The Poor Keep Getting Poorer

Sierra Vista Herald/Review ^ | 19 February 2004 | Jim Behnke

[valkyrieanne]

Illegals may well drive down the cost of housecleaning, gardening, handyman projects, and babysitting to the everyday homeowner who sees their best interest as saving money and letting someone else do work they don't have time for but want done. Until john q public wakes up and realizes they are also an employer and breaking the laws of the land, this problem will continue. These people won't benefit from increased minimum wage laws, they aren't covered in the first place.

Ironic, isn't it, that Americans in many states pay illegals to do their housework and gardening, and then go out and join an expensive gym. We need to dig our own flowerbeds, water our own grass, and raise our own children, for crying out loud.

[Lazamataz]

I was 16 and had a job before I first had any clothes that were bought new for me; prior to that other families just handed down their kids clothes to us when they outgrew them.

I was 57 before I had any clothes at all.

[Chris Talk]

LOL!

PS I love your posts, you are one of my favorite FReepers.

[calljack]

We were so poor

There were 150 of us living in a shoebox in the middle of the road.

We used to live in a paper bag in a septic tank.

We used to live in a lake.

Thank you MPFC

[FITZ]

And most people do just that. very few people who were making minimum wage ten years ago are still doing so.

That depends on where you live. Here more people actually are making minimum wage than they were ten years ago, many of the garment workers were making $8 to $10 an hour back before NAFTA --- that wiped out 14,000 jobs, very few jobs moved in --- and now if those people are working --- and many never will again, they make minimum wage. Here one out of three jobs pays minimum wage, only one out of three pays over $10 an hour.

[FITZ]

We were so poor --- that we did farm work, mowing lawns, babysitting etc as kids. And we were so poor that my dad who wasn't very poor didn't believe in allowances.

[FITZ]

In the meantime, the poor will get poorer and poorer.

What is going on too is that we're importing massive amounts of poverty. The poor today are less educated than ever, we have huge welfare programs that didn't exist before that appeal to many of our new poor, and a lot of the poverty is cultural. Unwed mothers are quite a lot younger than ever in the past --- 20 years ago it was considered shocking for a 16 or 17 year old to become an unwed mother, now it's not shocking to see 12 year old unwed mothers.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I was too poor to go to church. We blew around outside at the mercy of the wind.

CG

[Conspiracy Guy]

MPFC was just a public display of old we were so poor stuff. But the Lumberjack Song is great.

CG

[Conspiracy Guy]

That is child abuse.

CG

[Conspiracy Guy]

Johnny come lately.

CG

[B4Ranch]

Only in the eyes of people who love their children and whose children love them.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Johnny come lately.

CG

[Conspiracy Guy]

I'm with you and Fritz. My children are successful young adults and know the value of a dollar. I have been very silly on this post because I do not think the sky is falling.

Logging out. Later

CG

[Mr. Jeeves]

The author states that low-wage employees have been testing the American doctrine that hard work cures poverty.

Hard work when misdirected doesn't cure anything. Many times people with a good work ethic put a lot of effort into pursuing directions that will never pay off for them, or they just honestly don't know how to be successful. A good grounding in the fundamentals of personal financial management is essential...but no one is ever going to get that from a government school.

[4.1O dana super trac pak]

BUMP

[Kay Ludlow]

If the illegals couldn't get work, most wouldn't come here.

By the same token, if we as consumers shop for the lowest price rather than looking at any of the issues that make the price lower, we too are to blame. Walmart, for example, has chosen to maintain it's profit margin by importing chinese goods subsidized by the People's Republic of China.

When we buy that stuff (because it is cheaper) we are voting for their policy of buying chinese. When we shop around for the cheapest contractor to remodel our kitchen, then go ahead with it even when his employees seem clearly to be illegal, we vote for the contractors choice to use illegal aliens. Actually, even when we go to Hollywood movies, watch leftist TV shows because they're funny or even (for some) buy porn, we are voting with our dollars for what they are providing.

If enough of us bought products that met our principled stand, they would win in the market place. It's normal though, and natural, to buy by price. That's why the founders had all revenue for the government come from excise taxes - it helped establish American business from within by raising prices to those from the outside.

In other words, it isn't only the fault of those willing to work cheap, it's also the fault of those willing to buy cheap.

[Republic If You Can Keep It]

Jim Behnke is no bozo,

But does he play one on TV?

[brianl703]

illegal aliens also drive taxes up.

[B4Ranch]

Actually I do see much, much harder times ahead unless we stop illegal immigration. Getting rid of the illegals in America would be a step I'd take also.

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