Posted on 04/30/2009 2:15:52 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
What can you say about a guy who thinks that economic growth, full employment, and pay raises are the worse things that can happen to an economy?
Well I guess he forgot small things like the standard of living and when demand is high that means Overtime and weekend work,Not the third world being allowed in to take Jobs.
--Among immigrants who arrived in 2006 or later unemployment is 13.3 percent.
--The number of unemployed immigrants increased 1.3 million (130 percent) since the third quarter of 2007. Among natives the increase was five million (81 percent).
--There is no way to know if the current trend will continue, but these very high unemployment rates for immigrants and natives raises the question of whether it makes sense to continue admitting so many new immigrants. In FY 2008, some 1.45 million new immigrants (temporary and permanent) were given work authorization.
--Unemployment has risen faster among the least educated immigrants. The unemployment rate for immigrants without a high school diploma has increased 9.9 percentage points since the third quarter of 2007 to 14.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009. For natives without a high school diploma it increased 7.9 percentage points to 19.5 percent during the same period.
Right now we are importing more than 120,000 foreign workers a month [1.45 million annually] and many of them are going on to the unemployment rolls. Our immigration policy is not linked to our economic needs. This is a scandal that needs to be exposed.
That was then, this is now. Technology is at the point where autonomous robots are viable, without having to deal with immigrant problems. If it wasn't for cheap Central American labor, some of use would have high paying jobs building, programming, and servicing lettuce picking robots. If engineers and doctors didn't have their wages driven down by H-1Bs there would be more advanced software and other technology to leverage their productivity.
California spends an extra $10 billion per year on school, healthcare, and jails for illegals and their families. Run the math: how many robotic lettuce pickers could California buy every year for $10 billion, and give FREE to the farmers? How much more would the robot builders and employees pay in taxes compared to the immigrants? Which option would produce a better quality of American life?
A great racket. Certain people reap all the economic benefits and the middle class and lower class domestic riffraff pick up the tab economically, tax-wise and socially. But a stable society based on the centuries-old values of American respect for the law provided the environment that made their wealth possible in the first place. But if they destroy the fabric of life for the mass of Americans through massive abetting of law-breaking, their wealth will cannot forever insulate them from the consequences. Even the banana plantation owners had to periodically call in the marines from the home country to keep order. If the homeland becomes a giant banana plantaion, who will they call?
They've definitely made significant contributions to our budget deficits and national debt. Illegals suppress the wages of citizens, and make use of government programs that subsidize all low wage earners, including those whose wages gave been suppressed by the illegals.
Our federal and state and some local budgets contain programs that provide huge subsidies to low wages: the Earned Income Tax Credit, food stamps, Medicaide, school lunch programs, child health care, all sorts of housing subsidies, and on and on.
All the schemes that provide cheap labor for employers add billions to federal and state budgets and deficits, which are nothing more than taxpayer subsidies for cheap labor. A truly enlightened government would stop the schemes that provide cheap labor, let wages be set by legal supply and demand, and realize many billions in reduced gov't subsidy programs for cheap labor.
But that would take some enlightenment which our bought and paid for folks in Congress are not now capable of.
See my post #23. We are already bringing in 1.45 million documented workers a year now. Every month including this one, we are bringing in over 120,000 foreign documented workers into this country either as immigrants or on non-immigrant work visas. And this during a time when we have 8.5% unemployment and the black unemployment is 13.3%. More than 13 million Americans are out of work and the number is growing, but the foreign workers still stream in. This is insanity.
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.
This isn't the America of our ancestors. We don't need mass immigration that brings in 1.2 million legal immigrants a year.
The U.S. adds one international migrant (net) every 36 seconds. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest it has been in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born. Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in net immigration of 1.25 million. Since 1970, the U.S. population has increased from 203 million to 306 million, i.e., over 100 million. In the next 40 years, the population will increase by 135 million. Three-quarters of the increase in our population since 1970 and the projected increase will be the result of immigration. The U.S., the world’s third most populous nation, has the highest annual rate of population growth of any developed country in the world, i.e., 0.975% (2009 estimate), principally due to immigration.
