Illegal immigration and outsourcing is the same thing.

[dkf]

Both have the goal of employers replacing higher wage earners so someone without benefits working below minimum wage will do it cheaper. Everytime you argue that the job the illegal immigrant is doing is beneath the dignity of the American worker you are saying that job could be outsourced and we don't care.

But the big corporations have fooled you into thinking that an illegal immigrant getting the jobs is fine because if you fight against it you are a racist. Wake up people. The jobs that illegal immigrants are doing are the ones that can't be moved out of this country yet. They will be the jobs that still exist after the other jobs have left. You better fight for that job because it doesn't seem like other opportunities will come up soon in this crappy jobs market.

[xchrom]

1. No it isn't. Nt

[dkf]

4. Why not?

[Motown_Johnny]

7. because some of the wages are spent locally, unlike outsourced jobs

I will agree that it is similar and both are problems but if you are limiting the discussion only to the wages the problem of outsourced jobs is greater than that of illegal labor.


If you add in other factors illegals are a greater problem (IMO) but your post does not seem to address those factors.

[Hello_Kitty]

38. Oh well, that totally makes the abuse and exploitation okay.

Other people are profiting!

[Motown_Johnny]

51. did you read my post?

I said it is different because some of the money is spent here in the U.S., unlike outsourced wages that all go overseas.


I also said that the illegal worker problem is larger than outsourcing when you consider other factors besides wages.

[silverojo]

6. Wow, what a well-thought-out argument!

These issues are exactly the same thing: Corporations and companies using cheaper labor to undercut the American worker, and break the backs of unions.

People need to stop looking at skin color, and see this for what it really is. Corporate America is killing the middle class, doing its best to create a culture of rich bosses and poorly-paid workers.

Every time a job goes to China or India, every time someone here illegally takes a job for less money than an American should be paid, the fat cats laugh their asses off, all the way to the bank.

And the American people let it happen, because they're too busy screaming RACISM!!11! to see the truth. When Americans object to Hispanics undercutting American workers, they're supposedly racist. Yet, strangely, it's not racist to object to brown-skinned people in China and India taking our jobs!

It's either racism or it isn't, folks--can't have it both ways.

[SkyDaddy7]

8. No they are not!

Have you seen this?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100624/ap_on_en_tv/us_immigration_take_our_jobs


I love this! I think a grand total of 3 Americans have applied since the offer!

[Hello_Kitty]

39. Yes, isn't it hilarious to pit one poor group of people against another?

Gee, I don't suppose anyone tried to figure out why the unemployed Americans didn't sign up for those jobs. Lack of transportation and child care, maybe?

Never mind. Go back to romanticizing the desperate poverty of the immigrants and justifying their exploitation. "See? They really LOOOOOOVE to do our shit work! It's their culture!!"

[SkyDaddy7]

42. Are you ok?

That made no sense.

Are illegal immigrants taking jobs from Americans as the GOP is always claiming?

Even with a special campaign to get Americans to do the work these people come here to do...How many Americans are taking the offer?

Try again.

[EnviroBat]

43. Because we are being forced to lower our standards of living.

No one I know could hope to survive in this economy on a job paying below minimum wage unless they were willing to live 6 to a one bedroom apartment and share the bills, food, and miscellaneous expenses required to survive in this great capitalist nation. IMHO, I believe illegals come here to live in shitty conditions and be exploited because they honestly believe things will get better. They buy into that whole "land of opportunity" bullshit.

Now Americans don't want to work in those crap conditions because quite honestly, they shouldn't have to. Not when so many of them have college degrees and years of work experience in fields which afforded them the opportunity to live a comfortable existence, while paying taxes to the thieves running the show. But I guess they bought into the "land of opportunity" bullshit as well. Because you see, when corporations run our government, (as they do now), the only opportunities available are for corporations.

[SkyDaddy7]

48. I totally agree...

my entire point was the right wing says illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans...From "their" point of view I disagree.

However, if the pay was higher I agree more Americans "might" work in the fields.

What hourly wage would be worth working in the fields? $12; $15; $20...?

I know this will incite anger but it is a fact of life in a Capitalist System...Paying a decent wage to get Americans to work in the fields would naturally cause produce prices to skyrocket putting even more stress on the working poor.

Or farms would shut down and America would outsource these jobs as well by importing produce which would be just as expensive for the consumer.

PLEASE DON'T ANYONE COME AT ME WITH "So, you would prefer immigrants to do are nasty work for scraps so we can enjoy low food prices!"

HELL NO, that is not what I am saying...I am just pointing out a fact that cannot be overlooked.

Do I have an answer, NO, I do not...Does anyone else?

