ones that are going to take up those jobs, even if you remove the illegal ones. That is, unless you want to pay $18 for a head of lettuce.
Oh brother, here we go with the whole $18 head of lettuce 'argument' again. Yes, sure, something that I can pull up out of the ground in my own backyard is ever going to cost $18 if you don't have your slaves to pick it for you. Do you apply this 'logic' to everything, including your own job? Is there no way whoever you work for can supply a product (let alone something that virtually creates itself and is pulled up out of the ground) and sell it at a rate people can afford without paying you slave wages? Or do you (like most people on the pro-illegal side) exempt yourself and your own job from this brain-dead economic belief? This is only for those jobs you're unwilling to do, right?
What Federal laws are you talking about?

Immigration laws
I'm not advocating for illegal immigrants to take jobs.
Great, but that is what's being discussed, does happen all to frequently, and isn't a legit role of the 'free market' that you brought up.
Legal migrant workers are willing to do the jobs for a lot less than Americans. They will take the Federal minimum wage and work their asses off in the fields, or construction, or whatever. My uncle hires visa workers every day from a labor pool for his orchard. He's 100% legal. He negotiates rates through the labor boss, paying them more than minimum wage. None of the people in the labor pool are Americans.
We're not really talking about legal migrant workers, but illegals who steal across the borders with no documents and take jobs in the US. I'm glad your Uncle checks everyone's immigration status. Does he get called a racist for doing so? That's what we're led to believe is the result of actually checking.

Construction work isn't a low-skilled minimum wage job, and the only reason people think it can be lumped in is again due to allowing businesses to get away with hiring illegals for low wages, rather than skilled citizens. I know people retired with million dollar houses that worked construction all their lives that laugh (before crying) at the horrid idea so many in this country are willing to let such a skill be delegated to 'jobs Americans won't do' status out of sheer ignorance. And count that just one of MANY professions headed that way thanks to the complacency and ignorance of far too many.

Also, according to your story we must have plenty of legal migrants to do these jobs- why then do we need to advocate for millions more to enter illegally as well, or to look the other way? How does it help any of the people already here to have even more flood in willing to work for even less? How does it help the communities where they live, if millions more people flood in and tax the available social services?
So you're for labor unions? I'm confused. Maybe I just don't know your history regarding labor unions, but most of the Conservatives on here think unions are the source of nearly all our financial problems.
What you're misunderstanding is the labor pool I'm talking about is the legal workers of the ENTIRE NATION. If everyone of us want employers to pay wages that are livable in our own country, then everyone as a whole (just like a union) has to draw a line and say "you're not going to turn around and just bring in a bunch of other people willing to work for less than we are, and undermine wages- not from the bottom, not from the middle, NOT AT ALL."

What people are stupidly doing by supporting illegal immigration is sending a clear message to US corporations that they can have their cake and eat it too- they can decide not to obey the laws as they wish, they can hire labor outside the pool of legal US workers, and exploit them to pay them whatever they wish for profit.

Somehow, in a union setting, even a person at the very top of the wage scale can see that he/she is undermining his own labor position by allowing scab labor to cross the line and take over someone else's job- even if it's at a level beneath him. He recognizes innately that everyone either stands together and keeps the wage scale that was agreed to FOR EVERYONE, or the whole thing collapses.

But people can't seem to understand that a similar agreement exists outside the union setting, in terms of a nations workers. It's simple: in order to enjoy the benefits of operating in the US, companies must abide by US law. That includes our LABOR LAWS which prohibit hiring illegal workers. That means- and I don't give a spit what the job is, if people have been conned into thinking it's something 'Americans won't do'- that they must hire US labor, and obey the labor laws. Don't like it? Go somewhere else. But that agreement collapses when too many people allow companies to get away with not upholding their end of it and allowing them to break it at will. It's really that simple.

