I despair of ever getting people interested in agricultural issues, unless it is something that can be made into a sci-fi Hollywood conspiracy theory melodrama, such as the bee population fluctuations. For some reason people think of agriculture as a niche special interest, a reflection no doubt of the small number of people actually engaged in farming - 7% of the population now, I think.

My latest trick is to use a provocative title that has nothing to do with the subject of the post to lure people in to read it.

Nope. Immigration, the oil wars, and NAFTA have nothing at all to do with the food supply, and the food supply has nothing whatsoever to do with our lives.

There are two main reasons for us to be interested in agricultural issues. First, the true special interest group that agriculture impacts is not the farmers, but that somewhat larger special interest group that I like to call the "eaters." Secondly, the ruling class has its sights set first and foremost on destroying cooperative rural agricultural communities around the world. They damned well know what stands in their way, and where to put their efforts.

Over the last few years I have been warning about the labor shortage in farming, about the impact of fuel prices on food prices, and about the concentration of control over the food supply in fewer and fewer hands as a result of "free trade." The response from liberals and progressives is always the same - individuals need to make better personal choices, and activism is geared towards supporting and advancing that idea. "This food is poison! We need a label on it that says it is poison so we can make an informed choice!" Of course, if it is poison, it ought not be on the market at all. The liberal response to warnings that fuel price increases will lead to food price increases has been "farmers shouldn't be so dependent on fossil fuel" and "we need alternatives!" First, it is not the farmers who are dependent on fossil fuel, it is the eaters. Secondly, the hue and cry for alternative fuels has led to subsidies for Wall Street to invest in ethanol operations, which is driving food prices up.

The "choice" mentality is having a predictable and destructive effect on the food supply - driving the prices up (to consumers, not to farmers) on healthy food, Meanwhile, all of the slobs who the liberals love to bash for making the wrong choices, are actually making intelligent choices - getting the most calories they possibly can for their dollar.

Here is a great post from the NYT website about how these problems are now coming into view for the eaters.



A High Price for Healthy Food
Tara Parker-Pope
December 5, 2007

Healthy eating really does cost more.

That’s what University of Washington researchers found when they compared the prices of 370 foods sold at supermarkets in the Seattle area. Calorie for calorie, junk foods not only cost less than fruits and vegetables, but junk food prices also are less likely to rise as a result of inflation. The findings, reported in the current issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, may help explain why the highest rates of obesity are seen among people in lower-income groups.

The scientists took an unusual approach, essentially comparing the price of a calorie in a junk food to one consumed in a healthier meal. Although fruits and vegetables are rich in nutrients, they also contain relatively few calories. Foods with high energy density, meaning they pack the most calories per gram, included candy, pastries, baked goods and snacks.

The survey found that higher-calorie, energy-dense foods are the better bargain for cash-strapped shoppers. Energy-dense munchies cost on average $1.76 per 1,000 kcal, compared with $18.16 per 1,000 kcal for low-energy but nutritious foods.

The survey also showed that low-calorie foods were more likely to increase in price, surging 19.5 percent over the two-year study period. High-calorie foods remained a relative bargain, dropping in price by 1.8 percent.

Although people don’t knowingly shop for calories per se, the data show that it’s easier for low-income people to sustain themselves on junk food rather than fruits and vegetables, says the study’s lead author Adam Drewnowski, director of the center for public health nutrition at the University of Washington. Based on his findings, a 2,000-calorie diet would cost just $3.52 a day if it consisted of junk food, compared with $36.32 a day for a diet of low-energy dense foods. However, most people eat a mix of foods. The average American spends about $7 a day on food, although low-income people spend about $4, says Dr. Drewnowski.

But it’s easier to overeat junk food, Dr. Drewnowski adds, both because it tastes good and because eaters often must consume a greater volume in order to feel satisfied. Still, even those who consume twice as much in junk food calories are still spending far less than healthy eaters.

“If you have $3 to feed yourself, your choices gravitate toward foods which give you the most calories per dollar,’’ said Dr. Drewnowski. “Not only are the empty calories cheaper, but the healthy foods are becoming more and more expensive. Vegetables and fruits are rapidly becoming luxury goods.”

original here (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-healthy-food/index.html?hp)

Related op-ed from Michael Pollan...

Weed It and Reap

Americans have begun to ask why the farm bill is subsidizing high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils at a time when rates of diabetes and obesity among children are soaring, or why the farm bill is underwriting factory farming (with subsidized grain) when feedlot wastes are polluting the countryside and, all too often, the meat supply. For the first time, the public health community has raised its voice in support of overturning farm policies that subsidize precisely the wrong kind of calories (added fat and added sugar), helping to make Twinkies cheaper than carrots and Coca-Cola competitive with water. Also for the first time, the international development community has weighed in on the debate, arguing that subsidized American exports are hobbling cotton farmers in Nigeria and corn farmers in Mexico.

...

It’s an old story: the “hunger lobby” gets its food stamps so long as the farm lobby can have its subsidies. Similar, if less lavish, terms are now being offered to the public health and environmental “interests” to get them on board. That’s why there’s more money in this farm bill for nutrition programs and, for the first time, about $2 billion to support “specialty crops” — farm-bill-speak for the kind of food people actually eat. (Since California grows most of the nation’s specialty crops, this was the price for the state delegation’s support. Cheap indeed!)

...

But as important as these programs are, they are just programs — mere fleas on the elephant in the room. The name of that elephant is the commodity title, the all-important subsidy section of the bill. It dictates the rules of the entire food system. As long as the commodity title remains untouched, the way we eat will remain unchanged.

The explanation for this is straightforward. We would not need all these nutrition programs if the commodity title didn’t do such a good job making junk food and fast food so ubiquitous and cheap. Food stamps are crucial, surely, but they will be spent on processed rather than real food as long as the commodity title makes calories of fat and sugar the best deal in the supermarket. We would not need all these conservation programs if the commodity title, by paying farmers by the bushel, didn’t encourage them to maximize production with agrochemicals and plant their farms with just one crop fence row to fence row.

And the government would not need to pay feedlots to clean up the water or upgrade their manure pits if subsidized grain didn’t make rearing animals on feedlots more economical than keeping them on farms. Why does the farm bill pay feedlots to install waste treatment systems rather than simply pay ranchers to keep their animals on grass, where the soil would be only too happy to treat their waste at no cost?

full text here at the NYT website (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/opinion/04pollan.html?pagewanted=2)

A High Price for Healthy Food
Tara Parker-Pope
December 5, 2007

Healthy eating really does cost more.

That’s what University of Washington researchers found when they compared the prices of 370 foods sold at supermarkets in the Seattle area. Calorie for calorie, junk foods not only cost less than fruits and vegetables, but junk food prices also are less likely to rise as a result of inflation. The findings, reported in the current issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, may help explain why the highest rates of obesity are seen among people in lower-income groups.

The scientists took an unusual approach, essentially comparing the price of a calorie in a junk food to one consumed in a healthier meal. Although fruits and vegetables are rich in nutrients, they also contain relatively few calories. Foods with high energy density, meaning they pack the most calories per gram, included candy, pastries, baked goods and snacks.

The survey found that higher-calorie, energy-dense foods are the better bargain for cash-strapped shoppers. Energy-dense munchies cost on average $1.76 per 1,000 kcal, compared with $18.16 per 1,000 kcal for low-energy but nutritious foods.

The survey also showed that low-calorie foods were more likely to increase in price, surging 19.5 percent over the two-year study period. High-calorie foods remained a relative bargain, dropping in price by 1.8 percent.

Although people don’t knowingly shop for calories per se, the data show that it’s easier for low-income people to sustain themselves on junk food rather than fruits and vegetables, says the study’s lead author Adam Drewnowski, director of the center for public health nutrition at the University of Washington. Based on his findings, a 2,000-calorie diet would cost just $3.52 a day if it consisted of junk food, compared with $36.32 a day for a diet of low-energy dense foods. However, most people eat a mix of foods. The average American spends about $7 a day on food, although low-income people spend about $4, says Dr. Drewnowski.

But it’s easier to overeat junk food, Dr. Drewnowski adds, both because it tastes good and because eaters often must consume a greater volume in order to feel satisfied. Still, even those who consume twice as much in junk food calories are still spending far less than healthy eaters.

“If you have $3 to feed yourself, your choices gravitate toward foods which give you the most calories per dollar,’’ said Dr. Drewnowski. “Not only are the empty calories cheaper, but the healthy foods are becoming more and more expensive. Vegetables and fruits are rapidly becoming luxury goods.”

original here (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-healthy-food/index.html?hp)

This is fucking news? Obviously those who can afford the $ 18.16 dreamed this shit up.

After suffering as the persistent target of name calling, where proponents of an open boarder with Mexico label me as a racist, I would simply like to point out that there is no a priori - or inherent - association between nativism and racism. There might be empirical relationships between the two, where nativists tend also to be racists. However, I am bent on insisting that my economic concerns over the influx of continuous bodies into the American labor market has nothing to do with race, culture, or language. In fact, I am most concerned with the most vulnerable segments of American society, such as urban African-Americans, who suffer further economic marginalization from illegal immigration. This is, admittedly, a nativist concern that I have for minorities already in America who have suffered for too long not to have their interests accounted for. Nevertheless, this does not make me a racist. If the Republican Party had not selected this issue as a wedge, using it to incite the cultural concerns of racist whites in this country, then we might have enjoyed a fruitful dialog in which the economic realities took center stage. We might have arrived at a point where we could engage in a reassessment of NAFTA and the displacement it has precipitated among the Mexican peasantry, which now looks to this country in order to procure the means for subsistence.

Sorry for the Ramble,
Russell Cole

After suffering as the persistent target of name calling, where proponents of an open boarder with Mexico label me as a racist, I would simply like to point out that there is no a priori - or inherent - association between nativism and racism. There might be empirical relationships between the two, where nativists tend also to be racists. However, I am bent on insisting that my economic concerns over the influx of continuous bodies into the American labor market has nothing to do with race, culture, or language. In fact, I am most concerned with the most vulnerable segments of American society, such as urban African-Americans, who suffer further economic marginalization from illegal immigration. This is, admittedly, a nativist concern that I have for minorities already in America who have suffered for too long not to have their interests accounted for. Nevertheless, this does not make me a racist. If the Republican Party had not selected this issue as a wedge, using it to incite the cultural concerns of racist whites in this country, then we might have enjoyed a fruitful dialog in which the economic realities took center stage. We might have arrived at a point where we could engage in a reassessment of NAFTA and the displacement it has precipitated among the Mexican peasantry, which now looks to this country in order to procure the means for subsistence.

Sorry for the Ramble,
Russell Cole

Hey Russell. Good to see you.

Your thinking may not be racist, but the practical functional effect of the anti-immigration hysteria is most certainly racist.

Does it bother you at all that nothing whatsoever changed over the last 20 years - there was no "problem" - and suddenly the issue blasted onto the scene? There is a consistent pattern of the right wing propagnda machine manufacturing problems, and then using them as cover to promote a hidden agenda. The schools, social security, Iraq and on and on. The public gets all whipped into a frenzy about a problem that they didn't know even existed, and when the right wnigers get through with it there IS a problem - of their creation.

Another question - why should the border be completely open to the rich few, to do business as though the border did not exist, but for poor laborers fighting for their lives it is not?

I do it every day. I don't eat junk food simply because I don't like it. In fact, if I could eat the way I want to, I'd exist on a diet based on porterhouse and rib eye steaks, beans, and fruit. I can't do that either having been cut down to 1 beef meal every two weeks (a cruel and unusual punishment).

I have to say that the author of that piece makes perfect sense. Instead of looking at those junk food buyers as a bunch of clowns, I'm going to see them for what they are, rational decision makers given the economics of things.

Here are my questions about agribusiness:

1) What's a good source of data on family farms versus corporate farms in terms of acerage, production, crops etc.I'd like to know more than that.

2) What's the deal with "terminator" seeds. I'm reading that these are being spread in Africa by the Gates Foundation and Monsanto, that they last a year and require dependence on Monsanto, and that the economic leverage of the providers to the growers is significant.

Mike
"Eater"

This is a good point to consider. However, the influx of Mexican migrants into American cities, where they assume permenant residencies is a recent phenomenon. Due to the increased security on the border, it is no longer feasible to migrate into the states and back into Mexico according to agricultural work cycles. This has caused Mexicans to move northward into major cities where they now compete for jobs with innercity blacks and other native minorities. If you look at the statistics, you will find that the current patterns in immigration have only taken hold recently, not further back than the 1990's when security began to be hightened on the border as well as NAFTA, which, of course, has aggrevated the situation to the point where it has reached new dimensions.
Best
Russ

1) What's a good source of data on family farms versus corporate farms in terms of acerage, production, crops etc. I'd like to know more than that.

Good question. I will out some numbers together for you tomorrow.


2) What's the deal with "terminator" seeds. I'm reading that these are being spread in Africa by the Gates Foundation and Monsanto, that they last a year and require dependence on Monsanto, and that the economic leverage of the providers to the growers is significant.

Your information is accurate. Big problem, and part of a trend that includes patenting varieties, trademarking names of varieties, controlling distribution, creation of proprietary life forms - GMO crops - and privatization of public agriculture research and breeding programs.

The goal of Monsanto and others is control over the food supply. I strongly urge activists to fight them on those grounds - political and economic - rather than play dueling scientists or run scare campaigns about frankenfoods. One needs to undertsnad agriculture to see that taking the unfair advantages and the profit motive out of these new technologies will sink the biotech industry, while comsumer boycotts and labeling and scare campaigns will not.

This is a good point to consider. However, the influx of Mexican migrants into American cities, where they assume permenant residencies is a recent phenomenon. Due to the increased security on the border, it is no longer feasible to migrate into the states and back into Mexico according to agricultural work cycles. This has caused Mexicans to move northward into major cities where they now compete for jobs with innercity blacks and other native minorities. If you look at the statistics, you will find that the current patterns in immigration have only taken hold recently, not further back than the 1990's when security began to be hightened on the border as well as NAFTA, which, of course, has aggrevated the situation to the point where it has reached new dimensions.
Best
Russ

Making the border more difficult to cross has made the problem worse, not better.

I reject the idea that there are a limited number of jobs to go around, and also that one group of workers is to blame for others not having jobs. Playing one working class group against another is an age old trick of the monied class for distracting and dividing the workers. I can say with certainly that entry level workers on the small farms creates jobs, it doesn't take jobs away from anyone. There is a shortage of unskilled labor in the country, and without unskilled labor there is no way to build many businesses that also proved white collar work. More workers creates more jobs, not fewer. That is self-evident and common sense. When pioneers settled new town, did they close the door after 100 people? 1000? 10,000? No, of course not. Yet there were only 100 jobs at first, so why didn't the next 9,000 "take away" those jobs? Where did the other 9,000 jobs come from?

Human beings are not a commodity, they are not an expense, they are not a drain on anything. They are the source of all wealth, through their labor.

Black unemployment is the disgrace of our nation. It was a problem long before Mexicans immigrated here, and scapegoating one downtrodden group as an explanation for the conditions of another helps no one.

Every chamber of commerce and business organization in the country trumpets "growth" - an influx of people to their area - as a positive thing, a desirable thing. Unless the newcomers are brown. That is what makes the immigration opposition racist.

You do realize that the exact same arguments were made against Abolition? That is to say, freed slaves would take jobs away from whites, the influx would strain social services, "they" would work for less, "they" would harm our communities.

The Mexican and Hispanic community in Detroit was thriving 40 nears ago, so I don't think it is a new phenomenon. When I was young, thousands of undocumented European refugees and Canadians came to Detroit to work in the auto factories. Glad to have 'em, welcome aboard was the attitude. They were white.

In response, you are right that increased security has made the problem worse. However, the ethnic Mexican enclaves you refer to are special cases, where Mexicans were brought over during the Second World War in order to work in industry. They have never assimilated and continue to consider their first nationality to be Mexican, but this is besides the point. I agree that there might be a necessity in agriculture for seasonal employees. However, what about hospitality? What about construction? These use to be good jobs until this influx of additional labor has entered into these employment niches; thus, saturating the labor markets; reducing the value of the labor; making these jobs undesireable for Americans who seek a living wage. I am only 31 and I can still remember when construction use to be a good job. However, similarly to every other labor market that has been saturated by illegal immigrants, the wages have steadily declined in these industries in recent years. Do not buy into the neoliberal rhetoric that attempts to portray the increases in productivity created by influxes of alien labor as beneficial to everybody in the economy. I can stand on the research and conclusions drawn by economists such as Paul Krugman, when I say that illegal immigration has a negative impact upon the material conditions of all those who compete in the same labor markets as those in which illegal immigrants find work.

Best
russell cole.

I just knew they were f'ing around with the seeds. Nice of the Gates Foundation giving those out in Africa, very humanitarian.

The approach to the market is not boycots, I agree.

America does not need unskilled labor

If America wants to eat it does. If America wants small independent farmers it does. If America needs a vibrant economy of start up service businesses in a variety of fields it does. If America wants clean toilets, mowed lawns, tidy offices, clean motels and laundry, transportation infrastructure construction and maintenance it does.

Sorry Russell, I am in the field and this is not an area of contention, disagreement or opinion among knowledgeable observers. I can provide the supporting documentation if you like, but I would need to know that you were open to considering the possibility that your opinions on this subject may be based on false premises. Otherwise, merely exchanging feelings and impressions and hunches about the subject is not very productive.

Americans are spoiled - they take education, literacy and opportunity for granted. We can't all be IT professionals or stock brokers. Someone needs to do the real work or there would be no white collar jobs. Everyone starts out unskilled. In a country where young people benefit from those who went before, who enjoy privileges and opportunities for which someone else fought all of the battles, who can keep their head down, play by the rules, follow the herd, learn zero survival skills or self-sufficiency, avoid all drudgery, take no risks and still have a reasonable expectation of a life that is vastly more comfortable and secure than 99% of the people in the world - in a country such as that, people's perspective and proportion about reality can become a little skewed.

We don't treat or talk about stray dogs as malevolently and inhumanely as we do human beings when we advocate the anti-immigrant ideas. It is a national disgrace.

I can stand on the research and conclusions drawn by economists such as Paul Krugman, when I say that illegal immigration has a negative impact upon the material conditions of all those who compete in the same labor markets as those in which illegal immigrants find work.

Aren't immigrants among those who compete in the same labor markets as those in which illegal immigrants find work.

So does it have a negative impact on them too?

No offense, but what your saying doesn't make any sense except as a one-sided polemic. If you take a look at the big picture it is a case of the victims (ie brown people) being painted as the oppressors.

Pinch yourself, you're having this really bad dream where you do crazy things like cite hacks like Paul Krugman.

In a country where young people benefit from those who went before, who enjoy privileges and opportunities for which someone else fought all of the battles, who can keep their head down, play by the rules, follow the herd, learn zero survival skills or self-sufficiency, avoid all drudgery, take no risks and still have a reasonable expectation of a life that is vastly more comfortable and secure than 99% of the people in the world - in a country such as that, people's perspective and proportion about reality can become a little skewed.

If its any consolation there is a name for guys like this Mike: weenies

:)

The effect of NAFTA on Mexico is one thing, the way the people dislocated as a result who come here are treated is another.

Corporations are always trying to get cheap labor. The immigrants are not the only case of that, nor are they to blame.

No one is "importing" cheap labor, the people are making own their way here at great risk and sacrifice. They have a right to do that.

Corporations are not being hurt by the anti-immigration hysteria, and never will be, it is small independent farmers who are being hurt.

A worker is cheaper to hire south of the border than he is here - for the corporations. Cheaper there than here. Got it?

A widget made in Mexico with $1 a day labor depresses wages for us more than the same widget made here by the same people at ten times the wage.

The immigrants are wisely and courageously moving to the best jobs on the planet for them, given that they are uneducated and illiterate. They aren't stupid. These jobs are feeding their families, sending their children to school, allowing them to buy homes, and upgrading their home villages dramatically. They are doing this voluntarily. They are not merely cheap labor, and yes, they are doing jobs that Americans do not want to do.

Even if you paid $100 an hour for farm labor - which would mean we all pay 10 times as much for food - Americans would not make careers of agriculture and would not be willing to start at the bottom. They don't need to. The immigrants do, just as our ancestors did.

If food cost ten times what it does it would not matter that wages were ten times higher. If families were paying $1000 a week for food, it wouldn't matter that they made more money, as it would be offset by higher food prices. The Republicans have made sure that wages have not kept pace with prices. That is not the fault of the immigrants.

There is a severe labor shortage in agriculture. Workers are free to move to new employers, and they do. When there are more jobs than workers to fill them, the workers are at an advantage. The immigrants are not stupid. The ceiling on farm wages is because their is a ceiling on farm income. NAFTA is making that worse. Immigration is alleviating the problems caused by NAFTA. We all get cheap food, the immigrants can survive, the American dream is revived, rural communities are restored, the Mexican villages have hope and improvement, the small family farmers can keep farming, we are building our next generation of new farm owners. Win, win, win, win, win, win.