[Hello_Kitty]

44. Of course it doesn't make sense to you. Because the poorest Americans aren't pissed on enough.

Aren't vilified and blamed enough. The fact that they wouldn't line up to pick lettuce for minimum wage and awful working conditions is proof of their inferior and of the need to bring in desperately poor people from elsewhere to do those jobs.

But let's not look at the jobs themselves and ask why they have to be that way. Oh no. We can't do that.

[Axle_techie]

41. I applied

but where I live, there are no jobs... :( I am instead using my last savings to complete IT certifications to get into the computer world... Always jobs there... ones that can actually support a family.

I do got to say, though. I worked picking lettuce outside of Yuma, AZ. I made $12.00/hr, not minimum wage like the website mentions, and was threatened off the job by the "migrant workers" so that one of their relatives got the job. Not angry though, got a better job back in cali less than a month later.

[ixion]

2. In a sense, I would agree

Outsourcing has decimated what an software engineer can charge in the US.

[dkf]

3. It has decimated opportunities for people with high school degrees or less.

And with the dismal state of our educational system that is a lot of people.

[rucky]

5. Same result. Job Displacement.

That's what people are pissed about. All these big gubmit resources to support corporations and no jobs to show for it. We're getting a raw deal, and corporation continue to swindle us out of our livelihoods and get a pass from the immigrant haters.

[d_r]

9. I started to agree

But then I saw where you are going. I agree with where you started. I think the concern is more outsourcing, not immigration. Immigrants are doing bottom of the ladder jobs; when a plant is closed and moved over seas it takes the good paying manufacturing jobs. There's a real difference.

[Mojeoux]

53. d_r has made an important point in this discussion.

The really good jobs are the one's being outsourced. Union jobs. You can't outsource farm labor or yard work or kitchen work or caring for the elderly and dying.
Only the "illegals" put money back into our economy, but it's a poor wage and part of it is sent home to an even poorer place.

The middle class and minorities are in the same sinking boat.

That still doesn't prove that there isn't racism in the Anti- "Illegals" movement.
There is racism in this thread.

[unblock]

10. nonsense. undocumented workers spend money here, not there.

when jobs are offshored, the wages paid help the u.s. economy only to the extent that that capital eventually works its way back to us. the foreign employee/employer buys something locally who buys something from a different company in a different country, and so on, until eventually someone imports something from the u.s., THAT eventually, hopefully, leads to a job gained or at least retained in the u.s.

when undocumented workers get paid, they immediately turn around and pay rent, groceries, utilities, and so on right here in the u.s. yes, some undocumented workers send their "profits" to the rest of their family back in their home country, but that's only after a healthy chunk of their money is doing a whole lot of economic good right here.

the fact of the matter is that it's a simplistic lie to say that undocumented workers cost jobs. yes, they compete for the jobs they actually hold, but then they turn around and pay out money, effectively creating jobs all around them.

immigration creates jobs, whether documented or not.

[Derechos]

11. I agree.

[SunnySong]

12. No illegal immigration destroys jobs that used to support American amilies...

Not everyone can be an NGO executive making six-figures... for those that do not have a college education or a clean prison record the trades offer a way to earn a good living with dignity...Illegal immigration cuts these people at the knees. The fact that employers often hire light skinned illegals to replace darker skinned American workers simply ads the cherry of racism to the the sundae of hopeless caused by the illegal workforce.

[unblock]

15. it's hardly the case that you need to be a 6-figure exec to benefit from their local spending

and it's not the documentation or lack thereof or the legality of it at all. if we simply raised the legal immigration limits then they could all be documented and legal and that would not change the economics of it one bit.

they compete for the jobs they actually hold, and i agree that directly hurts americans already in those fields. however, they then spend locally and this in turn creates other jobs, and not just jobs with demanding credentials.

[pinboy3niner]

16. That's true. Economists say the net effect on the economy, jobs and wages is positive.

".... Study after study has shown that immigrants grow the economy, expanding demand for goods and services that the foreign-born workers and their families consume, and thereby creating jobs. There is even broad agreement among economists that while immigrants may push down wages for some, the overall effect is to increase average wages for American-born workers."

Does Immigration Cost Jobs?
Economists say immigration, legal or illegal, doesn't hurt American workers.
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/05/does-immigration-cost-jobs/

[Romulox]

19. That article is about "immigrants", not *illegal* immigrants...

This is not a subtle difference. :hi:

[pinboy3niner]

20. No, it's about "immigration, legal or illegal."

Here's the subtitle of the article:

Economists say immigration, legal or illegal, doesn't hurt American workers."

[Romulox]

23. That's its claim, but it presents no specific data regarding *illegal* immigration

as opposed to *legal*, so there is simply no way to assess this assertion other than to point out that the author has not presented data sufficient to make his point.

