"Welcoming arms put squeeze on U.S."

From John O'Sullivan:

Last week Time magazine breached an important taboo in the establishment media. It published a powerful indictment of America's current immigration policy -- and in particular the U.S. government's scandalous tolerance of illegal immigration -- under the striking title: "Who Left the Door Open?"

...Given the potentially disastrous results of terrorists strolling through our porous borders, you might suppose that the Bush administration would be cracking down on border incursions. Far from it. Not only is the president proposing amnesty for illegal immigrants already here, he also wants to reform the law so that U.S. employers can import as many foreign workers quite legally -- by the simple tactic of offering jobs at wages no American will accept...

Furthermore, in an interview with the Washington Times, Asa Hutchinson of the Homeland Security Department wrung his hands and regretted that a compassionate administration could not possibly deport large numbers of illegal immigrants. In making that argument, he confirmed that the administration has essentially decided to keep the borders porous...

Immigration2004 · Tue, 09/21/2004 - 12:04 · · Importance: 1

Comments

If the employers only had to post a job at minimum wage, in order to get a visa for a foreigner, they could get millions issued a year. If the going wage across a number of industries, is $10/hr, and you cut that in half, the economics say that they should scrap machinery that is justified on the higher wage, and substitute less-productive labor instead. Yet a large part of our economy is the production of machinery, the installation of which, is premised on the higher wage structure. If you suddenly kick out the props under that investment pattern, by cutting the relevant wages by half, the production of that machinery will be cut back as in the most severe recessions' downturn phase. This crash in investment in labor-saving machinery is the triggering event for a spreading recession. Normally, it is a spike in interest rates, or other relevant costs which sends the new orders for productivity-enhancing investment sharply down; but the other possibility is a sudden drop in the relevant wages.

Posted by: John S Bolton at Sep 22, 2004 12:10 AM

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