heretic on 28/10/2007 at 23:42
Quote Posted by BEAR
This is just terrible, I cant believe the government might want to know where illegal immigrants are and that they can drive safely.
The point you seem to be missing is that a driver license is a primary form of ID. A primary form which one can use to say draw welfare benefits, school loans, ETC. This also will potentially make voters fraud a lot easier, as if it's not easy enough allready.
jay pettitt on 28/10/2007 at 23:57
What's that you say, a route to getting housed, educated, work and participating in community and a democratic system? Oh no, run for the hills. Seriously, anyone would think you liked whining.
Quote Posted by Trappin
White contractors hire cheap illegal Latino labor so they can underbid the legal competition. Free trade/supply and demand works as long as everyone follows the rules. To bad the rules are ignored.
For example - California has very high workers compensation liability rates. When a roofing contractor cheats on paying workers comp they are saving 50 cents on every dollar made. Kinda hard to be an honest contractor and bid against the cheaters and labor exploiters.
So what do we do? import more cheap illegal labor and drive wages down to third world rates. Couple years later we see MALDEF activists demanding a "living wage" for the working poor. Funny how that works eh.
Welcome to the free market and the american dream. If you're worried that market forces will lead to loss of standards (and you're right, they always will) then you really ought to look into getting yourselves a functioning system of government that can implement labour laws and building regulations.
heretic on 29/10/2007 at 01:02
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
Seriously, anyone would think you liked whining.
Almost as much as you like hyperbole apparently.
It is not the American tax-payers responsibility to provide that route for those who are here legally, let alone illegally.
fett on 29/10/2007 at 02:26
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
Welcome to the free market and the american dream. If you're worried that market forces will lead to loss of standards (and you're right, they always will) then you really ought to look into getting yourselves a functioning system of government that can implement labour laws and building regulations.
That's exactly what needs to happen jay. People (including myself at times) confuse frustration with the system and frustration with immigrants themselves. Who can blame them for wanting a better life? It's the legitimate American business owners that use them to get a leg up and everybody else (including the immigrants) gets screwed relative to what they actually deserve.
But there is still the very complicated issues of education and medical care, which they receive but don't help pay for.
inselaffe on 29/10/2007 at 02:59
Excuse you me thief13x, but what gives you the right to live somewhere anymore than they do?
jay pettitt on 29/10/2007 at 03:38
...He's an American.
Quote Posted by Fett
But there is still the very complicated issues of education and medical care, which they receive but don't help pay for.
Think of it as investment. Economy happy hour is over; the only way you're going to achieve the perpetual growth your financial system needs to prevent it from collapsing in on itself utterly, is to grow the population. More people = more debt; which means you can have
cake pension \o/
We have open borders negotiated with some of our European Union neighbours, but havn't invested in extra infrastructure - parts of which are now starting to be stressed. (Obviously whining about foreigners is a national pastime here, so we quite enjoy that we've got stressed services to moan about.)
DinkyDogg on 29/10/2007 at 06:44
Do minimum wage workers usually have to pay taxes? Or would it be their employers? I know they pay sales tax, whether they're legal or not.
Chimpy Chompy on 29/10/2007 at 09:35
Quote Posted by Dan Knott
Excuse you me thief13x, but what gives you the right to live somewhere anymore than they do?
Well you're up against the basic concept of "nationality" here. Someone born in country x has an instant right to live there that everyone else doesn't. There are probably rational arguments against, but I think that's a bit too radical to work towards popular acceptance of immigration. Better to highlight the economic advantages it (hopefully) brings.
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
We have open borders negotiated with some of our European Union neighbours, but havn't invested in extra infrastructure - parts of which are now starting to be stressed.
I eagerly await the southeast becoming one giant suburb. :p
Chimpy Chompy on 29/10/2007 at 10:45
I wasn't talking about the US? But apologies for the confusion anyway. Obviously there are different factors to take into account.
