Job Fight: Immigrants vs. Locals

[Sandybestdog]

Quote from TorontoTrader2: Looking at the photos on the WSJ link, I think a large part of this issue is lazy american culture. Look at the photos of the 'immigrants': they appear similing, social, healthy and family oriented. As mentioned already, they made positive comments. Now look at the americans: they look overweight, tattooed, smoking, and two are wearing army camoflauge? Just what does this tell us, exactly what war are they planning to fight? They look anti-social, look at their closed aloof faces. Statictically speaking, I would not be surprised if 20% of them use drugs. NOTE: the same thing is occuring here in Canada but to a leser extent. Immigrants tend to have strong familiy ties, whereas americans are socialized into divorce, war, racism, and other anti-social behaviors. The immgirants in these pictures look like normal good people

You are looking at a small percentage of the population and judging the rest by that. You are dead wrong. Do you really think if there were no immigrants, that the farmers in Florida would let their oranges rot because “these are jobs Americans won’t do?” You’re an idiot.

Anyways why shouldn’t Americans demand more. I mean people like you demonize those that work low skill jobs like McDonald’s. Then when someone works and educates himself and looks for a better job, people like you say he has an entitlement mentality because he wants 40k a year. Then when all those jobs get shipped oversea’s, that guy has to take a crap job, and you blame him for not paying his student loans.

I’ll give you a real life example. I recently got a job as a golf caddy at a local exclusive golf club. They got over 500 calls for about 30-40 positions. Lets just say they were exclusive. I had 3 interviews, plus had to take a questionaire on whether I have ever taken drugs, hit anybody, or stolen anything. After that I had to go through almost 2 weeks of unpaid training. After that we had to wait another 2 weeks until the club opened until we ever saw a dime. Then we find out that most people don’t even take caddy’s, and that if we even get a round when we’re scheduled, we usually end up having to wait 2-4 hours until it’s our turn. Everybody else who waited 3 hours gets sent home with no pay. And you know what? There is never any shortage of people willing to do that. Me included. What other choice do I have right now? And let me tell you, the people I work with are high quality white and black people. Whereas caddying used to be something teenagers did, it is now gladly being filled by college grads and middle aged people who have been out of work.

So before you make any other judgements, I’d suggest you walk around in the real world for a little.

 

[Sandybestdog]

Quote from QQQBALL: the solution you are searching for is called "savings". people spent all they had, borrowed against the appreciation in their homes, etc... they would have been better off living blow their means.

$10 and hour, times 40 hours times 4.3 weeks = $1720 a month – 20% in taxes = $1376 a month.

Minimal housing: $500
Utilities: $100
Health insurance: $272
Co-Pays and prescriptions: $50
Food: $300
Transportation: $200 (I wish)
Phone: $50
Clothes: $50
Household items: $100

Hmmm $1622 for bare essentials and we haven’t even gotten to any entertainment or luxuries like education or pets. Of course this is assuming Murphy doesn’t show up either. You sound like Pharoah telling the slaves to make bricks without straw and then blaming them when they don’t. So as soon as you tell everybody here how to turn water into wine, how can you say people aren’t living within their means?

 

[fkbsuhites]

Every week there is one post blaming China or someone else for "taking" manufacturing jobs.

Now, what these shit-for-brains don't seem to understand, is that much of the spread is being pocketed by large Corporations here. The Chinese make pennies and the large Bush corporate donors get to keep 95% of the saved cost.

Blame shit-for-brains Bush voters for the current problems. Not anyone else.

Immigration? yep, shit-for-brains Bush is who let them all in. He was bowing to demands from his corporate over lords.

Quote from TheDudeofLife:

http://it.truveo.com/Charlie-Rose-November-15-1994/id/117474832


"What is the good of having an economy which grows by 80% if your unemployment – people excluded from active economic life – goes from 420,000 to 5.1million?”

“You go and you create a corporation in China. And you build a factory in China. And what do you want to sell, mugs? You sell mugs in China. And you conquer part of the Chinese market by competing fair and square in China. That’s life. That’s adding to the activity of China. You’re a corporate citizen over there, you’re working over there.”

“But if you move a factory from the States and take that to China, not so as to conquer the chinese market but so as to re-import the goods into the States, so as to get cheap labor, what are you doing? What you are doing is you are saying to your employees here, ‘You’re too expensive, folks. You want money. You want protection. You want unions. You want holidays. Forget it! We can employ 47 people over there (for each one of you) who want nothing.’”

“So, don’t confuse 2 issues. One is going out to participate in their growing economies by building there and conquering part of the market. The other is merely killing off employment in your own country, getting rid of your own labor force – transferring it over there and importing it back – purely so as to increase your profit margins.”

“Now, the average company has about 25% of it’s costs in labor costs, including the social costs, the welfare costs around it, 25%. When you move – 25% of volume, that is – you, all of a sudden, can save over 25%, so your profits go leaping up. But you’re destroying – totally destroying – not only the number of people who’ve got jobs but also their salaries.”

