Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Two impolite questions.

Folks,

I have two impolite questions. Perhaps one of you can answer them.

1. How high does American unemployment have to get before we begin to seriously deport the illegals who compete for jobs and drive wages down?

2. Obama's big-deal "infrastructure plan" is going to mortgage your great-grandchildren's futures to do what exactly? Boost publicly-funded construction projects, right? Been by any construction projects lately? Who do you see? Cheap Mexican labor, right? So, can we more properly call this "Obama's Recovery Plan for Illegals"?

Sorry, folks. I told you they were impolite.

Mike
III

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Our unemployment will continue to climb irrespective of how many illegal aliens get deported or not. Reason? Corporate "Global Loyalty" has replaced "Corporate Nationalism" (Ex: Ford opened a new plant in Mexico because it was cheaper to hire Mexican nationals to make vehicles and then have them returned to CONUS rather than to open a new plant in CONUS.) in conjunction with union (read entitlement mindset, ie, "pay me very high wages whether or not my work merits the pay") hostage taking of what's left of American industry.

FWIW, the only way we're going to have a robust economy is to A: Get the federal government OUT of the market, B: Return to a gold standard and dump fiat money and fractional reserve banking, and C: Not allow the unions to keep their stranglehold on industry.

Ominous Cowherd said...

1) It doesn't matter how high unemployment gets, the U.S. government isn't going to do that. They need those cheap maids and gardeners.

2) Yes, you can accurately call it that. It would probably be even more accurate to call it something like ``Obama's recovery plan for politicians who get graft from construction contractors.''

Remember, enriching the powerful and their buddies is the primary purpose. Impoverishing you is important, but strictly secondary.

Anonymous said...

Answers to questions:

1). No matter how high the unemployment rate is, the current neocon/ultra-left administration will not do anything about the illegal problem. No matter how desperate the economy will get, they will continue to preach about asylum and illegals' rights. It would take a conservative/libertarian rebirth to enact any positive change in the government.

2) Yes, we can call it that. It is all about power. Just like the big dude in the movie "Platoon" said: "It's politics man, it's all politics man" Politics is damn right. These folks don't care if you and your children are starving. They won't care if you die in some foreign country fighting their dirty wars. However if as little as one drop of bird poop is found on their limosine windshields, they will send all branches of the government enforcement agencies, as well as heavily armed mercenaries, to track the pigeon down.

Anonymous said...

http://market-ticker.org/ is predicting 30% unemployment. Along with assorted other collapse-type events. No funds available for any sort of law enforcement, for example (and certainly not entitlement programs).

Thing is he backs it all up with pretty solid evidence, and his predictions from last year have mostly held up.

Kent McManigal said...

All rights for everyone, or we are playing right into the hands of the state. Not impolite questions, just wrong, based upon the incorrect assumptions of those who would like us to get "them" to "do something" about an imaginary "problem" that only the state can "solve".

Anonymous said...

"All rights for everyone, or we are playing right into the hands of the state."

+1. Free people will produce their ways around problems like this.

Look: it daily warms my heart to consider that, somewhere far away, some peasant is breaking his neck so that he can save a sack of coppers which will allow him to board a conveyance suitable to his station and come to America and wash my car.

This is a glorious thing. This is an American thing. My great-grandfather did it, and in his name I reject every other course.

Freedom, ladies and gentlemen. It means what it says.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Mike, I think you are way wrong on this one. I'm surprised you would think they would stop with "illegals". If it worked, why not load gun owners into the next box car? Government can't be trusted with the power to ship people around. Don't fall into the nationalism trap.

Anonymous said...

Alan sez: Sorry Mike, I think you are way wrong on this one. I'm surprised you would think they would stop with "illegals". If it worked, why not load gun owners into the next box car? Government can't be trusted with the power to ship people around. Don't fall into the nationalism trap.