Another thing that gets thrown around. That immigrants are clogging up ER rooms and driving up health care costs. From what I've read by actual ER doctors and also personally talking to the son of two ER doctors, nothing could be further from the truth. They say that pampered princesses calling for an ambulance because of a hangnail is much more chronic and the greater contributor to costs. Thats assuming you even believe that healtcare costs are linked in this way.

I don't know if its been covered here, probably, but the sad contemptible tale of hospitals meeting their civic obligations in providing care for the poorest patients sure doesn't put their best foot forward. Or it it does they have two club feet.

They have never assimilated and continue to consider their first nationality to be Mexican, but this is besides the point.

I grew up in Detroit, and there are dozens of "enclaves" of "them" - Polish, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Belgian, Scottish, German, Rom, Ukrainian, and many others. It is a source of pride and an asset to the city that people maintain the traditions and customs from the old country. They fly their flags in ethnic pride parades, they have ethnic festivals, they retain affection for and loyalty to the old country.

I know personally hundreds of Latin American immigrants. Their children are going to college, becoming lawyers and doctors and teachers, and are quite thoroughly Americanized - which is somewhat unfortunate, of anything. Nothing could force them to "never assimilate."

Studies have shown that it is people of color who are segregated, and that is by the choice of the whites, not the people of color. Stanford set up a series of experiments with seating in auditoriums. They found conclusively that Blacks and Hispanics DID NOT move away from whites to sit in their own enclaves. Whites did however consistently move away from Blacks and Hispanics and set up THEIR own enclaves of only whites. Repeated attempts by Blacks and Hispanics to integrate the seating were fruitless, because the whites would always move away from them given the choice. No whites made any effort to integrate the seating, even when sitting with the people of color was the easier and more convenient choice.

They have never assimilated and continue to consider their first nationality to be Mexican, but this is besides the point.

I grew up in Detroit, and there are dozens of "enclaves" of "them" - Polish, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Belgian, Scottish, German, Rom, Ukrainian, and many others. It is a source of pride and an asset to the city that people maintain the traditions and customs from the old country. They fly their flags in ethnic pride parades, they have ethnic festivals, they retain affection for and loyalty to the old country.

I know personally hundreds of Latin American immigrants. Their children are going to college, becoming lawyers and doctors and teachers, and are quite thoroughly Americanized - which is somewhat unfortunate, of anything. Nothing could force them to "never assimilate."

Studies have shown that it is people of color who are segregated, and that is by the choice of the whites, not the people of color. Stanford set up a series of experiments with seating in auditoriums. They found conclusively that Blacks and Hispanics DID NOT move away from whites to sit in their own enclaves. Whites did however consistently move away from Blacks and Hispanics and set up THEIR own enclaves of only whites. Repeated attempts by Blacks and Hispanics to integrate the seating were fruitless, because the whites would always move away from them given the choice. No whites made any effort to integrate the seating, even when sitting with the people of color was the easier and more convenient choice.

Where does the 8% rule that you've referenced before come from -- the one that says whites only tolerate 8% minorities in a neighborhood before deciding to relocate, if not always explicitly on "there goes the neighborhood" grounds

Where does the 8% rule that you've referenced before come from -- the one that says whites only tolerate 8% minorities in a neighborhood before deciding to relocate, if not always explicitly on "there goes the neighborhood" grounds

Oh, yeah. That was from a great book I read a while back. Don't know where I left it - probably loaned it out. I will try to remember the title and the author.

Remarkable finding - whites will tolerate 8% non-white people - in class, in crowds, stores, theaters, in housing - and no more, and that is only if the non-white people live up to much higher standards. They must be more polite, keep their yards better, keep their cars cleaner, make fewer mistakes, always be soft-spoken and deferential, and dress and groom better than whites to be accepted.

What this "progress" of affirmative action is doing to the Black communities is removing the most motivated, verbal and intellectual people from the community and leaving a leadership vacuum. This has further depressed the Black communities economically, which perpetuates the vicious cycle of no investment capital, declining property values and degraded public services, which leads to more problems. For those who leave and move to the white communities, the stress is phenomenal. It isn't working.

Black communities are more isolated and oppressed than ever, but since some Blacks are making it, the problems for those left behind are seen as the fault of the people themselves. "Hey, Black people can get good jobs now. There is no more excuse. The ones in the ghetto must be lazy and stupid after all, just like we always thought, and it has nothing to do with 'whitey' and people who say that are just playing the race card."

They have never assimilated and continue to consider their first nationality to be Mexican, but this is besides the point.

I grew up in Detroit, and there are dozens of "enclaves" of "them" - Polish, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Belgian, Scottish, German, Rom, Ukrainian, and many others. It is a source of pride and an asset to the city that people maintain the traditions and customs from the old country. They fly their flags in ethnic pride parades, they have ethnic festivals, they retain affection for and loyalty to the old country.

I know personally hundreds of Latin American immigrants. Their children are going to college, becoming lawyers and doctors and teachers, and are quite thoroughly Americanized - which is somewhat unfortunate, of anything. Nothing could force them to "never assimilate."

Studies have shown that it is people of color who are segregated, and that is by the choice of the whites, not the people of color. Stanford set up a series of experiments with seating in auditoriums. They found conclusively that Blacks and Hispanics DID NOT move away from whites to sit in their own enclaves. Whites did however consistently move away from Blacks and Hispanics and set up THEIR own enclaves of only whites. Repeated attempts by Blacks and Hispanics to integrate the seating were fruitless, because the whites would always move away from them given the choice. No whites made any effort to integrate the seating, even when sitting with the people of color was the easier and more convenient choice.

The "refuse to assimilate" argument is racists and corporatists. It is aimed exclusively at people of color. "Why can't they be like us?' asks those whose cultures have been homogenized and lost, left only with corporate caricatures of ethnic diversity, Olive Garden ad nauseum.

Why do they hate diversity? Like Detroit, Baltimore had a great variety of immigrant communities, admittedly all of European origin, but it mostly faded away with white flight to the burbs. My old neighborhood had been named Germantown until WWI and the wave of anti-German propaganda, all was swept away. And then, of course, the revelations of WWII. Growing up I wondered why there were Polish, Irish and Italian jokes but no German jokes. Nothing funny about those Germans.....

I digress. The preference for uniformity over diversity serves the corporistas and other propagandists well, making quantification and market strategy more predictable. Just another way that capitalism attacks the essence of life. If one looks at the history of life there is undoubtedly a trend towards more diversity. So too with human cultures, another branch of life. Diversity is to be cherished, it is the joy of life.

America does not need unskilled labor

If America wants to eat it does. If America wants small independent farmers it does. If America needs a vibrant economy of start up service businesses in a variety of fields it does. If America wants clean toilets, mowed lawns, tidy offices, clean motels and laundry, transportation infrastructure construction and maintenance it does.

Sorry Russell, I am in the field and this is not an area of contention, disagreement or opinion among knowledgeable observers. I can provide the supporting documentation if you like, but I would need to know that you were open to considering the possibility that your opinions on this subject may be based on false premises. Otherwise, merely exchanging feelings and impressions and hunches about the subject is not very productive.

Americans are spoiled - they take education, literacy and opportunity for granted. We can't all be IT professionals or stock brokers. Someone needs to do the real work or there would be no white collar jobs. Everyone starts out unskilled. In a country where young people benefit from those who went before, who enjoy privileges and opportunities for which someone else fought all of the battles, who can keep their head down, play by the rules, follow the herd, learn zero survival skills or self-sufficiency, avoid all drudgery, take no risks and still have a reasonable expectation of a life that is vastly more comfortable and secure than 99% of the people in the world - in a country such as that, people's perspective and proportion about reality can become a little skewed.

We don't treat or talk about stray dogs as malevolently and inhumanely as we do human beings when we advocate the anti-immigrant ideas. It is a national disgrace.

Hi,
I am a sociologist and I have studied this issue extensively. In fact, prior to examining the empirical research that has been performed on this topic, I would have taken the same position as you. However, I became dismayed at the disengenuous rhetorical tactics that were being used by those who support an open border. No one is saying that they are illegal human beings, and, certainly, no one believes that Americans would not take these jobs if they paid a respectable wage that reflected the instensity of the work that is expected of those who work the hardest in our society but fail to garner the resepct and compensation that they deserve.

Please do send whatever empirical evidence you have to support your case. I am open minded about this issue, and I am not constrained to my position based upon some authoritarian disposition whereby I cannot forgive petty crimes such as crossing the border without documentation. However, I will be obliged to point out that any argument resting upon assumptions that freed capital from increased productivity does not necessarily mean that the American economy is going to create better, higher skilled occupations. I am assuming that you are an economist. Therefore, you are aware of the lack of empirical research - and, thus, empirical data - on the capital flows that have been created from the recent expansions in globalization, and, therefore, we have no evidence to support any assumption that the capital created from increased rates of productivity actually results in reinvestment in the American economy.

If you are basing your argument upon the fact that Americans have better living conditions than the developing world, then I agree, but using this as a rationale for an open border neglects to take into consideration the opinions held upon this prospect by the people in the American economy who would actually be affected by such a policy.
Russell

America does not need unskilled labor

If America wants to eat it does. If America wants small independent farmers it does. If America needs a vibrant economy of start up service businesses in a variety of fields it does. If America wants clean toilets, mowed lawns, tidy offices, clean motels and laundry, transportation infrastructure construction and maintenance it does.

Sorry Russell, I am in the field and this is not an area of contention, disagreement or opinion among knowledgeable observers. I can provide the supporting documentation if you like, but I would need to know that you were open to considering the possibility that your opinions on this subject may be based on false premises. Otherwise, merely exchanging feelings and impressions and hunches about the subject is not very productive.

Americans are spoiled - they take education, literacy and opportunity for granted. We can't all be IT professionals or stock brokers. Someone needs to do the real work or there would be no white collar jobs. Everyone starts out unskilled. In a country where young people benefit from those who went before, who enjoy privileges and opportunities for which someone else fought all of the battles, who can keep their head down, play by the rules, follow the herd, learn zero survival skills or self-sufficiency, avoid all drudgery, take no risks and still have a reasonable expectation of a life that is vastly more comfortable and secure than 99% of the people in the world - in a country such as that, people's perspective and proportion about reality can become a little skewed.

We don't treat or talk about stray dogs as malevolently and inhumanely as we do human beings when we advocate the anti-immigrant ideas. It is a national disgrace.

Hi,
I am a sociologist and I have studied this issue extensively. In fact, prior to examining the empirical research that has been performed on this topic, I would have taken the same position as you. However, I became dismayed at the disengenuous rhetorical tactics that were being used by those who support an open border. No one is saying that they are illegal human beings, and, certainly, no one believes that Americans would not take these jobs if they paid a respectable wage that reflected the instensity of the work that is expected of those who work the hardest in our society but fail to garner the resepct and compensation that they deserve.

Please do send whatever empirical evidence you have to support your case. I am open minded about this issue, and I am not constrained to my position based upon some authoritarian disposition whereby I cannot forgive petty crimes such as crossing the border without documentation. However, I will be obliged to point out that any argument resting upon assumptions that freed capital from increased productivity does not necessarily mean that the American economy is going to create better, higher skilled occupations. I am assuming that you are an economist. Therefore, you are aware of the lack of empirical research - and, thus, empirical data - on the capital flows that have been created from the recent expansions in globalization, and, therefore, we have no evidence to support any assumption that the capital created from increased rates of productivity actually results in reinvestment in the American economy.

If you are basing your argument upon the fact that Americans have better living conditions than the developing world, then I agree, but using this as a rationale for an open border neglects to take into consideration the opinions held upon this prospect by the people in the American economy who would actually be affected by such a policy.
Russell

Russell, this is not a site for campus-based eggheads. No one here, to my knowledge, is an academic. Your arguments here are what..?


and, certainly, no one believes that Americans would not take these jobs if they paid a respectable wage that reflected the instensity of the work that is expected of those who work the hardest in our society but fail to garner the resepct and compensation that they deserve.

This is quite mixed up. Is "unskilled labor" a slur or not? How much "respect" do you feel such jobs deserve? How is a "deserving" level of compensation established? As for no empircal evidence..evidence of what? There is ample anecdotal evidence that tells us that Americans will NOT take jobs in meat-packing plants or slaughterhouses or in agriculture. It is quite the canard to quip back that those jobs simply need to pay better. Especially if you are going to claim that you've researched the question in any depth: it either betrays a hidden agenda on your part or a glaring lack of research skills.

Further, your bottom line seems to be a big Fuck You to people, and spreading your legs to "capital flows" and "economic considerations". A better spot to suggest that the fate of immigrants rest on whether it demonstrably improves American investment portfolios is the Republican Party.

Mike IS not arguing that immigration will or won't benefit the holders of capital. He is saying that labor produces ALL capital and is the superior of capital. He is also saying that labor deserves the greater consideration.

Hi,
I am a sociologist and I have studied this issue extensively. In fact, prior to examining the empirical research that has been performed on this topic, I would have taken the same position as you. However, I became dismayed at the disengenuous rhetorical tactics that were being used by those who support an open border. No one is saying that they are illegal human beings, and, certainly, no one believes that Americans would not take these jobs if they paid a respectable wage that reflected the instensity of the work that is expected of those who work the hardest in our society but fail to garner the resepct and compensation that they deserve.

Please do send whatever empirical evidence you have to support your case. I am open minded about this issue, and I am not constrained to my position based upon some authoritarian disposition whereby I cannot forgive petty crimes such as crossing the border without documentation. However, I will be obliged to point out that any argument resting upon assumptions that freed capital from increased productivity does not necessarily mean that the American economy is going to create better, higher skilled occupations. I am assuming that you are an economist. Therefore, you are aware of the lack of empirical research - and, thus, empirical data - on the capital flows that have been created from the recent expansions in globalization, and, therefore, we have no evidence to support any assumption that the capital created from increased rates of productivity actually results in reinvestment in the American economy.

If you are basing your argument upon the fact that Americans have better living conditions than the developing world, then I agree, but using this as a rationale for an open border neglects to take into consideration the opinions held upon this prospect by the people in the American economy who would actually be affected by such a policy.
Russell

Define some of your terms.

"Expansions"

"Globalization"

"productivity"

"reinvestment"

"developing world"


You should clarify some of what you said, essentially your comment as it stands is the same language used in freshman Ivy League econ classes and the students who internalize this nonsense, in order to get the grade and make the mid-level management payola, go on to become dutiful technocrats of The Empire.

It's not a border it's a scar. And there is no petty crime committed by those who "don't have their papers" there is only the major crime of creating such desperate and unjust conditions in the first place and the lesser crime of defending this, wittingly or not.

Totally on a different train of discussion, but does Mike or anyone else know about the state of agriculture in Venezuela? It appears that is going to be THE issue that most decides the fate of the Bolivarian Revolution..

Hi,
I am a sociologist and I have studied this issue extensively. In fact, prior to examining the empirical research that has been performed on this topic, I would have taken the same position as you. However, I became dismayed at the disengenuous rhetorical tactics that were being used by those who support an open border. No one is saying that they are illegal human beings, and, certainly, no one believes that Americans would not take these jobs if they paid a respectable wage that reflected the instensity of the work that is expected of those who work the hardest in our society but fail to garner the resepct and compensation that they deserve.

Please do send whatever empirical evidence you have to support your case. I am open minded about this issue, and I am not constrained to my position based upon some authoritarian disposition whereby I cannot forgive petty crimes such as crossing the border without documentation. However, I will be obliged to point out that any argument resting upon assumptions that freed capital from increased productivity does not necessarily mean that the American economy is going to create better, higher skilled occupations. I am assuming that you are an economist. Therefore, you are aware of the lack of empirical research - and, thus, empirical data - on the capital flows that have been created from the recent expansions in globalization, and, therefore, we have no evidence to support any assumption that the capital created from increased rates of productivity actually results in reinvestment in the American economy. Productivity: the rate at which a particular commodity can be manufactured at a particular expense. Reinvestment: Taking the capital that is gained by a particular mode of production and using that capital to create new forms of production.

If you are basing your argument upon the fact that Americans have better living conditions than the developing world, then I agree, but using this as a rationale for an open border neglects to take into consideration the opinions held upon this prospect by the people in the American economy who would actually be affected by such a policy.
Russell

Define some of your terms.

"Expansions"

"Globalization"

"productivity"

"reinvestment"

"developing world"


You should clarify some of what you said, essentially your comment as it stands is the same language used in freshman Ivy League econ classes and the students who internalize this nonsense, in order to get the grade and make the mid-level management payola, go on to become dutiful technocrats of The Empire.

It's not a border it's a scar. And there is no petty crime committed by those who "don't have their papers" there is only the major crime of creating such desperate and unjust conditions in the first place and the lesser crime of defending this, wittingly or not.

I suppose I will respond to this. To begin by defining what you have already admitted to be terms that are understandable to freshman in college: Expansions: growths in the geographical spaces that are dominated by, in this context, a particular economic order. Globalization: a movement that is always present - although to differing degrees of intensity - toward world commerce where goods and services are not restricted in their distributions to isolated geograpical locals. Reinvestment: Taking the capital that is made through profits garnered by a mode of production and using that capital to build new modes of production. Developing world: Places, such as Central America, where the economies are largely in a pre-industrial state. There are, of course, problems with this term since it implies that societies should all aspire to a state that has been largely defined by Western societies as "advanced." Nevertheless, it is a term of convenience.

As for the rest of what you have said: If you want to erode the nation state, then how do you contend that democracy will work under such a condition. I cannot vote in Mexico. In fact, as an illegal alien I would face felony charges in Mexico. Why do you not address this inequality? furthermore, it is not the American worker who has created these unjust conditions. Nevertheless, according to your model of reform, it is only the American worker who would suffer under these revised conditions where the American worker would face competition from an expanded - (expanded: enlarged) - labor market.

You should direct your energies toward reforming the real inequalities. You could be addressing the grotesque inequalities in Mexico where they have the opulently rich and the desperately poor. Furthermore, you could address NAFTA which has displaced so much of the traditional Mexican peasantry. Nonetheless, you choose to opt in to the easiest solution to the problems you have identified, and, in doing so, you are merely serving the interests of corporate America. Why do you think that Wal-mart and Nike and the likes are the largest contributors to groups such as La Raza? They want to decrease the value of labor in this country in order to profit even more than they already do.

As far as Americans not wanting the types of jobs you have identified: Americans still work in these sectors; especially meat-packing plants. However, with the influx of illegal labor, the jobs are steadily declining in the compensations they offer, forcing more and more Americans not to work in these industries.

Finally, I find it ironic that you would accuse me of spouting the typical business-speak, when all of your positions are in line with this neoconservative, supply-side rhetoric.

I am not the one who reverts to name calling. You, and whoever posted the last response, have become so absorbed in what you have falsely identified as a racial issue - at its core - that you have lost the ability to analyze this issue with any objectivity.

Russell Cole

Russell, what the hell are you talking about? His positions are in line with the neo-conservative, supply-side rhetoric? Lets see some quotes on that.

I'm off to tell Stormfront and the Minutemen that they've falsely identified this as a racial issue.

Totally on a different train of discussion, but does Mike or anyone else know about the state of agriculture in Venezuela? It appears that is going to be THE issue that most decides the fate of the Bolivarian Revolution..

Here is the problem I am having, kid.

The requests for "documentation" and statistics and "facts" to "prove" what I am saying on various boards and in various discussions just keep piling up. It is a tremendous amount of work - work that I am willing to do.

But there is a problem. No matter how much documentation, how many facts and statistics I provide, it does no good and is wasted time and energy. When I take the several hours to assemble and post the documentation, on the immigrant issue for example, or on the corporate influence over the Clinton candidacy, that is just the end of the discussion. The thread dies without comment. Then, two weeks later, or a month later, the same issues arise once again, accompanied by the same requests for documentation, facts, and statistics to "prove" what I am saying, and we repeat the cycle.

I can have an intelligent conversation with almost any uneducated blue collar person on any political subject, because you don't have to try to batter through the armor with them - the enormous and complex edifice of verbiage and theory that intellectuals put ups as a wall between themselves and reality.

I will give you a couple of recent examples from conversations with farm workers.

On taxes - one of the Limbaugh listening guys in the shop was spouting off about the tax and spend Democrats to me, and I asked him "Joe how much of what you make goes in taxes one way or another" and after thinking about it for a minute he said "shit Mike, I bet half of what I make the government takes away." I then said, "OK now as a millionaire..." and he laughed. I said "don't you think you will earn a million dollars? It may take you a little longer than some, but you will earn a million dollars. It will take you a little over 20 years. Why can't we tax half of the income of the guy who makes a million dollars in an hour, but it is OK to tax half of the income that it takes you 20 years to earn?"

