You really pissed me off with your last comment. “And I get very impatient with people who think they shouldn’t have to adapt like everyone else because the world somehow owes them a living”. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken it personally. Maybe it wasn’t directed at me. I felt like it was. If it wasn’t, I’m sorry for any thoughts I had about you, or anything I’m about to say.

First of all, if it was directed at me, I have no idea where you get the idea that I think anyone owes me anything? I don’t think anyone owes me anything, except the people I do work for.

I get the feeling you are one of those high and mighty, holier than thou types, that thinks he’s all that, and everyone should be as cool as he is. And if not, they are a fool,(as the subject of this blog started)

Based on that assumption I wasn’t even going to respond anymore. I admitted in my first post I was an idiot when it came to economics. But, in my humble opinion, I feel that the experts can sometimes get lost in the facts and figures and forget about some things that are more important. I think they call it common sense because the common man has it and the experts loose it, the more they bury themselves in books and facts about “how the world works”. It makes it hard for someone who thinks that everyone is an individual and free to do things the way they feel is best for them, and god forbid have an original idea… You are going to win the argument every time if you and I are talking about economics. And that’s why I wasn’t going to respond anymore, you will never see it my way and I’ll never see it your way. Maybe Lou Dobbs “IS” a fool when it comes to economics. I stood up for him because I like the fact that he is taking a stand “FOR” the middle class. I would like to know what you stand for. You claim to be a libertarian, but I don’t feel you are any different than the Rush Limbaugh’s or the Bill Oreilly’s of the world. Someone has a different opinion than you and all you can do is slander them, with no facts to back it up. I have neither the time or the patience to argue with someone like that. So I was going to leave this conversation.

Until today. Today I found out that a great man died. Arron Russo. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Maybe you don’t respect him because he had a different opinion than you. I could go on and on about all the evils of the world we live in. But I’ll just leave you with this. I don’t know where you stand on what I believe are way bigger issues than our views on economics. In our discussions you have said you don’t like government, but you are definitely on the side of corporations. In my mind it’s very hard to separate the two.

In the last year and a half or so, since my business has been slowing to a grinding halt. I’ve been learning a lot about “how the world works” I have a feeling that my view is different from the one you were talking about when you made that comment. I’ve told you all along, I don’t have a problem with any of your “theories”. It’s just that we live in an evil society and if people don’t wake up, it’s going to get real ugly!

I’ve mentioned the new world order before and no one ever commented on that. When it comes to that subject, you either believe it and want to do something about it, which is me and Lou Dobbs and a growing number of other people who like truth, (as opposed to what gets shoved down our throats by our government and a completly controlled media), or you don’t know enough about it(which is where I was until recently) Or you know about it and you’re OK with it. If you fall into that last category, you deserve the worst.

And that’s what this is about for me!
Not about what you read in some economics book!

The immigration thing is at the very center of what concerns me, and it’s not because I don’t like foreigners or that I don’t understand your logic on economics.

We have been brainwashed for decades to believe that we live in a democracy, worse that that, that we are trying to spread democracy. Nowhere in The Declaration Of Independence, The Constitution or The Bill Of Rights does it say we have a democratic government. We live in a Constitutional Republic, where we believe we have god given rights to be free to live our lives how we want, and express our selves how we want, as long as it doesn’t interfere with someone else’s rights. It’s not majority rules it’s the opposite, the majority is not supposed to be able to take away the rights of any one of us.

And that’s just the beginning of the brainwashing.

“The way the world works”

A very small group of international bankers and multinational corporations control EVERYTHING!
It’s a very sinister plan, and as I said before, you must either not know about it, or you support it, and in that case, I feel sorry for you, because you have no soul!

I wrote this to honor a great man. A man who was intelligent and successful. Because of his success, he was invited to join the ranks of the real evil in this world. Because of his intelligence and because he had more heart, soul and courage than most of us could ever dream of. He turned it down and did the right thing. He used his power to expose the evil. He encouraged us to do the same, and I’m trying to do that right now.