In fact, this is the way in which the issue is treated. Far from exhaustive:

But whether they’re legal, as in the CFAW ad, or illegal, as in our two other examples, really doesn’t matter for the purpose of answering our question

Um, in fact it this is at the heart of the assertion you want to make, and yet the author says it "doesn't matter" enough for him to actually look at the question. :hi:

[unblock]

21. it's a completely irrelevant difference

if we were to make them all legal by amnesty, it would change the economics not one bit.

if we were to raise the limit for legal immigration sky high, we'd have the same dynamic, only more extreme (more displacement for low-end job but also more local spending, spurring creation of new jobs). but they'd all be legal. what does that matter?

[Romulox]

26. Your completely wrong on your first assertion.

In fact, it does matter, as evidenced by the fact that the last amnesty, under Reagan, neither "solved" this issue nor did it broadly raise wages for stoop labor. Amnesty without enforcement simply means another massive crush of wage depressing illegal labor.

what does that matter?

This country is supposedly a representative republic operated "by and for the people". To the extent that the policies you mention are not in the interest of the citizens of this country, they enact laws against them. That's why it matters. :hi:

[unblock]

28. my point is that the legality of it and the economics of it are unrelated

sure, i'm in agreement that if we're gonna have laws, they should be enforced properly and fairly. if we want immigration at a low level, we should control our borders better; if we want immigration at a higher level, we should have higher quotas. tolerating higher immigration with lower quotas is pretty cynical from a governance standpoint.

and i don't recall the amnesty doing much of anything from an economic standpoint, but in particular, i was referring to the granting of resident status, rather than the legislated crackdown on employers that is rarely enforced. the legality of an immigrant's status has no real bearing on the economics of the situation.

enforcing a lower limit on immigration, and cracking down on employers hiring undocumented workers would indeed have an impact. it would protect those jobs for legal residents, and help shift undocumented workers into other jobs, or onto social services.

[Romulox]

30. My simple response is that the illegality is precisely the point.

For example, child labor has been documented in our fields and slaughterhouses. The illegality of this practice is precisely the point, on several levels: first, that children are not supposed to be working in such a dangerous job in the first instance; second, that this child has virtually no power to bargain for better wages or working conditions; third, that the child has no recourse to the authorities to protest any objectionable conditions.

But "legalizing" this child doesn't solve the problem of child labor at the slaughterhouse--the illegality is largely the point. So the "legal" child will not be employed cleaning carcasses any more, and he will be replaced with another child without legal status. It's what happened after Reagan's amnesty, and it will happen after Obama's, too.

So I will respectfully disagree. The entire issue turns on the legality of these practices. In short, saying we can't control immigration is saying we can't regulate things like child labor. I say again, the illegality of this practice is the entire point of the practice.

[Hello_Kitty]

37. "may push down wages for some"

That "some" is young people, minorities, people with a high school education or less. IOW, the base of the Democratic Party.

But who cares about them? :eyes:

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[lumberjack_jeff]

45. False

a) Remittances are Mexico's biggest source of income.

http://ourlatinamerica.blogspot.com/2010/07/remittances-to-mexico-increase.html

Their primary export is people.

b) If illegal aliens weren't doing the job, a legal worker would. Probably at a higher wage and spending 100% of his/her wages in the US.

[unblock]

54. those statements are not germaine

a) first, mexico's largest source of income is still oil, although remittances have been on the rise over the last decade in particular and are now number 2. however, remittances as a percentage of the foreign country's gdp is completely irrelevant to OUR economy. what matters is how much of our capital is fleeing the country via remittances, regardless of which country (and, for that matter, regardless of whether or not the immigrant is documented).

b) you are correct that, as long as we're not near full employment (thank you gee dubya) there's likely a long line of replacements for just about any job, notwithstanding the idiotic republican talking points about how real americans don't want to do the work that undocumented workers to. you are also correct that whoever takes the job, documented or not, citizen or not, will spend much of the money in the u.s. you are also correct, to some extent, that the longer one is in the u.s., the less likely they are to export money (this has more to do with first generation immigrants who leave some family behind, not necessarily undocumented workers only.)

however, if immigration (documented or otherwise) goes down, then so does aggregate demand, which means fewer jobs all around.


the bottom line is that virtually all the arguments used to support stronger enforcement of immigration laws are really complaints about lax enforcement of labor laws, and i fully support strong enforcement of labor laws and a restoration of union power. if employers were forced to pay undocumented workers minimum wage and their share of fica tax and so on, then none of the other arguments make much sense.

[mkultra]

13. racists crap

They are just workers, like anyone else, who are responding to market demands.

[dkf]

36. Full employment increases wages

Excess labor depresses wages. Illegal immigration increases the labor pool therefore depressing wages. This increases the disparity between the rich and the poor.