That's it. Done deal. There will be no more vulnerability for that guy to the right wing "tax" bullshit - ever.

On immigration - every white uneducated supposedly right wing racist guy on the farm, once he is working along side of and living among the immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico comes to the same conclusion as a guy I talked to the other day - "hey if a man wants to work I say he should be able to and I don't care who he is. A man has a right to feed his family, and they are doing the same thing I would do in their situation."

Done deal, no more bullshit about it.

Do you think that any logical argument, any documentation, any facts, any proof will ever bring an intellectual to those sorts of conclusions?

Since I am talking here to fellow intellectuals, I am bringing whatever verbal skills I have to bear, and making an intelligent argument. Those same intellectuals, when reading this, will then go into their usual coma and space out into theory land, the world of bloodless pedantic mental exercise and words piled upon words for no purpose whatsoever other than to reinforce prejudice, and completely miss the point. I can promise you that if I posted what I just said around the 'net, that some intellectual at one of them would demand "proof" for the personal experiences and observations I related above, or in the absence of such proof and documentation would start railing about how what I related were anomalies, or exceptions, and that there was nothing to learn from them.

However, I became dismayed at the disingenuous rhetorical tactics that were being used by those who support an open border.

Straw man argument there. No one is "supporting an open border" as some new radical plan. You are characterizing those who disagree with you in a false way in order to make your straw man easier to knock down.

Are you calling me disingenuous? Can you refute my arguments, or are you merely going to characterize them in a pejorative way in lieu of making a cogent rebuttal?


No one is saying that they are illegal human beings, and, certainly, no one believes that Americans would not take these jobs if they paid a respectable wage that reflected the intensity of the work that is expected of those who work the hardest in our society but fail to garner the respect and compensation that they deserve.

The entry level jobs in agriculture are an opportunity - and this cannot be underestimated - a stepping stone, a means to an end for immigrants. Those jobs do not represent that for young native born people. Teenagers in rural areas will take a job at McDonald's for less pay before they will work in agriculture. Immigrants cannot get the job at McDonald's because they lack literacy. This is a bizarre argument, Russell. Do you have any idea the hardships that immigrants face, the courage and motivation they must have to get to these jobs? They value them highly. Are they stupid or misguided in that assessment? They have no other path anywhere to achieve the goals of having a future, owning a home, educating their children, and helping the relatives they left behind in the village.

Young Americans will work at a ski lift or boat dock - working just as hard and long as they would on the farm, and for less money.

How spoiled, how ignorant, how privileged and what sense of entitlement must an American have to be blind to this and not respect and honor the people doing it?


Please do send whatever empirical evidence you have to support your case. I am open minded about this issue, and I am not constrained to my position based upon some authoritarian disposition whereby I cannot forgive petty crimes such as crossing the border without documentation. However, I will be obliged to point out that any argument resting upon assumptions that freed capital from increased productivity does not necessarily mean that the American economy is going to create better, higher skilled occupations. I am assuming that you are an economist. Therefore, you are aware of the lack of empirical research - and, thus, empirical data - on the capital flows that have been created from the recent expansions in globalization, and, therefore, we have no evidence to support any assumption that the capital created from increased rates of productivity actually results in reinvestment in the American economy.

A year on the farm would be more enlightening that 50 years studying "economics." I recommend it.


If you are basing your argument upon the fact that Americans have better living conditions than the developing world, then I agree, but using this as a rationale for an open border neglects to take into consideration the opinions held upon this prospect by the people in the American economy who would actually be affected by such a policy.

I don't think that the lowest common denominator racist sentiments of the American people should be the guiding factor in policy decisions. Dressing that up in fancy academic talk that sounds vaguely sympathetic to the working class is merely putting lipstick on the pig.

Russell, what the hell are you talking about? His positions are in line with the neo-conservative, supply-side rhetoric? Lets see some quotes on that.

I'm off to tell Stormfront and the Minutemen that they've falsely identified this as a racial issue.

In order to clarrify: Minutemen are not neoconservatives. I would identify them, if anything, as paleoconservatives. If you want to correctly identify a neoconservative, I would suggest you take a look at Bush. Is he opposed to this wave of immigration? NO. Why do you think? Because it is not in the interests of the business consortium with which he identifies and from which he finds support. This is the heart of the issue. What we are witnessing - the influx of undocumented immigrants - is the result of NAFTA, specifically, and globalization, in general. However, your suggestion for the partial resolution to this issue merely supports the globalization movement by eradicating national sovereignty. I am also sympathetic to the Mexicans who want refuge from their oppressive socioeconomic condition. However, in the long run, by simply acting in a way that is in line with the interests of Mexican and American elites - Mexican elites have class antagonisms diminished by exporting their underclass while American elites are provided with cheaper labor - you are not solving problem. Rather, you are contributing to the materialization of the end-state that the neocons are endeavoring to create: a bastion of free-trade where multinationals have absolute power because there are no longer any democratic institutions that can counteract their power, because democratic process has been subverted through the erosion of the nation-state: the political apparatus in which democratic processes have been defined and assume their significance.
Russ Cole

Totally on a different train of discussion, but does Mike or anyone else know about the state of agriculture in Venezuela? It appears that is going to be THE issue that most decides the fate of the Bolivarian Revolution..

Here is the problem I am having, kid.

The requests for "documentation" and statistics and "facts" to "prove" what I am saying on various boards and in various discussions just keep piling up. It is a tremendous amount of work - work that I am willing to do.

But there is a problem. No matter how much documentation, how many facts and statistics I provide, it does no good and is wasted time and energy. When I take the several hours to assemble and post the documentation, on the immigrant issue for example, or on the corporate influence over the Clinton candidacy, that is just the end of the discussion. The thread dies without comment. Then, two weeks later, or a month later, the same issues arise once again, accompanied by the same requests for documentation, facts, and statistics to "prove" what I am saying, and we repeat the cycle.

I can have an intelligent conversation with almost any uneducated blue collar person on any political subject, because you don't have to try to batter through the armor with them - the enormous and complex edifice of verbiage and theory that intellectuals put ups as a wall between themselves and reality.

I will give you a couple of recent examples from conversations with farm workers.

On taxes - one of the Limbaugh listening guys in the shop was spouting off about the tax and spend Democrats to me, and I asked him "Joe how much of what you make goes in taxes one way or another" and after thinking about it for a minute he said "shit Mike, I bet half of what I make the government takes away." I then said, "OK now as a millionaire..." and he laughed. I said "don't you think you will earn a million dollars? It may take you a little longer than some, but you will earn a million dollars. It will take you a little over 20 years. Why can't we tax half of the income of the guy who makes a million dollars in an hour, but it is OK to tax half of the income that it takes you 20 years to earn?"

That's it. Done deal. There will be no more vulnerability for that guy to the right wing "tax" bullshit - ever.

On immigration - every white uneducated supposedly right wing racist guy on the farm, once he is working along side of and living among the immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico comes to the same conclusion as a guy I talked to the other day - "hey if a man wants to work I say he should be able to and I don't care who he is. A man has a right to feed his family, and they are doing the same thing I would do in their situation."

Done deal, no more bullshit about it.

Do you think that any logical argument, any documentation, any facts, any proof will ever bring an intellectual to those sorts of conclusions?

Since I am talking here to fellow intellectuals, I am bringing whatever verbal skills I have to bear, and making an intelligent argument. Those same intellectuals, when reading this, will then go into their usual coma and space out into theory land, the world of bloodless pedantic mental exercise and words piled upon words for no purpose whatsoever other than to reinforce prejudice, and completely miss the point. I can promise you that if I posted what I just said around the 'net, that some intellectual at one of them would demand "proof" for the personal experiences and observations I related above, or in the absence of such proof and documentation would start railing about how what I related were anomalies, or exceptions, and that there was nothing to learn from them.

The reason why I participate in these types of forums and remain politically active in groups - whereby I actually damage my career because academic institutions do not want to be associated with third parties in America - stems from the fact that I am a former teamster who sweated in warehouses making terrible wages, and I know that the people with whom I have worked have dependents and so forth, and that their jobs are at risk. The reason why I might add complexity to the analyses of these issues is because they are complex and need to be sorted out with deligence. Trust me, my position is not popular with the New Left that continues to dominate American academics. I am not introducing complexity in order to support some remote academic interpretation that refuses that take into consideration the brute raw facts that define this issue. I am attempting to extricate people's interpretations of this issue, which have been molded through the strange marriage of the New Left's identity politics with the economics of Movement Conservatives. However, I would appreciate the chance to look at the data you have and if it tells a story different from my mine, then I would be releaved to abandon my current position. However, without convincing evidence I cannot simply submit to the pressures brought about from what currently I can only define as political correctness conjoined with the supply side dribble that is continuing to be championed by the neocons.
R Cole

The reason why I might add complexity to the analyses of these issues is because they are complex and need to be sorted out with deligence. Trust me, my position is not popular with the New Left that continues to dominate American academics. I am not introducing complexity in order to support some remote academic interpretation that refuses that take into consideration the brute raw facts that define this issue. I am attempting to extricate people's interpretations of this issue, which have been molded through the strange marriage of the New Left's identity politics with the economics of Movement Conservatives.
R Cole

Hi Russell,

Thanks for your continued participation here. Not to be a dick (* but I generally am), but I am not seeing a lotta complexity being added here. Rather, I see xenophobia/nationalism/racism.

Real and relevant complexity is in connecting the dots between globalization/NAFTA and the current wave of illegal immigration. Besides the ever-present reality that Capitalism, seeded from slavery originally, must have its slave class even as that slavery has moved from outright chattel to wage-slavery instead there is also the fact that immigration in the last two decades is intimately tied to sovereignity-busting capitalist globalization leading to double discrimination for the least among us. The displacement of 1 in 6 campesinos from their subsistence lands in Mexico was just the first part of double discrimination, the second part being here in the states where those campesinos have been forced, yes forced, to come work for shit wages in shit conditions and to take shit from xenophobes and outright racists.

I stand in solidarity with these downtrodden workers Far Far More than I ever could with the blindered Americans who decry their presence as though there ever actually was a 'good old days' for these reactionaries to hearken back to. Your comment about the vast chasm between rich and poor in Mexico is expecially egregious given that those conditions are Very Much and artifact of Mexico having long been nothing but a backwater client state for the American ruling class' exploitation. As in colonialism the world over, a local bourgeoisie arises in the service of the foreign one. If you have a problem with the class differences there, put the fault where it lies. And that sir, is HERE.

In Texas where I live it is much more clear that the border is indeed a scar, where culturally we are very much Hispanic-influenced and always have been. Even so, lately I still here this same racist talk. The sweet little old lady next door who works in healthcare decries the immigrants' drain on the healthcare system though empirical evidence (http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNe ... 9320071126 (http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN2640739320071126)) renders her grousing to be the utter bullshit it is. Of course there are a lotta brown folks in the system. My city is MAJORITY BROWN. And none of that would be troubling to this well-meaning woman were it not for the manufacture of her opinion by the likes of modern day Father Coughlin, Lou Dobbs and his ilk. It is sickening. And it is too easily accomplished on the backs of the many slaves and Latin immigrants who quite literally built the nation as we know it even as they also built the basis for the cancer that is American racism. One smart thing the Europeans did was to keep their slavery safely out from under their noses. The difference between American and European racial attitudes can, to my mind, be directly attributed to the proximity of slavery in the societies. The ruling class has used this disgusting feature of American culture to their advantage for the whole run and now, as both economics and demographics conspire to create a backlash against them, they are again using with all their wily might. And you are evidently falling for it. I don't find that complex or even particularly intellectual.

Perhaps the spread of Hispanics to areas that were solidly whiteyland just a couple of decades ago accounts for some of this cultural grousing too. That stands to reason as the rush to the bottom in wages in this "service economy" leads, not lags, the browning of the workforce in these other areas.

In any case, any time someone starts discussing immigration (transnational people) outside the rubric of transnational corporatization, I can always be sure that racism and xenophobia will be far more salient than any reasoned economic argument. And here again, that appears to me to be the case...

Russell, what the hell are you talking about? His positions are in line with the neo-conservative, supply-side rhetoric? Lets see some quotes on that.

I'm off to tell Stormfront and the Minutemen that they've falsely identified this as a racial issue.

In order to clarrify: Minutemen are not neoconservatives. I would identify them, if anything, as paleoconservatives. If you want to correctly identify a neoconservative, I would suggest you take a look at Bush. Is he opposed to this wave of immigration? NO. Why do you think? Because it is not in the interests of the business consortium with which he identifies and from which he finds support. This is the heart of the issue. What we are witnessing - the influx of undocumented immigrants - is the result of NAFTA, specifically, and globalization, in general. However, your suggestion for the partial resolution to this issue merely supports the globalization movement by eradicating national sovereignty. I am also sympathetic to the Mexicans who want refuge from their oppressive socioeconomic condition. However, in the long run, by simply acting in a way that is in line with the interests of Mexican and American elites - Mexican elites have class antagonisms diminished by exporting their underclass while American elites are provided with cheaper labor - you are not solving problem. Rather, you are contributing to the materialization of the end-state that the neocons are endeavoring to create: a bastion of free-trade where multinationals have absolute power because there are no longer any democratic institutions that can counteract their power, because democratic process has been subverted through the erosion of the nation-state: the political apparatus in which democratic processes have been defined and assume their significance.
Russ Cole

First of all your analysis is ass backwards. Somehow the nation-state and liberal democracy are things we should be championing now? Surely you remember three posts ago when you mentioned "overthrowing the nation state"..?

Secondly, whether Mexicans cross the US border and find work here has nothing to do with the problem(s) as you insinuate. Taking a position on this "issue" could never be a solution any more than your choice of breakfast cereal could be.

Your rantings about Bush are unconvincing and I am not getting bogged down in idiocy about who is or is not a "neo"-conservative.

Your final argument is that by considering this from a left wing position we are in fact unwittingly aiding the most reactionary opposition forces. You can stick that up your ass.

The reason why I participate in these types of forums and remain politically active in groups - whereby I actually damage my career because academic institutions do not want to be associated with third parties in America - stems from the fact that I am a former teamster who sweated in warehouses making terrible wages, and I know that the people with whom I have worked have dependents and so forth, and that their jobs are at risk. The reason why I might add complexity to the analyses of these issues is because they are complex and need to be sorted out with deligence. Trust me, my position is not popular with the New Left that continues to dominate American academics. I am not introducing complexity in order to support some remote academic interpretation that refuses that take into consideration the brute raw facts that define this issue. I am attempting to extricate people's interpretations of this issue, which have been molded through the strange marriage of the New Left's identity politics with the economics of Movement Conservatives. However, I would appreciate the chance to look at the data you have and if it tells a story different from my mine, then I would be releaved to abandon my current position. However, without convincing evidence I cannot simply submit to the pressures brought about from what currently I can only define as political correctness conjoined with the supply side dribble that is continuing to be championed by the neocons.
R Cole

Fair enough, Russell and thank you for the response.

I can't answer you very well, because I can't answer for some mythical New Left nor can I defend theories or interpretations about anything when I am not speaking from any theory or interpretaion, but rather from direct experience. I can't defend or answer for identity politics, since I am perhaps the most vociferous critic of that you will ever meet.

I don't know what data to offer you, because I don't know what data you are looking for. I can assure you that I can provide any and all data relating to this issue that would ever be needed.

Now that we know what we are not talking about, and to whom you are not talking, let's get down to what I am guessing is your central point.

Immigration harms American workers. Yes?

If so, you need to defend that. I can't be asked to defend what you imagine to be the only alternative - supporting open borders - or else be asked to accept or endorse your assertion if I can't or won't do that.

By the way, human beings are not a commodity and no one is importing or exporting them.

Also, employers always seek the cheapest labor available. That has nothing to do with immigration. The same corporation can hire the same worker to do the same work south of the border much more cheaply than they can should that worker come here. Why would that corporation want that worker to come here?

[quote="Kid Of The Black Hole":1wj46jg3]Russell, what the hell are you talking about? His positions are in line with the neo-conservative, supply-side rhetoric? Lets see some quotes on that.

I'm off to tell Stormfront and the Minutemen that they've falsely identified this as a racial issue.

In order to clarrify: Minutemen are not neoconservatives. I would identify them, if anything, as paleoconservatives. If you want to correctly identify a neoconservative, I would suggest you take a look at Bush. Is he opposed to this wave of immigration? NO. Why do you think? Because it is not in the interests of the business consortium with which he identifies and from which he finds support. This is the heart of the issue. What we are witnessing - the influx of undocumented immigrants - is the result of NAFTA, specifically, and globalization, in general. However, your suggestion for the partial resolution to this issue merely supports the globalization movement by eradicating national sovereignty. I am also sympathetic to the Mexicans who want refuge from their oppressive socioeconomic condition. However, in the long run, by simply acting in a way that is in line with the interests of Mexican and American elites - Mexican elites have class antagonisms diminished by exporting their underclass while American elites are provided with cheaper labor - you are not solving problem. Rather, you are contributing to the materialization of the end-state that the neocons are endeavoring to create: a bastion of free-trade where multinationals have absolute power because there are no longer any democratic institutions that can counteract their power, because democratic process has been subverted through the erosion of the nation-state: the political apparatus in which democratic processes have been defined and assume their significance.
Russ Cole

First of all your analysis is ass backwards. Somehow the nation-state and liberal democracy are things we should be championing now? Surely you remember three posts ago when you mentioned "overthrowing the nation state"..?

Secondly, whether Mexicans cross the US border and find work here has nothing to do with the problem(s) as you insinuate. Taking a position on this "issue" could never be a solution any more than your choice of breakfast cereal could be.

Your rantings about Bush are unconvincing and I am not getting bogged down in idiocy about who is or is not a "neo"-conservative.

Your final argument is that by considering this from a left wing position we are in fact unwittingly aiding the most reactionary opposition forces. You can stick that up your ass.[/quote:1wj46jg3]
I am at a lost, because I do not know what the hell you are talking about. I never stated anything that could be interpreted as supporting the overthow of the nation state. If fact, I have been supporting it as an institution that at least provides a semblence of democracy. Would I like to install a social democracy? Yes, but this would entail preserving the nation state, not overthrowing it. You are reading what I wrote too quickly and forming inaccurate interpretations. Finally, I am not stating that the preservation of a boarder is the solution to all of these problems. Obviously, it is not. However, I am asserting that you are contributing to the problems by not preserving a boarder with Mexico, because you are facilitating the conditions that are to be brought about by globalization.
R Cole

As far as Americans not wanting the types of jobs you have identified: Americans still work in these sectors; especially meat-packing plants. However, with the influx of illegal labor, the jobs are steadily declining in the compensations they offer, forcing more and more Americans not to work in these industries.

The meat packing industry example is a red herring, and it is one that the government has intentionally inserted into people's thinking. Of the 833,000 human beings illegally rounded up and detained in para-military raids for the crime of being brown, a very small fraction of those were working for corporations. Several atypical show raids were carried out against corporate meat packing plants, and those are the only raids that have gotten any significant media coverage. Yet those raids only account for a tiny fraction - less than 1% - of the people vicitimized.

You present false choices here that betray a profound ignorance on your part about agriculture and the food industry. The alternative to throwing out the immigrants is not higher wages in agriculture, it is the collapse of American agriculture and the shifting of food production overseas. Your simplistic view is typical of suburban educated people who are 3-4 generations removed from the farm, and who see agriculture as merely another manufacturing sector cranking out baubles and trinkets rather than as a complex infrastructure for the purpose of managing a public resource.

Two things to keep in mind about the meat packing plants that were singled out: one, they happened to have already been cooperating and in negotiations with Homeland Security and were complying fully with the feds; and two, workers at those plants were unionizing.

As far as Americans not wanting the types of jobs you have identified: Americans still work in these sectors; especially meat-packing plants. However, with the influx of illegal labor, the jobs are steadily declining in the compensations they offer, forcing more and more Americans not to work in these industries.

The meat packing industry example is a red herring, and it is one that the government has intentionally inserted into people's thinking. Of the 833,000 human beings illegally rounded up and detained in para-military raids for the crime of being brown, a very small fraction of those were working for corporations. Several atypical show raids were carried out against corporate meat packing plants, and those are the only raids that have gotten any significant media coverage. Yet those raids only account for a tiny fraction - less than 1% - of the people vicitimized.

You present false choices here that betray a profound ignorance on your part about agriculture and the food industry. The alternative to throwing out the immigrants is not higher wages in agriculture, it is the collapse of American agriculture and the shifting of food production overseas. Your simplistic view is typical of suburban educated people who are 3-4 generations removed from the farm, and who see agriculture as merely another manufacturing sector cranking out baubles and trinkets rather than as a complex infrastructure for the purpose of managing a public resource.

