Saturday, June 30, 2018

Advice on How to "Steal" a Job From an Immigrant



By Robert Higgs

Greetings, American friends,

Do you hanker for a job putting roofs on houses in the hot summer sun, or cutting up carcasses (and your fingers) in a frigid meat or poultry packing plant, or doing manual labor on construction sites and roads in all kinds of weather, or cooking, bussing tables, and washing dishes in a restaurant, or cleaning toilets and making beds in a hotel, or harvesting apples, strawberries, asparagus, and hundreds of other crops that require exhausting stoop labor, or cleaning office buildings at night, or taking care of affluent people’s kids while they go to work, or mowing lawns and trimming foliage for homes and businesses? If so, you can probably find an employer who will be happy to hire you—after all, you at least speak English—and you can thereby strike back at Jose and Esmeralda by “stealing” a job from an immigrant worker, maybe even an “illegal alien.”

Let me know how it goes for you, amigos. The world really is your oyster, you know.

Robert Higgs is author of Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government and Taking a Stand: Reflections on Life, Liberty, and the Economy.

The above originally appeared at the Independent Institute.

14 comments:

  1. Higgs is clueless anti white idiot. The only reason the corporatocracy loves immigrants because they pay them peanuts for jobs that used to provide a pathway to some lower middle class stability. The monetary system has some issues on this, but the corporatocracy loves cheap labor whether skilled or unskilled.

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    1. I love immigrants because they work hard and don't bitch. You on the other hand sound like you're in heat.

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    2. Yes Donxon, I know you are white anti-white loser and embarrassment to white males who are still men.

      You are like the other half wits who post here who like to insult but unable to address the assertion I made that is verifiable with facts and data.

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    3. Yep. You try to get a good job in a country where you barely speak the language as a LEGAL immigrant!

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  2. What nonsense. It assumes that there are no higher skilled immigrants* and no unskilled US born people. Both of which are false. Also some of what is listed, landscaping for instance, is a low regulation, low cost to enter, business and thus many US born people enter into it as well.

    *with H1B visa or other government rules that limit their employment mobility and thus lower wages for everyone.

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    1. Re: Jimmy Joe Maker,
      --- It assumes that there are no higher skilled immigrants* and no unskilled US born people. ---


      What on Earth are you taking about? Robert is addressing the common argument that all immigrants steal jobs from Americans by showing its absurdity. He's not assuming zero level of unsmilled America-born labor but pointing out that Americans are working OTHER jobs that are more profitable.

      --- with H1B visa or other government rules that limit their employment mobility and thus lower wages for everyone. ---


      That's a clumsy lie. First because it is NOT true that wages are "lowered" because of immigrants, as it implies a "race to the bottom" fallacy by obviating the disutility of labor. The most you could say ia that wages would not grow faster as supply meets demand, but that doesn't mean wages would go DOWN. Immigrants aren't stupid.

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    2. The absurd argument of "jobs americans won't do" is being made. It's entirely absurd and entirely false. You all need to get out of your ivory towers once in awhile. I have to do as part of my job and I find many US born white and black males (and the rare female) doing these "jobs americans won't do". That's what I am talking about. Get out into the real world. Start going to places outside of big cities and metro areas too.

      It's a clumsy lie to say H1-B Visa rules limit employment mobility? You are intentionally replying to something I did not write. I didn't make any argument about "dilution of labor". I made an argument about employment mobility due to government rules. Those rules very well exist and you damn well know it Torres. It seems you want to defend these government rules that allow corporations to hire immigrants at lower prices but can't do it honestly. When there is a group of people held captive by sponsorship rules, it is not only their price that goes down, but everyone's price must go down to compete. These sponsorship rules act like government price controls. They are a market interference. And yet here you acting like the typical left-statist by replying to something not argued to divert away from criticism of a government program you like.

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  3. The increased supply of labor drives down wages for Americans.

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    1. Even notorious immigration skeptic George Borjas concedes that the only US demographic whose wage is negatively affected by immigration is high-school dropouts. The remainder of the population actually sees higher real wages because the immigrants’ labor complements, rather than directly competes with, theirs.

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    2. That's a good thing for consumers. Wages are a cost of production, and anything that lowers costs means producers can offer lower prices to consumers, which increases consumers' living standards.

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    3. PH comes here to showcase his economic incompetence again, by - once again- committing the labor lumping fallacy.

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  4. Drives down prices for consumers. Supply of labor is aggregating something that shouldn't be aggregated. Labor is role/task specific, not some general concept.

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