Posted on 04/30/2009 2:15:52 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
WASHINGTON -- Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Thursday that increasing skilled foreign workers in the U.S. could mollify housing-price declines that have caused "the plunge in the value of the vast quantity of U.S. mortgage-based securities."
Mr. Greenspan said a separate group of workers, illegal immigrants, have made a "significant contribution" to the country's economic growth. He called for a temporary-worker program that could make use of that work force in a legal fashion.
"Unauthorized immigrants serve as a flexible component of our work force, often a safety valve when demand is pressing and among the first to be discharged when the economy falters," Mr. Greenspan said.
Unskilled illegal workers marginally suppress wage levels of native-born Americans without high-school diplomas, Mr. Greenspan said. Undocumented workers also impose significant costs on some state and local governments.
Mr. Greenspan said those costs are relatively small compared with the economic benefits of undocumented workers.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Greenspan is senile.
Well this is of a piece with the nod-and-wink of Greenspan’s era.
“Unskilled illegal workers marginally suppress wage levels of native-born Americans without high-school diplomas”
MARGINALLY? Marginally my ***. How about surpress wage levels big time.
This is the dirty secret the left hides. Illegal immigrants push down labor rates the most for the exact people the left say they care about.
Some people have absolutely no value in their lives other than the dollar sign, or maybe the euro, yen, pound, etc.
More and more policies in the USA are being made strictly on a bottom line basis. No other value enters the thinking of some, sort of like trading with the Nazis until forced to stop.
Just had another 640,000 people sign on for unemployment insurance and he thinks he wants to bring in millions of illegal aliens ~
~ so, what does he want them to do, cut his lawn a blade at a time?
Unskilled illegal labor is so cheap that businessmen do not invest in technology that would make Americans more productive. So, what really happens is business chases cheap labor because it is cheap. Communities subsidize the cheap labor raising the cost to Americans. Illegals have a net contribution in the red leading to a downward spiral, which is what we are now going through, negative growth. Greenspan is either senile or a liar. In other words he is not worth listening to.
Both the Democrats and Democrat Lites are responsible.
Nope. Greenspan gets it right. We do need DOCUMENTED workers. We need a system that issues work permits to foreign nationals that expire at a certain time and are regulated. What we have now is an uncontrolled border with zero documentation. As for allowing skilled immigrants or workers to come here and work, I believe that’s pretty much the way most of us (via our ancestors) got here in the first place.
Sure they did. By NOT paying taxes. By scamming every government social program under the sun, free medical care, free schooling, school lunches, free housing via welfare housing programs, free welfare, free food vouchers.
They also contribute to the legal system. Taxpayers pay for their free lawyers, and free housing in prison after their free day in court for : impaired driving, drug dealing, pimping, murder, break and enters, car theft, pimping, cooking crack, smuggling drugs.
Oh yea, real productive members of society they are.
Greenspan, shaddap already you dried up old prune. You've lost control of your faculties. That media prints the nonsense you babble explains why media is going bankrupt. It garbage nobody wants to read. They only buy the odd copy to line bird cages and kitty litter boxes, or to have on hand to get the fireplace fire going.
Can anyone see why this nation is in the shape it’s in? Idiots, crooks, perverts and incompetents have been running this country because “good men” refused to participate. Judges 9:8-15.
Bravo!
Not senile, rather truly pathetic.
If we couldn't import cheap immigrant labor, and their problems, we'd have new technology robots springing up all over the place, and our quality of living would move higher. In the cusp of the robotics age, cheap immigrant labor is lowering America's standard of living.
Jump on the team and come on in for the big win. Be the first on your block to sport a shinny new guest worker, they’re not just for the elite anymore.
The normalized wage for unskilled construction labor from the late 1970’s to now should by $22.00 to $28.00 per hour by any measure you’d like to use, be it CPI, inflation rate, Average Wage Rate, or whatever.
The illegals who now dominate the unskilled construction labor market are paid $12 to $15 per hour from what I’ve heard.
Bottom line is that illegals have undercut the unskilled American labor market by about 50 percent.
So of course they have all those labor jobs. They work cheap, and send the money back to Mexico/Central American to buy that $20,000 10 acre ranch.
Mr. Greenspan, you need to refer to a dictionary more frequently.
Immigrant(Emphasis Added)Im"mi*grant\, n. [L. immigrans, p. pr. of immigrare to go into: cf. F. immigrant. See Immigrate.] One who immigrates; one who comes to a country for the purpose of permanent residence; -- correlative of emigrant.
An illegal alien is NOT the same thing as an immigrant!
Illegal foreign workers are NOT immigrants!
An immigrant comes to America to become an American.
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