“Now, you realize that salaries in the States – earnings, weekly earnings, hourly earnings over the last 20 years – have already dropped about 19% in real dollars. It’s already been a massive decline and that is why the so called recovery – which is a recovery of economic indexes – hasn’t got the feel good factor because people’s salaries have gone down. They’re gonna go down much more. It’s only beginning and the reason is very straightforward.”

“When you manufacture something, anything – this table – you have a value added. The value added is when you take the raw materials and you manufacture a product. Value you add is known as value added. And that is shared between capital and labor. And the whole division – the sharing of that – has been the subject of massive debates for generations. How much should go to capital? How much should go to labor? You’ve had strikes, you’ve had lockouts, you’ve had political debates.”

“All of a sudden, by creating a global marketplace for labor, by creating circumstances where people are making the same product with the same technology for the same capital and the only variant is cost of labor, you are shattering that – shattering the way you share the value added and that means that you are destroying the basis on which we’ve been able to create an equilibrium and have a stable society.”

“I am entirely for free enterprise. I am for free markets. I’m not for the destruction of one’s society.”

“The economy is there to serve the fundamental needs of society, which are prosperity, which are stability, and which are contentment. That is the basis of my thinking. And what I’m saying at this stage is that if, purely for an economic doctrine, you have a situation whereby the economy grows but you create poverty, unemployment, and you destabilize the society, you’re in trouble.”

“Look what’s happened in the last 50 years. You see, people are not willing to look at fundamentals. When I was a boy we were taught that irreversibly we were moving towards progress. That material wealth, material prosperity would solve our problems, would improve our way of life, and improve our civilization. We were taught that. And we achieved the creation of material prosperity in a way which we would never have dreamt of. We made the economy grow 400%. Incredible! And what have we done? We destabilized our society. We’ve increased unemployment massively. We’ve totally destabilized our cities. We’ve uprooted our countryside. We’ve increased crime. Every single viable criteria for a stable society has become negative. Therefore, something must be wrong. And what has become wrong is that instead of the economy being there to serve us, we are there adoring, serving economic indexes.”

“The facts are that people who benefit are big major corporations. There is a divorce between the interests of major corporations and of society. When one used to say and believe – and probably rightly – what is good for General Motors is good for the United States. That is no longer true. Today the transnational corporations have annual sales of $4.8trillion. They account for 1/3 of all – the top alone account for 1/3 of – direct investment. Now how do they operate? They’re no longer linked to the United States, the american ones, or to France or to Britain. They operate by farming out their production to whatever company produces the cheapest labor, wherever they can get the biggest return on capital, and pay the lowest part to labor.”

“Firstly, it started with the textile industries, and the shoes, and those industries were decimated. We lost millions of employment, of people employed. Secondly, it was followed by the high tech industries. And as I say in the last few months we’ve had those. Thirdly, the service industries – these are facts – the service industries, they’ve been moving offshore. There are satellites up there. If you take Swiss Air. Swiss Air has moved part of its back office into Bombay. Why? Because they can communicate through the satellites and reduce their costs by 95%.”

 

[QQQBALL]

Quote from Sandybestdog:

$10 and hour, times 40 hours times 4.3 weeks = $1720 a month – 20% in taxes = $1376 a month.

Minimal housing: $500
Utilities: $100
Health insurance: $272
Co-Pays and prescriptions: $50
Food: $300
Transportation: $200 (I wish)
Phone: $50
Clothes: $50
Household items: $100

Hmmm $1622 for bare essentials and we haven’t even gotten to any entertainment or luxuries like education or pets. Of course this is assuming Murphy doesn’t show up either. You sound like Pharoah telling the slaves to make bricks without straw and then blaming them when they don’t. So as soon as you tell everybody here how to turn water into wine, how can you say people aren’t living within their means?

Hey, they need you for a loop.

I'm basically saying that people have borrowed & consumed, & now that's its a long hard winter there are no acorns stored away. Believe me, I am very frugal & even I'm feeling it.

Just to be clear, if you can't feed yourself, a pet is a luxury you can't afford. You have $600 in for minimal housing - get a roommate or two & a part-time job. The Library is free, therefore, so is your entertainment. Do you grow some of your own food... We did for many years. It adds up. I still shop at the local Farmer;s Market & I cook a pot of beans, soup or chili for the week. AT least I have some control. BTW, when you go to the Library, checkout "Your Money or Your Life".

Signed,

The "Pharoah"

 

[forextrades]

Quote from QQQBALL:

Hey, they need you for a loop.

I'm basically saying that people have borrowed & consumed, & now that's its a long hard winter there are no acorns stored away. Believe me, I am very frugal & even I'm feeling it.

Just to be clear, if you can't feed yourself, a pet is a luxury you can't afford. You have $600 in for minimal housing - get a roommate or two & a part-time job. The Library is free, therefore, so is your entertainment. Do you grow some of your own food... We did for many years. It adds up. I still shop at the local Farmer;s Market & I cook a pot of beans, soup or chili for the week. AT least I have some control. BTW, when you go to the Library, checkout "Your Money or Your Life".

