National Guard-Which Border?

[Newfie]

snip... {immagrants from other areas} take the jobs too many Americans think they're above. ....snip....There certainly is an arrogance in our country when kids think they're too good to dig ditches, cut lawns, bus tables, etc...

Identical situations in Canada. Same shit, different country.

[SmokinDVM]

Here we go with the "they do the jobs Americans won't do".
Look, if those businesses were willing to pay more than 1/2 minimum wage, they'd get plenty of Americans willing to do the job.
My youngest son was let go from a job at a restaurant so the owner could hire 4 illegals for the same amount they paid my boy. My son was more than willing to bus those tables and wash the dishes.
Minimum wage laws weren't put into place so businesses could break the law by hiring illegals, and breaking it again by paying them less than minimum. If a business can't survive when paying their employees a reasonable wage, then they don't need to exist. People might have to go back to doing their own mowing and trimming, oh no, the World might come to an end!
Our economy, in its present neocon destroyed state, can't continue to absorb immigrants at this kind of rate. At several times in this Countries history, we needed the influx of immigrants to continue to expand. Now, it will only serve to further erode our economy and standard of living.

BTW, the main distinction between how our Grandfathers and Great Grandfathers came into this Country is that they did it LEGALLY. In the late 1700's immigration into the US was wide open, as long as you were white. There have been many modifications to the immigration laws in the US, but they came when they would be best for the Country.

Why don't we try getting rid of the BS free trade and try a little fair trade. Make other countries that want to do business in the US, bring their wages and standard of living up to meet ours. If they don't, charge an appropriate tariff so they would have to compete with US companies on equal ground. Make them produce a product that is competitive in quality to compete here and not just cheaper. They all still want to trade with us, we are the biggest consumers on the planet.

[BigMacFU]

I'm not saying it's a good thing they'll do jobs Americans won't, I'm just stating the facts. Our country is full of lazy arrogant folks who think they're too good to do a lot of types of work. Why are kids who grow up in the ghetto taught the only way out of poverty is Basketball or Rap, because for many of them, no one had the wisdom to say, heck you could get into a trade and actually work hard and earn a living and move up that way. My uncle has been a roofer all his life, he's put his three girls through college and is still on the roofs doing all the work.

So, maybe your boy is like my uncle, and if so, kudos, and I wish there were more like him.

[SmokinDVM]

I'm not saying it's a good thing they'll do jobs Americans won't, I'm just stating the facts. Our country is full of lazy arrogant folks who think they're too good to do a lot of types of work. Why are kids who grow up in the ghetto taught the only way out of poverty is Basketball or Rap, because for many of them, no one had the wisdom to say, heck you could get into a trade and actually work hard and earn a living and move up that way. My uncle has been a roofer all his life, he's put his three girls through college and is still on the roofs doing all the work.

So, maybe your boy is like my uncle, and if so, kudos, and I wish there were more like him.

Well, it's definitely true that America is full of lazy shits. However, there is still plenty of people willing to work at those jobs, for a FAIR wage. You can't ask people to work for $5 or $6 an hour and raise a family. Hell we shouldn't want anyone in this Country to have to do that.

I saw the move to lower wages for the average guys in this Country start in the early '80's with RR's breaking the ATC's union. Hell, I was working in a meatpacking plant in the mid-80's, not a great job, but you could make a living. After about 3 years there, the company decided they wanted to cut wages, and not just a little cut, but bring the maximum hourly wage a guy could make working the floor from $18/hour to $9/hour. Now of course the union had to strike over that, and the company responded by following old RR's lead and bringing in scabs. The scabs in this case just happened to be from Mexico. Somehow 3 buses were chartered to bring illegals up from Mexico. Last time I was back in that town, the only people working that plant, other than management, were illegals.

Whatever the solution, it can't include the decline of the standard of living of the average American. If the illegal aliens continue to pour into this Country unchecked, there will be nothing to stop the continued decay.

[SuperChuck]

I think we're losing our sense of competitiveness here. We feel we have some god-given right to make $18 packing meat. Sure, someone else will do it for half that, but we're somehow better than that.

I work in software, which is currently all being exported to India. How do I deal with that? I don't want laws passed or unions formed, I want to be smarter and better than any of these Indian job shops. THAT is the American way, the desire to be better and remain competitive, not for Congress to pass laws so we can continue to be lazy...

[Shagaroo]

I work in software, which is currently all being exported to India. How do I deal with that? I don't want laws passed or unions formed, I want to be smarter and better than any of these Indian job shops. THAT is the American way, the desire to be better and remain competitive, not for Congress to pass laws so we can continue to be lazy...

