au1929 wrote:Bill
Quote:My restaurant in Cedarburg failed inside of 2 years, with a 3 star rating and a wonderful Chef (just received another national award). Of the dozens of people I know in the business; I know a handful that aren't already on the brink of destruction. None Pay Slave wages, but few could afford the artificially inflated wages that would result in such a nonsensical policy. You cannot remove such a large percent of any workforce without artificially inflating the wages. Sounds wonderful, until the jobs start disappearing altogether.
I am not talking about artificially inflated wages. Just a living wage. Why should anyone work for a wage they are unable to exist on? We talk about exploitation of illegals. Isn't what is being proposed the legalizing of exploitation.
I know of no business (personally) that pays anyone under minimum wage be they legal or no. If you want to raise the minimum wage to a "living wage"; that's subject matter for another thread (I'd oppose that too, for many of the same reasons).
I agree that any "temp work program" will lead to heinous exploition. The added expenses of traveling back and forth would have to be shouldered by someone... which means people would inevitably be stuck in jobs they don't want. I consider it the height of selfishness to want people to come here and do **** jobs only to return to a **** life when they're done.
The only restriction that makes any sense at all to me; would be one pegged to unemployment. The only conceivable way to stop poor people from seeking a better life here; is if the waiting list for legal entry is considerably shorter than that to purchase season tickets to the Green Bay Packers.
Mexicans have it made, being so close, because it wouldn't cost them a ton to get here. Don't kid yourself about the poor from around the world living on a dollar a day saving up for a trip to the U.S.A. Ain't gonna happen, so that's more phobia than legitimate concern.
Now there's been plenty of concern over the Hispanic vote, and rightly so. Seems to me, if we were really thinking intelligently; we'd also be paying attention to the Mexican vote... in Mexico. If, like many of you suggest, the 20,000,000 or so Mexican aliens are poor; consider that 40% of those remaining are under the poverty line as well. That means we must be coming up on having a majority of Mexican Nationals between here and there that would endorse some form of Annexation. We've already got nearly 1/3 of their poor, and they're damn productive citizens here. Imagine the Gold Rush-like economy booster annexation would be!
Now I don't much care if we add their States to a mutual Union or work in some form of a cooperative effort like Puerto Rico... but I do believe
that is the most logical evolution. Our land would increase approximately equal to our population. (Look at how tiny the border would be then.) I can only assume the smaller, poorer States below them wouldn't be far behind. Instead of worrying about immigration; I say we start working out the kinks of integration.
You have obviously never owned a business. A 10% increase in expenses, or (let alone and) decrease in receipts can mean the difference between earning $50,000 and losing $50,000. 9 in 10 restaurants fail in 2 years normally, but that doesn't give you some clue how precarious the industry might be? I've had businesses that did very well with profit margins under 5%, while labor was over 20%. Fortunately; a very healthy chunk of Congress come from business... and another big chunk from the banking industry... so I have faith they will never deliver a bill as idiotic as some here are suggesting.