The net effect of it lowers wages for everyone, as legit workers are forced out of sectors that used to be well-paid (the list is LONG; construction, shipping, childcare, manufacturing, meat packing, transport, agriculture, automotive, landscaping, food services, etc. etc. etc...) then they're forced to compete in other job markets that then see their wages diluted by the influx. Many people are way too short-sighted to see it, but by allowing the bottom to be gutted, the whole cancer works its way up. It already has to the point that we're talking about construction jobs and such as those "Americans won't do."

I pointed out not even a month ago that a grocery store in Phoenix had to get rid of 300 illegal workers after a raid, and those positions were filled IMMEDIATELY by US workers. You of course missed the point, but it was that now we can add those positions too to the growing list of "jobs Americans won't do".
     
ebuddy
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: midwest
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 26, 2010, 07:03 AM
 
Originally Posted by olePigeon View Post
I'm confused why you guys are attacking the free market.
Wait, what does illegal immigration have to do with the free market?

If a group of people won't do a job because they think the pay is too low, some other group will do it.
Yes, those other groups might be 11 yr old Haitian girls, illegal immigrants, or women at the barrel of a gun, but this does not mean the free market is dependent upon a distorted and illegal labor market.

Now if you get rid of the Federal regulations you hate so much...
... then your arguments about the free market requiring illegal labor would make even less sense.

What interest does a business have in paying people more money for potentially less work, making their goods more expensive?
What legitimate business model hinges its success or failure on illegal activity? Again, your dishonest appeal to anarchy has little traction, even with conservatives.
ebuddy
     
BadKosh  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 26, 2010, 11:47 AM
 
Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
It's up to the labor itself to demand high wages and be unwilling to work for less- OR allow anyone else to work for less illegally. IE: exactly the way organized labor doesn't allow scab labor to freely take over their jobs.
Union labor is overpriced and of no better quality than non-union. The teachers unions haven't produced great students, and the auto industry bankrupt GM with the same issues. When they strike they do more damage to the economy than dealing with non-union types. The corruption and cost of law enforcement dealing with the union thugs is another biproduct of unions.
     
Zeeb
Mac Elite
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Manhattan, NY
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 26, 2010, 02:49 PM
 
I think that it is clear that the border between Mexico and the U.S. will eventually be somewhat open. Just flash a passport and you're in. Once here, Mexican immigrants who wish to stay will only have to go through a relatively quick process to citizenship. That's the future and it doesn't matter whether the President is a Democrat or Repbulican. The current Mexian-American population is so large in the U.S. that something like this will be voted into existence within my lifetime. The U.S. will have two official languages, English and Spanish and school kids across the country will be expected to be proficient in both.

I think its best to just accept and adjust to this reality now rather than be frustrated over various federal immigration laws -- which will never be enforced and will eventually be repealed. If the borders are opened in an organized manner, the right programs are in place, and immigrants are processed properly this doesn't have to be the big disaster some think it will be.

The biggest challenge will be keeping the crippling corruption and drug related violence out of the U.S. So far, we've been failing at this miserably.
     
BadKosh  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 26, 2010, 06:57 PM
 
So I guess we can't expect citizens to adopt our culture. Why come here? Why can't the Mexican population improve Mexico? It seems like their problems would become ours. The real answer is to tell the illegals to get out or end up in jail and doing hard labor. It slaps the faces of those who have followed the laws to get here legally, not the lazy, criminal way. We don't need that kind of immigrant anyway. If they don't possess those high standards of knowing right from wrong, they shouldn't be welcomed.
     
Wiskedjak
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Calgary
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 26, 2010, 10:55 PM
 
Originally Posted by BadKosh View Post
Union labor is overpriced and of no better quality than non-union. The teachers unions haven't produced great students, and the auto industry bankrupt GM with the same issues. When they strike they do more damage to the economy than dealing with non-union types. The corruption and cost of law enforcement dealing with the union thugs is another biproduct of unions.
I love how you regurgitated Anti Union Response #5 without even realizing that CRASH wasn't arguing for unions, but rather for legal employees to insist that employers not higher illegals simply because they'll accept a lower salary (and, thereby devaluing the legal employees).

