If it were only that easy. Have you every worked in a college town? Every tried to get a job as a teenager? Corporations will try to pay as little as possible regardless of who it hurts, and often to the detriment of the community. We put controls on Corps. on every aspect because most are only interested the bottom line and will do so at the expense of the community. The last min. wage increase was 1997, I think we can go higher, we here the same arguments every time this comes up, and ya know it works out fine.
They've had it too easy since they took the House and Senate during Clinton's midterm in 94. They figured their base would do like they always do....beat the Democrats in voter turnout (especially a midterm election), vote a straight ticket and thus win all their races. They didn't think there was enough Bush/Iraq/Katrina/scandal backlash to make a difference, and by the time they figured it out and started to distance themselves from it all, it was too little too late. As a quasi-Rebublican, I'm actually glad this happened. I think America was trying to send a message. I honestly don't think the Democrats won because of their message or ideas (still not sure what they are) as much as because people are fed up with the status quo. I know I certainly am.
THe Major Caveat to that statement is . . Jobs Americans don't want . . AT THAT PAY Americans would take those jobs IMO but not for 4$/hr I think the illegal immigrations is a corruption of supply and demand If you allow Guest Workers. . . Then Minimum Wage and all Labor laws will apply . . .. and I suspect. .when these Employers have to pay the illegal immigrants as much as the American worker. . or near it that the Demand for the labor will decrease somewhat . . if so . . Then what? they here now Rocket River
You apparently missed the Cabbage Patch craze, didn't read about the Tulipmania in the Netherlands, and haven't lived in San Diego.
How many Republicans campaigned on eliminating social security and medicare, a flat tax, outlawing abortion in all cases, stopping stem cell research, and throwing gays out to sea. General elections are about dancing towards the middle and picking the more popular liberal leaning or conservative leaning issues to drum home--neither a republican or democrat candidate is going to try to key the debate on their more ideological but less popular positions, that is usually saved for primaries. Also, only 36% of Americans will identify themselves as "Conservative" (about 40% moderate and 20% liberal, 4% other). If the Republicans define themselves even more right they will likely do worse with the other 64%. Right now the indepedents and moderates who form the bulk of the populace are leaning heavily towards democrats.
The guest worker program isn't about unskilled, sub-minimum wage workers. That just gets media attention because of the numbers. It's about skilled labor and a worker shortage. We don't have enough workers going into trades in this country because of expanding markets in high tech and service industries. And the immigration policy for anyone other than a sought-after professionals and refugees is broken in this country. Two examples from my personal experience: 1. I work for a major Gulf Coast refinery. Because of market share, we basically control the market on diesel for the South. Over the past few years, we haven't been able to hire enough workers for shut-downs, turn-arounds, and construction projects. All of these jobs pay well above a living wage, and many pay excellent. This has slowed down many projects and has at times caused significant reductions in production. Our Rita damage wasn't bad, but it was widespread and it did have us down for three weeks. You couldn't get anyone official to tell you this, but the INS turned a blind eye to temporary hiring practices for a short period of time. Our company loaded up buses full of workers in South Texas and brought them in. We were the first refinery back on-line that was in Rita's path. In my hometown, the biggest industry is ship-building. There has been a huge re-birth in demand for ship-building over the past few years. They needed about 2000 workers (welders, mechanics, etc.). This is in a town of 30,000. They just couldn't find them. There were recruiting stations set up all over the country. There were plenty of Mexican workers available, but there was no path for them to get that number of workers to immigrate legally. They ended up hiring a bunch of Indian workers who would be illegal except that they are working in a foreign trade zone. These workers are not allowed to even leave the compound set up for them. I don't know why this hasn't been publicized more. Either Bush feels that the public would think that he is pandering to his oil company friends or the lobbyists pushing for this reform aren't being honest with the politicians. But I think that, if the public knew about this, they would be more supportive. Immigration reform isn't really about national security or closing the back door. It's about fixing the front door.
I could, but this congress is not going to fix what I see as problems in this country in a way that I think it should be done. I doubt Pelosi and I have many stnaces in common (from the first 100 hours thread, it was limited to enact the recommendations of the 9/11 commision), so the best I can likely hope for is that they don't **** up my country too much before they are removed.
I am not sure what we are arguing about, the REAL world dictates what a person's market value is. I don't know any other way, education and self-confidence are all part of the overall package that makes up a person's earning power.
I have worked as a teenager, delivered papers, worked at convenient stores. Guess what, I was paid at what was the market rate. Even though that was for small change, it helped me pay for my school. I guess the the trick is to make yourself more valuable.
yeah that time you were probably getting paid pretty good.. ever heard of inflation? its happens every year but wages don't go up every year..
The problem is that the economist you quoted isn’t a real world economist. In the real world disadvantaged people get taken advantage of, so you need minimum wage laws and other laws to protect them, and to protect the social standards this country has established. This is a first world country after all, not a third world country.