[mkultra]

49. Wrong, Corporate domination creates low wages

Which in turn creates a vacuum that immigrants fill. Your supply demand corporatist model does not apply fully to this paradigm. If you look at UE numbers you will see that regardless of employment demand, UE will always stay about 4.5% due to the human condition. Added workers create added wage generation which creates added spending which creates added demand. People that come to America ADD to the economy as long as they actually work when they get here. If you flooded the borders with people clamoring for work, they would eventually all become employed do to the Keynesian growth paradigm.

This completely ignores that fact that WE created this problem through lack of regulation and farm subsidy. NAFTA caused Mexican farmers to go out of business when US subsidized corn flooded mexico. At the same time, the us meat packing industry was gaining a strangle hold on processing and slowly drove down wages through lack of unionization. When workers dried up, they advertised in Mexico for US work which is what started the whole migration to begin with. If the workers hadn't come here, they would have simply moved the plants to Mexico.


Pull your head out of your ass. You can either export companies or import labor. Take your pick.

[dkf]

52. So you agree that outsourcing and using illegal workers is the same thing then?

Well that was my original point.

But jobs like farming a particular plot of land can't be moved. Unless whoever owns that land wants to leave it fallow or sells it to convert to other uses that won't work.

[pampango]

47. God save us from poor foreigners! We don't need to become a "gated" country with high tariffs and

little immigration. That seems like a republican strategy (and was in the days of Smoot-Hawley) consistent with their lifestyle in their gated communities here that keep out the riff-raff (the rest of us) so they can go avoid the problems that the rest of us have to deal with. It was FDR that dismantled Smoot-Hawley and worked to ensure that it wouldn't come back after WWII and JFK/LBJ who opened up immigration in the 1960's.

[mkultra]

50. exactly, Those that fear immigrants are hiding a real fear of brown

[inna]

14. Yep, and similarly with foreign visa and temp workers.

The idea is to undermine labor, and suppress wages.

Profits, profits.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Edweird]

33. Bingo.

[ismnotwasm]

17. Well, I don't agree

For the same reasons others who disagree have stated.

[Romulox]

18. In my opinion, outsourcing and/or illegal immigration will have only gone too far

when it is my job is threatened. It is racist for a landscaper, for example, to protest competition from illegal immigrants; I am not a landscaper, after all.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Romulox]

31. Hard to believe that the response to me was deleted.

It violated no rules of which I am aware. It was not a personal attack on me or anyone else.

[Edweird]

32. Thank You.

[Morning Dew]

27. I don't hear people say that certain jobs are beneath the dignity of the American worker

I hear that certain jobs have wages that are too low to make them viable for workers who, for whatever reason, won't sleep 7 to a one bedroom apartment.

[Romulox]

29. Wages are supposed to RISE for undesirable jobs.

"I hear that certain jobs have wages that are too low to make them viable..."

These jobs shouldn't exist in a rational (and not to mention fair) labor market.

[Hello_Kitty]

40. Thank you. It is IMPOSSIBLE to have a "labor shortage" and decreasing wages. eom

[lumberjack_jeff]

46. Exactly. n/t

[Spike89]

34. Beside the point anyway

This isn't a clearcut economic crisis we're in, it is incredibly complex. To discuss the chronic unemployment and underemployment in this country you simply can not just look at outsourcing and immigration (legal and undocumented).

For instance, few people seem to notice that Japan has outsourced much of its auto production to the U.S. and that we now actually "produce" a higher percentage of our vehicles domestically than we did a generation ago. (yeah, I know many parts are imported and few of the new jobs are union, but that's another discussion). Even though lots of cars are being built, the overall number of factory jobs in that industry is shrinking.

Productivity gains, mostly from computers and robotics, have been huge over the past generation. Assembly lines simply require fewer and fewer human hands. Even "white collar" jobs in these factories are hugely affected (a single CAD designer can produce what a team of draftsman were required for, and with fewer people, we need fewer managers, etc.)

The answer isn't to destroy all robots, but to develop an economy that values what only humans can do. That requires an investment in education way beyond what we now spend. It's time we truly make the changes socially and economically that are necessary for moving into the information age.

[customerserviceguy]

35. There's one crucial difference

With outsourcing, the expenses of the workers are covered by their own means or their own government, with illegal immigration, businesses and farmers pass on the expenses of education, emergency healthcare, and law enforcement on to the citizens of the areas surrounding the employers.

[apocalypsehow]

55. This is an interesting take on the situation, and one I confess I've never considered in depth.

I'll have to think over the thesis of your OP, and I thank you for posting something of actual intellectual worth regardless of whether I ultimately agree with you or not.

One thing I won't doing is simply spewing "No, it isn't. n/t." or hurling racism accusations or simply huffing and puffing nonsense or any of the other dodges I've seen in this thread in lieu of an actual argument/refutation.