Two things to keep in mind about the meat packing plants that were singled out: one, they happened to have already been cooperating and in negotiations with Homeland Security and were complying fully with the feds; and two, workers at those plants were unionizing.

I do not have much time, but what about construction? 40% of the workforce is now undocumented, and, concurrent with these employment trends, the wages have been depressed. You are not accounting for the recent trends that I am describing when I refer to the influx of undocumented labor into sectors of the economy, where they compete with native populations, which reflects the migration of undocumented residents to major cities. I am not referring to the enclaves already present in places such as Chicago and Detroit. Rather, I am referring to the recent trends that have started around the Nineties.
Russell Cole

Top 10 Immigration Myths and Facts

1. Immigrants don’t pay taxes

All immigrants pay taxes, whether income, property, sales, or other. As far as income tax payments go, sources vary in their accounts, but a range of studies find that immigrants pay between $90 and $140 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes. Even undocumented immigrants pay income taxes, as evidenced by the Social Security Administration’s “suspense file” (taxes that cannot be matched to workers’ names and social security numbers), which grew $20 billion between 1990 and 1998.

2. Immigrants come here to take welfare

Immigrants come to work and reunite with family members. Immigrant labor force participation is consistently higher than native-born, and immigrant workers make up a larger share of the U.S. labor force (12.4%) than they do the U.S. population (11.5%). Moreover, the ratio between immigrant use of public benefits and the amount of taxes they pay is consistently favorable to the U.S., unless the “study” was undertaken by an anti-immigrant group. In one estimate, immigrants earn about $240 billion a year, pay about $90 billion a year in taxes, and use about $5 billion in public benefits. In another cut of the data, immigrant tax payments total $20 to $30 billion more than the amount of government services they use.

3. Immigrants send all their money back to their home countries

In addition to the consumer spending of immigrant households, immigrants and their businesses contribute $162 billion in tax revenue to U.S. federal, state, and local governments. While it is true that immigrants remit billions of dollars a year to their home countries, this is one of the most targeted and effective forms of direct foreign investment.

4. Immigrants take jobs and opportunity away from Americans

The largest wave of immigration to the U.S. since the early 1900s coincided with our lowest national unemployment rate and fastest economic growth. Immigrant entrepreneurs create jobs for U.S. and foreign workers, and foreign-born students allow many U.S. graduate programs to keep their doors open. While there has been no comprehensive study done of immigrant-owned businesses, we have countless examples: in Silicon Valley, companies begun by Chinese and Indian immigrants generated more than $19.5 billion in sales and nearly 73,000 jobs in 2000.

5. Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. economy

During the 1990s, half of all new workers were foreign-born, filling gaps left by native-born workers in both the high- and low-skill ends of the spectrum. Immigrants fill jobs in key sectors, start their own businesses, and contribute to a thriving economy. The net benefit of immigration to the U.S. is nearly $10 billion annually. As Alan Greenspan points out, 70% of immigrants arrive in prime working age. That means we haven’t spent a penny on their education, yet they are contributing billions in benefits to the reat of us.

6. Immigrants don’t want to learn English or become Americans

Within ten years of arrival, more than 75% of immigrants speak English well; moreover, demand for English classes at the adult level far exceeds supply. Greater than 33% of immigrants are naturalized citizens; given increased immigration in the 1990s, this figure will rise as more legal permanent residents become eligible for naturalization in the coming years. The number of immigrants naturalizing spiked sharply after two events: enactment of immigration and welfare reform laws in 1996, and the terrorist attacks in 2001.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services)

7. Today’s immigrants are different than those of 100 years ago

The percentage of the U.S. population that is foreign-born now stands at 11.5%; in the early 20 th century it was approximately 15%. Similar to accusations about today’s immigrants, those of 100 years ago initially often settled in mono-ethnic neighborhoods, spoke their native languages, and built up newspapers and businesses that catered to their fellow émigrés. They also experienced the same types of discrimination that today’s immigrants face, and integrated within American culture at a similar rate. If we view history objectively, we remember that every new wave of immigrants has been met with suspicion and doubt and yet, ultimately, every past wave of immigrants has been vindicated and saluted.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

8. Most immigrants cross the border illegally

Around 75% have legal permanent (immigrant) visas; of the 25% that are undocumented, 40% overstayed temporary (non- immigrant) visas.

Source: INS Statistical Yearbook

9. Weak U.S. border enforcement has lead to high undocumented immigration

From 1986 to 1998, the Border Patrol’s budget increased six- fold and the number of agents stationed on our southwest border doubled to 8,500. The Border Patrol also toughened its enforcement strategy, heavily fortifying typical urban entry points and pushing migrants into dangerous desert areas, in hopes of deterring crossings. Instead, the undocumented immigrant population doubled in that timeframe, to 8 million— despite the legalization of nearly 3 million immigrants after the enactment of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. Insufficient legal avenues for immigrants to enter the U.S., compared with the number of jobs available to them, have created this current conundrum.

10. The war on terrorism can be won through immigration restrictions

No security expert since September 11 th , 2001 has said that restrictive immigration measures would have prevented the terrorist attacks—instead, they key is good use of good intelligence. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were here on legal visas. Since 9/11, the myriad of measures targeting immigrants in the name of national security have netted no terrorism prosecutions. In fact, several of these measures could have the opposite effect and actually make us less safe, as targeted communities of immigrants are afraid to come forward with information.

I do not have much time, but what about construction? 40% of the workforce is now undocumented, and, concurrent with these employment trends, the wages have been depressed. You are not accounting for the recent trends that I am describing when I refer to the influx of undocumented labor into sectors of the economy, where they compete with native populations, which reflects the migration of undocumented residents to major cities. I am not referring to the enclaves already present in places such as Chicago and Detroit. Rather, I am referring to the recent trends that have started around the Nineties.
Russell Cole


Shattering Stereotypes About Immigrant Workers
By DANIEL ALTMAN
June 3, 2007
Economic View
New York Times

AS immigration legislation slowly makes its way through Congress, the debate about illegal immigrants’ role in the economy has intensified. To some people, they represent a black-market work force that is lowering the wages of legal immigrants and native-born Americans. To others, they are an essential part of several big industries. What’s the truth?

Getting the whole truth is not easy, because illegal immigrants are not always easy to find, interview or otherwise include in government or private surveys. But some broad facts seem to be emerging, and they may shatter some preconceived notions: illegal immigrants do not just pick fruit, they do not just work off the books, they rarely earn less than the minimum wage and they may even be raising employment without harming incomes.

For example, there are plenty of illegal immigrants who are not working on farms along the West Coast, gardening or providing child care, according to figures from the Pew Hispanic Center, a research group in Washington. About 20 percent of illegal immigrants work in construction, 17 percent in leisure and hospitality industries, 14 percent in manufacturing and 11 percent in wholesale and retail trade.

In addition, illegal immigrants represent a substantial share of overall employment in quite a few industries, some of which require extensive skills and training. They may make up at least 10 percent of the work force in construction, leisure and hospitality, and in agriculture and related industries, according to figures calculated by the Pew Hispanic Center. But in specific occupations like cooking, painting, washing cars, packaging by hand and installation of carpets and floors, they may make up 20 percent or more.

Those industries badly need immigrant labor, far in excess of government quotas for legal immigrants. “We need a million-plus workers added to our work force over the next five or six years, and that is associated with people leaving the work force and obviously the forecasted growth in construction,” said Wayne A. Crew, executive director of the Construction Industry Institute, an industry-sponsored research group at the University of Texas at Austin. “The numbers I’ve seen also indicate that about 60 percent or so of the new workers coming into the industry are Hispanic or Latino. So you can start to understand if you can expect that 600,000 of the new workers you’re going to need are in fact coming from somewhere else, then if they don’t come, it puts a bit of a stretch on your labor force.”

A shortage of immigrant labor picking fruit on farms in the West has indeed made the news recently, but it disguises a much larger issue. Illegal immigrants also help big agribusinesses to keep prices low by working in processing and packaging, said Katherine A. Ozer, executive director of the National Family Farm Coalition, a lobbying group in Washington. Though family farms may depend on them to a lesser extent, she said, dairies and other operations do need immigrant labor. Without them, she said, the structure of the industry would have to change.

In many cases, the jobs held by illegal immigrants are far from the minimum- or subminimum-wage stereotype, as well. Though the work itself is often unpleasant, the pay rates are commonly in the range of $10 to $20 an hour, said Jeffrey S. Passel, a senior research associate at the Pew center.

“There are some indications that the majority of these workers, maybe 55 to 65 percent, are not in the underground economy,” Mr. Passel said. “They’re getting paid the same wage rates as everybody else is in those companies. It’s written down, and if they work there long enough, they’ll get health insurance and everything else.”

The obvious question is how these immigrants’ presence is affecting the overall labor market, especially in these midlevel occupations.

Using Mr. Passel’s figures, it seems likely that there are about eight million illegal immigrants with jobs right now. That is quite a bit more than the roughly 6.5 million unemployed people counted by the Census Bureau (some of whom might actually be illegal immigrants). Even if all illegal immigrants were deported overnight — the current bill would instead offer them a path to legal status — the rest of the work force might not be able to fill their jobs.

Indeed, the presence of illegal immigrants may actually be increasing overall employment, and at little cost to wages, suggested Robert J. LaLonde, a professor of public policy at the University of Chicago. He said that these immigrants increase the overall supply of labor. If demand remains the same, their presence raises the number of jobs in the economy but lowers wages for everyone. But Professor LaLonde said that demand for labor is likely to increase, too, as investment money follows immigrant workers into the country.

“The evidence of the effect they have on labor markets in terms of depressing the wages of native-born Americans is quite unclear,” he said. “Capital is a much more mobile factor than labor is, so if labor’s moving in, you better believe that capital’s not too far behind.”

Professor LaLonde added that the presence of illegal immigrants in some service jobs makes it easier for Americans to participate in the labor force. The immigrants act as complements to higher-wage workers, who can then participate in greater numbers and become more productive. For instance, he said, “it’s easier for women to work because you can hire more baby-sitters.”

Still, if illegal immigrants are often working side by side with native-born Americans and legal immigrants, it is worth asking whether they are reducing opportunities for others. Professor LaLonde dismissed that as unlikely, because in many cases an illegal immigrant may offer a combination of skills and cost that other workers simply cannot match.

Potential American competitors “would like these jobs, but they don’t want to work at the lower price,” Professor LaLonde said. “Mexican day labor doesn’t get paid $5 an hour; they’re getting paid $8 or $9 an hour. But if you’re going to try to beat them at their own game, given that you’re not as qualified as they are, you’re going to have to undercut their price.”

IF illegal immigrants weren’t present at all, Professor LaLonde conceded, others might have more incentive to train for those occupations. “But over all, the U.S. would be poorer,” he said. That is something for members of Congress to think about as they amend the new bill.

Moreover, existing training programs have not necessarily resulted in a big influx of native-born Americans into immigrant-heavy industries.

“The construction industry, at least, is viewed as an unattractive industry,” Mr. Crew said. “Other industries are competing for those same people, so the wages in those industries are rising at the same time. It’s a competition for people.”

original here (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03view.html?pagewanted=print)

I am at a lost, because I do not know what the hell you are talking about. I never stated anything that could be interpreted as supporting the overthow of the nation state. If fact, I have been supporting it as an institution that at least provides a semblence of democracy. Would I like to install a social democracy? Yes, but this would entail preserving the nation state, not overthrowing it. You are reading what I wrote too quickly and forming inaccurate interpretations. Finally, I am not stating that the preservation of a boarder is the solution to all of these problems. Obviously, it is not. However, I am asserting that you are contributing to the problems by not preserving a boarder with Mexico, because you are facilitating the conditions that are to be brought about by globalization.
R Cole

I take it your biggest fear is globalization?

Which you use as a code word for Americans possibly getting the same shit end of the stick as everyone else around the world?

Damn, it just occurred to me...

I am visiting Aspen Colorado right now, and have been helping some friends who are property caretakers.

Cleaning the toilets, mopping the floors and making the beds of the rich and famous here is paying $35 an hour.

There are not enough workers, and this is a chronic problem for the caretakers. The workforce is almost entirely Latina immigrants.

Where are the Americans who supposedly "want to do the work" that immigrants are doing?????

Making a case for open immigration
Wayne Cornelius
April 4, 2007

Professor Wayne A. Cornelius is a leading authority on Mexican migration to the U.S. and founder of the University of California San Diego’s Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies. This is from his presentation at the Vail Valley Institute's 15th Annual Seminar on “The American Empire: Can It Survive a World Without Borders?" that was held in Vail in June 2006.

There are plenty of threats to the American empire, but immigration is not among them. On the contrary, the fact that we are so successful in the global competition for labor is one of our greatest strengths.

Our competitive edge is perhaps most evident in the area of highly skilled immigrants. In our ability to attract and retain high-skilled, professional immigrants, we currently rank fourth in the world, behind Australia, Canada and Switzerland. We could be doing even better in this competition if we didn’t set artificially low limits on this kind of immigration. In recent years, we’ve distributed 65,000 so-called H-1B visas a year for highly-skilled immigrants, a supply that is exhausted on the very first day they become available each year.

We are also conspicuously successful in attracting low-skilled immigrants. These workers have allowed labor intensive industries like construction, hospitality, and food processing to grow at higher rates than would otherwise have been possible.

Most economists, and I emphasize most, believe that large-scale immigration, both low-skilled and high-skilled, is essential to assure robust economic growth, dampen inflationary pressures, and finance intergenerational transfer systems like Medicare and Social Security. Because of our low fertility rates, our total labor force growth has already dropped from 5 percent a year during the 1970s to less than 1 percent a year at present. With a national unemployment rate of 4.6 percent (and a mere 3 percent in cities like San Diego, Las Vegas, and Phoenix), we are below what economists conventionally define as “full employment.” If it were not for immigration, today’s labor force would be contracting by 3-4 percent a year, a figure proving that, without large numbers of immigrants, we’d be seriously overheating our economy.

The longer-term implications of immigration for the strength of the U.S. economy and our position in the world shouldn’t be underestimated. Like all other developed countries, the U.S. has a population aging problem. We are getting our young, entry-level workers largely from immigration. Whereas 35 percent of our male, foreign-born population fell in prime working age categories in 2000, this is only true for 24 percent of the native-born male population.

Europe and Japan have a huge problem in this regard, not just because their fertility rates fall well below replacement levels, but because, for political reasons, they don’t have expansionary immigration policies. And these countries already have very large imbalances in their health care and pensions systems. They’re going to end up on the back burner of the world economy, in part, because their immigration policies are too restrictive.

In recent years, immigrants have accounted for more than 90 percent of labor force growth in the Midwest and the Northeast, regions that have experienced a native-born population implosion both because of their low fertility and high out-migration rates. Newly arriving immigrants increasingly head for these labor-short parts of the country and for cities in the Southwest, the Southeast, and the Rocky Mountain states that all have robust job growth. Mexican immigrants in particular are dispersing themselves to a much greater geographic extent than previous generations did, a very healthy development that keeps immigrants from piling up in already saturated labor markets like Los Angeles.

Today’s immigrants, like those before them, are filling particular niches in the U.S. economy. In recent years, they have accounted for most of the employment growth in low-skilled, manual, repetitive, and dangerous occupations like cashiers, janitors, kitchen workers, maintenance workers, construction workers, and mechanics. In California, immigrants have come to dominate virtually all low-skilled job categories. They comprise more than 90 percent of the state’s agricultural workers, two-thirds of the construction workers, and 70 percent of cooks.

At a national level, illegal immigrants are most heavily concentrated in service occupations, followed by construction and manufacturing. It’s actually a common misconception that Mexican immigrants in particular are agricultural workers. In fact, the latest stats and estimates show that only about 4 percent of Mexicans working in this country today are still in agriculture (although they comprise about one-fourth of all farm workers in the country). The vast majority are in urban service and construction and manufacturing jobs (illegal immigrants comprise 17 percent of all cleaning workers, 14 percent of all construction workers, 12 percent of all food preparation workers).

It’s important to recognize that, at this point in time, the demand for foreign-born labor in this country is so deeply embedded in our economy as to have become not only structural, but also almost recession-proof. The studies we’ve done in San Diego over the last 20 years have shown that, when we have a recession, employers don’t shed their foreign workers; instead, they continue to hire immigrant workers. The job applicant pools of firms that depend heavily on immigrants no longer include appreciable numbers of young native-born workers. In most cases, the natives haven’t been in those pools for 10, 15, 20 years. That’s partly because there aren’t enough young, native-born workers coming into the labor market, but it’s also because of changing societal attitudes toward manual labor.

Are established immigrants and their offspring stuck in the kinds of dead-end, low-wage, manual jobs typically held by newly arriving immigrants? The data show that while many first-generation immigrants are stuck, later generations are doing a lot better. From the first to the second-generation, there is considerable movement out of low-wage service, construction, and agricultural work and into white-collar occupations. Even within the first generation, there is significant income improvement over time, as immigrants gain new job skills, improve their English, and gain job seniority.

Now, it’s commonly believed that most illegal immigrants are employed in the underground economy, that they’re paid in cash, off the books by employers who are eager to avoid paying payroll taxes on them. But all major studies of Mexican immigrants done in the last two decades have found that a majority of these workers are actually employed by mainstream, formal sector firms. They get regular paychecks and they have taxes deducted from their wages.

So what’s the problem? For most Americans as well as the immigrants themselves, that’s the problem. Illegality. An estimated 30 percent of all foreign-born people in the country today are here illegally. Over half of them entered clandestinely, but up to 45 percent of them are visa overstayers, people who entered the country on short-term tourist, student, or even shopping visas and overstayed them.

Much of this is manufactured illegality. Since 1993, the U.S. government has been seriously committed to reducing the illegal component, mainly through tighter border enforcement.

During this period of tighter border enforcement, the number of illegal immigrants living and working in the U.S. has more than doubled. Migrants have simply detoured around the heavily fortified segments of the border. It’s no surprise that, when we squeeze the border in San Diego and El Paso, it bulged in central Arizona, where for hundreds of miles, the only physical barrier is a three-foot high, barbed wire fence.

Another generalization that’s supported by the cross-national evidence is that the unintended consequences of border enforcement are almost invariably more important than the intended consequences. The key unintended consequences are these: (1) fueling the people-smuggling industry; (2) making borders more lethal; and (3) increasing rates of migrant settlement in the immigrant receiving countries.

Stronger enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border has been a bonanza for people smugglers. Our research in Mexico found that over 90 percent of illegal migrants are hiring smugglers to get them across. And the fees that smugglers can charge have more than tripled during the period of tighter border enforcement. When President Bush started the deployment of the National Guard [to the border], smugglers immediately raised their prices by $1,000. So some of them are now charging $4,000 a head, rather than the going rate of somewhere between $2,000 and $3,000 a head. That’s what the National Guard deployment was worth to them.

People being smuggled in from Fujian, China are paying $60,000. Mexicans, at least before the National Guard deployment were paying up to $3,000; other South Americans, $12,000; and Indians, $30,000. But even at these prices, it’s still economically rational for migrants and often their relatives living in the U.S. to dig deeper into their savings and to go deeper into debt to finance illegal entry. We’ve also succeeded in bottling up, within the United States, a great many migrants who would otherwise have continued to come and go across the border, just as their parents and grandparents once did. Given the high cost and the high physical risks of illegal entry today, they have a strong incentive to extend their stays in the United States, and the longer they stay, the more likely it is that they will settle permanently.

There’s no evidence that tougher border enforcement is an effective impediment to illegal entry. Our interviews with returned migrants show that a higher percentage of them today are getting caught: 38 percent in the last 5 years, as opposed to 21 percent being caught before we started increasing our border enforcement, but almost two-thirds of them are still getting in on a first try. And, if they are caught, they keep trying until they succeed. Our studies find that between 92 percent and 97 percewnt of migrants eventually succeed in getting in on the same trip to the border.

In summary

To summarize, here’s what we can say of our 13-year experiment with tougher border enforcement:

1. We have redistributed illegal entries.
2. The cost of illegal entry has been greatly raised.
3. There is more permanent settlement of illegal immigrants in the U.S.
4. There is a much higher mortality rate.

There is no evidence that we are deterring people from leaving their homes in the first place, going to the border and trying to gain entry. There’s no evidence that once they’re apprehended, if they’re apprehended, they get discouraged and go home. There’s no evidence that the stock of illegal immigrants in the country has been reduced – quite the contrary.

Is there a better way?

I have four main recommendations:

1. Focus less on walling ourselves off from the rest of the world, especially from Mexico, and more on increasing our rate of return on immigration by integrating immigrants more proactively and thereby enhancing the human capital that they bring.

2. Legalize as many as possible of the unauthorized immigrants already here and encourage them, eventually, to naturalize.

3. Provide more legal entry opportunities for new immigrants, both low-skilled and high-skilled, temporary and permanent.