He's arguing *with* you, but it seems like you saw the word "union" as part of a suggestion and dropped into anti-union-rant-mode without even thinking about how it was being used.
     
BadKosh  (op)
Professional Poster
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Just west of DC.
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 27, 2010, 05:49 AM
 
It was in addition to... as the Obama admin wants to bail out corrupt unions in the next overspending pork bill.
     
Wiskedjak
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Calgary
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 27, 2010, 08:37 AM
 
Originally Posted by BadKosh View Post
It was in addition to... as the Obama admin wants to bail out corrupt unions in the next overspending pork bill.
CRASH wasn't defending unions or Obama.
     
SpaceMonkey
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Washington, DC
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 27, 2010, 09:46 AM
 
Originally Posted by Zeeb View Post
I think that it is clear that the border between Mexico and the U.S. will eventually be somewhat open. Just flash a passport and you're in. Once here, Mexican immigrants who wish to stay will only have to go through a relatively quick process to citizenship. That's the future and it doesn't matter whether the President is a Democrat or Repbulican. The current Mexian-American population is so large in the U.S. that something like this will be voted into existence within my lifetime. The U.S. will have two official languages, English and Spanish and school kids across the country will be expected to be proficient in both.

I think its best to just accept and adjust to this reality now rather than be frustrated over various federal immigration laws -- which will never be enforced and will eventually be repealed. If the borders are opened in an organized manner, the right programs are in place, and immigrants are processed properly this doesn't have to be the big disaster some think it will be.

The biggest challenge will be keeping the crippling corruption and drug related violence out of the U.S. So far, we've been failing at this miserably.
This, except I don't think we'll be making Spanish an official language.

"One ticket to Washington, please. I have a date with destiny."
     
Zeeb
Mac Elite
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Manhattan, NY
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 27, 2010, 12:02 PM
 
Originally Posted by BadKosh View Post
So I guess we can't expect citizens to adopt our culture. Why come here? Why can't the Mexican population improve Mexico? It seems like their problems would become ours. The real answer is to tell the illegals to get out or end up in jail and doing hard labor. It slaps the faces of those who have followed the laws to get here legally, not the lazy, criminal way. We don't need that kind of immigrant anyway. If they don't possess those high standards of knowing right from wrong, they shouldn't be welcomed.
I don't think our culture is in danger. In fact, one could say that everyone else's culture is in trouble. Our music, movies, tv shows, chain restaurants and consumer goods are clearly dominant -- and tomorrow people will be opening up iPads all over the world and filling them up with content bought from an American based company. There's even a version of "American Idol" in Afghanistan of all places.
     
olePigeon
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 27, 2010, 12:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Oh brother, here we go with the whole $18 head of lettuce 'argument' again. Yes, sure, something that I can pull up out of the ground in my own backyard is ever going to cost $18 if you don't have your slaves to pick it for you.
You can't possibly grow enough vegetables in your backyard to feed you unless you have a very big back yard. Grocery stores are relatively successful because people don't want to (or can't) grow their own food, they just want to buy it.

I don't think you have any idea how much work is put into feeding just one person. Not to mention very few people want to be their own butcher. Most people don't want to know where their beef comes from, they just want to eat it.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Do you apply this 'logic' to everything, including your own job?
My own salary set by a vote by the union. You also can't work at my job without being a legal resident of California for at least 2 years, and you can't have any criminal background. Not even a misdemeanor. So, no, I don't apply that criteria to everything, especially my job. Since my job is a government job, it has large restrictions on it. There are no such restrictions when it comes to most labor jobs (maybe there should be?)

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Is there no way whoever you work for can supply a product (let alone something that virtually creates itself and is pulled up out of the ground) and sell it at a rate people can afford without paying you slave wages?
Not at the prices we have now, no. If corn costs $2 a bushel because the labor is $12/hour, how much do you think it'll cost per bushel if the labor is now $30/hour? That's just for the laborers. What about the people who ship it? Package it? Sell it? You need to compound the cost for everyone involved. I guarantee it isn't going to be $2 a bushel anymore.

