California on the Brink

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

There aren't enough people to stop them at the borders. .

Originally Posted by jinx

There aren't enough people to check every business....

Well, if it is labour shortage you're worried about, there's an easy, obvious, and already common solution...

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by ZenGum

Well, if it is labour shortage you're worried about, there's an easy, obvious, and already common solution...

Funny. Might be a conflict of interest there though. Maybe.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

How is it not already a complete disaster? The bailouts are just prolonging the inevitable.

Anyway, the banks are just the tip of the iceberg. The situation in California is just a glimmer of what may happen to the entire Western world. Letting industry and banking go without bailouts may have given us more short-term pain in exchange for lessening some long-term pain.

Read up on economics. Please.

As I have said other places, I did not support the bank bailout. In fact, I wrote letters and called all my reps and begged them not to support it. So I sort of agree with you on that.

Ever hear of game theory? Part of the reason the banking and finance industry imploded is because they had to work around regulations. The proportion varies depending on which expert you're listening to. Yes, they would have made some of the same mistakes but Federal regulations demonstrably incentivized unsound decisions, increasing the magnitude of the problem.

Sorry, but I just don't buy it. if that were true, what caused it the first time around in the 30s? They weren't heavily regulated back then were they?

First, those jobs would likely go empty without undocumented migrant workers. Even with increased unemployment, like we're experiencing now, those jobs would still go unfilled to a significant extent because white collar workers are not going to do them until their situation becomes most dire. Even (especially?) blue collar workers aren't going to do hard manual labor unless they have to.

Balony. The problem isn't getting people to do the jobs, the problem is getting the companies to pay a FAIR WAGE. If they paid a fair wage, the workers would be there. That is as ridiculous as Bill Gates saying they need to be able to import more IT and computer programmers/engineers, etc. There are PLENTY of those people already here. My cousin lost her job after the .com boom, and it took her over a year to find another job. Now she works for the IRS. She is plenty qualified to work for microshit though. Her sister is VP there.

Second, look at your statement from the other direction: Anyone who supports immigration restrictions is supporting a form of slavery by giving business owners incentive and a supply of exploitable labor.

Think about it. If we made it easy for all non-hostile (like no ties to terrorist organizations) immigrants to gain official status then businesses would have no incentive to favor undocumented migrants over citizens, except when it comes to suitability for the work.

Let me make my position clear. I think people should be able to live and work wherever they want. I think there should be a world standard for environmental issues, and work standards and ethics, and pay scales. I do not believe we should have borders, ANYWHERE. Since we do, however, it only makes sense to provide for the people who are legal citizens of THIS country first.

First, that is meaningless unless you define `menial` and tell us what he does and tell us how much it costs him in lost wages when he is deported.

He works in construction. I'm not exactly sure what his job title is or exactly what he does.

Second, you gotta be fucking kidding me. The easiest way to fight illegal immigration is to get rid of immigration restrictions. That is LESS work and LESS burden on the judicial system.

see above response.

Incarcerating someone for 5 years costs MORE THAN THE FINE YOU PROPOSE. That's just insipid.

So make them pay for their own incarceration as well. The point is, most of those executives will not wish to go to jail. If they KNEW they would not only pay a hefty fine, but also risk going to prison for 5 years PER offense, they might think twice before hiring illegals.

Also, you have to take into consideration that they never hire just one illegal, they hire many. So the fine would be much bigger than $100,000, and the prison sentence would much longer. (how much does it cost to incarcerate someone for a year?)

[slang]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle

Anyway, the banks are just the tip of the iceberg. The situation in California is just a glimmer of what may happen to the entire Western world.

I completely agree.

A world wide reboot seems possible.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by slang

A world wide reboot seems possible.

I don't like the word reboot. It implies everything stopping and restarting. I don't think this will happen. There has never in recorded history been a time when all corporate entities (including governments, of course) have ceased functioning and all commerce has dried up. Mercury is too powerful a voice in the hearts of man.

Some institutions will topple completely and be rebuilt on new footings. Others will be radically restructured from the inside out. Some institutions, like venture capital, will evolve like they always have.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

I suppose if no one hired illegals they wouldn't come over the border so much would they?

Which is the case; the illegal influx is down in proportion to the dip in the economy and likewise the dip in hiring. By no means is it enough to wipe the problem out, but then really the United States doesn't have an immigration problem so much as other countries have a middle class problem: they have to generate one, and how are they going to do it? If the countries we have an immigration problem from were to grow middle classes large enough to be visible without magnification, we'd stop having much of a situation with people trying to break in to the place to partake of its opportunties.