4. Create alternatives to immigration in sending areas.

Study after study has shown that it’s the real wage differential, more than anything else, that drives Mexican migration to the U.S. Only 4 or 5 percent of migrants in most studies report that they were openly unemployed before going to the U.S. Our study of migrants who returned to the Yucatan this year found that only 1 percent had been unemployed before migrating to the U.S. for the first time. Micro-development programs targeted at high immigration areas (e.g., programs to support small business development, create more adequate financial services infrastructure in rural areas, and expand road and telecom infrastructure) have the potential to create better quality jobs in the places where they’re needed to reduce unwanted migration.

I’m well aware that the U.S. is no longer in the business of Marshall Plans, but a creatively-designed, bi-nationally financed program of targeted development, with funds administered by the World Bank or the InterAmerican Development Bank, is an idea that deserves serious consideration. This is, after all, the kind of development assistance that was provided, massively, by the northern European countries to Spain, Greece, and Portugal both before and after those countries entered the E.U. It made possible a step-level increase in GDP in those southern European countries. It cut the north-south wage differential by half. Eventually, it turned all of the southern-tier E.U. countries into net importers of labor. The developmental approach to immigration control worked in Europe and it could work in North America, if we were to get serious about reducing the supply of potential migrants.

original article here (http://www.vailtrail.com/article/20070404/OPINION/70404008)

I do not have much time, but what about construction? 40% of the workforce is now undocumented, and, concurrent with these employment trends, the wages have been depressed. You are not accounting for the recent trends that I am describing when I refer to the influx of undocumented labor into sectors of the economy, where they compete with native populations, which reflects the migration of undocumented residents to major cities. I am not referring to the enclaves already present in places such as Chicago and Detroit. Rather, I am referring to the recent trends that have started around the Nineties.
Russell Cole


Shattering Stereotypes About Immigrant Workers
By DANIEL ALTMAN
June 3, 2007
Economic View
New York Times

Those industries badly need immigrant labor, far in excess of government quotas for legal immigrants. “We need a million-plus workers added to our work force over the next five or six years, and that is associated with people leaving the work force and obviously the forecasted growth in construction,” said Wayne A. Crew, executive director of the Construction Industry Institute, an industry-sponsored research group at the University of Texas at Austin. “The numbers I’ve seen also indicate that about 60 percent or so of the new workers coming into the industry are Hispanic or Latino. So you can start to understand if you can expect that 600,000 of the new workers you’re going to need are in fact coming from somewhere else, then if they don’t come, it puts a bit of a stretch on your labor force.”
original here (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03view.html?pagewanted=print)

I cannot remain absorbed in this, but you are actually using an article that is citing as a credible source, [Construction Industry Institute, an industry-sponsored research group at the University of Texas at Austin] In response, I could muster up some statistics from the Heritage Foundation. However, such a source should be granted the same amount of credibility as an industry sponsored research institute where Fellowships are given at the beheast of industry interests.
Also, the single professor who is cited in this article - and why only one? - is basing his conclusions on the precise fallibility that I pointed out at the beginning of this discussion: Capital flows are restricted to the domestic United States.
I will respond more fully later, but I will leave you by pointing out that demand for occupations increasing as does the undocumented workforce continues to have the effect of diminishing wages; only it is obfuscated by competing trends in the economy. Do you see what I mean? I am not equivicating over semantics. I am pointing out the disenguous nature of these descriptions offered by corporate journalism, and you cannot tell me that the editorial board at the NY Times Economics Bureau is friendly to American labor.
R Cole

... what about construction? 40% of the workforce is now undocumented, and, concurrent with these employment trends, the wages have been depressed. You are not accounting for the recent trends that I am describing when I refer to the influx of undocumented labor into sectors of the economy, where they compete with native populations, which reflects the migration of undocumented residents to major cities. I am not referring to the enclaves already present in places such as Chicago and Detroit. Rather, I am referring to the recent trends that have started around the Nineties.
Russell Cole

More than 150 occupations -- in crafts, technology and business -- are required to build a home, according to the Home Builders Institute. The industry employed 6.7 million workers in 2001 and an additional 1.5 million are needed by 2010 just to sustain productivity.

The need is even more concentrated in California where there is a housing shortage to go along with the construction shortage. The California Building Industry Association estimates a housing deficiency of nearly 1 million homes and apartments in 2003. And the state Department of Housing and Community Development estimates that California must build in excess of 200,000 homes each year through 2020 to accommodate the population growth and remain "reasonably affordable."

"Keeping a strong work force going is a challenge throughout the state because the industry is building more homes than it has since 1989," said CBIA chief executive Bob Rivinius. "The work force is always a concern."

Why the shortage?: The concern is justified. The percentage of skilled construction workers aged 25 to 34 has declined from 37.5 percent to 28.5 percent between 1988 and 1997, according to the Associated General Contractors of America, while the percentage of those aged 35 to 44 jumped from 22 percent to 31.5 percent over the same period. AGC estimates the average age of a construction worker is 47...
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/s ... ocus7.html (http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2004/04/26/focus7.html)

Visa program helps solve worker shortage
New Orleans CityBusiness, Jun 30, 2006 by Deon Roberts

Kelly Commander, owner of Command Construction LLC in Metairie, knows how hard it is to find construction workers post-Katrina.

Commander had so much trouble finding local workers she was forced to look outside the country. In April, she hired 12 Guatemalans through a federal visa program.

We went through every avenue trying to find workers, such as advertising and job fairs, she said. We got no one.

Commander's reliance on foreign workers underscores a big business problem in the New Orleans metro area: finding enough construction workers to rebuild the area post-Katrina.

According to the Washington, D.C.-based Associated General Contractors, by April, New Orleans has already replaced 6,100 jobs out of 17,400 lost immediately after Katrina. But it's still 11,300 jobs short of the 30,100 construction workers employed pre-Katrina.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_q ... _n16516936 (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4200/is_20060630/ai_n16516936)

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA - Union apprentices training to build their carpentry skills in this part of Alaska have a nickname for more seasoned co-workers they meet on job sites. "We call them the 'Geriatric Crew,' " says Clint Meyer, one of the 20- and 30-somethings working out of a union- operated training center in south Anchorage.

It's an apt description. While Alaska's economy has grown – and its construction business has blossomed – over the last two decades, the pool of skilled construction laborers has not. Now, so many tradesmen are nearing retirement age that the state is struggling simply to replace them. If building takes off, Alaska could face a worker shortfall similar to the 1970s when Americans from the Lower 48 flocked here to take advantage of high-paying jobs.

There's just one problem: Alaska's pay premium has all but disappeared in the past decade.

"We've become closer to average than we used to be," says Neal Fried, a state labor economist. Attractive jobs are plentiful elsewhere. "Look at Seattle. We used to get our workers from there. Now some here go there."

The graying skilled labor force is a national issue, economists say, but it is accentuated in Alaska, where aging baby boomers dominate demographics more than most states. That demographic bulge, particularly prevalent in construction and other blue-collar trades, is now nearing retirement.

"I keep pulling up the average age of our members, this huge aging, graying group, and they're two years younger than me," says John Palmatier, executive secretary/treasurer for the Alaska Regional Council of Carpenters. "Then I look in the mirror and there's this old guy looking back at me."

Alaska currently has about 15,000 workers in the construction trade. If building trends remain steady, the state will need an additional 1,000 workers each year simply to replace retirees, says Mike Shiffer, assistant director of the Alaska Department of Labor's Division of Workforce Partnerships. That represents more than an eighth of each year's public high school graduating class in the state.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0125/p03s03-usec.html

SAVANNAH, Ga. --
Increasing government restrictions on the hiring of illegal immigrants will eventually lead to a labor shortage in Georgia and the nation, the state's labor commissioner said Wednesday.

Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond said employers should start changing their attitudes toward hiring "marginalized" workers such as convicted criminals, disabled people and the elderly.

"We must begin now to reconfigure programs, to change philosophies and recognize that cheap, undocumented labor from Mexico and other foreign shores will no longer be an available source," Thurmond told reporters in Savannah, where the Georgia Workforce Conference is being held.

Georgia passed one of the nation's toughest laws cracking down on illegal immigrants last year, and some local government have adopted similar measures. Thurmond said he expects Congress will pass immigration reform measures after the 2008 elections.

He couldn't say how many workers Georgia stands to lose because of tougher immigration laws, but the federal government estimated last year that about 470,000 illegal immigrants lived in the state.

Georgia farmers and food processing plants are already feeling the effects of an immigrant labor shortage, Thurmond said, and construction companies, landscaping businesses, restaurants and other service industries could be hurt as well.

"The only alternative is to reach out to workers that have been marginalized right here in our state," Thurmond said.

Thurmond said inmates seeking jobs after prison could fill many jobs, but often have trouble getting hired. He said a state Labor Department program has helped find jobs for 30,000 convicted criminals in Georgia in the past seven years.

Asked if businesses should raise wages to offset losses in immigrant workers, Thurmond sidestepped the question by saying he encourages employers to offer perks such as GED classes to help low-income workers without high school diplomas to move on to better jobs.
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/251/story/192644.html


http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/s ... ocus7.html (http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2004/04/26/focus7.html)

Fuck me. I respond to a demand for documentation, and then that is dismissed as dueling sources as though one "side" can find just as many studies to support their point of view as the other, and they are then presumed to be equal.

As I said earlier, I do not know what "data" you need and I am doing the best I can.

The Debate Over Immigration’s Impact on U.S. Workers and the Economy
Stuart Anderson, Executive Director, National Foundation for American Policy
July 2006

Executive Summary

The debate over the impact of immigration on U.S. workers and the American economy has intensified in recent years. Economists and policy analysts using competing methodologies have come to different conclusions. The paper finds that the benefits of international graduate students and skilled immigrants to the U.S. economy are often overlooked in the broader discussion of immigration. Moreover, it finds that immigrants do not exert a significant negative impact on natives, including native workers with lower levels of education. Funding for the study was received from the Merage Foundation for the American Dream, based in Newport Beach, CA, which requested the study to be part of its occasional paper series on immigration.

Among the findings of this paper:

• “Foreign students, skilled immigrants, and doctorates in science and engineering play a major role in driving scientific innovation in the United States,” according to a study by Keith Maskus, an economist at the University of Colorado, Aaditya Mattoo, Lead Economist at the World Bank’s Development Economics Group, and Granaraj Chellaraj, a Consultant to the World Bank. Their research found that for every 100 international students who receive science or engineering Ph.D.'s from American universities, the nation gains 62 future patent applications. • There is little evidence that native professionals are harmed by the entry of H-1B foreign-born professionals. Examining the information technology sector, a study by Madeline Zavodny, a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, found, “H-1B workers . . . do not appear to depress contemporaneous earnings growth.” Foreign-born professionals do not appear to present unfair competition by working for substantially lower wages than their native counterparts in science and engineering fields.

• Harvard University economist George Borjas, the most influential economist arguing that immigrants have a negative impact on U.S. workers, has presented research finding native-born high school dropouts may have seen their wages drop by as much as 8 percent due to immigration between 1980 and 2000.

• Borjas has attracted critics of his approach to analyzing immigration. Among the most notable critics is University of California, Berkeley economist David Card, who writes, “Overall, evidence that immigrants have harmed the opportunities of less educated natives is scant.” George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen and analyst Daniel Rothschild conclude, “Most economists have sided with Card.”

• In the past year, many economists and commentators have cited research performed by Giovanni Peri, Department of Economics, University of California, Davis. Peri’s analysis found that immigration increased the real wages of U.S. native-born workers as a whole by approximately 1 percent between 1990 and 2000, compared to the Borjas and Katz study that found a 1.3 percent decline. And rather than the 7 to 8 percent decline in real wages for native high school dropouts found in the Borjas-Katz research, Peri’s analysis shows only a 1.2 percent decline for such workers between 1990 and 2000.

The immigration issue remains complex, as evidenced by how results differ on its impact depending on the chosen methodology. This paper finds that immigrants increase specialization in the economy, enhance the nation’s productive capacity, and aid innovation in the United States. The best evidence suggests that immigrants improve their own lot and that of their children by coming to America and exert little adverse impact on natives.

Introduction
The debate over the impact of immigration on U.S. workers and the American economy has intensified in recent years. Economists and policy analysts using competing methodologies have come to different conclusions. In many ways, examining immigration solely for its impact on native workers, particularly the impact on a relatively small segment of such workers, fails to account for the larger economic perspective of the nation. For example, immigrants are crucial to labor force growth in the United States, which plays a role in overall economic growth. “Growth in the native population has been in decline since the 1970s, so immigrant workers have filled in, providing half of the growth in the U.S. labor force since 1990.”1

William Beach, director of the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation, and James Sherk, an analyst at the Center, note that the importance of immigrants, in their view, is not simply because they increase the number of workers but because of the "deepening in the division of labor." As Beach and Sherk explain: “New workers (whether straight out of school or straight from across the border) enable established workers to do new things and give businesses opportunities to create new value for customers. To paraphrase [economist] Adam Smith, new workers encourage greater specialization by existing workers because the new workers take the lower-paying jobs. Then a more specialized work force provides opportunities for businesses to develop new production processes and better products.”

Beach and Sherk compare a large city that can employ many medical specialists to a small town that can only support a general practitioner. “No matter how well the town's doctor could do if he focused just on treating cancer victims, the town's economy cannot support so narrowly tailored an expert. The city, however, has hospitals staffed with specialists in virtually every field, each of whom can do a better job than a GP at treating the diseases they have focused their energies on fighting. Immigration works in the same way,” write Beach and Sherk. “By expanding the size of the labor force, immigration allows American workers to increase their degree of specialization and become more productive, earning higher wages. That same specialization also permits businesses to apply their capital in new and more productive ways, expanding economic growth.”2

...

There is little evidence foreign-born professionals in information technology, engineering, and science fields present unfair competition by working for substantially lower wages than their native counterparts. Under the law, employers hiring H-1B professionals must pay the greater of the prevailing wage or “the actual wage level paid by the employer to all other individuals with similar experience and qualifications for the specific employment in question.” While H-1B visas are temporary visas, employers sponsoring individuals for permanent residence through an employment-based green card must also pay employees at least as much as comparable Americans.
Research by Paul E. Harrington, associate director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, shows foreign-born and native professionals earn virtually identical salaries in math and science fields. This is further evidence that foreign-born do not work for far less as a way of undercutting wages, even though it may be reasonable for an employer to pay less to someone with weaker language skills. Harrington found salaries in computer or math sciences were actually higher for the foreign-born among bachelor degree holders and doctoral degree holders and the same for recipients of master’s degrees. He found similar salaries for natives and foreign-born at the bachelors, master’s, and PhD levels in life sciences, as well as at the doctoral level in engineering, and a greater edge for natives at the bachelor and master’s level for engineering.5

...

The relatively large positive effect of immigrants on the wages of native-born workers with a college degree or more is driven by the fact that creative, innovative, and complex professions benefit particularly from the complementarities brought by foreign-born scientists, engineers, and other highly skilled workers. A team of engineers may have greater productively than an engineer working in isolation, implying that a foreign-born engineer may increase the productivity of native-born team members. Moreover, the analysis in this paper probably does not capture the largest share of the positive effects brought by foreign-born professionals. Technological and scientific innovation is the acknowledged engine of U.S. economic growth and human talent is the main input in generating this growth.7

...

A Fixed Number of Jobs?

Much of the anxiety over immigration appears to stem from a belief that new entrants to the labor force compete with existing workers for a fixed number of jobs. However, it is easy to forget that people work today in companies and industries that did not even exist in the early 1990s. Within sectors, jobs increase or decrease from year to year based on product demand and other factors. “When I was involved in creating the first Internet browser in 1993, I can tell you how many Internet jobs there were, there were 200. I can tell you how many there are now, there’s two million now,” said Marc Andreessen, a founder of Netscape.13

Job creation through immigrant entrepreneurship receives little attention in the immigration policy discussion. Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs appear to have founded nearly one-third of Silicon Valley’s technology companies, according to research by University of California, Berkeley professor Annalee Saxenian. She writes, “Silicon Valley's new foreign-born entrepreneurs are highly educated professionals in dynamic and technologically sophisticated industries. And they have been extremely successful . . . By 2000, these companies collectively accounted for more than $19.5 billion in sales and 72,839 jobs.”14

The enormous churning of jobs in the economy is another often overlooked phenomenon. While nobody wishes anyone to lose a job, it is a common occurrence in America. As Dallas Federal Reserve Bank economist W. Michael Cox and his colleague Richard Alm have explained, “New Bureau of Labor Statistics data covering the past decade show that job losses seem as common as sport utility vehicles on the highways. Annual job loss ranged from a low of 27 million in 1993 to a high of 35.4 million in 2001. Even in 2000, when the unemployment rate hit its lowest point of the 1990's expansion, 33 million jobs were eliminated.” Cox and Alm further note, “The flip side is that, according to the labor bureau's figures, annual job gains ranged from 29.6 million in 1993 to 35.6 million in 1999. Day in and day out, workers quit their jobs or get fired, then move on to new positions. Companies start up, fail, downsize, upsize and fill the vacancies of those who left...”15 While it is understandable why individuals come before Congress and plead to prevent competition for their company or employment category, the experience in countries with highly regulated labor markets is that attempts to limit competition do far more harm than good.

As a way of illustrating the premise that a “fixed” number of jobs do not exist in the U.S. economy, it is useful to examine immigration’s impact on a micro-level, as the Washington Post recently did in an article about a popular local restaurant. "We would not exist without immigrant labor," said Ashok Bajaj, owner of the Oval Room, a Washington, D.C. restaurant. "If the laws change, the entire economics of the restaurant industry would change, too." Bajaj, a New Delhi native who moved here from London in 1988, told the Post he was willing to invest a million dollars here “because of the availability of labor at attractive prices.” More than two-thirds of the restaurant’s employees are immigrants. “If those workers in the Washington area hadn't been available, Bajaj said, he probably would have opened the restaurant somewhere else, perhaps in London, Sydney or New York.”

The story goes on to note, “A wide range of other businesses profit from the restaurant industry's immigrant labor. Thursday morning, the bread guy dropped off $32.75 worth of ciabatta and other items. Restaurant supplier Adams-Burch pulled up with $79.20 worth of brandy snifters. Keany Produce pushed $97.10 worth of arugula and other produce down the long, dim corridor to the kitchen, and the delivery guy from Samuels & Son unloaded $305.26 worth of salmon, cod and other seafood. The booming restaurant business in Washington has rippled through to Philadelphia-based Samuels, which has been around since the 1920s. It has expanded from about 25 employees a decade ago to 150 today on the strength of the increasing numbers of high-end restaurants. Those are union jobs paying $12 to $19 an hour, and Samuel D'Angelo, the company president, figures that about 75 percent of his workforce was born in the United States.” However, D’Angelo adds, “If there weren't all these immigrants out there to staff these white-tablecloth restaurants, things wouldn't have progressed the way they have in the last five or 10 years."16

...

In the past year, many economists and commentators have cited research performed by Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviao, Department of Economics, University of Bologna, and Giovanni Peri, Department of Economics, University of California, Davis. “It turns out empirically and theoretically that immigration, as we have known it during the nineties, had a sizeable beneficial effect on wages of U.S. born workers,” concluded Gianmarco and Peri.”29
The economists explain that a key reason this increase in wages occurred was “because U.S.-born and foreign-born workers are not perfectly substitutable even when they have similar observable skills. Workers born, raised and partly educated in foreign environments are not identical to U.S.-born and raised workers. Such differences that we may call the diversity of foreign-born, is the basis for the gains from immigration that accrue to U.S.-born workers. Even a small amount of differences that translates in a relatively high elasticity of substitution between U.S. and foreign-born workers (between 4 and 7 percent) is enough to generate the average wage gains.”30

In his analysis published by the Immigration Policy Center, Giovanni Peri found much different results than George Borjas. Peri found that immigration increased the real wages of U.S. native-born workers as a whole by approximately 1 percent between 1990 and 2000, compared to the Borjas and Katz study that found a 1.3 percent decline. And rather than the 7 to 8 percent decline in real wages for native high school dropouts found in the Borjas-Katz research, Peri’s analysis shows only a 1.2 percent decline for such workers between 1990 and 2000. 31

...

Conclusion

The immigration issue remains complex, as evidenced by how results differ on its impact depending on the chosen methodology. It appears immigrants increase specialization in the economy, enhance the nation’s productive capacity, and aid innovation in the United States. The best evidence suggests that immigrants improve their own lot and that of their children by coming to America and exert little adverse impact on natives.

