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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (140475)	7/8/2010 1:48:34 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541877

Williams said that if people who oppose immigration "got their wish and all the unauthorized people went home tomorrow, we would have a crisis. We wouldn't have anyone to pick the crops, milk the cows, or take care of the Christmas trees." Or wages would then rise to a level to attract American workers. We'd all pay a little more for our milk and Christmas trees. Before you respond, let me say that I do know that rising wages in those sectors carries its own set of unintended consequences. I threw out my comment simply because I'm growing increasingly concerned about what I see as evidence of creeping structural deflation. Continual undercutting of the wage structure at home along with shipping jobs offshore is moving us along the path to a deflationary spiral. In the same vein is the current penchant at the state and municipal to come up with tiered benefit packages. Rather than reduce current benefits, proposals are cropping up everywhere to give new hires a different benefit package that involves later retirement ages and smaller pension benefits. This is somewhat fine and logical, etc., but what happens is that those hires who see a different pay scale ahead of them and smaller pensions will adjust by saving more, buying smaller homes, buying fewer consumer items, etc. etc. The net result of this, at least in theory, would be a less robust economy that could actually tip into deflation. Tiered benefit packages are happening in the private sector. For example, throughout the auto industry, suppliers included. A continual ratcheting down....where's the deflationary tipping point is what concerns me now.