All I ask, is you have an open mind and listen to what he had to say.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWE,RNWE:2005-36,RNWE:en&q=aaron+russo&um=1&sa=N&tab=wv

Go ahead and call me a conspiracy theorist, I’m getting used to it. I believe all of them.
The war on terror is the biggest hoax ever perpetrated against humanity, and it could very well lead us to the end.

It would be great if an ex-military, well informed and educated person like you, would join the fight for truth and freedom.

It’s easy to be a follower, it takes courage to stand up against what you know is wrong.

Agreed that voluntary cooperation is key to success, and that all facets of production you mentioned are needed, but my point is that of all these facets labor (especially unskilled labor) is the most easily replaceable because it offers the lowest utility to producers while being the most easily replaceable…which is why laborers generally aren’t paid as well as the capitalists and the entrepeneurs. This is a common hang-up among people who oppose open immigration, they overrate the value of labor in the creation of consumer goods and argue that it should be given special protections by laws that insulate them from the effects of the free market, while denigrating capitalists and entrepenuers as “leeches”, when in fact the “leeches’” individual contributions are often just as or more valuable than what the individual laborers put in. I’m just pointing out that usually it’s the laborers who are the most dispensable part of the equation and the smart ones recognize this and take steps to insure that they’re less dispensable by increasing their utility to their employer. And I get very impatient with people who think they shouldn’t have to adapt like everyone else because the world somehow owes them a living.

In the free market, everybody relies on everybody else for production. The virtue of the free market is the competition for cooperation.

There are three components for a successful business: creativity and vision, tools and equipment, and management and labor. Entrepreneurs supply the creativity and vision. The capitalists supply the tools and equipment. While the workers produce the management and labor. All three parties cooperate for an outcome that is beneficial to all. Rigorous competition ensures that only the optimal cooperative arrangements are adopted and the benefits of cooperation are divided in an optimal fashion.

A thriving economy needs all three groups. Inhibiting the activities of any one of the three groups (barring externalities), negatively impacts the two other groups since it rules out certain cooperative arrangements that may be optimal.

If you want to promote the collective good, stop outlawing certain cooperative arrangements.

Actually, I believe that people invest money to help themselves first, not to improve society. It’s just that society benefits from individuals acting in their own interests. Same reason that most people have jobs…to help themselves primarily by pulling in a wage so they can buy things, not because they think the world would be collectively better of with a few more tables, or another hundred cars, or a really good accountant. Humans act out of self-interest, and self-interest is what motivates people to improve themselves and by extension improve things for others…not doing things only for the “collective good”. That’s the fatal flaw that the socialists always miss.

Stockholders invest their profits now the same as they always do, with an eye towards getting more money or more products in return. If they reinvest money in more stocks, that helps companies create more jobs. If they take the money they earn and piss it away on yachts, or corporate jets, or fancy dinner parties that creates new jobs (for yacht makers, the aircraft industry, and caterers respectively). Whatever they do with their money benefits the economy and the average worker, so they’re not actually making their living off the backs of workers. If anything, the workers of the world are making their living off the backs of ownership because the investment of capital is what makes jobs possible.

As for the need for ever-evolving skills, you may not want to hear it but that’s just life. There’s never a point at which you won’t need to compete against someone or something else to survive…immigrant, American, technology, or otherwise…and there’s never a point at which you’ve attained all the knowledge and skills in life you’re ever going to need. That’s part of why I’ve worked consistently since I was 10, even at jobs I wasn’t particularly fond of, and why I continue to study and read and try to develop as a person, because I recognize that the more skills I develop that are of use to my employer the less chance I have of getting cut out of my job by someone else. All the rules and regulations in the world aren’t going to change that basic fact of nature…actually, they’ll tend to make it worse by slowing economic growth, which increases my chances of getting canned by my employer via downsizing so his company can remain solvent. Do I feel bad for people who lose their jobs? Sure. Do I feel bad enough for people who lose their jobs that I want to pass a bunch of laws that won’t actually help them and will eventually make my life worse and increase the chances of losing my own job? Nope. There’s nothing moral about screwing yourself over out of guilt to make somebody else feel better about their life…especially if what you do won’t improve things for either of you. Actually, that’s the opposite of moral.

