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I think that a lot of ideological demogogery will slow the reconstruction. President Bush suspended a 1931 law amid howls from the left. Randi Rhodes on c-span yesterday objected that it would mean that people would be paid $5 rather than the prevailing $9. I get annoyed when people launch a big controversy while they ignore economics. There is a huge shortage of workers that is pushing up labor rates. So, there is no need to talk about Mexcians taking away anyone's jobs or driving down wages. These erroneous gripes just act in restraint of trade. By the way, this is the first time I ever heard of the left praising an economic measure of Herbert Hoover.

"So, there is no need to talk about Mexcians taking away anyone's jobs or driving down wages."

You've got me confused with someone else, I've never said anything derogatory about Mexicans!

So, there's no need to falsely accuse this old curmudgeon of something he didn't do.

Lets sum this up:

The Federal government gave its blessing/permission for contractors to use illegal aliens for the necessary reconstruction - before any other idea of any kind had a chance to be raised. Meanwhile nearly 500,000 displaced blacks, a bare majority who were unemployed before the hurricane are now in other locales still on the dole or are finding employment through government or private organization's efforts. I've found nothing but positive stories but that may be due to media bias.

Our fellow citizens have a commonly shared conception that urban areas of black majority are "ruined" by the Johnsonian policies that allowed overdependence on government aid while doing nothing to stop the fragmentation of black culture (fatherless families, easy abortions, handout mentality). Inversely, the illegal population allowed in by Federal negligence/corruption has a high motivation to labor because they lack any of those options - deportation, though increasingly remote, remains a primary motivator for them to make money as quickly as possible. Perversely, the illegals from nations South of our border have edged blacks out of the jobs they traditionally depended upon. This did not occur because the blacks were "lazy", though the entitlement culture from the Johnson Administration did them no favors by it's helping make negative stereotypes like "welfare Cadillacs" and "Food Stamp queens" visibly apparent to anyone with eyes. Our government let the blacks (and everyone else) down after this ruinous experiment by allowing employers to slide using the illegal aliens.

This unspoken yet real policy not only craps on all fairness and law, it sends the nation-killing message that it's perfectly all right to use people who don't belong here for whatever abusive labor one can think of - free of EPA, IRS, union or any other bothers - so long as the bones don't stick up after you're done with them. Health plans, education and the bad relatives they bring are all on the taxpayers backs free of charge. Unless you're a taxpayer not utilizing illegal aliens.

Meanwhile erstwhile honest employers in every field are increasingly pressured to utilize illegals because their competitors are using them to undercut the fair market. Nothing fair about it when these scum pay the illegals a pittance and pocket the profits - laughing all the way to the bank while those trying to do it right suffer from the unfair competition. Outsourcing and offshoring headquarters are larger versions of the same scam - just with a higher bribe for the politicians who cover for it. All of it is bad for America. "Bad for America" is a quaint notion held by troglodytes like myself who are sick of seeing our nation's strengths, principles and policies subverted for short term profits and well placed individual's personal gain. See "After Reagan".

The Americans of African descent could easily rebuild New Orleans. History proves their descendants were hardier than the native Indians of the New World and a few other imported experiments. The only thing preventing New Orleaners from rebuilding their hometown is prejudice, misconceptions, forty years of a wrongful dependence mindset and a Federal government that needs to get it's head out of it's @ss (deport criminals - I don't pay you to hire them!). Those citizens are sitting in shelters two months out now. Put hammers and lumber in their hands and check everyone's documents. There's a bus service named Adame that trucks the illegals in, it goes back to the same points they came from. Americans need this work not only for rebuilding their community, but to reestablish/relearn the pride of accomplishment and to once again have an investment in their community. For the government to promote illegals to do it guarantees major problems while telling the black community that they're regarded as next to worthless.

And Rokke: the illegals do what they do not because they're superior or "nicer", but because they are desperate. While I, too, feel sorry for them the bottom line is that they're not our fault and not our actual problem. We'd help them and their parasitic governments far better by kicking them out and slamming the door. Until we force change (like we're trying to do with the Islamic fruitbaskets overseas) we'll only suffer from the slow death that parasites lay on a host unwilling to get rid of them.

There is a huge shortage of workers that is pushing up labor rates.

And, why is that? Because they were all shipped out under the guise of charity. Where is the charity in taking a man away from his home and letting some illegal in to rebuild it and take it over? GW's strategery? Most likely. We know now that he values the illegal hispanic over the average American.