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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tsigprofit who wrote (5511)	1/9/2004 12:30:34 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 20773

And think of all the ugly yards! At least in Calif there would be major landscape trauma.

To: tsigprofit who wrote (5511)	1/9/2004 12:58:09 PM
From: The Philosopher	Respond to of 20773

Would you do that experiment - and flip a switch that would make all illegals vanish back to their home country tomorrow? Yes, I would. There would be economic consequences, sure. Both positive and negative. Some businesses would be hurt because they would have to start paying legal wages and providing legal working conditions for their employees. I don't, however, think our country should base its economic strength on the abuse of workers who, because they are here illegally, can't complain or insist on their legal rights. That comes too close, IMO, to the 19th century South which relied on cheap slave labor. We don't have slaves today, but we have something close in cheap illegal labor. Those businesses which can only exist because they pay illegally low wages and work their employees under illegal conditions deserve, IMO, to go out of business if they can't adjust to paying legal wages and treating their employees legally. Their business would then move to companies which have trouble competing today because they aren't willing to violate the law, but could compete just fine if everybody followed the law. And once those jobs paid legal wages and provided legal and decent working conditions, legal Americans would start taking them. And they would pay taxes on that labor, which would be a positive for the economy. And if we still needed people to fill those jobs, we could start admitting legal immigrants who have waited years to get their chance and have shown respect for our country and our country's laws. Those are the kind of people I want here, not criminals who disrespect our laws. And keep in mind that if we sent all the illegals back tomorrow, we would not only lose their labor, but would save a ton of tax dollars in education and other services we provide for these illegal aliens. And maybe millionaires would have to pay living wages to the people who mow their lawns and rake their leaves. Boo hoo.

To: tsigprofit who wrote (5511)	1/9/2004 2:17:58 PM
From: Crocodile	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 20773

Would you do that experiment - and flip a switch that would make all illegals vanish back to their home country tomorrow? I think you would find major economic damage to the US if you did. As someone who resides in a country which (very unfortunately) made the disgusting mistake of binding itself to the U.S. in an imbecilic, despicable and useless "freetrade agreement", this discussion raises some interesting questions. Are you saying that the U.S. is too incompetent and uncompetitive to function economically without access to cheap, illegal workers who aren't paid normal wages or benefits? Do you meant to tell me that, in a country that has an excellent crop growing season; an average climate that doesn't require massive expenditures for heating and heavily insulated buildings; and doesn't have to deal with crippling transportation costs for road and rail maintenance associated with high average annual snowfall rates and excessive road damage from frost upheaval, etc... that you can't get along without access to illegal workers because it would hurt your economy? Yessir. All of this talk of the need to protect access to cheap labour sure is interesting. Yep. Seems as thought the U.S. wants to cling to its access to cheap, illegal immigrant workers so that it doesn't have to pay decent wages or normal employee benefits.... while at the same time, it wants to be able to bitch at and penalize Canadian companies for paying for our workers' health insurance benefits. Yep. Sure seems fair alright. Yep... Yessir... freetrade... yeah... sure is.. yep....