Pia Orrenius, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas who served on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2004-2005, has provided a clear explanation of how a dynamic approach to the issue of immigration leads one to conclude there is relatively little negative impact, if any, on native workers: “Market forces on both the demand and supply sides also mitigate the labor market impact of immigration. With an influx of immigrants, the return on capital rises, spurring investment. Firms also increase production of labor-intensive goods, further dampening any adverse effects on low-skilled native workers. Meanwhile existing workers, like firms, respond rationally to immigration. Natives and previous immigrants move, upgrade their skills or switch jobs in response to immigrant influxes, much as they do in response to broader market forces, such as the rising skill premium. These responses reduce immigration's negative impact. And as consumers we all benefit from the greater output and lower prices of many goods and services resulting from an immigrant workforce.”

Orrenius notes, “It should not be surprising that most studies find immigrants have little effect on average wages. New immigrants are more likely to compete with each other and with earlier immigrants than with native-born workers. Those just arriving in the U.S. are not close substitutes for U.S. workers, because they typically lack the language skills, educational background and institutional know-how of native-born workers. As immigrants gain this human capital over time they become more substitutable for native workers – but they also become more productive.”34

In June 2006, more than 500 economists of varying political perspectives, including five Nobel Prize winners, signed a letter to President Bush and Members of Congress declaring the consensus among economists is that immigrants are a positive force in America. The letter stated: “Throughout our history as an immigrant nation, those who were already here have worried about the impact of newcomers. Yet, over time, immigrants have become part of a richer America, richer both economically and culturally . . . Immigrants do not take American jobs. The American economy can create as many jobs as there are workers willing to work so long as labor markets remain free, flexible and open to all workers on an equal basis . . . While a small percentage of native-born Americans may be harmed by immigration, vastly more Americans benefit from the contributions that immigrants make to our economy, including lower consumer prices. As with trade in goods and services, the gains from immigration outweigh the losses . . .We must not forget that the gains to immigrants coming to the United States are immense. Immigration is the greatest anti-poverty program ever devised. The American dream is a reality for many immigrants who not only increase their own living standards but who also send billions of dollars of their money back to their families in their home countries—a form of truly effective foreign aid.”

The letter concludes, “America is a generous and open country and these qualities make America a beacon to the world. We should not let exaggerated fears dim that beacon.”35

New York Times Columnist John Tierney recently placed the economic arguments over immigration in perspective. “Even if you accept the debatable economic premise that low-income workers are significantly harmed, the argument fails on moral grounds. . . . Suppose you were setting immigration policy from behind [a] veil of ignorance. Which of these would you choose? (1) Restricting immigration to protect some of the lower-paid workers in America from a decline in wages that would be no more than 8 percent, if it occurred at all. (2) Expanding immigration to benefit most Americans while also giving some non-Americans living in dire poverty the chance to quadruple their income. You don't need to slog through "A Theory of Justice" to figure out this one.”36

Notwithstanding Tierney’s entreaties, it seems clear that the debate over immigration in America will continue for years to come.

1 Patrice Hill, “How Immigrants Make Economy Grow,” The Washington Times, May 1, 2006.

2 William Beach and James Sherk, “Growing the Labor Force,” Letter to the Editor, The Washington Times, May 3, 2006.

3 Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) include such information as the job the individual will fill and the “prevailing” wage for that type of job in the geographic region he or she will work. Under the law, an H-1B visa holder must be paid at least the prevailing wage.

4 Madeline Zavodny, “The H-1B Program and Its Effects on Information Technology Workers,” Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Economic Review, Third Quarter 2003

5 Paul E. Harrington, “Understanding & Responding to Imbalances in Engineering & IT Labor Markets,” Presentation to Business Roundtable, September 15, 2004. Salary data are for 1999.

6 Giovanni Peri, Immigrants, Skills, and Wages: Measuring the Economic Gains from Immigration, Immigration Policy Center, March 2006, p. 7.

7 Ibid., p.6.

8 Gnanajaraj Chellaraj, Keith E. Maskus, and Aaditya Mattoo, “The Contribution of Skilled Immigration and International Graduate Students to U.S. Innovation,” March 17, 2005; Stuart Anderson, “America’s Future is Stuck Overseas,” The New York Times, December 1, 2006.

9 Chellaraj, Maskus, and Mattoo, p. 5.

10 Ibid., pp. 6-7.

11 Ibid., p. 9.

12 Stuart Anderson, The Multiplier Effect,” International Educator, Summer 2004. Available at www.nfap.com (http://www.nfap.com).

13 Marc Andreesen interviewed on Lou Dobbs Tonight, March 4, 2004.

14 AnnaLee Saxenian, “Brain Circulation, How High-Skilled Immigration Makes Everyone Better Off,” Brookings Review, Winter 2002. In past years, the majority of H-1B visa holders have been from India and China.

15 Michael Cox and Richard Alm, “The Great American Job Machine,” The New York Times, November 7, 2003.

16 “Immigration’s Bottom Line,” The Washington Post, April 30, 2006. The article states, “About 85,000 immigrants work in the region's leisure and hospitality sector, according to Pew, out of 215,000 total workers in that sector. There are about 86,100 unemployed people in the region, many of whom are just between jobs; were it not for immigrant labor, there would not be enough workers to staff the city's hotels and restaurants at their current levels.”

17 George J. Borjas and Lawrence F. Katz, “The Evolution of the Mexican-Born Workforce in the United States,” Working Paper 11281, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2005, p. 63.

18 Ibid., pp. 37-39.

19 Ibid., pp. 39-40.

20 David Card, “Is the New Immigration Really So Bad?,” University of California, Berkeley, January 2005, p. 1.

21 Tyler Cowen and Daniel Rothschild, “Hey, don’t bad-mouth unskilled immigrants,” Los Angeles Times, May 15, 2006.

22 David Card, “The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market." Industrial and Labor Relations Review, (1990), 43(2).

23 David Card, 2005.

24 Ibid. Emphasis in original. Card goes on to write, “The leading alternative to a local labor market approach is a time series analysis of aggregate relative wages. Surprisingly, such an analysis shows that the wages of native dropouts (people with less than a high school diploma) relative to native high school graduates have remained nearly constant since 1980, despite pressures from immigrant inflows that have increased the relative supply of dropout labor, and despite the rise in the wage gap between other education groups in the U.S. economy. While the counterfactual is unknown, it is hard to argue that the aggregate time series evidence point to a negative impact of immigration unless ones starts from that position a priori.”

Fuck me. I respond to a demand for documentation, and then that is dismissed as dueling sources as though one "side" can find just as many studies to support their point of view as the other, and they are then presumed to be equal.

Yeah, Fuck You. Here, respond point for point with every assertion made in this piece. Now that I provided you with a well referenced article documenting the adverse impact of our current open boarders policy, I expect you to abandon your position and fail to put up any resistence.

Your certainty tells more of arrogance than anything remotely resembling an authentic intellectual devotion toward disclosing the reality of this issue

Russell Cole

Featured Guest Commentary
by Jeremy Fisher

5/21/2006

In March 2004 I wrote a piece for IIPR called Understanding Washington’s Desire For Open Borders.

While I believe that my central position, that it is impossible to understand our government’s position on immigration without understanding the linkage to trade policy is still valid, I’ve come to a new and deeper understanding. I believe I’ve pulled back the veil just a bit and understand just a bit more of the big picture.

In May of 2005, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) which describes itself as “A Non-Partisan resource for information and analysis.” wrote an important paper called “Building a North American Community” which provides us with a tip of the hand of the policy makers in Washington.

The CFR’s abstract describes the paper as follows:

North America is vulnerable on several fronts: the region faces terrorist and criminal security threats, increased economic competition from abroad, and uneven economic development at home. In response to these challenges, a trinational, Independent Task Force on the Future of North America has developed a roadmap to promote North American security and advance the well-being of citizens of all three countries.

When the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States met in Texas recently they underscored the deep ties and shared principles of the three countries. The Council-sponsored Task Force applauds the announced “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,” but proposes a more ambitious vision of a new community by 2010 and specific recommendations on how to achieve it.

A Short History of the CFR

“The Council on Foreign Relations, as well as the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London, came about as a result of a meeting on May 30, 1919 at the Hotel Majestic in Paris, France. Some of the fifty participants were Edward M. House, Harold Temperley, Lionel Curtis, Lord Eustace Percy, Herbert Hoover, Christian Herter, plus American academic historians James Thomson Shotwell of Columbia University, Archibald Coolidge of Harvard and Charles Seymour of Yale.

Formally established in 1921, it is one of the most powerful private organizations with influence on U.S. foreign policy. It has about 4,000 members, including former national security officers, professors, former CIA members, elected politicians, and media figures. The council is not a formal institution within U.S. policy making.” — from Wikipedia

The Council goes to lengths in this paper to define itself as just another think tank:

“THE COUNCIL TAKES NO INSTITUTIONAL POSITION ON POLICY ISSUES ND HAS NO AFFILIATION WITH THE U.S.GOVERNMENT. ALL STATEMENTS OF FACT AND EXPRESSIONS OF OPINION CONTAINED IN ITS PUBLICATIONS ARE THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE AUTHOR OR AUTHORS. “

I believe they are being too modest. The CFR has dominated the highest positions in presidential administrations from both parties for many years. While the adminstrations may change, the CFR members advising them remain in the top policy positions. They particularly gravitate to the State Department, NSC and other official posts where they advise and help formulate trade, defense, and foreign policy. There’s nothing sinister or conspiratorial about this. Their plans are public to those interested.

The CFR publishes the respected journal, “Foreign Affairs” which is widely read by those in the highest levels of government and business in this country and others. While the CFR’s membership rolls are kept secret, many Congressman, Senators, high ranking military officers, and policy makers are said to be among it’s ranks. So it is reasonable to assume that the the policy papers published in “Foreign Affairs” and the positions they take on a number of issues regarding the United States Government and it’s role at home and abroad are representative of the thinking of some, if not many of it’s members and of those “elites” in both government and business.

Many American Presidents


have addressed the CFR which demonstrates the respect and influence the CFR commands.

It’s important to understand that the thinking of the Washington elites has little in common with what “the folks back home” want or care about. It’s difficult to understand the President and the Senate’s reluctance to model our immigration policy along the lines of what most American’s want; tough border ploicy and no amnesty and no guest worker program.

Washington insiders are fed a steady diet of globalist philosophy from the many interlocking groups who advise them, including the CFR, The Tri-Lateral Commision and The Brookings Institute to name a few. Open borders, free trade, and offshoring of America’s businesses are the discussed as great, forward looking programs among these groups and I doubt if American sovereignty, a secure border policy, and an America First trade policy receive anything but nervous laughs as these elite members of government and industry “schmooze” and network for their next role or position. You definitely won’t get invited to join The Council on Foreigh Relations talking like that. The CFR is overtly globalist, interventionist, and believes in open borders and free trade no matter the cost.

The powerful elites will then be able to take off the gloves and really get aggressive about strip mining every last dollar from the economy.

Consider the warning from former Congressman John R. Rarick:

“The CFR, dedicated to one-world government, financed by a number of the largest tax-exempt foundations, and wielding such power and influence over our lives in the areas of finance, business, labor, military, education, and mass communication-media, should be familiar to every American concerned with good government, and with preserving and defending the U.S. Constitution and our free-enterprise system. Yet, the nation’s right-to-know machinery, the news media, usually so aggressive in exposures to inform our people, remain conspicuously silent when it comes to the CFR, its members and their activities. ”

“The CFR is the establishment. Not only does it have influence and power in key decision-making positions at the highest levels of government to apply pressure from above, but it also finances and uses individuals and groups to bring pressure from below, to justify the high level decisions for converting the U.S. from a sovereign Constitution Republic into a servile member of a one-world dictatorship.”

Strong stuff, but my point is that when the CFR talks, the elites in government and business listen, and carefully. Any claims from the CFR that they are non-partisan are absolutley accurate. They formulate the policy that the Republicans and Democrats push into US policy.

Consider the following quotes:

The late Carroll Quigley (Bill Clinton’s mentor), Professor of History at Georgetown University, member of the CFR, stated in his book, “Tragedy & Hope”

“The CFR is the American Branch of a society which originated in England, and which believes that national boundaries should be obliterated, and a one-world rule established.”

Rear Admiral Chester Ward, a former member of the CFR for 16 years, warned the American people of the organization’s intentions:

“The most powerful clique in these elitist groups have one objective in common — they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereingty of the national independence of the United States. A second clique of international members in the CFR comprises the Wall Street international bankers and their key agents. Primarily, they want the world banking monopoly from whatever power ends up in the control of global government.”

And Dan Smoot, a former member of the FBI Headquarters staff in Washington, D.C., summarized the organization’s purpose as follows:

“The ultimate aim of the CFR is to create a one-world socialist system, and to make the U.S. an official part of it.”

Jack Newell and Devvy Kidd (”Why A Bankrupt America?”, Project Liberty, P.O. Box 741075, Arvada, CO 80006-9075). Consider one of their quotes:

“The members of the CFR dominate almost every aspect of American life, yet most Americans have never even heard of the Council on Foreign Relations. One reason for this is probably because there are over 170 journalists, correspondents, and communications executives who are members of the CFR, and who do not write about the organization. Also, it is an express condition of membership that no one is to disclose what goes on at CFR meetings. ”

Forgive me taking so much of your attention, but I wish to set the stage for explaining my new insight into what really drives Washington’s desire for open borders. Now let’s get back to the paper they wrote called “Building a North American Community”.

Consider the purpose of this paper as described by Deanna Spingola
Building a North American Community, the Selling of America

Spingola outlines the papers most important points here:

For this coming political transition for America, Canada and Mexico, the CFR Task Force suggests the following specific measures:

Make North America safer: (from their web site)

Establish a common security perimeter by 2010.
Develop a North American Border Pass with biometric identifiers.
Develop a unified border action plan and expand border customs facilities.
Create a single economic space:

Adopt a common external tariff.
Allow for the seamless movement of goods within North America.
Move to full labor mobility between Canada and the U.S.
Develop a North American energy strategy that gives greater emphasis to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases - a regional alternative to Kyoto.
Review those sectors of NAFTA that were excluded.
Develop and implement a North American regulatory plan that would include “open skies and open roads” and a unified approach for protecting consumers on food, health, and the environment.
Expand temporary worker programs and create a “North American preference” for immigration for citizens of North America.
Spread benefits more evenly:

Establish a North American Investment Fund to build infrastructure to connect Mexico’s poorer regions in the south to the market to the north.
Restructure and reform Mexico’s public finances.
Fully develop Mexican energy resources to make greater use of international technology and capital.
Institutionalize the partnership:

Establish a permanent tribunal for trade and investment disputes.
Convene an annual North American summit meeting.
Establish a Tri-national Competition Commission to develop a common approach to trade remedies.
Expand scholarships to study in the three countries and develop a network of Centers for North American Studies.
Well there you have it. The CFR recommends we eliminate our borders, so we’ll all be safe, and so we can facilitate the free flow of goods and services between the 3 countries. They recommend re-visiting NAFTA to see if we can do more to screw up our trade deficits and manufacturing base. ” Expand temporary worker programs and create a “North American preference” for immigration for citizens of North America”, have Americans pay for improving access to poor consumers in remote regions or Mexico, and “Fully develop Mexican energy resources to make greater use of international technology and capital.”. Ah, there we get to the heart of the matter.

This new country will be called the North American Community. Does that make you feel warm and fuzzy?

Wll it might make us feel better if we thought this just to be the scribblings of a bunch of moon eyed glabalists, but according to Phyllis Schlafly column “CFR’s Plan to Integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canada” “This CFR document, called “Building a North American Community,” asserts that George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin “committed their governments” to this goal when they met at Bush’s ranch and at Waco, Texas on March 23, 2005. The three adopted the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” and assigned “working groups” to fill in the details.”

It was at this same meeting, grandly called the North American summit, that President Bush pinned the epithet “vigilantes” on the volunteers guarding our border in Arizona.

According to Schlafy, when the CRF refers to a “community” with a common security perimeter, “”Community” means integrating the United States with the corruption, socialism, poverty and population of Mexico and Canada. “Common perimeter” means wide-open U.S. borders between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

“Community” is sometimes called “space” but the CFR goal is clear: “a common economic space … for all people in the region, a space in which trade, capital, and people flow freely.” The CFR’s “integrated” strategy calls for “a more open border for the movement of goods and people.”

The CFR document lays “the groundwork for the freer flow of people within North America.” The “common security perimeter” will require us to “harmonize visa and asylum regulations” with Mexico and Canada, “harmonize entry screening,” and “fully share data about the exit and entry of foreign nationals.”"

This is a big business plan to further mine the the economies of these three countries while furthering their ultimate goal of unifying the major trading blocks of “The North American Community”, The European Union, and eventually an Asian trading block into a single unified global ISO certified socialist state commonly referred to by some, inlcuding President Bush’s father, as “The New World Order”. The purpose ? To make the world safe for business; big business.

It’s tempting to say this sounds like a conspiracy theory. That’s a sore subject with the fellas at the CFR. Since it’s inception, rumors have swirled around about it’s links to the Masons, and the Illuminati, Moloch, the Bohemian Grove, the global banking system and the Federal Reserve, the Kennedy assasination, communism, socialism and the United Nations. Many have said the CFR *is* the Establishment and is the voice of global banking and big business; the true power behind the throne.

I’d recommend you read The Shadows of Power by James Perloff for an overview or this article “Openly Attacking American Sovereignty”.

More proof of the “establishment’s” fingerprints on the efforts to integrate the countries of North America is found by examining the biggest sources of funding of the very groups that are pushing illegal immgration, amnesty and demands for citizenship for “undocument workers”. Both MALDEF and La Raza “are the creations of the Ford Foundation, which remains one of their principal sources of funding.” According to Joseph Fallon Funding Hate - Foundations and the Radical Hispanic Lobby, The Carnagie Foundation, The Ford Foundation and of course the The Rockefeller Foundation. David Rockefeller was the former president of the CFR.

Read some quotes by Richard Haas, President of the CFR. This is an excerpt from his recent comments in The Taipei Times.

For 350 years, sovereignty — the notion that states are the central actors on the world stage and that governments are essentially free to do what they want within their own territory but not within the territory of other states — has provided the organizing principle of international relations. The time has come to rethink this notion.
…
Moreover, states must be prepared to cede some sovereignty to world bodies if the international system is to function. This is already taking place in the trade realm. Governments agree to accept the rulings of the WTO because on balance they benefit from an international trading order even if a particular decision requires that they alter a practice that is their sovereign right to carry out.

Now Americans are a stubborn lot. They don’t go along with all these fancy ideas about globalism and all the veterans certainly don’t go along with any crazy ideas about giving away our sovereignty to a bunch of UN types. Not only that, they have a whole bunch of guns. So how can the elites turn their global plantation dreams into reality?

If Americans don’t want to join Mexico, why not work out a plan to bring millions of Mexicans to the US. After they ram the guest worker program through and pass an amnesty, it’s estimated there will be upwards of 193,000,000 more Mexicans here by 2026. Add to that the birth rates for Hispanics and America’s leveling native population, and native Americans will be a minority population in the United States and as a voting block. Then ask the “people” if they’d like to hookup with Mexico. I’m sure they’d agree. Check and Checkmate; the United States will cease to exist and all memories about the Founding Fathers and George Washington go down the memory hole - forever.

The powerful elites will then be able to take off the gloves and really get aggressive about strip mining every last dollar from the economy.

Oh - your children? Thanks to NAFTA they’ll be competing with Mexican and immigrants from every other third world country for low paying menial jobs as the Senate has systematically enabled the dismantling of American manufacturing and welcomed illegal immigration. It’s all about reducing the cost of labor in order to maximize profits.

“NAFTA is a major stepping stone to the New World Order.” –Henry Kissinger (CFR)

Chances are they will become the victims of instead of the beneficiaries of affirmative action programs. They’ll be called “gringo” and all cultures will be celebrated except theirs, and eventually everything will be lost.

The Senate has just voted trade away our future, each Senator trying to outdo the next in their groveling and pandering (with a number of notable exceptions). Everyone they know and talk to feels like that, and everyone at the cocktail parties and junkets and forums, and the Wall Street Journal; “I mean after all the poor people back home are so, well, “nativist” and tend towards isolationism like that dreadful Pat Buchanan.” The lobbyists give money and they expect results. They need cheap labor now and a demographic shift later. Big business DEMANDS it. The plan is to have the common security perimeter by 2010. What you want is inconsequential.

I’d like to leave you with two quotes that will probably not help you feel better but they say “the truth will set you free”.

“the house of world order will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down.” It would have to be done piecemeal, through “an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece.” - Richard N. Gardner (CFR) “The Hard Road to World Order”

“We shall have world government whether or not you like it, by conquest or consent.”
–James Warburg (CFR)

Americans need to send their Senators a strong “wake up call ” and tell them it’s time to choose sides: protect our country by rejecting amnesty or trade our sovereignty and our future to global big money interests and support amnesty. There’s no middle ground.

Call your Senators and Congressmen and ask them where they stand.

Don’t let them trade our future and America’s soverignty for globalized corporate profits.

