Immigration Nation

My head spins round and round and feels like it is about to pop off each time I hear more of this immigration reform dribble.

This is another one of those things that is so simple if you back away from it a bit. This is an economic issue, plain and simple.

We are a nation that is addicted to extremely cheap labor. Our economy has been transformed over the past 30 years or so into a situation similar to what we faced prior to the Civil War in this country. Then, like now, people talked in moral platitudes about what is right and wrong, but their buying habits and voting habits make it plain that they want the status quo to continue. OK, maybe I'm stretching a bit, but not as much as you might think.

I have owned small businesses at different points in my life. In the late 70's, as a small businessman, I hired lots of unskilled casual labor. Back then, I could sometimes get such labor for $8/hr, but usually the going rate was around $10/hr. Of course, in big cities, it could be more. Today, as a small businessman, I can hire the exact same unskilled casual labor for about $8 and hour - sometimes $10. In fact, in most cases, I can find a pretty good pool of folks willing to work for $6 or $7 in most places. Of course, they are not legal, but they are here because they know that people will hire them.

Let me be clear. I work very hard to make sure that we hire only legal workers. And for doing this, I pay a steep penalty. That is, while I am paying $12 - $16 and hour for labor, my competitors are paying $6 - $10 for labor. Makes it pretty hard for me to compete. I used to live under the fantasy that my customers would care about this, and I made a big deal about this. At the end of the day though, nobody is ever willing to pay more to hire a contractor because he only hires legal workers.

That tells the whole story right there. These same people who are not willing to pay a contractor more because he hires legal workers are often the EXACT SAME PEOPLE who are up-in-arms about the fact that the "government won't do something" about the illegal immigrant problem.

Ya gotta wake up America. Ya don't get to have it both ways. Either we are willing to live as a culture and an economy that supports the notion of paying decent wages, or we are a culture who supports the notion of slave-like labor. If you are one of those who is whining about the illegal immigrants, you need to look around your life and see all the places where these illegal immigrants make it possible for you to receive services and goods more cheaply. You need to ask yourself if you are willing to pay higher prices to solve the problem.

If you aren't willing to pay that higher price, then shut your yap.

If you shop at Walmart, then you are supporting this "slave-like labor market" where we buy goods from companies who exploit labor markets where people will work for next to nothing. If you don't believe in this economy, then stop shopping at Walmart, and make it plain why you don't.

On the labor front here in America, INS could pick any day in any city, and could make raids that would net them a bunch of illegal workers. If they did this, then sent the immigrants home, then THREW THE CEO OF HE COMPANY WHO HIRED THEM IN JAIL, I guarantee this would get attention. If we did this day after day, and the CEO and the COO of ConAgra and other companies ended up serving real jail time, this immigration problem would go away for the most part.

I suspect that most people - having read the above - are nodding their heads in approval.

But guess what would happen if we did that - prices for the products and services that these people produce would start to go up. Are you willing to accept this outcome? If not, the shut your yap about the "problem".

Because, in the end, the "problem" isn't Mexicans who come into our country illegally. The "problem" is the citizens of our country who have voted over and over again with their wallets and the other votes that they cast that they are fully supportive of our "wink and nod" economy of importing cheap labor.