Importing Unemployment
At last week’s Job Summit, there was talk of a second stimulus package, of tax credits for small businesses that hire new workers, of an Infrastructure Bank to select national priority public works projects like the Hoover Dam and TVA of yesteryear.
But no one, it seems, advanced the one obvious idea that would have the most immediate and dramatic impact — a moratorium on all immigration into the United States.
Unemployment is at 10 percent, near the postwar high of 1983. Fifteen million Americans are out of work. Ten million more have given up looking or are working fewer hours than they would like.
We have been losing jobs every month for two years.
Why, then, are we still bringing immigrants into the United States at a rate of 125,000 a month to take jobs from fellow Americans and compete with our unemployed for the jobs that open up?
In the last year, 1.5 million new immigrants have come to take up residence and been issued work permits. Probably twice as many jobs have been taken by these folks as the 650,000 the Obamaites claim were saved or created by their $787 billion stimulus package. How do Democrats justify this?
How can they justify bringing in another 1.5 immigrants in 2010 and another 1.5 million in 2011, when 25 million Americans they are supposed to represent are unemployed or underemployed?
If Obama voters feel disillusioned do they not have valid reason?
As for illegal aliens, it is estimated that 8 million still hold jobs in the United States. Endlessly we are told that these hardworking folks are just doing jobs that Americans refuse to do.
But Middle American News has taken a look at the Census Bureau data. In almost all the occupations to which unskilled and semi-skilled illegal aliens gravitate, native-born Americans hold most of the jobs.
U.S. citizens account for well over half of all housekeepers, maids, taxi drivers and chauffeurs in the U.S., almost two-thirds of all the butchers, meat processors and ground maintenance and construction workers, and three-fourths of all porters, bellhops and janitors.
We are told that many if not most of these are “dead-end jobs” Americans do not want or will not take. Yet, how can that be true when American citizens are already doing most of these jobs?
As related here in October, USA Today found that, invariably, when U.S. authorities raid a plant site where hundreds of illegals are working, and send them packing, hundreds of Americans show up and apply for the jobs. Is this not as it should be, if we are looking out for our own people first? And isn’t that what a family does, or should do?
Why, then, is the Obama administration cutting back on jobsite raids and inspections? Why is the administration talking of moving in 2010 to legalize the status of the 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the United States?
Is putting illegal aliens on the path to citizenship a higher priority for this Obama crowd than opening up jobs for American workers?
Are the K Street lobbyists whose corporate bosses cannot get enough low-wage labor that powerful? Are the Hispanic lobbies like La Raza and MALDEF, with their charges of “nativist” and “xenophobe,” so intimidating the Democratic Party cannot stand up to them?
Two weeks ago, The Washington Post, focusing on unemployment among young African-American males, wrote, “Joblessness for 16- to 24-year-old black men has reached Great Depression proportions — 34.5 percent in October, more than three times the rate for the general U.S. population.”
More than one-third of all young black males are unemployed.
Which raises a question. Where is the Black Caucus?
Here are folks who favor preferential treatment for their black constituents over white Americans — i.e., affirmative action. But they go mute when it comes to immigrants coming and taking jobs and illegal aliens holding down 8 million of those jobs that could be going to the unemployed in their own community.
Nor is it only working-class Americans who are being shouldered aside by the annual flood tide of immigrants.
As Jerry Woodruff, editor of Middle American News, writes: “Immigrants are taking good, high-paying jobs from highly skilled Americans. The Census Bureau found that 34 percent of all software engineers … are immigrants. Yet, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers reports that 48,000 U.S. software engineers are unemployed.”
If Obama wants to take executive action to assist Americans out looking for work, he could take two strong and effective steps.
First, call on Congress to vote a moratorium on immigration until the unemployment rate falls below 6 percent. Second, instruct Homeland Security and the Justice Department to renew the raids and enforce the law against employers who are taking jobs from Americans by illegally hiring undocumented aliens.