If they consistently work against your interests and the interests of your country, they do not deserve to be re-elected to the Senate.

Jeremy Fisher is a freelance writer.

More Reading

The Council on Foreign Relationsby Michael Collins Piper (Reprinted from SPOTLIGHT 22 OCT 90)
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and The New World Order
CFR’s Plan to Integrate the U.S., Mexico and Canadaby Phyllis Schlafly
Finally Admitted - Globalists Want ‘North American Community’From Sandra Miller
Abolishing the USAby William F. Jasper

I am not copying and pasting whatever I might have Googled, dammit, just to throw a lot of verbiage around to support some talking point I am trying to promote.

I am carefully reading, selecting, editing and formatting from PDF files the things that I have on hand that are relevant to the discussion, in response to a demand for documentation.

Grrrrr

I cannot for the life of me see what Phyliss Schafly, Spotlight magazine, or the CFR have to do with this discussion.

Finally Admitted - Globalists
Want 'North
American Community'
From Sandra Miller
6-11-5

Protest the 'North American Community' -- Call Congress at 1-877-762-8762

By 2010 The US Government Plans To Make America 'One Community' With Canada & Mexico

It came on last night's Lou Dobbs Show. The conversation is below.

Do you suppose this is the reason why Jorge Boosh won't secure the border, and why he refuses to apprehend and deport illegal aliens? Why he wants illegal aliens to get mortgage loans to buy homes?

The French and Dutch voted NO on the EU Constitution, and the British are expected to. People in civilized countries are rejecting one-world government, and Amerians need to as well.

Call your Senators and Congressman and tell them you want to be an American, not a "North American." Ask them how they plan to vote on CAFTA when it comes up for a vote this summer. If they waffle, you know you're talking to a sell-out.

As an Arizonan, I know that Senator John McCain has already sold out. He plans to run for President in 2008 because he thinks Americans in other states don't know.
_____

LOU DOBBS, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everybody. Tonight, an astonishing proposal to expand our borders to incorporate Mexico and Canada and simultaneously further diminish U.S. sovereignty. Have our political elites gone mad? We'll have a special report. blood.

DOBBS: Border security is arguably the critical issue in this country's fight against radical Islamist terrorism. But our borders remain porous. So porous that three million illegal aliens entered this country last year, nearly all of them from Mexico.

Now, incredibly, a panel sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations wants the United States to focus not on the defense of our own borders, but rather create what effectively would be a common border that includes Mexico and
Canada.

Christine Romans has the report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On Capitol Hill, testimonycalling for Americans to start thinking like citizens of North America and treat the U.S., Mexico and Canada like one big country.

ROBERT PASTOR, IND. TASK FORCE ON NORTH AMERICA: The best way to secure the United States today is not at our two borders with Mexico and Canada, but at the borders of North America as a whole.

ROMANS: That's the view in a report called "Building a North American Community." It envisions a common border around the U.S., Mexico and Canada in just five years, a border pass for residents of the three countries, and a freer flow of goods and people.

Task force member Robert Pastor.

PASTOR: What we hope to accomplish by 2010 is a common external tariff which will mean that goods can move easily across the border. We want a common security perimeter around all of North America, so as to ease the travel of
people within North America.

ROMANS: Buried in 49 pages of recommendations from the task force, the brief mention, "We must maintain respect for each other's sovereignty." But security experts say folding Mexico and Canada into the U.S. is a grave breach of that sovereignty.

FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: That's what would happen if anybody serious were to embrace this strategy for homogenizing the United States and its sovereignty with the very different systems existing today in Canada and Mexico.

ROMANS: Especially considering Mexico's problems with drug trafficking,human smuggling and poverty. Critics say the country is just too far behind the U.S. and Canada to be included in a so-called common community. But the task force wants military and law enforcement cooperation between all three countries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Indeed, an exchange of personnel that bring Canadians and Mexicans into the Department of Homeland Security.

ROMANS: And it wants temporary migrant worker programs expanded with full mobility of labor between the three countries in the next five years.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: The idea here is to make North America more like the European Union. Yet, just this week, voters in two major countries in the European Union voted against upgrading -- updating the European constitution. So clearly, this is not the best week to be trying to sell that idea.

DOBBS: Americans must think that our political and academic elites have gone utterly mad at a time when three-and-a-half years, approaching four years after September 11, we still don't have border security. And this group of elites is talking about not defending our borders, finally, but rather creating new ones. It's astonishing.

ROMANS: The theory here is that we are stronger together, three countries in one, rather than alone.

DOBBS: Well, it's a -- it's a mind-boggling concept. Christine Romans, thank you, as always.

Fuck me. I respond to a demand for documentation, and then that is dismissed as dueling sources as though one "side" can find just as many studies to support their point of view as the other, and they are then presumed to be equal.

Yeah, Fuck You. Here, respond point for point with every assertion made in this piece.

This is mostly irrelevant changing of the subject. Frankly, the spread of global capitalism however awful it may be is nonetheless a necessary precondition for socialism. And to the extent the melding of the economies of nation-states into every larger entities builds the set of conditions for a revolution, I am all for it.

And a bunch of racist reactionary merikuns will Not be the ones to bring it. Instead it will be those scary brown folks who actually can see the real conditions free of the blinders the xenophobes wear.

Why bother responding to those 'points' in the piece you quote? None of them specifically pertain to the subject at hand. Are you sure this isn't just the baffle em with bullshit technique?

I cannot for the life of me see what Phyliss Schafly, Spotlight magazine, or the CFR have to do with this discussion.

Thats why you don't fit with RigInt, duh. The CFR is like the root of all evil, everybody knows that.

Low Immigration and Economic Growth


America’s experience with a low level of immigration provides a useful test of how that affects the nation’s economic performance.
Between 1925 and 1965 immigrant admissions averaged less than 180,000 persons per year.
During that period, the share of women in the workforce nearly doubled and minorities gained access to new job opportunities.
Over those decades, the economy not only grew significantly, it grew more rapidly than it has since mass immigration was again unleashed by legislation enacted in 1965.
One of the arguments currently made for increasing the intake of immigrants and guest workers is that it is vital to the health of the nation’s economy. If this were true, a tough choice would have to be made between economic stagnation and the social and environmental impact of adding further population growth on top of what is already too much.

Fortunately, there is no real dilemma. The economy can grow in a healthy fashion with a low level of immigration. How do we know this? Our economic history demonstrates this fact. We had a level of immigration between 1925 and 1965 that averaged less than 180,000 admissions per year. Illegal immigration during that period was not the serious problem that it is today.

During that period of restricted immigration curtailed in part because of World War II and the Depression the overall trend in economic growth was impressive. It was a time of rapid industrialization and mechanization, a major move from rural America and work in agriculture to the cities and industrial jobs. Women entered the workforce in large numbers. In 1920, according to the Census, 23.7 percent of women were in the workforce. By 1970, before the effects of the 1965 change in the immigration law had significantly expanded immigrant admissions, the share of women in the workforce had grown to 43.3 percent.

The best indicator of how the U.S. economy responded to the period of low immigration between 1925 and 1966 may be seen in data that recorded the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita over that period. The chart below shows that trend in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars.




What is readily apparent for the pre-1966 period is the fact that, apart from a rapid jump in per capita GDP during WWII and a drop back following it, the overall trend is rising national product, i.e., economic development. It may also be seen that the increase in per capita GDP has continued since the 1965 Immigration Act unleashed rapid immigration growth. But, the rate of increase since 1966 is not as great as it was during the period of low immigration.

From 1925-1966 GDP per capita increased by 168.4 percent. That is an average annual increase of 4.0 percent. During the period since then (1966-2005) the increase in GDP per capita has been 114.2 percent. That is an annual average increase of 2.9 percent.

Of course, immigration is not the only factor influencing economic change. The role of labor unions, laws, trade, transportation, communication, and technology all play major roles in economic change. As the United States has become more enmeshed in international commerce and other countries have developed economically, greater competition exists for our produce.

It is tempting to look at the greater per annum GDP per capita growth during our earlier low immigration and conclude that a return to low immigration would result in a new surge in per capita growth. A slowing in the availability of low-wage labor, according to economic theory, should have the effect of causing wages to rise to attract more U.S. workers back into those occupations. If the nation’s output continued to grow during a period of slowing growth in population, this would contribute to the growth in GDP per capita. However, because there are other economic forces at play in shaping the national product, that is not a clear-cut prospect. Nevertheless, the nation’s history with low-level immigration and the economic growth during that period provides evidence that it is wrong to suggest that our economy will suffer if immigration and guest worker programs are not increased as business interests are currently asserting and it suggests, on the contrary, that the economy would continue to be healthy if immigration were significantly reduced.


Issued: 8/07

Fuck me. I respond to a demand for documentation, and then that is dismissed as dueling sources as though one "side" can find just as many studies to support their point of view as the other, and they are then presumed to be equal.

Yeah, Fuck You. Here, respond point for point with every assertion made in this piece.

This is mostly irrelevant changing of the subject. Frankly, the spread of global capitalism however awful it may be is nonetheless a necessary precondition for socialism. And to the extent the melding of the economies of nation-states into every larger entities builds the set of conditions for a revolution, I am all for it.

And a bunch of racist reactionary merikuns will Not be the ones to bring it. Instead it will be those scary brown folks who actually can see the real conditions free of the blinders the xenophobes wear.

Why bother responding to those 'points' in the piece you quote? None of them specifically pertain to the subject at hand. Are you sure this isn't just the baffle em with bullshit technique?

You are in congruence with their policy point in point. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
R Cole

If the nation’s output continued to grow during a period of slowing growth in population, this would contribute to the growth in GDP per capita. However, because there are other economic forces at play in shaping the national product, that is not a clear-cut prospect. Nevertheless, the nation’s history with low-level immigration and the economic growth during that period provides evidence that it is wrong to suggest that our economy will suffer if immigration and guest worker programs are not increased as business interests are currently asserting and it suggests, on the contrary, that the economy would continue to be healthy if immigration were significantly reduced.

In other words correlation is not causation.

Got it.

Low Immigration and Economic Growth


America’s experience with a low level of immigration provides a useful test of how that affects the nation’s economic performance.
Between 1925 and 1965 immigrant admissions averaged less than 180,000 persons per year.
During that period, the share of women in the workforce nearly doubled and minorities gained access to new job opportunities.
Over those decades, the economy not only grew significantly, it grew more rapidly than it has since mass immigration was again unleashed by legislation enacted in 1965.
One of the arguments currently made for increasing the intake of immigrants and guest workers is that it is vital to the health of the nation’s economy. If this were true, a tough choice would have to be made between economic stagnation and the social and environmental impact of adding further population growth on top of what is already too much.

Fortunately, there is no real dilemma. The economy can grow in a healthy fashion with a low level of immigration. How do we know this? Our economic history demonstrates this fact. We had a level of immigration between 1925 and 1965 that averaged less than 180,000 admissions per year. Illegal immigration during that period was not the serious problem that it is today.

During that period of restricted immigration curtailed in part because of World War II and the Depression the overall trend in economic growth was impressive. It was a time of rapid industrialization and mechanization, a major move from rural America and work in agriculture to the cities and industrial jobs. Women entered the workforce in large numbers. In 1920, according to the Census, 23.7 percent of women were in the workforce. By 1970, before the effects of the 1965 change in the immigration law had significantly expanded immigrant admissions, the share of women in the workforce had grown to 43.3 percent.

The best indicator of how the U.S. economy responded to the period of low immigration between 1925 and 1966 may be seen in data that recorded the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita over that period. The chart below shows that trend in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars.




What is readily apparent for the pre-1966 period is the fact that, apart from a rapid jump in per capita GDP during WWII and a drop back following it, the overall trend is rising national product, i.e., economic development. It may also be seen that the increase in per capita GDP has continued since the 1965 Immigration Act unleashed rapid immigration growth. But, the rate of increase since 1966 is not as great as it was during the period of low immigration.

From 1925-1966 GDP per capita increased by 168.4 percent. That is an average annual increase of 4.0 percent. During the period since then (1966-2005) the increase in GDP per capita has been 114.2 percent. That is an annual average increase of 2.9 percent.

Of course, immigration is not the only factor influencing economic change. The role of labor unions, laws, trade, transportation, communication, and technology all play major roles in economic change. As the United States has become more enmeshed in international commerce and other countries have developed economically, greater competition exists for our produce.

It is tempting to look at the greater per annum GDP per capita growth during our earlier low immigration and conclude that a return to low immigration would result in a new surge in per capita growth. A slowing in the availability of low-wage labor, according to economic theory, should have the effect of causing wages to rise to attract more U.S. workers back into those occupations. If the nation’s output continued to grow during a period of slowing growth in population, this would contribute to the growth in GDP per capita. However, because there are other economic forces at play in shaping the national product, that is not a clear-cut prospect. Nevertheless, the nation’s history with low-level immigration and the economic growth during that period provides evidence that it is wrong to suggest that our economy will suffer if immigration and guest worker programs are not increased as business interests are currently asserting and it suggests, on the contrary, that the economy would continue to be healthy if immigration were significantly reduced.


Issued: 8/07

Russell, I have an even better idea. Sure, its against normal thinking but maybe normal thinking is quaint and antiquated, y'know? There's a great economic model that proved itself for centuries that we could always go back to in a pinch: slavery. Whaddya think? Yes, yes, is it yes?

What say you and mean hood up and start a Men's Bible club, hey good buddy?

I strongly believe that they should close the border to Mexico. On one condition, which is you close it not only to people but to resources. If you say you want to close it to people but not resources, what you're saying, one thing, is that you're a racist asshole, but another thing you're saying is - I don't want you but I want the coffee that's grown on the land that used to be yours.

Why is this migration taking place? It's not taking place because suddenly a bunch of people from Guatemala decide they want to take an eco-tour of the strawberry fields in the San Joaquin valley. It's because their communities are being destroyed through the theft of the land. If you don't want these people moving up here then don't steal those people's lands, pretty simple solution.

Yes it is a xenophobic sleight of hand but it is used, as it has been for centuries in America preceding Republican-Democrat nonsense, to point the finger at the victim so as to keep the eyes averted from the horrors being perpetrated upon those victims and to ignore or rationalize the colossal banditry for the beneficiaries. The liberal class is particularly hypocritical and criminally ignorant on this point.

The problem is really quite simple as is the solution.

The problem: SlaveMaster White Man is pushing them there "illegals" off of their ancestral lands so as to steal the resources that reside in Chiapas e.g.

The solution: Stop SlaveMaster White Man from stealing the resources of the people in Chiapas e.g.

NAFTA is merely the latest acronym-IMF the latest international syndicate-World Bank only the latest moneychanger in this ongoing colonial conquest.

Neither the employer or the "immigrant" are really the fundamental issue.

Qualifier: Many who do employ "immigrants" exploit them and should be themselves forced to work in the broiling hot sun for 14 hours/day or forced to do backbreakingearlydeath work in the maquiladoras.

Let the truth be the frame.

As for higher paying jobs these too are part of the problem and also obfuscate the issue.

People shouldn't need or even desire to make 70k/year(or even 25k). The problem is that it takes so much to live in our HP society. The solution- Elimination of rent-Free Health Care- Food stipends.
Everyone needs to be (allowed to) getting by with less-MUCH LESS.

Wealth is the problem and it requires the aforementioned theft from other lands to maintain this obscene standard of living- a standard of living that has death of brown skinned people as one of its prerequisites.

By the way, the racist anti-immigration hysteria comes from both "sides" - liberal and conservative, and sanity on the issue comes from both left wing groups and human rights groups as well as chambers of commerce - from both labor people and business people. That means that this issue is particualrly ill-suited for the usual "the friend of my enemy is my enemy" thinking that lines everyone up into two warring teams, all inclusive and discrete.

13 Myths About Immigration
Prepared by Rich Cowan et al.
Democratic Socialists of America

Myth #1. The U.S. is being overrun with immigrants.

Don't always believe what you hear on TV. On a recent episode of ABC's This Week With David Brinkley, Pat Buchanan referred to "five million illegal immigrants coming into this country," "one, two, three million, invading the Southwest," and finally to "two million people walking across your border." In response, the New Republic pointed out that "the actual annual inflow of illegal migrants by air, sea and land is approximately 300,000 according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service."

Myth #2. Immigrants take jobs from U.S. citizens and decrease the standard of living.

Immigrants create jobs and do not take jobs from U.S. citizens. The U.S. Department of Labor has concluded that immigrants keep U.S. industries competitive, increase employment through higher rates of self-employment, and increase wages and mobility opportunities for many groups of U.S. workers. Statistics show that an influx of new immigrants actually boosts the economy. The conservative Alexis de Tocqueville Institute found that U.S. states with high immigration populations have lower rates of unemployment. [DSA flyer, 1995.]

Myth #3. New immigrant legislation will not affect the constitutional rights of legal immigrants and people born in the United States.

In California, a new referendum called "Save Our State II" seeks to repeal the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. Federal Proposal HR2202 would legalize the concept that "Non-citizen immigrants (including permanent residents) are not entitled to constitutional rights." Proposals such as these violate the spirit of the constitution which extends its protections to all persons residing within the borders of the United States.

Myth #4. If we let too many immigrants in, America will lose its cultural heritage.

America's cultural heritage is not defined by one ethnic group or race. Nor is this country reserved for any one ethnic group - although racists have often tried to claim it to the exclusion of others. The United States is a nation of immigrants. With the exception of Native Americans, all of us are in this country as voluntary or involuntary descendants of immigrants. Our ancestors come from every part of the globe and have all shaped and contributed to this country. As descendants of immigrants we should understand the importance of allowing people to make better lives for themselves and their descendants.

Myth #5. Immigration is now at the highest level in US history.

In 1910, the foreign born population was 14.7%. In 1994, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the foreign born population was only 8.7%. The only difference today is that a smaller portion of immigrants are from Europe.

Myth #6. Most undocumented immigrants are poor people from Latin America, Africa or Asia.

"The largest population of undocumented persons in the U.S. are Canadians, Irish, Poles, and Russians-not Mexicans or Haitians". [source: "A Progressive Perspective on Immigration,".]

Myth #7. Immigrants do not pay taxes, and drain government resources by abusing social services.

According to the nonpartisan Urban Institute in 1994, immigrants and refugees pay approximately $28 million more in taxes than they consume in services. Not only do immigrants consume very little of welfare funds, they actually subsidize the welfare of others. Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, pay $70-$90 billion in taxes each year and use less than $50 billion in services. Many undocumented immigrants pay more income tax than they owe because they are afraid to file and claim a refund. Despite higher poverty rates, immigrants use fewer public benefits than citizens and are less likely to become dependent on welfare. Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for welfare, food stamps, or most other social programs. And, except for pre-natal care, they do not qualify for government-provided medical treatment, except in emergencies. [source: "A Progressive Perspective on Immigration," Democratic Socialists of America.]

Myth #8. Immigration laws are fair and just.

U.S. immigration laws put strict limits on the number of people who can immigrate from certain countries-countries whose people are mostly poor, and mostly of color. Through these racist laws, our government makes it virtually impossible for people from these countries to even visit the U.S., unless they are very wealthy. [DSA flyer, 1995.]

Myth #9. It's not our fault other countries have problems.

U.S. global economic and military policies have resulted in lowering the standard of living and damaging the stability of Third World countries. This results in increased pressure on people in these countries to immigrate to wealthier nations like the U.S. in an attempt to support their families.

Myth #10. We could accomodate more people before, but now we have overcrowding and economic problems, and have to tighten up our policies.

The United States has the largest Gross National Product of any country in the world, and our population density is much smaller than either Japan's or Europe's. The U.S. is in a favorable position to welcome new immigrants. We can still live up to the ideal written on the Statue of Liberty: "Bring us your tired, your poor, yearning to be free..." (quotation by Emma Lazarus).

Myth #11. The current U.S. economic woes are at least partially the fault of immigrants.

U.S. economic woes are primarily caused by corporate downsizing and capital flight to other countries where wages are lower. To date, there has been no proven relationship between immigration and capital flight.

Myth #12. Undocumented immigrants inflict personal injury and damage on U.S. citizens.

According to the Nation Institute, "there is little evidence that undocumented immigrants are disproportionally responsible for crime." On the contrary, they are often themselves victims of crimes, as they are less likely to report anything to the police.

Myth #13. Nothing can be done to stop the backlash against immigrants.

We can stop the backlash by educating others in the communities where we live, work, and go to school. First, contact an organization that monitors issues affecting immigrants such as the H.R. 2202 proposal currently under consideration in Congress. Read their educational materials to learn about the history of anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. and the resources available for defending immigrant rights.

This is dated, but still good.

original here (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45/110.html)

You are in congruence with their policy point in point. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
R Cole

There is no hell.

Be sure and let me know when you figger out how to demonstrate the progressive nature of your positions...