Signed,

The "Pharoah"

$600 housing? What? Where?

Kind of sounds like prison anyway. If that's the way you have to live, might as well just end it now. BTW, you can't get a p/t job because there are no p/t jobs.

 

[QQQBALL]

Quote from forextrades:

$600 housing? What? Where?

Kind of sounds like prison anyway. If that's the way you have to live, might as well just end it now. BTW, you can't get a p/t job because there are no p/t jobs.

In some areas, all jobs are part-time. no FT, no bennies.

I have worked through my backlog, but my daughter corrected me, i'm actually a "Discouraged Worker" rather than "Unemployed."

New college graduates are gonna have a tough road here in the foreseeable future. Its tough out there for everybody, but less so for frugal folks, people in the habit of saving & people who have seen hard times before.

 

[number22]

Quote from vhehn:

education killed religion. how can you expect an educated kid in 2009 who actually looks at the evidence to believe in a talking snake.
if christians dont want to be ridiculed dont believe ridiculous things.

That is pretty hard for religious people to swallow. People should read Christopher Hitchens How religion poisons everything, great read.

 

[426653478]

Quote from forextrades:

$600 housing? What? Where?

Kind of sounds like prison anyway. If that's the way you have to live, might as well just end it now.

+1

 

[426653478]

Quote from Sandybestdog:

$10 and hour, times 40 hours times 4.3 weeks = $1720 a month – 20% in taxes = $1376 a month.

Minimal housing: $500
Utilities: $100
Health insurance: $272
Co-Pays and prescriptions: $50
Food: $300
Transportation: $200 (I wish)
Phone: $50
Clothes: $50
Household items: $100

Hmmm $1622 for bare essentials and we haven’t even gotten to any entertainment or luxuries like education or pets. Of course this is assuming Murphy doesn’t show up either. You sound like Pharoah telling the slaves to make bricks without straw and then blaming them when they don’t. So as soon as you tell everybody here how to turn water into wine, how can you say people aren’t living within their means?

if you can cut the $300 for food, all the other costs will go away too

 

[Sandybestdog]

Quote from QQQBALL: Hey, they need you for a loop. I'm basically saying that people have borrowed & consumed, & now that's its a long hard winter there are no acorns stored away. Believe me, I am very frugal & even I'm feeling it. Just to be clear, if you can't feed yourself, a pet is a luxury you can't afford. You have $600 in for minimal housing - get a roommate or two & a part-time job. The Library is free, therefore, so is your entertainment. Do you grow some of your own food... We did for many years. It adds up. I still shop at the local Farmer;s Market & I cook a pot of beans, soup or chili for the week. AT least I have some control. BTW, when you go to the Library, checkout "Your Money or Your Life". Signed, The "Pharoah"

I made up all those figures except for the health insurance, but I think we can agree that they are definitely on the low side, and yet they will still definitely be more than $2,000 a month. A one bedroom apartment is at least $850 where I live. Someone needs at least a $15 job to make that, and there aren’t enough of those out there. So if you want people to live within their means, then you better find a way to drastically cut those expenses, or signinficantly increase income. What is the hype on food? Even if I ate for free, that saves only a couple of hundred dollars a month. That’s not going to do much for the average person. What’s the point of that when the Fed eats away 5% of your purchasing power every year. It’s funny that you mention growing your own food though. I just went out and planted just a couple of things just for something to do. But I have no idea what I’m doing, which is the way a good economy is run. Why don’t I stop doing stupid things that I have no idea how to do in a vein attempt to save a microscopic amount of money, and leave that up to the farmers, and I can spend time doing things that I know how to do better than farmers that they can purchase from me? But then the Fed, governments, and corporations came in and decided they want a whole big chunk for themselves. One way they do this is through immigrants.

Immigrants have drastically tightened the job markets. Remember that I know that we are a nation of immigrants, but does anybody really think that the immigrants of today are the same kind that came here even 20 years ago? They don’t speak English, ruin or culture, weigh on our social services, and then they take our jobs, then send the money back to their country. The worst part is, I would say, they don’t even like America, or at least the way that you and I like America on this Memorial day.

Do you think that the car manufacturers are really hurting because of their supposed crappy cars and high labor costs? No you want to know what I think is the problem. 90% of non black or white people don’t drive American cars. It’s true, just look around you. The new immigrants who come here don’t drive American cars, and then they create a market for the foreign manufacturers. Eventually some Americans here also buy a foreign car because of the increased chioice and gradually you see the big 3 filing bankruptcy. The funny thing is, a lot of Toyotas and Honda’s are made here, but there is still the illusion that they are non American cars, which is why people buy them.

Oh and nobody wants to hear that they have to get a part time job and roomates when they are already working like crazy. Telling someone to work harder for less, is the best way to get people voting Democrat in a heartbeat. Why don’t you instead figure out a way so that my health insurance doesn’t go up another 15% next year?