If Obama did that, suddenly folks would sit up and say, as they did after Ronald Reagan busted the air controllers, “This man is serious.”
Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book Churchill, Hitler, and ‘The Unnecessary War,’ now available in paperback.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS.COM
We begin to see the purpose of the Copenhagen Summit.
I happened on the weather channel this morning, and saw the awful human devastation happening in Bangledesh, which they said was caused by the rise in sea level due to global warming.
Out the corner of the “journalist’s” mouth, he mumbled that river flooding had caused devastation, and that many of the displaced were homeless because of burst levees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level
For at least the last 100 years, sea level has been rising at an average rate of about 1.8 mm per year.[7] Scientists believe that the majority of this rise can be attributed to human-induced global warming.[8]
Um, excuse me? You’re saying that in 100 years, the ocean has gone up less than 8 inches? And it continues to go up less than 1/16 of an inch per year? (Then picture what the twice-daily rise and fall of 5 to 10-foot tides must do.) And that has suddenly made millions homeless in the last two years?
…Or at least since we have begun telling people worldwide that if they can prove hardship caused by industrialization, then rich countries need to ship billions of dollars to them.
Lay out the Caviar Wedges, make room for the private jets and limos. Let the Copenhagen Summit begin, so that poor countries can present their demands.
Send our President over Denmark, to sign an obligation to ship money to poor countries. We can deal with the JOBS issue when he gets back.
business’ and many individuals preser immigarnts as they feel that for the most part they are better and cheaper workers. americans who do low skilled jobs tend to be least motivated and have more personal issues. if they were raised here and given oppt’y and are only doing menial work it’s hard to compete with highly motivated immigrants who at some risk left their homeland to work.in addition an american can barely get by much less raise a family on 7-$10 per hr. an immigarnt living with many others can bust his buttt and send half the $ home to family where he is a hero ir save to bring family here. it sucks for those americans here at the bottom but unless the get political power equal to business community it won’t change
Rampant population growth threatens our economy and quality of life. Immigration, both legal and illegal, are fueling this growth. I’m not talking about environmental degradation or resource depletion. I’m talking about the effect upon rising unemployment and poverty in America.
I should introduce myself. I am the author of a book titled “Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America.” To make a long story short, my theory is that, as population density rises beyond some optimum level, per capita consumption of products begins to decline out of the need to conserve space. People who live in crowded conditions simply don’t have enough space to use and store many products. This declining per capita consumption, in the face of rising productivity (per capita output, which always rises), inevitably yields rising unemployment and poverty.
This theory has huge implications for U.S. policy toward population management, especially immigration policy. Our policies of encouraging high rates of immigration are rooted in the belief of economists that population growth is a good thing, fueling economic growth. Through most of human history, the interests of the common good and business (corporations) were both well-served by continuing population growth. For the common good, we needed more workers to man our factories, producing the goods needed for a high standard of living. This population growth translated into sales volume growth for corporations. Both were happy.
But, once an optimum population density is breached, their interests diverge. It is in the best interest of the common good to stabilize the population, avoiding an erosion of our quality of life through high unemployment and poverty. However, it is still in the interest of corporations to fuel population growth because, even though per capita consumption goes into decline, total consumption still increases. We now find ourselves in the position of having corporations and economists influencing public policy in a direction that is not in the best interest of the common good.
The U.N. ranks the U.S. with eight third world countries – India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, Ethiopia and China – as accounting for fully half of the world’s population growth by 2050. It’s absolutely imperative that our population be stabilized, and that’s impossible without dramatically reining in immigration, both legal and illegal.
If you’re interested in learning more about this important new economic theory, I invite you to visit my web site at OpenWindowPublishingCo.com where you can read the preface, join in my blog discussion and, of course, purchase the book if you like. (It’s also available at Amazon.com.)
Pete Murphy
Author, “Five Short Blasts”
I have more of a chance of having a sex life like Tiger Woods than Obama and his crew paying any attention at all to the borders.