You can't expect prices to stay this low if you want everyone involved to have a fair wage.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Or do you (like most people on the pro-illegal side)
I'm not pro-illegal. As I already stated, I'm for stronger regulation against illegal immigration.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
This is only for those jobs you're unwilling to do, right?
This is for any job that requires mass labor as the primary means of production. If labor goes up $8/hour for every single person working to produce, manufacture, or distribute the product, you're going to collectively have a very large increase in overhead.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
We're not really talking about legal migrant workers, but illegals who steal across the borders with no documents and take jobs in the US.
I'm not defending that. The point I'm trying to make here is that I think you guys are overstating the importance of migrant workers as it pertains to labor. Illegal immigrants do more damage in terms of support costs by the State than they do for the overall value of labor, products, and services.

California, for example, is 2nd or 3rd in terms of capital spent per student, but we're almost dead last in terms of quality of education. Part of the problem is that most of our money goes into teaching remedial classes to high school and college students who can't even speak English.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
I'm glad your Uncle checks everyone's immigration status. Does he get called a racist for doing so? That's what we're led to believe is the result of actually checking.
The labor boss does the checking. I have no problems with checking immigration status.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Also, according to your story we must have plenty of legal migrants to do these jobs- why then do we need to advocate for millions more to enter illegally as well, or to look the other way?
I'm not advocating that.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
If everyone of us want employers to pay wages that are livable in our own country, then everyone as a whole (just like a union) has to draw a line and say "you're not going to turn around and just bring in a bunch of other people willing to work for less than we are, and undermine wages- not from the bottom, not from the middle, NOT AT ALL."
You'd need to get people interested in voting, first. Good luck with that.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
It's simple: in order to enjoy the benefits of operating in the US, companies must abide by US law. That includes our LABOR LAWS which prohibit hiring illegal workers.
One of the main problems with this is getting a senator who will actually follow through with it. Both Conservatives and Democrats have a vested interest in keeping illegal workers here. Democrats rely on the minority vote, and Conservatives rely on the strongly conservative Latino vote.

Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
I pointed out not even a month ago that a grocery store in Phoenix had to get rid of 300 illegal workers after a raid, and those positions were filled IMMEDIATELY by US workers. You of course missed the point, but it was that now we can add those positions too to the growing list of "jobs Americans won't do".
I didn't miss the point. I've also never associated the grocery store with jobs Americans don't want.
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
finboy
Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Garden of Paradise Motel, Suite 3D
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 27, 2010, 12:22 PM
 
The Mexican president's visit and the reactions from our politicians, both PBO and Congress, trouble me greatly.

Blitzer on CNN almost got it right, but he was leading the guy on -- he asked what would happen if an illegal from Nicaragua or someplace came across Mexico's southern border, and of course Calderon said that they would be sent home, in accordance with Mexican law. Then Blitzer kept on, trying to demonstrate that civilized Mexico would never take the trouble to question people once they were in the country (as AZ is doing). El Presidente missed the cue, and said that they check these things routinely or something to that effect.

There needs to be strict reciprocity in immigration laws, and they need to be enforced. Whatever Mexican law is regarding US citizens entering illegally, gaining citizenship, owning property, etc. needs to be reflected perfectly on this side of the border. Until that happens nothing will change.

Until Mexicans stay home and fix their own government rather than coming here, nothing will change. And I'm not sure we can stop the train at this point.

Besides, I'm not sure why we're bothering to fight it -- as the founder of La Raza Unida has pointed out for many years now, brown people won't be a minority much longer, in Texas or anywhere else.
     