Immigration, legal and illegal, has had and will continue to have a major and far-reaching impact across a broad spectrum of existential challenges that confront this nation, e.g., national security, the economy/global competitiveness, jobs, health care, taxes, energy independence, education, entitlement reform, law enforcement, social welfare programs, physical infrastructure, the environment, civil liberties, and a continued sense of national identity/shared sense of endeavor. Immigration is the defining issue of our time with enormous implications for the future of this nation and the preservation of our patrimony. Yet, seldom will you hear immigration mentioned by our political and intellectual elites in connection with these challenges.
EVERY LAST ONE OF THESE FREE-TRAITORS SHOULD BE PUT UP AGAINST A WALL AND HAVE THE LIVING SNOT BEAT OUT OF THEM!!!!!
YOU SEE THESE HARD WORKING AMERICANS LOSING THEIR HOMES, LOSING THEIR JOBS, LOSING THEIR STANDARD OF LIVING!!!! THANK YOU FREE-TRAITORS!!! YOU PEOPLE MAKE ME SICK TO MY STOMACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Massive low-skill immigration works to counteract government anti-poverty efforts. While government works to reduce the number of poor persons, low-skill immigration pushes the poverty numbers up. In addition, low-skill immigration siphons off government anti-poverty funding and makes government efforts to shrink poverty less effective.
Milton Friedman said, “You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.”
Excellent point. Transfering private sector labor costs to the taxpayer.
There’s an attitdue among some that America is no more than an economy. To make matters worse its an economy that is based on numbers out of Wall Street and not based on quality of life and freedoms.
Nothing matters in their eyes beyond that economy. No national loyalty, no loyalty to their fellow Americans and even security is secondary to our economy.
Talk of closing the border in light of the swine flu threat has been met with concerns about the economy.
This is by far the second-stupidest thing Greenspan said in his recently-released book. The first-stupidest thing was when he said rising asset prices in the housing market was justified due to productivity growth.
Increasing the supply of “skilled” foreign immigrants is merely a shortcut solution to the fact that our education system fails so many people in America in the ultimate goal of giving them marketable and economically-useful skills.
I have a better idea: lets mandate that colleges stop offering useless majors like political science (with a specialty in international relations) that radicalizes students and gives them skills useless in a competitive marketplace and stop massively handicapping our secondary students in math and science by forcing them to be taught by unionized public school teachers.
Maybe then they would major in something useful and be able to work some of these high-skilled jobs.
That would solve our shortage of skilled labor a lot more in the long run than giving jobs to foreigners who may have no interest of becoming Americans or staying here.
There are analogies to the antebellum plantation class transferring the costs of controlling slave labor to the point of inducing the non-slaveowing masses to civil war. In the end that scheme didn't work either.
you’re absolutely correct. they’re a disincentive to modernization.
lowest pay,first to be discharged? doubtful.
Multinational corporations have no alliegence to the US. They are just interested in improving the bottom line. The importation of exploitable, cheap labor subsidized at taxpayer expense is just fine regardless of the long term consequences for the future of this nation. What is good for GM is not necessarily good for America.
don’t forget he kept rates too low,too long and was equally complicit with frank,dodd and the rest of the clown posse in creating the housing bubble.
Ghostbusters? And by the way, aren't there some ten's of thousands of Indian economists that can immigrate and replace the current crop here in the USA? Maybe the shoe being on the other foot would cause an outbreak of common sense.
These comments by Greenspan are ridiculous. We elect members of Congress to pass laws. They passed immigration laws and yet in my home town there are hundreds of undocumented workers hanging out everyday in one area looking for work. Where is immmigration? Why are we not implementing the laws enacted by Congress? The illegals go to our hospitals, our public schools and you and I foot the bill through higher healthcare premiums and higher taxes. Why is there not more outrage that we don’t enforce our current laws? When we have have someone try to enforce these laws like Sheriff Joe, he is villified.
Ping!
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