"Icono Clast" wrote in message
news:1123673172.ad97d07ac6f3d95bdc9253e0864db994@t eranews...
MichaelC wrote:
Would you trade minimum wage laws for a complete removal
of all illegal immigrant labor in this country? Think
carefully before you answer.

"Icono Clast" wrote:
Different issues. Not a fair question.

MichaelC wrote:
Same issue. Illegal immigrant labor floods the labor market
with a low cost labor "product", which pulls down wages for
the entire labor "food" chain.

Take out "illegal immigrant" and I don't disagree but I maintain:

It is an employer paying less than ought be to the people a few
hours away from [select starvation eviction
water/gas/electricity cut off out of gasoline etc? /select]
who "pulls down wages for the entire labor 'food' chain". If a
dirty job at an illegal wage is all that's available to keep you
from [see above], you do it and give your child a glass of
milk.

And I maintain that the employer's reponsibility, in a capitalist system, is
to the business, not the employee. If you want the employer to take the
actual needs of the worker into account when setting wages, that's your
perogative, but you no longer have capitalism, you have a variant of Marxism
that, over time, will not maintain the standards of living of the area
nearly as well as the capitlalist program.

And, how can you "take out" *illegal immigrant* when they are the cause of
the wage deflation causing people to fall below what you have decided is the
"living wage." ISTM that you want your cake and eat it too -- let the
illegals work, when the going wage then depresses below "living", force the
employer to pay more, and ***WHEN*** the employer goes out of business,
blame it on.....who? (Bush, I suppose.)

. . . and not the desperate, at fault.

Just because somebody is desparate doesn't mean they can't be at fault.
That's a "feely-good" political axiom which has no basis in economic
reality.

Sorry, but there's no room to disagree here -- this is Econ 101
from any college in the country. There exists a free market for
labor just as there eixsts a free market for goods and services.
The greater the number of applicants for a given job, the less the
employer has to pay to get the guy/gal he wants.

Yeah. No problem with that.

When it comes to illegals, they get plugged into jobs where the
employer can fudge the system, low-trained US workers have to take
other jobs (fast food) and because there's a dozen applicants for
the burger flipping job, the empllyer could pay whatever he
wants.

The legal status of a job seeker is irrelevant. Doesn't matter if
there's a thousand incipient 'burger flippers, the employer is still
required to abide by the law.

The legal status of the job seeker is indeed irrelevant in the economic
equation, but *not* in the current implementation of that equation in the
US. There are some millions of illegals in the country working. There are
some millions of Americans out of work. If you enforce the law, you will
replace *A* with *B*. Simple.

Now, if you pull the illegals out of the equation, everyone moves
up the food chain, and the same worker applies for jobs and McD,
Wendys, and BK, and if he's the only competent applicant, picks
the one paying the most, thus forcing the employer to "buy" him
with higher wages.

We have more than enough desperately poor people without "illegals"
to accept Minimum Wage jobs. "Illegals" are irrelevant.

That's an assertation which is false until you prove it otherwise. In fact,
one of the reasons we have "desparately poor" people is that jobs that they
would otherwise have have been taken by illegals who are better workers, and
capitalist market efficiency takes over, where amongst the unskilled labor
poor, the most efficient worker keeps the job, while the less efficient does
not.

Now, I like the last part of that (no problem with the the more efficient
working while the less efficient does not) except that it creates an
economic problem for the cities, states, and feds wherein the best solution
is simply to enforce existing law.

If the labor supply was constrained, this "living wage" b**s**t
wouldn't even be under discussion. The BK on Geary would have to
either pay the buy 10 bucks an hour, or offer him full time full
benefits, to get him.

Well of course: Supply/Demand - it's a law!

Think though that process the next time you go to the polls.

If you remove illegals from the equation, the real cost to
hire an employee willing to flip a burger on Geary Street
might very well reach or exceed $8.50 per hour.

"Illegals" are irrelevant. A living wage should be the right of any
and every fully-employed person any and every where. Might be $8.50
in San Francisco and $3.50 in East Saint Louis, $0.25 in Peking;
doesn't matter.

Then you don't value efficiency in the work force. A "living wage" means
that I legally have to pay inefficient workers more than they deserve.
Because I have to stay in business, I then compensate by paying efficient
workers less than they deserve. The law makes me screw one to pay another.
It also increases the number of living wage workers I have, because instead
of rewarding efficient workers with raises, I still have maintain the proper
salary/revenue ratio in order to keep my business going.

The living wage is simply a welfare program where the goverment pawns off
its social responsibilities on the business owner. If the goverment would
clean up its regulatory morass, enforce the immigration laws, fix it's own
budgetary messes, and fix the corrupt taxation system, the economy would
jump to even higher levels than it's operating now, and all this "living
wage" horsehockey would go away. Employers wouldn't be able to pay enough to
keep good workers, and profits would support them.


The "illegals" are the scofflaw employers, not those desperate
for work . . . If you're talking about people who have entered
the country without going through the proper channels, there is
no difference. They're all effectively undocumented.