I strongly believe that they should close the border to Mexico. On one condition, which is you close it not only to people but to resources...Wealth is the problem and it requires the aforementioned theft from other lands to maintain this obscene standard of living- a standard of living that has death of brown skinned people as one of its prerequisites.

Yup.

Low Immigration and Economic Growth


America’s experience with a low level of immigration provides a useful test of how that affects the nation’s economic performance.
Between 1925 and 1965 immigrant admissions averaged less than 180,000 persons per year.
During that period, the share of women in the workforce nearly doubled and minorities gained access to new job opportunities.
Over those decades, the economy not only grew significantly, it grew more rapidly than it has since mass immigration was again unleashed by legislation enacted in 1965.
One of the arguments currently made for increasing the intake of immigrants and guest workers is that it is vital to the health of the nation’s economy. If this were true, a tough choice would have to be made between economic stagnation and the social and environmental impact of adding further population growth on top of what is already too much.

Fortunately, there is no real dilemma. The economy can grow in a healthy fashion with a low level of immigration. How do we know this? Our economic history demonstrates this fact. We had a level of immigration between 1925 and 1965 that averaged less than 180,000 admissions per year. Illegal immigration during that period was not the serious problem that it is today.

During that period of restricted immigration curtailed in part because of World War II and the Depression the overall trend in economic growth was impressive. It was a time of rapid industrialization and mechanization, a major move from rural America and work in agriculture to the cities and industrial jobs. Women entered the workforce in large numbers. In 1920, according to the Census, 23.7 percent of women were in the workforce. By 1970, before the effects of the 1965 change in the immigration law had significantly expanded immigrant admissions, the share of women in the workforce had grown to 43.3 percent.

The best indicator of how the U.S. economy responded to the period of low immigration between 1925 and 1966 may be seen in data that recorded the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita over that period. The chart below shows that trend in constant, inflation-adjusted dollars.




What is readily apparent for the pre-1966 period is the fact that, apart from a rapid jump in per capita GDP during WWII and a drop back following it, the overall trend is rising national product, i.e., economic development. It may also be seen that the increase in per capita GDP has continued since the 1965 Immigration Act unleashed rapid immigration growth. But, the rate of increase since 1966 is not as great as it was during the period of low immigration.

From 1925-1966 GDP per capita increased by 168.4 percent. That is an average annual increase of 4.0 percent. During the period since then (1966-2005) the increase in GDP per capita has been 114.2 percent. That is an annual average increase of 2.9 percent.

Of course, immigration is not the only factor influencing economic change. The role of labor unions, laws, trade, transportation, communication, and technology all play major roles in economic change. As the United States has become more enmeshed in international commerce and other countries have developed economically, greater competition exists for our produce.

It is tempting to look at the greater per annum GDP per capita growth during our earlier low immigration and conclude that a return to low immigration would result in a new surge in per capita growth. A slowing in the availability of low-wage labor, according to economic theory, should have the effect of causing wages to rise to attract more U.S. workers back into those occupations. If the nation’s output continued to grow during a period of slowing growth in population, this would contribute to the growth in GDP per capita. However, because there are other economic forces at play in shaping the national product, that is not a clear-cut prospect. Nevertheless, the nation’s history with low-level immigration and the economic growth during that period provides evidence that it is wrong to suggest that our economy will suffer if immigration and guest worker programs are not increased as business interests are currently asserting and it suggests, on the contrary, that the economy would continue to be healthy if immigration were significantly reduced.


Issued: 8/07

Russell, I have an even better idea. Sure, its against normal thinking but maybe normal thinking is quaint and antiquated, y'know? There's a great economic model that proved itself for centuries that we could always go back to in a pinch: slavery. Whaddya think? Yes, yes, is it yes?

What say you and mean hood up and start a Men's Bible club, hey good buddy?
Boy, that is a real thoughtful remark. Especially since your the one who wants to saturate the labor market with additional bodies; only to decrease wages so that the people who work in these occupations resemble - to a closer degree - the condition of slavery. You are running out amunition fast.
R Cole

Immigrants are a vibrant force in California ’s changing demographics:

* More than one-quarter of all California residents are foreign born, a rate higher than any other state in the United States. According to the 2004 American Community Survey,9.4 million Californians are immigrants.1

* 42%of California ’s foreign-born immigrants are U.S.citizens.2

* Of the 9.4 million foreign-born in California,3.3 million are legal permanent residents.3

* Immigrants and their children comprise nearly half of our state ’s population and live in vir t ual ly al l of California ’s 58 counties,with major concentrations in Los Angeles and the greater San Francisco Bay Area.4

* The number of immigrants choosing California as their destination is leveling; those who decide to stay are staying longer. As immigrants remain in the U.S., poverty rates among them decrease, homeownership rises and immigrants become more invested in their schools, communities and neighborhoods.5

* Approximately 40%of Californians speak another language other than English at home. Throughout California, immigrants speak more than 250 languages.6

* Most non-citizens live in families that are also comprised of citizens.Nearly 90% of Latino non-citizens live in households with citizens, while nearly 80% of Asians live in mixed status families.7

Immigrants fuel California ’s economy through their labor and entrepreneurship:

* Overall, immigrants comprise approximately one- third of the California labor force. Immigrants figure prominently in key economic sectors in California including agriculture, manufacturing and services.8

* Immigrants provide leadership and labor for the expansion of California ’s growing economic sectors —from telecommunications and information technology to health services and housing construction.

* Immigrants participate in the labor force at slightly higher rates than the national average. Approximately 90% of Latino and Asian immigrant men are employed.9

* Over the next 30 years, the children and grandchildren of immigrants will play an increasingly critical role in the state ’s economy. According to projections by the University of Southern California, there will be a nearly 60 percent increase in the labor force coming from the second generation of immigrant families.10

* Immigrants are among California ’s most productive entrepreneurs, and have created jobs for tens of thousands of Californians. In San Jose alone, immigrant owners of technology companies created more than 58, 000 jobs and generated more than $17 billion in sales during the late 1990s. Google, Sun Microsystems, eBay, and Yahoo! are all companies that were founded or co-founded by immigrants.11

Immigrants pay into the system more than they use in services:

* In California, the average immigrant-headed household contributes a net $2, 679 annually to Social Security, which is $539 more than the average US-born household.12

* Social security, along with Medicare, works to keep older Americans out of poverty. Since most immigrants are under 65 years of age, as a group they are net contributors to this large federal program.

* According to US Census data, the average US born Californian receives a total of $1, 212 annually in cash benefits from programs such as Social Security, SSI, TANF, and other programs. Non-citizens received only $474 annually in public benefits.13

* Immigrants in California pay approximately $4.5 billion in state taxes each year;their federal tax contribution is more than $30 billion annually.14

* Overall, 19% of California ’s foreign born lived in poverty in 2000, compared to 10% of non-immigrants. Nevertheless, they tend to be net contributors to government programs at both the federal and state levels.15

* Immigrants often require the most assistance immediately upon arrival to the United States. As immigrants reside in the state for a longer period of time, they are less likely to use services and more likely to contribute significant amounts.16

* Over the next 75 years new lawful immigrants entering the U.S.will provide a net benefit of approximately $611 billion dollars in present value to America ’s Social Security system according to official Social Security Administration Data.17


1 U.S.Census Bureau. 2004 American Community Survey. Data Profile Highlights.

2 U.S.Census Bureau. 2004 American Community Survey. Selected Social Characteristics:2004

3 Department of Homeland Security, Office of Immigration Statistics,January 2005.

4 U.S.Census Bureau.2000. www.census.gov (http://www.census.gov)

5 Myers, Dowell, John Pitkin and Julie Park. 2005. California Demographic Futures:Projections to 2030, by Immigrant Generations, Nativity, and Time of Arrival in the U.S.:Summary Report.School of Policy, Planning, and Development. University of Southern California:Los Angeles. www.usc.edu/schools/sppd/research/popdynamics (http://www.usc.edu/schools/sppd/research/popdynamics).

6 The Little Hoover Commission. We the People:Helping Newcomers Become Californians. Report #166.June 2002.

7 Belinda I.Reyes. Immigrants in California: Demographics &Policy. Power Point Presentation. Public Policy Institute of California. University of California-Merced.2004

8 Auerhahn, Louise and Bob Brownstein. 2004. The Economic Effects of Immigration in Santa Clara County and California. Working Partnerships USA.

9 Auerhahn and Brownstein supra.

10 Myers, Pitkin and Park supra.

11 Saxenian, Annalee. 2002. Local and Global Networks of Immigrant Professionals in Silicon Valley. Public Policy Institute of California:San Francisco.

12 Auerhahn and Brownstein supra.

13 Ku,Leighton,Shawn Fremstad and Matthew Broaddus. 2003.Noncitizen ’s use of Public Benefits has Declined Since 1996.Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:Washington,DC.

14 State taxes calculated based on U.S. Census data and Employment Development Department of California data from 2005.

15 Myers,Pitkin and Park supra.

16 Myers, Pitkin and Park supra.

17 Anderson, Stuart.2005. The Contributions of Legal Immigration to the Social Security System. National Foundation for American Policy:Arlington,Virginia.

The reason why I participate in these types of forums and remain politically active in groups - whereby I actually damage my career because academic institutions do not want to be associated with third parties in America - stems from the fact that I am a former teamster who sweated in warehouses making terrible wages, and I know that the people with whom I have worked have dependents and so forth, and that their jobs are at risk.

No shit, Russell. I also did many years in the Teamsters, and worked several barns. How ya doin', brother? In my time, the major sweat factories were UPS, and maybe Roadway but the comment on "terrible wages" throws me a little... but, I probably have 20 years on you so maybe things changed some. Feel free to PM me if you wanna compare notes. The time delta is large but maybe we know some of the same people.

http://www.teamsterslocal641.org/IM000003.jpg

As for the rest of what you wrote, two things come to mind... First, you must be aware that it is artificial at best to choose a time and circumstances in which one "national" labor or one "segment" is the cause of the undermining of the conditions of another. What undermined the national economies of the "underdeveloped" countries except for the cheap commodities produced by "expensive" but even more productive labor of the industrialized countries? Isn't that the process that produced the original immigration to America in the first place? And once this had taken place, what were the conditions that initiated the reverse? Isolating these as a micro-issue so that the working class can take a "position" on them seems fairly futile to me, whether any specific claim is true or not. It is similar to taking a position on "free trade" or "buy American" and is really not so far from being asked to take a position on the justice of British versus German colonial policy of a century ago. I only see one source to my problems, brother, and that has changed not at all since Debs wrote about it a century ago.

Secondly, you can't miss the role of anti-immigration feeling in confusing working class politics of all types. If the U.S. is too close to home, what about Europe? What else is the cause of the German turn to the right or to Sarkozy except for this issue? And tell me truthfully what future there is for that segment of working class politics now reborn with stubborn national feeling and very little else, newly allied to those who hate them and equally isolated from the numbers that once gave them strength?

Seems to me that there ain't no such thing as "American labor", any more than there ever was such a thing as "white labor". Even the seal of our mighty and mightily confused brotherhood, above, recognizes that.
.
.

I am a former teamster who sweated in warehouses making terrible wages, and I know that the people with whom I have worked have dependents and so forth, and that their jobs are at risk.

The Story of a Remarkable American and Trade Unionist

One of the great labor leaders of the 19th century, Peter J. McGuire was one of the founding fathers of the Brotherhood and was General Secretary for our first 21 years. He worked tirelessly to keep the union alive in the early years, and his efforts led to the eight-hour workday, founding of the AF of L, wages that more than doubled, and union membership at more than 167,000 by 1903. He also created a lasting memorial to workers—the Labor Day holiday.

http://www.carpenters.org/gfx/history/pic_mcguire2.jpg
PJ McGuire

McGuire's parents were typical of the throngs of Europeans arriving on America's shores. His mother, Catherine Hand O'Riley, survived the tragic loss of her first husband and six of their eight children in Ireland. Ready to start over in the New World, she met John J. McGuire, another young Irish immigrant, in the Lower East Side of New York City. Peter, the
first child of their family of five, was born on July 6, 1852.

McGuire once described the neighborhood of his youth as a "living grave." The dreams that carried immigrants across the Atlantic quickly came up against the harsh realities of tenement life. Six families often crowded into buildings meant for single-family use. The least fortunate huddled in dank cellars, hidden from the sun and filled with garbage. The crush of people strained the minimal sanitary facilities of the houses, and, inevitably, life spilled into the streets and alleys. The McGuire family struggled to survive. Young Peter never had the luxury of a carefree childhood. When his father enlisted in the Union Army in 1863, the 11-year-old boy became the family's primary breadwinner. Peter left his local parish school to take on a variety of jobs: hawking papers, shining shoes, and cleaning stores. Eventually he settled into a regular job as an errand boy at Lord and Taylor's department store.

McGuire's formal education had ended, but his natural curiosity and hunger for knowledge persisted. From his father, a full-time porter and a part-time instructor in the Celtic language, he learned about the customs of his parents' homeland. From his friends and neighbors, he absorbed the crafts, folklore, and languages of the rich mixture of cultures in the city's 17th Ward. His fluency in German, picked up in the street-corner marbles games, helped him in later organizing campaigns among German-American carpenters and cabinetmakers.

McGuire attended courses and lectures at the Cooper Union, a center for continuing education and a regular meeting place for radical and reform movements. He enjoyed the excitement of the nightly meetings and impassioned speeches on the social issues of the day. The Cooper Union was a vital place; many of the labor leaders of the era got their first taste of
economics, labor theories, and public speaking at Peter Cooper's school. McGuire was a member of the Rising Star Debating Society. It was there that he met another foreign-born student who was to work with him in founding the American Federation of Labor—Samuel Gompers.

McGuire decided to learn a trade. At the age of 17, he started his apprenticeship in the Haines Piano Shop. The long hours, low wages, and difficult working conditions of his working days reinforced the teaching he received at night. The importance of labor organization was a message that the gangly teenager took to heart. His first experience of practical activism came in 1872. McGuire marched alongside the 100,000 workers who struck for the eight-hour day in the spring of that year. Years later, McGuire remarked that the events of 1872 convinced him of the value of a militant labor movement.

Taking Action

It did not take long for the young piano-maker to translate his beliefs into action. The following year, he led a fight against a wage reduction at his piano shop. Despite a strong show of unity, the workers at Haines lost. Harassed for his leading role in the strike, McGuire left to find work at a nearby finish shop. By now, he was a skilled journeyman, confident of his ability to hold down a job. Unfortunately, times were changing. For McGuire and millions of other workers, a willingness to work would make little difference in the dark days ahead.

http://www.carpenters.org/gfx/history/pic_march.jpg
St. Paul March

American industry expanded dramatically in the years after the Civil War. Industrial production rose by nearly 47% between 1865 and 1870. The unprecedented boom in railroads, building and manufacturing industries raised hopes of better times for all. But the economic bubble burst in 1873. For the next six years, workers suffered to an extent that was not matched until the Great Depression of the 1930's. Production ground to a standstill as unemployment skyrocketed. In December, McGuire got the bad news. He became one more number on the rolls of the tens of thousands of unemployed workers in New York City.

McGuire's exposure to the political clubs and organizations had prepared him to respond to adversity. When organizations of the unemployed sprang up in the many cities, he joined the New York committee. Every night McGuire spoke on soap boxes in the vacant lots of his neighborhood, urging his fellow citizens to demand work or relief. His forceful and dynamic
speaking style drew crowds and attention. His reputation was still limited to his ward until he was elected to the Committee of Safety, the umbrella organization that coordinated demonstrations for public relief in the winter of 1873-74. His role as a city-wide spokesman for the unemployed catapulted him out of obscurity and led the proper New York Times to brand him as a "disturber of the public peace."

City officials ignored the demands for public relief and rent suspensions. The business community pretended the growing army of marchers was unrepresentative. The Times insisted that "these agitators will find no support among the great masses of the laboring classes" and blamed the activities on a "foreign class" of workmen.
http://www.carpenters.org/history/pj.html

Just sayin'

Boy, that is a real thoughtful remark. Especially since your the one who wants to saturate the labor market with additional bodies; only to decrease wages so that the people who work in these occupations resemble - to a closer degree - the condition of slavery.

Labor is not a "market." Human beings are not a commodity.

The working class is the source of all wealth; working people are not a drain on the economy, we ARE the economy.

Working class people are not the cause of decreased wages, management is.

Working class people are not "bodies."

We are not a commodity in the marketplace.

We are not merely bodies.

We are not a liability, a drain, or an expense.

Anyway my point was that food prices are going up. Thought there might be some eaters here lol.

So basically, the global corporations based in the rich countries outsource jobs to countries where workers are paid inhumanely low wages and have no rights.

Those same corporations get the taxpayers in the rich countries to pay for "aid" to corrupt dictatorships whose job it is to keep the workers in their country oppressed so they can neither organize nor protect their lands from the ravages of the big corporations.

When the desperate workers try to escape the hell-hole created by the rich corporations in their own countries, to seek asylum or some glimmer of hope in the rich countries, they are met with hostile outrage by the workers in the rich countries, whose jobs and taxes (and government) have been stolen -- not by their fellow workers in poor countries, but by those rich corporations.

But who bears the brunt of the whole vicious cycle? The vulnerable workers at the bottom of the totem pole. Oppressed at home, oppressed abroad.

The rich corporations laugh all the way to their tax shelters in the Caymen Islands...while the little people vent their fear, rage and despair against each other.

from AlicetheKurious on this thread (http://rigorousintuition.ca/board/viewtopic.php?p=154659#154659)

World food stocks dwindling, UN warns
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
Published: December 17, 2007

The world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.

In an "unforeseen and unprecedented" shift, the world food supply is dwindling rapidly and food prices are soaring to historic levels, the top food and agriculture official of the United Nations warned Monday.

The changes created "a very serious risk that fewer people will be able to get food," particularly in the developing world, said Jacques Diouf, head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

The agency's food price index rose by more than 40 percent this year, compared with 9 percent the year before - a rate that was already unacceptable, he said. New figures show that the total cost of foodstuffs imported by the neediest countries rose 25 percent, to $107 million, in the last year.

At the same time, reserves of cereals are severely depleted, FAO records show. World wheat stores declined 11 percent this year, to the lowest level since 1980. That corresponds to 12 weeks of the world's total consumption - much less than the average of 18 weeks consumption in storage during the period 2000-2005. There are only 8 weeks of corn left, down from 11 weeks in the earlier period.

Prices of wheat and oilseeds are at record highs, Diouf said Monday. Wheat prices have risen by $130 per ton, or 52 percent, since a year ago. U.S. wheat futures broke $10 a bushel for the first time Monday, the agricultural equivalent of $100 a barrel oil.

Diouf blamed a confluence of recent supply and demand factors for the crisis, and he predicted that those factors were here to stay. On the supply side, these include the early effects of global warming, which has decreased crop yields in some crucial places, and a shift away from farming for human consumption toward crops for biofuels and cattle feed. Demand for grain is increasing with the world population, and more is diverted to feed cattle as the population of upwardly mobile meat-eaters grows.

"We're concerned that we are facing the perfect storm for the world's hungry," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program, in a telephone interview. She said that her agency's food procurement costs had gone up 50 percent in the past 5 years and that some poor people are being "priced out of the food market."

To make matters worse, high oil prices have doubled shipping costs in the past year, putting enormous stress on poor nations that need to import food as well as the humanitarian agencies that provide it.

"You can debate why this is all happening, but what's most important to us is that it's a long-term trend, reversing decades of decreasing food prices," Sheeran said.

Climate specialists say that the vulnerability will only increase as further effects of climate change are felt. "If there's a significant change in climate in one of our high production areas, if there is a disease that effects a major crop, we are in a very risky situation," said Mark Howden of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Canberra.

Already "unusual weather events," linked to climate change - such as droughts, floods and storms - have decreased production in important exporting countries like Australia and Ukraine, Diouf said.

In Southern Australia, a significant reduction in rainfall in the past few years led some farmers to sell their land and move to Tasmania, where water is more reliable, said Howden, one of the authors of a recent series of papers in the Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences on climate change and the world food supply.

"In the U.S., Australia, and Europe, there's a very substantial capacity to adapt to the effects on food - with money, technology, research and development," Howden said. "In the developing world, there isn't."

Sheeran said, that on a recent trip to Mali, she was told that food stocks were at an all time low. The World Food Program feeds millions of children in schools and people with HIV/AIDS. Poor nutrition in these groups increased the risk serious disease and death.

Diouf suggested that all countries and international agencies would have to "revisit" agricultural and aid policies they had adopted "in a different economic environment." For example, with food and oil prices approaching record, it may not make sense to send food aid to poorer countries, but instead to focus on helping farmers grow food locally.

FAO plans to start a new initiative that will offer farmers in poor countries vouchers that can be redeemed for seeds and fertilizer, and will try to help them adapt to climate change.

full article at the International Herald Tribune (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/17/europe/food.php#end_main)