As for strictly enforcing the immigration laws and having the government intervene in the operations of private business, that’ll definitely start moving the “greedy bastards” out of the country, because denying them access to labor at the best possible price and forcing them to pay for the costs of regulatory compliance will eventually make the cost of doing business here more expensive than relocation. And the “greedy bastards” will take their money with them. And they’ll take their companies with them. And they’ll take the jobs those companies had with them, as well as the wages those jobs produced. And once that happens, somehow I think you’re going to find that the there are a lot fewer people interested in spending the money on cabinets…which I think is the exact opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. On the other hand, that will likely have the effect of decreasing illegal immigration…immigrants rarely choose to come to poor countries.

My reaction to this part,
“This is money that gets reinvested in the company to upgrade facilities, that can be spent on acquiring better supplies, that can be given out to stockholders as dividends to reward them for investing money in the company (which gives them more money to spend or invest on other businesses or on other goods), or even to reduce price on the product the company sells. The money that doesn’t get spent on labor gets spent in a hundred other ways that benefit the company and the economy at large…this money doesn’t just do nothing and disappear simply because it’s not being given to the workers”.

This is part of the problem. Maybe in the old days, the stockholders invested that money they made off of the backs of cheap labor into something that might benefit someone else, but now days, if people start a business endeavor they think the same way you do and hire illegals or outsource the jobs to a third world country where people are basically slaves, which is what it’s going to be here soon if people don’t wake up.

I’m all for keeping wages low to keep prices low. It’s just low to me, is not the same as what’s low to an illegal. I’ve never made what I consider to be a good living in my life. And I am totally OK with THAT. What I’m not OK with is someone telling me that at 47 years old I need to have these ever evolving skills to compete. I am highly skilled, I just want to have work to do every day. And I don’t because of our horrible economy.(I don’t care if King George says we have a robust economy, the TRUTH is it sucks) And I believe what you want (letting millions more people in the country)is going to make the economy worse.

My real beef in life is with peoples morals. This discussion was about Lou Dobbs and how I think he’s right, and you think he’s an idiot. No one these days is OK with working and just making a decent living and a comfortable life.
EVERYONE WANTS TO BE THE KING!

You believe people who make money off of the backs of cheap labor help out society. Is that why salaries for CEOS and upper management are at an all time high, while pay for the average worker has been stagnant for years if not going down?(to try to match what “ILLEGALS” will work for) The more profit they make the more stuff they buy for themselves, and the stuff they buy is made by more cheap labor so their rich friends make more profit and so on.
THAT’S the way the world works!

And my reaction to this part.
“I think a hang-up here is that you’re also placing too much emphasis on the value of labor in the whole scheme of production as well. Labor doesn’t determine value in a product”.
You place to little emphasis on human beings. We are all human. We all deserve our fellow man to care about us and give us respect. I’ll say again I do care about ALL of the poor people around the WHOLE WORLD, not just in my back yard or the country to the south of me. THERE ARE BILLIONS OF POOR PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD. Should we bring them all here? Or should we try to help them where they are?

BUILD A FENCE!

Put the national guard there, that’s where they’re supposed to be, not in the middle east!

We don’t need any new immigration legislation.

Enforce the laws we already have!

JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!

If greedy bastards want their cheap labor to be THAT cheap let them be the ones to migrate to where the cheap labor is and set up shop. It’s probably cheaper to live there, so they would be able to buy more stuff. And they would look more like the king.

Your question about where the jobs come from was answered…there aren’t a set number of jobs that you’re competing for against immigrants, because our economy isn’t centrally planned. There aren’t “X” number of jobs to choose from…if you don’t get one of them it doesn’t mean that another one won’t be created by an expanding economy. Restricting immigration, ironically, has the effect of creating less jobs because it restricts the pool of cheap labor available, which drives prices and costs up and limits the ability of businesses to expand, which causes the economy to shrink thereby creating less jobs.