CRASH HARDDRIVE
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Zip, Boom, Bam
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 27, 2010, 11:24 PM
 
Originally Posted by olePigeon View Post
You can't possibly grow enough vegetables in your backyard to feed you unless you have a very big back yard. Grocery stores are relatively successful because people don't want to (or can't) grow their own food, they just want to buy it.
I'm merely making the point that growing food is producing a product, much the same as any other product- pick something, say a light bulb. In order to make light bulbs you can afford, companies don't need to have an army of slaves. They simply need to use a business model that keeps up with the times and that makes sense. My point with your lettuce example, is it's actually something that for the most part 'manufactures' itself. The business model for farming has become outdated, because large growers consider it cheaper to have their slave trade, than to modernize.

Another thing that I think your missing -and others that mount this $18 head of lettuce argument- is that if growers could get $18 a head for lettuce *drumroll* THEY ALREADY WOULD CHARGE THAT MUCH! The price of produce isn't tied to the lowest wages they can hire some illegal. People are currently charging as much as they can get for a head of lettuce or anything else, and what they shave off in the cost of labor is PROFIT, not a gift to you. It simply amazes me that people think businesses exist for any other reason than to make money.

You can work this out for yourself using a simple example. If you have a widget you want to sell for $100, but it takes you $30 to prepare said widget for sale, your profit is reduced by that $30. So if someone crosses a line willing to prepare your widget for $15 -illegally- and you take them up on it, then you're cutting your cost. But guess what- the market price for your widget is still *drumroll* $100. You're not going to cut your asking price by the $15 you saved on illicit labor. It's not why you'd take a risk using illicit labor in the first place. You're going to sell your widget for the MAXIMUM you can get for it ALWAYS, and pocket the savings on labor as profit.

Really, is this rocket science to people?

So the 'argument' that everything being made with illegal labor has to rise by astronomical rates doesn't actually hold water. It's not historically true: for example, the meat packing industry in 1980 paid on average $22 an hour for legal US labor. Currently, as the entire industry has been inundated with illegal labor, that rate is something like $9 and hour. And yet the price of their product has NOT been reduced by the same rate- the businesses take their illicit gains as PROFIT, not a gift to the consumer. (Again, this is an amazing stretch for anyone?)

I don't think you have any idea how much work is put into feeding just one person. Not to mention very few people want to be their own butcher. Most people don't want to know where their beef comes from, they just want to eat it.
People have managed to feed themselves for generations- it's a very recent invention that holds 'food magically comes from the corner grocery story on every block'. It's just that as with a lot of other professions, it was NEVER a deeply held belief by most people that providing perhaps the most basic of all human NEEDS is anything "Americans won't do." Illegal or slave labor also does not equal a better food supply- if it did, the slaves states would have had wealthier societies than the non-slave states. Such isn't the case as the slave states were actually kept much poorer. Illegal labor is actually a greased slope to poorer economic performance overall- enriching a few corrupt plantation owners, yet helping sink everything else. The sooner more people wake up to these things with regard to the current illegal labor model, the better.



My own salary set by a vote by the union. You also can't work at my job without being a legal resident of California for at least 2 years, and you can't have any criminal background. Not even a misdemeanor. So, no, I don't apply that criteria to everything, especially my job.
So you mean you wouldn't put up with someone from another state crossing over into California and saying to your employer "Hey, don't worry about where I'm from. Look the other way and IGNORE the laws which I'm insisting are unfair, and ignore your agreements with your current workers. I'll do the job for you for less than olePigeon."

Fair, right?

So of course this doesn't apply to your job. What I'm saying is, it doesn't apply logically or legally to ANYONE'S job in America.