MBV: I'm an american. I was born one and I will die one. I believe in American exceptionalism. I also believe in the rule of law in a constitutional republican system of limited powers and codified natural rights.

Now, I object to illegal immigration on two grounds: first, that it is flaunting the rule of law and the only thing that holds the system together is the agreement that laws apply to one and all. Break that compact, and the system flies apart into tribalism.

Second, it is in fact tribalism and collectivism which is being used against the constitutional republic here. The integration of 15 million illegals into the voter registration rolls means collectivism as far as the eye can see as they gratefully labor upon the Democrats' political latifundista plantation to deliver election after election.

I would actually prefer to throw millionaire employers in federal prison for the crime. After that is done ten or twenty times to establish the precedent, the jobs will dry up and the illegals will deport themselves.

The fact that the jobs themselves would then go overseas is of little concern to me. For that is the way capitalism works. But at least that process is not nitric acid upon the rule of law -- which is what illegal immigration is today.

Kent McManigal said...

"flaunting the rule of law"

Just as we, as 3 percenters, are doing when we refuse to obey counterfeit "laws" against guns. When the "law" is counterfeit, it is right to "flaunt" it.

I do not belong to any government, and I refuse to pretend otherwise. Since I accept that what is right for me is right for everyone else, I refuse to act as though anyone else belongs to a government, either, EXCEPT for those who willingly sell themselves into slavery to a government in one way or another.

Black Flag said...

Unemployment is not caused by 'illegal' workers (when did it become illegal to work? ...very strange concept...)

Unemployment is caused by the inflationary program of the government in place since 1937.

Inflation causes the mis-allocation of jobs into production that can only be sustained by continuous debt.

When the economy finally is forced to eliminate the debt, the jobs dependent on inflation and debt will disappear. While the workers realign into productive means, there will be large numbers of unemployed.

There is NO competition for jobs in the market where foreign workers dominate. They are here because of the lack of competition - there are too many jobs unfilled in that particular marketplace.

You choose not to work cleaning toilets - yet demand those that will do that job be called 'illegal' and kicked out of the country - very strange thinking, not?

2) Government love infrastructure building - but the ROI on such investments are terribly bad - measured by centuries. That is the problem - not the workers. By tying up enormous amounts of capital into very long term, low return projects will only lead to a stagnation of the economy - you can only spend a dollar once - and if you mire it in concrete for 100 years, it will not make jobs in the economy.

Anonymous said...

I believe in American exceptionalism. I also believe in the rule of law in a constitutional republican system of limited powers and codified natural rights.

What experimental data leads you to believe in this? This exact system has been tried, and it led to today's results. No matter what else, we've learned that particular system doesn't work in the 100-year long term.

Anonymous said...

Illegal immigration is a symptom, not the sickness. It's a symptom of the vast system of social welfare in the USA. End socialized medicine, socialized education, and various other government handouts such as farm subsidies, and you'll see illegal immigration dry up fairly quickly.

"If Hispanics were coming here under the rules that welcomed my Scottish and Irish ancestors,[i.e. hardly no rules at all] we’d still be a nation of legal immigrants." - David Boaz

Anonymous said...

Having no time to argue these points, I will simply have to live with my "apostasy."

I retract nothing. I concede nothing.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous say: "What experimental data leads you to believe in this? This exact system has been tried, and it led to today's results. No matter what else, we've learned that particular system doesn't work in the 100-year long term."

Neither does communism or collectivism of any sort. What else have the big collectivist monster machines done for the world except send 170 million people to their graves in the last century?

Look at China. Even they had to pick up constitutionalism and republicanism in the end, even if it means slowly. The "great social experiment of the 60s" was a failure. Corrupt officials started to fund their own private little mercenary Red Guards and civil war almost broke out, had the reformists and moderates had not tried to cool the hot coils down with plenty of ice water and common sense.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous say: "Making "illegal Mexicans" into a scapegoat is just as racist and wrong as when Jews, gays, and Gypsies were the scapegoat. Infringing the freedom to travel or the freedom to work is just as bad as infringing the freedom to bear arms. The "rule of law" is mostly evil, used by evil people to do evil things."