What you’re not asking is where the money goes for companies that save money by hiring illegal immigrants. This is money that gets reinvested in the company to upgrade facilities, that can be spent on acquiring better supplies, that can be given out to stockholders as dividends to reward them for investing money in the company (which gives them more money to spend or invest on other businesses or on other goods), or even to reduce price on the product the company sells. The money that doesn’t get spent on labor gets spent in a hundred other ways that benefit the company and the economy at large…this money doesn’t just do nothing and disappear simply because it’s not being given to the workers.

I think a hang-up here is that you’re also placing too much emphasis on the value of labor in the whole scheme of production as well. Labor doesn’t determine value in a product. A product’s value is determined by scarcity (how much of it there is) and what is known as “marginal utility”, meaning that any given product is only worth what you’re willing to pay for its least valuable function. Why do you think water (which we need to survive) costs infinitely less than diamonds (which we don’t)? Because the least valuable function for water is dumping it on your car or lawn and the least valuable function for a diamond is to put it in a drill so you can mine coal. Thus the diamond is more expensive because its least useful function is far more important to us than water’s least useful function. Utility determines worth, not labor. And in order for companies to turn a profit while producing a good that people want to buy at a price they’re willing to pay, the costs of labor have to be kept as low as possible. And the reason that wages can be kept low is simply because unskilled labor offers very low utility. That’s why the best defense against losing your job to downsizing or another worker or whatever is to continue to develop job skills that make you indispensable to an employer that can’t easily be replaced by some other guy willing to work for less money.

This isn’t a “nice theory”, Dennis, it’s the way the world works…economics is based on how humans interact, not just a bunch of numbers that some nerd in a lab coat made up out of thin air. You can wish for a world in which you don’t constantly work harder than the next guy to stay ahead or take a lower wage than you’d like to keep your job, but the fact remains that in a competitive world that’s just how life is going to shake out. As long as there are workers who are being paid more than what they produce is worth to their employers and consumers, there’s going to be jobs available. And as long as there are jobs available illegal workers are going to come here to find them…all the immigration restrictions in the world aren’t going to change that. You’re never going to be able to keep immigrants away unless you’re willing to do away with the availability of jobs overall (both for them and for us) and run our economy into the tank by letting the government intervene and try to run everything. That’s what a lot of the anti-immigration activists seem to think is the best idea, and that’s not an acceptable option, either for the immigrants or for us.

I really don’t think unions is what broke the American car industry. You all may not remember but they used to make some pretty crappy cars. Now was that the workers fault or was that the design and engineering guys along with the upper management that made the decisions to cut corners and make crappy cars? And it doesn’t help when you have your own neighbors saying things like “So let Detroit close. Break the power of the UAW. The big three in Detroit and their heavy reliance on union workers are dinosaurs”. And, “Quite honestly, I don’t care where the next car I buy is built or designed, as long as it’s what I want”. Don’t people realize if their neighbors loose their jobs they might not be able to buy whatever it is that “they” sell.

To me all of the feed back I get from this little discussion, just proves to me, that whats wrong with this world, is that basically no one cares about anyone else and they don’t think about what the long term affects are going to be.

No ones ever answered my questions about where all the jobs and resources are going to come from if they open the flood gates, like they are wanting to do. (which is all that Lou Dobbs is talking about) Just How do we find that balance where if a person is willing to work they can afford to live, without having 10 family members pitch in on the rent?

I live very modestly by today’s standards, I live in a 45 year old 3 bedroom house, I drive a newer pick up truck but it’s a plain jane, not some 50,000 overkill like I see a lot of people drive. Who really needs a hummer or an escalade, what is wrong with people? Anyway… All I need is something dependable and something I can haul stuff in, I run my business out of a 2 car detached garage, (we’re talking small business) But with this housing bubble bursting thing going on, I can’t afford my meager lifestyle. If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve gotten back into playing music, I wouldn’t be able to eat.

The housing bubble bursting is a whole other subject, We need to abolish the fed.