I can't name another country that suffers from this problem, let alone the problem on this dozen-million-people scale.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The EU is having the same problem, remember Paris burning?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Hmmm.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Perry Winkle
Anyway, the banks are just the tip of the iceberg. The situation in California is just a glimmer of what may happen to the entire Western world.

Actually what is happening in Calif is a perfect example of what happens when a government goes hog wild spending money they do not have. It is a microexample of what is starting to happen at the Federal level now.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Which is the case; the illegal influx is down in proportion to the dip in the economy and likewise the dip in hiring. By no means is it enough to wipe the problem out, but then really the United States doesn't have an immigration problem so much as other countries have a middle class problem: they have to generate one, and how are they going to do it? If the countries we have an immigration problem from were to grow middle classes large enough to be visible without magnification, we'd stop having much of a situation with people trying to break in to the place to partake of its opportunties.

I can't name another country that suffers from this problem, let alone the problem on this dozen-million-people scale.

I agree. And NAFTA was supposed to address that problem, but instead it created an even bigger problem with illegal immigration, which is why I believe there should be a WORLD STANDARD for environmental issues, and work standards and ethics, and pay scales. IF there was a world standard, then corporations would not be able to go to a third world country and pollute the crap out of their environoment, or use slave labor in order to line their pockets. Since globalization is a done deal, we really need to start focusing on how to create a more balanced, fair, sustainable future for ALL people.

[TheMercenary]

Basically we are going to be totally fucked by the Demoncrats who are now in control of Congress and are totally responsible for our fiscal future.

[Glinda]

Yeah, because we were effin FLUSH under BushCo, et al.

[TheMercenary]

Hardly. But that is the past and something for the history books. You should be more concerned with what is going on now.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

I agree. And NAFTA was supposed to address that problem, but instead it created an even bigger problem with illegal immigration, which is why I believe there should be a WORLD STANDARD for environmental issues, and work standards and ethics, and pay scales.

You have an astonishing degree of faith in extremes of big government. Time and experience will completely cure this. The world does not work like that. See "people ruin everything" as more than something on a T-shirt but a basis for an active working principle of what nations and politics can do, and what they simply can't.

IF there was a world standard, then corporations would not be able to go to a third world country and pollute the crap out of their environoment, or use slave labor in order to line their pockets. Since globalization is a done deal, we really need to start focusing on how to create a more balanced, fair, sustainable future for ALL people.

Economically quite ignorant. Inequalities in distribution of income are simply the natural outcome of human nature and fortune. "Equality Of Result" is less Socialism's Utopian goal than it is the reason Socialism fails and will always fail. Socialism is a faithless and impoverished bitch, and only the slow of mind ever put their faith in her.

I don't. Guess I'm just not slow enough between the ears.

When you discover that a "balanced, fair, sustainable future for ALL" is not only readily, but actually most, possible under capitalism, not under the bureaucratic approach socialism must take (Was there ever a Socialist economy that was "sustainable"? They have fallen, been abandoned, and so forth.), then you are inoculated against one of the great Lies of the Left. Until that happy day, your thinking is so unrealistic and anti-wealth as to verge on pathological. See, the Lie of the Left contends that wealth is zero-sum -- it is not, not on a planetary scale at any rate -- and that success must equal cheating, which is simply boneheaded. There is nothing in Capitalism that requires cheating anybody. You're clearly unaware that you can practice capitalism according to scrupulous ethics and do damned well in the process. Put that to the test if you think I'm talking through my hat, I dare you!

Since my thinking diverges so far from yours, it sounds like my thinking is both more adult and saner, doesn't it?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Glinda

Yeah, because we were effin FLUSH under BushCo, et al.

Inherited a recession in 2000, not so? Recovered from same.

Inherited a recession in 1982 also. Recovered, and engendered a prolonged boom.

Republicans both times, btw, not that I think party has much to do with it. Maintaining an environment where profitability is both easy enough and reliably expected is the secret. No, I don't think you can honestly plead either poverty or even straitened circumstances attributable to anything but decisions you made. Not then, at any rate.

Now the story may turn out differently. What Obama's ideas will give us is an inflation cycle like the 1970s, which some few writing on this board are too young to remember, and apparently not sufficiently educated to know. Otherwise, you would have zero enthusiasm for the Democrats' inventing a couple trillions out of, well, nothing really.