If you think simply being smarter than the Indian job shops is going to save you from outsourcing, no offense bruddah, but you have not been paying attention. I have had years of experience with everything from my ISP to game support, to software companies who have outsourced to India. I can tell you now, a clump if dirt is smarter than those clowns and it doesn't matter to corporate America. It's all about big paychecks for upper management and board members and huge golden parachutes. Consumers and employees can go rot.

And now we are losing manual labor to illegals. Not everybody can be a doctor or lawyer. Not everybody wants to be a doctor or lawyer. They should still be able to raise a family and have a home and pay their bills. I know many hard working people in the contruction and landscaping industry who have lost their jobs and their buinesses because they can't compete with companies that hire nothing but illegals and pay them $3 or $4 an hour off the books. That's not arrogance or laziness.

[SuperChuck]

If you think simply being smarter than the Indian job shops is going to save you from outsourcing, no offense bruddah, but you have not been paying attention. I have had years of experience with everything from my ISP to game support, to software companies who have outsourced to India. I can tell you now, a clump if dirt is smarter than those clowns and it doesn't matter to corporate America. It's all about big paychecks for upper management and board members and huge golden parachutes. Consumers and employees can go rot.

If outsourcing to India was a golden bullet, the software industry would crash tomorrow. Just as you've pointed out, most of the Indian job shops do an awful job. I've heard of several companies that have actually been moving jobs back to the US because the quality of work is so bad.

The equilibrium point will probably fall where design and technical work is done mostly in the US and mundane keyboard pounding is mostly done abroad. I work hard to be dynamic and keep my skills up, but many of the people I have worked with do just one thing (C on AIX, for example) and usually don't do it well.

And now we are losing manual labor to illegals. Not everybody can be a doctor or lawyer. Not everybody wants to be a doctor or lawyer. They should still be able to raise a family and have a home and pay their bills. I know many hard working people in the contruction and landscaping industry who have lost their jobs and their buinesses because they can't compete with companies that hire nothing but illegals and pay them $3 or $4 an hour off the books. That's not arrogance or laziness.

Would it be any different if these were legal immigrants?

The reason we abolished slavery in the north was mainly due to the huge influx of immigrants who would do awful work for next to nothing. It was cheaper to hire a bunch of expendible Irish to work in hellish factory conditions than it was to maintain slaves.

If someone is willing to work for 3 bucks an hour, they're going to get work, whether they're legal or not. We need to start taking advantage of all that American citizenship offers us and stop aspiring to dig ditches.

My family came over with a couple sheep and started farming. My grandfather had an 8th grade education, worked as a cobbler, and managed to put all 3 of his kids through college. His 3 grandkids all have college educations and have careers (well, not my sister, but she's an artist). We dig our own ditches (we still think we're greenhorns), but we don't dig anyone else's...

[SmokinDVM]

If you think simply being smarter than the Indian job shops is going to save you from outsourcing, no offense bruddah, but you have not been paying attention. I have had years of experience with everything from my ISP to game support, to software companies who have outsourced to India. I can tell you now, a clump if dirt is smarter than those clowns and it doesn't matter to corporate America. It's all about big paychecks for upper management and board members and huge golden parachutes. Consumers and employees can go rot.

And now we are losing manual labor to illegals. Not everybody can be a doctor or lawyer. Not everybody wants to be a doctor or lawyer. They should still be able to raise a family and have a home and pay their bills. I know many hard working people in the contruction and landscaping industry who have lost their jobs and their buinesses because they can't compete with companies that hire nothing but illegals and pay them $3 or $4 an hour off the books. That's not arrogance or laziness.

That's exactly it.

The factories that move out of the Country, and other jobs that get outsourced, are not about lower prices for the consumer, or even competitive quality, it's about more money for the corporate pigs. That meatpacker, who takes a huge pay-cut, has to pay the same or higher price for the meat.
Another example, when I was growing up in the Midwest, for a summer job I would start out rouging corn, followed by de-tasseling corn, and then walking the beans. For about 6-8wks in the summer a kid could make a tidy bit of spending cash, at $6-$8 an hour, and keep out of trouble to boot. Now, they contract out all of the field work to illegals that make less than $2/hour per person. Did you see the livestock feed prices go down? How about the price of a can of corn at the grocery store? Not a chance. Do you think the small farmer is pocketing these huge profits? Hell NO, most of them have been run out of business by the big corporate owned farms.
This isn't about Americans being entitled to anything more than thier government doing its job and "promoting the general welfare" of AMERICANS.
When we allow Mexico to get rid of its poorest people by sending them to the US, and not fixing thier own problems, we cause a shrinkage of our middle class, and turn the US into a bigger form of Mexico. We need to promote a large middle class, the average joe, in this Country, not let the corporate pigs get fat on the destruction of them.