Not at the prices we have now, no. If corn costs $2 a bushel because the labor is $12/hour, how much do you think it'll cost per bushel if the labor is now $30/hour?
$3, because the current cost of $2 is based on the market price, not how much someone can screw over labor, and has the maximum profit possible ALREADY FACTORED IN. That's what people are in business for- to make money. If it takes $30 an hour to be paying the set FAIR wage for that given job, then what you're not realizing and factoring in is: all this time the employer has been POCKETING $10-$15 extra dollars per hour/per employee as profit! He's also probably hired more people for less, rather than fewer for a fair wage, but the bottom line is, it's because it brings in a larger PROFIT,not because anyone is interested in constantly lowering the asking price for their product. (Do you ever do freelance work anyone, or run a business? Are you interested in constantly charging a client/customer the LOWEST possible and constantly SHRINKING price for your work?What logical business model is based on this?)
You can't expect prices to stay this low if you want everyone involved to have a fair wage.
Wow, now there's a humanitarian quote. That pretty much sums up what I'm talking about- people have become convinced that they can't afford anything, unless someone else is being enslaved or exploited to produce it. That mentality NEVER applies to their own jobs where they expect to be paid handsomely for jobs making gizmos and plastic baubles or collections of words and pictures- all of which is MUCH, MUCH, MUCH more valuable to society than food, clothing or shelter.

Nope, in everything in life -EXCEPT FOR MY JOB where I expect the company to pay me well and obey their agreements and produce an affordable product- people can't be expected to be paid fairly. Wow. The total root of this whole problem encapsulated.



I'm not pro-illegal. As I already stated, I'm for stronger regulation against illegal immigration.
Great. You're with apparently 80% of the rest of the country on this, which is great to see.

This is for any job that requires mass labor as the primary means of production. If labor goes up $8/hour for every single person working to produce, manufacture, or distribute the product, you're going to collectively have a very large increase in overhead.
But what you perhaps haven't considers, is the opposite: If labor goes DOWN $8/hour for every single person working to produce, manufacture or distribute the product because the industry has gone from legal to illegal workers, you're NOT going to have a very large DECREASE in the product's price (market forces will still set the price as HIGH as can be gotten away with), as opposed to a very large INCREASE in the money pocketed as PROFIT.

At some point along the curve, these forces cancel each other out- all this astronomical inflation as a result of a wage actually being RESTORED to a legal market driven value may increase prices temporarily a bit, but moreso, they'll reduce the illicit profit margins. If the market could really support $18 lettuce heads- you'd already be paying that along with your $85 lightbulbs and everything else.

Basically, if a business can't do business and pay people fairly based on our nation's labor laws, then GET OUT of that business and move over for someone who can. As per your example, if you have any business where being forced to get rid of illegal workers and *boo hoo* pay fair wages would affect every single person in their production and distribution- geeze man, that's a company whose leaders belong IN JAIL!

I'm not defending that. The point I'm trying to make here is that I think you guys are overstating the importance of migrant workers as it pertains to labor. Illegal immigrants do more damage in terms of support costs by the State than they do for the overall value of labor, products, and services.
Absolutely, no disagreement there. The labor aspect IS part of it, but you're right about other costs as well.


I didn't miss the point. I've also never associated the grocery store with jobs Americans don't want.
The point is: MOST of the jobs labeled that really AREN'T. The whole idea is a ploy by businesses to slash their labor costs on things too many people are willing to write off as 'menial'. The whole rotten ploy already includes PLENTY of professions that actually DID use to pay well, and now are crap jobs. We can add grocery store jobs to that list. (Anyone who thinks the Phoenix store is an isolated case needs their head examined- they just got caught at it.)
( Last edited by CRASH HARDDRIVE; May 27, 2010 at 11:37 PM. )
     
olePigeon
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 28, 2010, 12:00 AM
 
I may be missing your points, so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I think one of the main reasons China is becoming an economic powerhouse is because of the cheap prices they offer via cheap labor. For American companies to stay relevant in the global price wars, the only way they can compete with China's dirt cheap labor is to hire illegal immigrants. That goes for products, services, and yes, even agriculture. Americans want strawberries and bananas every day of the year, so it's imported.

Our socioeconomic standards are very different than that of India, China, etc. China can keep labor and prices low because their government has complete control over production; it's one of the "advantages" of socialism. Our country doesn't work that way, obviously. It is not possible for American companies to remain competitive with China or India while maintaining American standards for wages and working/living conditions.

