A Patriot in Idaho
This Times article profiles (quite even-handedly) a Mexican-American patriot battling illegal immigration. It focuses on the true enemy in the immigration - business interests who want cheap labor. How anyone thinks they have the right to hire cheap illegal immigrant labor is beyond me. You'd think these people would be embarrassed to even admit they do so. It's time decent people started to call these business interests on this - they're putting their own profits ahead of the well-being of their fellow citizens.
posted by ziel | 5/30/2005 01:00:00 PM
3 Comments:
Are you willing to pay more for a sloppy Joe Sandwich at Mr. J's if the owner replaces Marco with a young American kid making minimum wage?
I don't know - perhaps Marco is a legal immigrant. I might pay more, or I might forego the sandwich. But just imagine the terrible impact on Americans if fast food suddenly became unaffordable!
The fast food example might have not been the best but the contributor had the concept right. It is finally becoming public why WalMart's prices are so low. They sell stuff made by workers abroad making dimes a day (I was going to say pennies but I knew you'd jump on that) and pay their employees minimum wage without paying overtime. Class action lawsuits are filed, it will all come out shortly. They are successful (half of the top richest Americans are the WalMart Walton family) because we want stuff cheap.
Remember the 70's (?) drive to buy American cars? We need to decide if we want stuff cheap at any cost or if we want an economy that produces its own goods at a wage that allows the the manufacturer and retailer to make and distribute goods at a price level where they can make a reasonable (not billionaire) profit while paying US citizens a wage that they can live on.
This is, in my opinion, the biggest issue facing the US economy long term and Geo Bush does not have it on his radar screen.
Got to go....I'm having computer problems. I need to call Bombay for tech support.
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