We are not trying to make anyone into a scapegoat. If they want to immigrate so much, why don't they do it legally? Why break the laws of the United States and hold the law of the land in contempt by bringing crime and violence with them? After all, the drug gangs and violence didn't just materialize overnight in our cities like mushrooms after a rain, didn't it?

Anonymous said...

"...it is flaunting the rule of law..."

So is a great deal of the Three Percenter position.

The "law", sir, is an ass.

Anonymous said...

(sigh.)

It didn't use to be, Billy. It didn't use to be.

Anonymous said...

Mike, I appreciate your taking the time to repond to my comment and willingness to discuss the issue, I really enjoy your writing and agree with almost everything else you've said, in fact, four or five years ago I would have agreed with you on this one too, but I feel very strongly now that the kind of nationalism you are espousing is dangerously toxic to freedom and liberty.

I'm an american. I was born one and I will die one. I believe in American exceptionalism. I also believe in the rule of law in a constitutional republican system of limited powers and codified natural rights.

I'm a free man. I disagree that natural rights must be codified by some government to exist. Rights don't have anything to do with which piece of dirt one was born on, they exist for everyone by virtue of one's existence. I'm sure you would agree the right to bear arms pre-existed government. Since the term "American" is somewhat ambiguous, I'm not sure if you are refering to people or government. If you mean people... Wow, just, wow. That's nationalism pushing into racism. If you mean the US government, it may be "exceptional" (superior) to other forms of government, in that it was mandated to protect certain rights. But it has failed to do so. Saying that it is better is like saying skin cancer is better than bone cancer because it's more treatable.

Now, I object to illegal immigration on two grounds: first, it is flaunting the rule of law and the only thing that holds the system together is the agreement that laws apply to one and all. Break that compact, and the system flies apart into tribalism. --[emphasis added]

As my hipper-than-me friends would say, "Hypocritical much?" As long as it's the laws you agree with?

Second, it is in fact tribalism and collectivism which is being used against the constitutional republic here. The integration of 15 million illegals into the voter registration rolls means collectivism as far as the eye can see as they gratefully labor upon the Democrats' political latifundista plantation to deliver election after election.

First, your nationalism is tribalism and your constitutional republic is a collective, so you're already there.

Second, the problem isn't "illegal" aliens, it is the welfare state. The US is a welfare state, it will attract people looking for handouts. Remove the welfare state and replace it with liberty and what kind of people will you attract? Freedom-loving, independent entrepreneurs. The kind of people who are exceptional. The kind of people that can help maintain real freedom.

Legal immigrants and most other "Americans" are just people who have already bent their knee to the state.

Finally, one branch of the Republican-Democrat party packing their ranks with one brand of socialist is just further evidence that voting is a bad idea. (Yes, I still vote, call it a fighting retreat.) It's never okay to force anyone to do something they don't want to do even if everyone except them thinks so.

I would actually prefer to throw millionaire employers in federal prison for the crime. After that is done ten or twenty times to establish the precedent, the jobs will dry up and the illegals will deport themselves.

That sounds like something a liberal would say. Punish the evil capitalist for the crime of turning the best profit he can. And also the immigrant who is actually working. We can see where those high-paying American jobs for real Americans have gotten the American auto makers.

The fact that the jobs themselves would then go overseas is of little concern to me. For that is the way capitalism works. But at least that process is not nitric acid upon the rule of law -- which is what illegal immigration is today.

The jobs are already going overseas because of the regulations ("rule of law") that make doing business here too expensive. Unfortunately, that ships the higher paying management jobs overseas, too. As you say though, that is the way capitalism works and that's cool, too.

Some of that "American exceptionalism" you're looking for may be in the illegals who have already risked their lives fighting and evading not one but two governments to better their families' lives.