Like I said before, forget about the reason for now, millions of people who are already in this country are either out of work or under employed. How is letting more people in going to help that. Are they going to come here and start buying a bunch of houses or hiring people to remodel old ones? NO, Don’t forget they are coming here because they are poor and when they make money they send it home. They have wired over 36 billion dollars to Latin America in the last year and a half, that’s gotta be good for our economy.

Yes illegals depress the wages they compete for. I see where they create no new opportunities for anyone except each other, since they all keep to themselves. And they take advantage of any social services when needed, to the tune of 400 billion dollars since 1996.
And I can’t get the health care I need…….
I think you’re all on crack!

No illegal alien took my job, I haven’t met any that do what I do. But they are all over the lower level construction jobs which forces a lot of other people out of work or to get into what I do.

It doesn’t matter, people who are already here need work and you want to let MILLIONS MORE in! To compete for the same shitty jobs.
Crack is bad!

That pretty much nailed it for me. Well put.

We’re not against unions. We’re against the government giving them extra legal protection. If the government artificially increases the bargaining power of the unions, then it’s bad. There is nothing wrong with collective bargaining.

But part of the reason why Detroit became uncompetitive was because of the unions. Even the non-union plant could not compete against foreign workers. Just think of what happens when you have even higher wages and more benefits.

I just don’t want to come across as anti-union. It’s just that if we give undue economic power to unions, the market will exact brutal consequences in shutting manufacturing plants.

Dennis,

I’ll just say that it’s easy to see how more competition will hurt average workers. But I will also say that if those low cost workers made it possible to open a few car manufacturing plants and created a few high paying supervisor’s jobs, isn’t that a positive outcome? If the lower cost of producing cars drives the prices of cars down, isn’t that a positive? If the immigrants making money creates a new demand for new businesses like grocery stores, isn’t that a positive? If the immigrants creates a new demand for services like English teachers or Barbers, isn’t that a positive as well?

I agree that illegals do depress the wages that they compete for. But what about all the new opportunities created? We can either allow them to come here where we can reap the rewards of increased economic activity or we can watch our uncompetitive business close shop and setup overseas.

I agree.

Quite honestly, I don’t care where the next car I buy is built or designed, as long as it’s what I want.

Consider that the next time you talk about the unions. You can only rob peter to pay paul for so long and the time to repay is here.

I don’t know, in my first post I said I was an idiot.

But back to the original topic. Everyone was bashing Lou Dobbs and I said I agree with him.
I still stand by that. I think we have huge unemployment problems, and they are just starting, and I don’t see how letting a bunch more people in the country, or erasing the border completly will help. I think it will bring wages down even farther… for those that can find work!

“As much as I hate government regulations, I wonder if we don’t need them to protect the little guy. I’m sorry, but I feel like everything is in favor of the big guy. And people can’t help it if they weren’t born into an elitist family. I feel there’s enough resources for every one in this world to have a comfortable life. But not as long as the greedy bastards hoard it all to themselves. I agree with your theories. I just don’t think they will ever work.”

Adn then you said,

“Even with all the regulations we have now, the super wealthy exploit the system, and everyone under them including our friends from across the world. If we move to a one world system, I know in my mind and in my gut, that the WHOLE WORLD will be one big third world country, with the Wealthy and the Worker Bees. And it is fascism, I don’t care what you call it. I didn’t say your personal ideals were fascist, but… if you subscribe to this one world B.S. that’s being shoved down our throats, you are supporting the fascists.”

Doesn’t this kind of contradict yourself. I very much agree with your second paragraph. The super wealthy love regulations. It is likely one of the reasons why they got rich or at least are staying rich. In your first pragraph, however, you are asking for more regulations. Do you think you or the rich will do better in a more regulated environment? You already acknowledged that the rich are doing better in our current regulated environment. Who do you think will be writing the regulations or at least paying the politicians to write the regulations? The poor and middle class will only get screwed by more regulations. What we need is far less. This will put you on more equal footing with the rich. They will have to compete with you on more of the same footing with less regulations. We need to make it harder for the “well-connected” to exploit the system, by giving them less to exploit. The more rules and regulations, the more they have to exploit.