“It’s absolutely imperative that our population be stabilized, and that’s impossible without dramatically reining in immigration, both legal and illegal.”
And reining in immigration is impossible when wealthy leftists fund environmentalist groups and then threaten to stanch the flow of subsidies should any anti-immigration sentiments be broached.
“It was a very bad day for environmentalism in 2000-2001 when the Sierra Club secretly took over $100 million in donations from Wall Street investor David Gelbaum on the condition that its historic caution about immigration not be renewed. It signaled the end of true bipartisan defense of the earth and the beginning of environmentalism’s enthusiastic plunge into extreme multicultural ideology and nutty One-Worldism—with a deep-sixing of the overpopulation issue both domestically and worldwide”–Brenda Walker
“…Or at least since we have begun telling people worldwide that if they can prove hardship caused by industrialization, then rich countries need to ship billions of dollars to them. Lay out the Caviar Wedges, make room for the private jets and limos. Let the Copenhagen Summit begin, so that poor countries can present their demands. Send our President over Denmark, to sign an obligation to ship money to poor countries. We can deal with the JOBS issue when he gets back.”
To buttress Barney Rebble’s point: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/12/climate_treaty_reparations_would_cost_50-200bn_per_year.html
Hurt Job Creation? Our Current Administration?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/09/administration-warns-command-control-regulation-emissions/
Seems that Obama is threatening to destroy job creation, unless everyone goes along with his Cap and Trade plans.
Who would have guessed?
The Democrats were unable to convince Americans that Socialism was a viable form of government. So now they are simply importing votes. All the “illegal immigrants” will be funneled to Democratic political machines. The DNC’s system of nepotism will be familiar to immigrants from countries (like Latin America and the Middle East) where such activity is considered the norm. Once they have imported enough votes, the rest of us will find ourselves living a socialist life style with the attendant poverty and fear of gevernment agencies.
From Washington’s perspective, immigration makes a lot of sense. Immigrants and prospective naturalized illegals will vote Democratic, work cheap for the Republicans, and broaden the number of taxpayers for big spending.
On the negative side, beside job competition, massive population growth decreases that portion of wealth measured as natural resources per capita. Especially troubling is non-renewables per capita. CO2 output increases with population, if you’re into Al Gore.
Large numbers of uneducated illegal and chamberpot immigrants skew the economy toward the low end–car detailing, landscaping, child care, etc.
Displacing the world beating R&D people we had back in the 1960′s or thereabouts with massive numbers of third world techs virtually destroyed R&D infrastructure and innovation. Now we’re trying to compete with world class German and Japanese engineers with third world immigrants. Pathetic, and some are still calling for more H-1Bs and third world techs. With little innovation after the ’60′s, industry had to compete with low wage countries like China on the basis of labor costs alone–a competition we were sure to lose. Despite what pointy headed U.S. economists say about free trade, most countries realize that a job is better than a bargain at Walmart.
Freedom Lovers: At least something will be rotten in the state of Denmark when the White House Squirrel (tied to Acorn) arrives in Copenhagen to find ways to CHEW us out and SNUFF out freedom! Speaking of Copenhagen, we’ve gotta find ways to cope with that squirrel which keeps hoggin’ the spotlight! Squirrel Watcher
Re: Importing Unemployment
I have been saying the same thing for the last 1.5 years, but my concern has primarily been illegal immigrants taking jobs away from Americans. If we would do the right thing and deport the illegals and PREVENT anymore from entering the US, we could virtually eliminate our unemployment problem.
I just wanted to tell you that you made a type-o in the “Importing Unemployment” article. In the 7th paragraph you said, “How can they justify bringing in another 1.5 immigrants in 2010 and another 1.5 million in 2011…”
I’m sure you meant to say, “How can they justify bringing in another 1.5 ‘MILLION’ immigrants in 2010 and another 1.5 million in 2011…”
Thank you and keep up the good work.
Respectfully,
Ian McGreggor