Doesn't matter where the come from, does it?

As a conservative/libertarian (or whatever), I object to laws
designed to fix problems that other laws (or, in this case,
lack of enforcement thereof) cause.

That's correct. If you know of an employer who hires, for
example, undocumented Canadians to do a job for which US
citizens are qualified and available, call your local Department
of Labor. The times I've done so (for other reasons), I've been
impressed by how quickly, well, and effectively they responded.

Sure, but there is anecdotal evididence that the Feds only spank
the employer and release the illegal. Without consequences, law is
meaningless.

Yes. Who's at fault for that?

The Fed and State goverments.

What about the 90% of the workplace regulations that
*don't* increase risk to rank and file life and limb?

I've not read them in so long that I don't know to what you
refer. The laws of which I'm aware are legislated
recognition of some of the conditions won by the deaths of
striking workers.

SEC regs, affirmative action regs, eeoc regs, american with
disabilites regs, etc..........etc.....etc...... All of them have
good purpose,

That's good enough for me. The reasons those laws exist, even if
they're burdensome, is because of the historic abuses of employees.

but amount to us loading Lance Armstrong down with a fifty pound
weight and telling him to win the next Tour de France.

I don't understand the analogy. Yes, I know who Lance is.

Compliance with regulations costs money. Real money. Example: Enron
defrauded investors. How? By gaming a corrupt financial reporting and tax
system that confuses the hell out of everyone. So, the goverment's "fix" is
Sarbanes-Oxley, which codifies financial reporting standards. Sounds like a
good idea to prevent another Enron, right?

Wrong. Sarbanes Oxlely will cost tens of BILLIONS of dollars to comply with.
Where does buiness come up with that money? They cut their payrolls, either
by withholding wages or firing people. They decrease budgets for R*D, making
them less competitive with other countries abroad. They postpone or cancel
plans for expansion. They outsource jobs to India or China. Like any of
those?

EVERY REGULATION COSTS MONEY which invariably gets passed on to a "little
guy", sometimes in the form of increased costs of goods and services, but
usually by firing the little guy, not hiring little guys they expected to
hire, or sending the little guy's jobs overseas.

That's the 50 lb weight. And, in an international market, where companies in
the developing nations get to play under much looser regulatory guidelines,
out companies are uncompetitive because of the weight of the regulatory
burden.


Forbes estimates that the cost of compliance with regulations
in this country (the most expensive regs are usually those
involved with EEO compliance, next to safety) is three million
jobs per year. Three million jobs added to the equation would
take the unemployment rate to replacement levels (2-2.5%) and,
like the illegals question above, would increase the cost of
your Geary Street burger flipper to your hypothetical living
wage.

If those three million jobs would be with long hours at sub-standard
wages in an unsatisfactory working environment, t'hell with 'em.

Well, if you don't care about jobs, that's your perogative.

In 2008, the wave of retirees which constitutes 1/3 of the
workforce (in total) will retire. The younguns might be nice,
but I doubt they'll be willing to work tripleshifts to
compensate for the retirees who want to go fish.

We old people'l out-vote 'em!

Actually, we likely will, refusing to deal with the reality that
saddleing them with our retirement is unethical.

All of us who were employed after 1937 were saddled with the burden
of supporting retirees. Had the gummint handled the funds honestly
and competently, there would be no problem.

The "gummit" handled the funds in precisely the way the system permitted
them to. The system was *always* pay-as-you-go, designed so that the overage
would flow into the general fund, to be paid back later. SS is probably the
most "honest and competent" system ever created by the Feds. It's problem is
*structural* in that it never expected to find itself in a situation where
the US fertility rate was so low.

The problem with Social Security is that the revenue collected
goes into the General Fund rather than being kept separate as it
ought. The "solutions" proposed by the idiot in the White House
are neither sound nor realistic.

I don't like the solutions either, but the system is failing. If
it contained a private component when it was created, we wouldn't
have this problem right now.

The simplest fix is that Social Security contributions be levied upon
all wages earned. During the ten years that I maxed out my
contributions, I received a "bonus" check or two at the end of the
year. I think it ought not be possible to max out one's contribution.
Yes, that would be unfair to those who have high wages. So what? They
have more money!

That won't come close to fixing the problem, although it is a well
publicized mythological fix promoted by AARP. The fiscal imbalance over time
is 8 Trillion Dollars. 8 Trillion. (Some, like Alan Greenspan, say 10T, but
that's a difference in accounting methodologies.) Don't let anyone
(especially a politician or lobbying organization) tell you it is anything
less. The "eliminate the cap" trick will "fix" about 2% of that 8T. You
still have the rest to deal with.

I am a relative younun of 50. I expect to be alive in 2041. My financial
planning *expects* a 27% decrease in SS benefits in 2041, just like it says
on the front of my SS annual statement, because I figure if the politicos
don't even have the balls to use the same numbers the economists agree on
WRT the SS fiscal imbalance, what hope do we have of ever finding a "fix."?

Mike