America needs to invest in itself, and we can't do that if our own corporations are looking overseas for their solutions. One possible solution is to create two markets like China does. We'd have the American market: goods, services, labor, everything local; built local, grown local, all produced by American people; then tax and tariff all imported goods so they're more expensive than American goods.

Seasonal, American produce would be dirt cheap compared to anything imported. A Ford Focus would be thousands of dollars cheaper than an imported car. If foreign companies want to compete with American companies, they'll have to set up shop here in America, invest in our infrastructure and economy. If they want to do everything outside for pennies on the dollar, they'll have to deal with the high taxes and tariffs.

That's really the only way I can see America building itself again. Our country is self sustaining. Seriously, we don't need anyone else. Instead of lowering our standards to compete with China and India, they should have to come to us and compete on our own turf by our own rules. If Tata wants to keep selling Jaguars in America, they need to build a factory in America, hire some Americans, and produce Jaguars for the American market.

After companies no longer need to bother competing with cheap labor in China and India, the need to hire illegal immigrants will go away.
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
CRASH HARDDRIVE
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Zip, Boom, Bam
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 28, 2010, 02:48 AM
 
Originally Posted by olePigeon View Post
I may be missing your points, so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I think one of the main reasons China is becoming an economic powerhouse is because of the cheap prices they offer via cheap labor. For American companies to stay relevant in the global price wars, the only way they can compete with China's dirt cheap labor is to hire illegal immigrants. That goes for products, services, and yes, even agriculture. Americans want strawberries and bananas every day of the year, so it's imported.
Meh. I don't share such a defeatist attitude. And for China of all places.

Carry this full circle: what good will it do anyone to eventually turn ourselves into a peasant society where few people are even being paid enough to AFFORD the 'cheap' products in the first place? All you'll be doing is toiling away making 'cheap' products for someone else's country where they've chosen NOT to give up their financial independence. Someone else will have cheap plastic baubles and shiny gizmo crap to amuse themselves with, and you'll toil away making it for them even though it's no longer 'cheap' for you, but well beyond your reach. I say, no thanks to that.

And besides, China's 'dirt cheap labor' will last only so long as the corrupt regime in charge can keep their jackboot on the throats of enough people kept toiling away for little reward. They can't stop their own rising middle class forever- and they'll eventually demand better, and hopefully, eventually have the numbers to bring about change. Then I guess they'll demand all their 'cheap' crap be provided for them by self-indentured Americans who've ELECTED to trade places with them. After all, it does actually make financial sense that 300 million plus people should toil away in economic slavery to feed a market of a BILLION+ than the opposite situation, and PLENTY of global corporations will be absolutely giddy to take you up on your offer of it for undreamed of profit (for them, not you). Certainly if defeatist outlooks prevail.
     
ebuddy
Posting Junkie
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: midwest
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 28, 2010, 06:54 AM
 
Originally Posted by Zeeb View Post
I think that it is clear that the border between Mexico and the U.S. will eventually be somewhat open. Just flash a passport and you're in. Once here, Mexican immigrants who wish to stay will only have to go through a relatively quick process to citizenship. That's the future and it doesn't matter whether the President is a Democrat or Repbulican. The current Mexian-American population is so large in the U.S. that something like this will be voted into existence within my lifetime. The U.S. will have two official languages, English and Spanish and school kids across the country will be expected to be proficient in both.
I disagree on all the above. Any moves "within our lifetimes" would assuredly have to occur against the will of the people. Is this possible? Perhaps, but we're a far cry from the majority of citizens appreciating a more open border with Mexico. As the problems with border control become more apparent, with every suspected terrorist abusing lax immigration policy, increasing crime rate and wealth disparity, and exhaustion of social services; we will instead be forced to recognize that we can no longer incur such an influx of unskilled labor nor run the risk of a more hostile element's entry through such a porous border.

