you could be a literary genius.

 

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Americans don't want those jobs because those jobs pay so low. The reason those jobs pay so low is because immigrant labor will work for those wages.

When you make $0.14 a day in Mexico, making $40/day seems like a damn fine wage.


Arguing this topic without considering the relative costs of living and associated social programs which are also tied inexorably into labor wages is farcical at best.


Regarding the OP, and the whole copyright issue - remember one thing: copyright law is the way it is not because of pressure from artists, but because of pressure from corporate entities who own the artists' work and who have established themselves as the means by which an artist's work gets sold. Just try to make a go of it as a talented music act without a major label backing you. It's not so much that a small time label can't get your material pressed, it's that they can't get it played on the radios which are also owned (either literally or indirectly through advertising and other financial investment pressure) by the same corporate interests which own the other artists and their material and which will play the artists on the big labels preferentially over the artists on no-name labels.

Consider that a typical music act gets pennies from the cost of a CD.

Do a little research on how studios work over movies and the financing of those and how actors are paid and who REALLY gets all the money. An example about movie studios:

Many movies will get made by a studio with only certain shares of the profits going to the actors and director and whatnot after all costs have been factored in. Meanwhile these studios will do things like "loan themselves" the cash for making the movie, at like 30% interest. When they pay themselves back plus interest, a bigger bite of the profits is taken, leaving less to be distributed. That's just one of the many many shady usurious tricks the corporate interests that control the distribution of this media work.

Of course those corporate interests are going to tell you to think of the artists when it comes to issues of "piracy", but then of course, any cut into their profits is reflected first in the salaries of the artists and their own corporate profits are the very last to be cut or impacted by "piracy".

 

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OP makes a valid point.

If the government can't catch and put people who came here illegally, and as such are doing every single thing in their life illegally, in jail, why is everyone so worried that they will suddenly be able to find people who are illegally downloading things??

 

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But you can't exactly blame them for seeking a better life. If you wan't to keep the illegal aliens out of the country then fight the companies that are hiring them. If there are no jobs then they will not come here, simple as that, they will go somewhere else.

Even if the companies were to offer $10 per hour to Americans to pick vegetables in a field, not too many would do it. Though, I'll bet, many more would today than would have 3 years ago.

Want to solve a bunch of problems at once? Put the welfare and extended unemployment people to work in these fields for the same rate they get on unemployment.

 

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I'm not blaming the immigrants.





$10/hour is actually not that great of wage - that's $20k a year if you get 2,000 hours worked. In reality, with the likely number of hours worked, it's probably more like $12-15k a year. It's also backbreaking labor in horrendous conditions of heat.

The other reality is that labor costs are a relatively small percentage of the cost of produce that you see in the grocery store as a consumer.

Wage issues aren't really about immigrants, though their presence does impact the market in some areas. Wage issues are the result of the war on the middle class.





If you think about this a bit more, you will see it as an even bigger boondoggle than the current state of affairs.

How will you handle child care? How will you handle the various physical abilities of welfare recipients? How will you handle the healthy guy who doesn't think it's fair for him to have to bust his ass out in 100 degree heat for the same welfare/unemployment check that the fat slob collects for sitting on his ass, because you had to give a waiver to that guy so he didn't have to work because of his type 2 diabetes? How much do you think all the EXTRA government administrators would cost that have to oversee the program and ensure things like equal opportunity, working conditions, breaks, and proper bookkeeping and tax records are kept?

 

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$10 per hour is about the best you will get on extended unemployment. If people can live on that while unemployed they can live on it while in a field picking tomatoes or whatever.

And with all the money the company would be saving with those wages they can afford to put in some decent child care (child care workers frequently make somewhere close to $10 per hour anyway).

 

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I find this thread difficult to masturbate to.

 

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wait until they go after all that free pron you're downloading.. then you'll be upset.

For which they presently do nothing. For which many of them would find excuses *some legit, others not) to continue to do nothing while SOME of them would have to bust their ass under your plan. You aren't thinking this through. Workfare plans have been proposed a billion times in the past and even the craziest of their proponents see them for what they are - a big fkn mess that makes the current mess look like no problem at all.





Um, they already ARE paying lower wages than what you propose. Do you see daycare setup for vegetable pickers presently?

You need to think about this some more.

 

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Another thing about hiring illegals...

1: You dont need to give them benefits which massively pads the salary of a legal worker.

2: You dont need to pay the taxes/UI insurance/etc as an employer.

3: It is more stable as the USA worker is more likely to job hop if they find something better.

With those 3 things going on, it is cheaper to pay an illegal $10 per hour than it is to pay someone legal $7.50 per hour -- so it isnt even the case of people willing to do the job for the same pay, it is that it is much cheaper even at the same rate.

Of course if you can abuse the illegal on hours and pay them even less than a legal worker it makes the spread even wider.

 

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