I think its best to just accept and adjust to this reality now rather than be frustrated over various federal immigration laws -- which will never be enforced and will eventually be repealed. If the borders are opened in an organized manner, the right programs are in place, and immigrants are processed properly this doesn't have to be the big disaster some think it will be.
We can secure borders in foreign countries, there's absolutely no reason we can't secure our own borders. I think we'd better get used to the notion that sweeping the problem under the rug for a vote or slave trade will no longer be acceptable and the sort of defeatist mentality that encourages people to accept a massive influx of poverty, corruption, drugs, and violence will not receive a yes vote. More States will enact similar legislation to Arizona and the general sentiment will continue to illustrate distaste for porous borders. Where we may agree is that people had better accept amnesty as the only plausible solution to current illegal residents, but if there's anything we've learned in the past five weeks it's that you'd better cork the spill first.

The biggest challenge will be keeping the crippling corruption and drug related violence out of the U.S. So far, we've been failing at this miserably.
IMO, that's because the border between Mexico and the U.S. is already somewhat open.
ebuddy
     
olePigeon
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Dec 1999
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 28, 2010, 11:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by CRASH HARDDRIVE View Post
Meh. I don't share such a defeatist attitude. And for China of all places.

... After all, it does actually make financial sense that 300 million plus people should toil away in economic slavery to feed a market of a BILLION+ than the opposite situation, and PLENTY of global corporations will be absolutely giddy to take you up on your offer of it for undreamed of profit (for them, not you). Certainly if defeatist outlooks prevail.
Don't know if you read the rest of my post, but that wasn't at what I was getting at. As I suggested, what we need to do is bring China and India up to our level, not us stooping down to their level. Our socioeconomics are completely different, we can't compete with China if their average income is less than $1 a day; so what we can do is force China and India to participate in our economy, not the other way around.

What I think we need to do invest in our own infrastructure and tax and/or tariff foreign imports to make their value on the level with our own economy. A Ford or GM vehicle would be thousands of dollars cheaper than an import after tariffs. The incentive for Tata to sell Jaguars to the Americans is to build a factory in the U.S., hire American workers, and build an American Jaguar for the American market; that's the only way an India car manufacturer would remain competitive in the American market.

Likewise with produce. Local, seasonal produce would be dirt cheap. If you want imported strawberries from Chile, they're going to be very expensive after tariffs. Local, seasonal, American strawberries would be dirt cheap. If the Chilean company wants to compete, they'll need to buy some farm land here in the U.S., hire American workers, and grow American produce.

Securing our home market means that we get to set our own standard of living independent of anyone else. China could make their labor as cheap as they want, even free, and it would have no baring on the price of imported goods compared to American goods. "Made in America" used to be a badge of quality. If American companies no longer have to worry about competing with China for labor, they can concentrate on more important things like increased salaries, quality control, and exports.
"…I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than
you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods,
you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts
     
CRASH HARDDRIVE
Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Zip, Boom, Bam
Status: Offline
Reply With Quote
May 28, 2010, 01:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by olePigeon View Post
Don't know if you read the rest of my post, but that wasn't at what I was getting at. As I suggested, what we need to do is bring China and India up to our level, not us stooping down to their level. Our socioeconomics are completely different, we can't compete with China if their average income is less than $1 a day; so what we can do is force China and India to participate in our economy, not the other way around.
Sorry, it was late- I should have specified that I only disagreed with your first point- but the rest is much food for thought and I think we're in agreement.

I'm rethinking my position on tariffs as you bring it up- (generally I'm against the idea) but you may be right; it may become necessary moving forward to balance the wage/profit imbalance with nations that can harness countless millions of underpaid workers, yet whose products compete in our markets.
     
   
Thread Tools
 
Forum Links
Forum Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Top
Privacy Policy
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 06:03 AM.
All contents of these forums © 1995-2017 MacNN. All rights reserved.
Branding + Design: www.gesamtbild.com
vBulletin v.3.8.8 © 2000-2017, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.,