ADDED: I don't agree that Garcia-Navarro is silenced by Vance. She lets him have his say, but she also breaks in. She's challenging him with a practical point that I don't think Harris supporters like to be explicit about. From the NYT transcript (with Garcia-Navarro in boldface, interrupting Vance 5 times):NYT reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro sits in silence as JD Vance educates her on the labor force participation rate relating to illegal immigration.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 12, 2024
Garcia-Navarro tried arguing that illegal immigrants can't be deported because America needs them for jobs.
She pointed to the… pic.twitter.com/SiNwyldSwR
Let’s say you were successful in carrying out those mass deportations. One thing that everyone agrees on is that more housing is necessary in this country, right? The reason that there is a housing crisis is that not enough houses have been built. And that we have 25 million people who shouldn’t be here. I think it’s both.
I know you do. I don’t think that many people who look into this agree with you. But about a third of the construction work force in this country is Hispanic. Of those, a large proportion are undocumented. So how do you propose to build all the housing necessary that we need in this country by removing all the people who are working in construction? Well, I think it’s a fair question because we know that back in the 1960s, when we had very low levels of illegal immigration, Americans didn’t build houses. But, of course they did. And I’m being sarcastic in service of a point, Lulu: the assumption that because a large number of homebuilders now are using undocumented labor, that that’s the only way to build homes, I think again betrays a fundamental —
The country is much bigger. The need is much bigger. I’m not arguing in favor of illegal immigration. I’m asking how you would deal with the knock-on effect of your proposal to remove millions of people who work in a critical part of the economy. Well, I think that what you would do is you would take, let’s say for example, the seven million prime-age men who have dropped out of the labor force, and you have a smaller number of women, but still millions of women, prime age, who have dropped out of the labor force. You absolutely could re-engage folks into the American labor market.
To work in construction? Of course you could, so long as —
I mean, the unemployment rate is 4.1 percent. But the unemployment rate, Lulu, this is important, unemployment —
Most people who don’t work can’t work in the regular economy. They’re in the military, they’re parents, they’re sick, they’re old. They might not want to work in construction. The unemployment rate does not count labor-force participation dropouts. And again, this is one of the really deranged things that I think illegal immigration does to our society is it gets us in a mind-set of saying we can only build houses with illegal immigrants, when we have seven million — just men, not even women, just men — who have completely dropped out of the labor force. People say, well, Americans won’t do those jobs. Americans won’t do those jobs for below-the-table wages. They won’t do those jobs for non-living wages. But people will do those jobs, they will just do those jobs at certain wages. Think about the perspective of an American company. I want them to go searching in their own country for their own citizens, sometimes people who may be struggling with addiction or trauma, get them re-engaged in American society. We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers. That is what we have thanks to Kamala Harris’s border policies. I think it’s one of the biggest drivers of inequality. It’s one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who’ve dropped out of the labor force. Why try to re-engage an American citizen in a good job if you can just import somebody from Central America who’s going to work under the table for poverty wages? It is a disgrace, and it has led to the evisceration of the American middle class.
ALSO: Vance is concerned about American men who have dropped out of gainful employment. Is this part of his preoccupation with masculinity? It made me think of... Barack Obama, who went through a phase of wanting to get men into construction work. Remember this (from Ron Suskind's "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President," blogged by me in 2011)?
“Look, these are guys,” he said. “A lot of them see health care, being nurse’s aides, as women’s work. They need to do something that fits with how they define themselves as men.”...
As the room chewed over the non-PC phrase “women’s work,” trying to square the senator’s point with their analytical models, [Alan] Krueger—who was chief economist at the Department of Labor in the mid-1990s at the tender age of thirty-four—sat there silently, thinking that in all his years of studying men and muscle, he had never used that term. But Obama was right. Krueger wondered how his latest research on happiness and well-being might take into account what Obama had put his finger on: that work is identity, that men like to build, to have something to show for their sweat and toil.
“Infrastructure,” he blurted out. “Rebuilding infrastructure.”
Obama nodded and smiled, seeing it instantly. “Now we’re talking. . . . Okay, let’s think about how that would work as a real centerpiece.... Don’t even get me started about potholed highways and collapsing bridges,” Obama said....
And just like that, a policy to repair the nation’s infrastructure was born. The federal government, in partnership with the private sector, would call upon the underemployed men of America to rebuild the country, and in doing so restore their pride.
We've had 13 more years of insufficiently manly males entering adulthood since Obama wafted his idea that went nowhere. So many more men to build through construction work! Now, climb up there on that roof, young man!
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161 comments:
I would be perfectly comfortable with JD Vance as Commander and Chief - President of the United States of America - after 4 years of Trump/Vance.
I simply hope if Trump gets in - he actually drains the swamp this time.
JD Vance got into Yale Law on merit, not family connections. He’s not someone that Democrats and their supporters in the newsmedia can beat down with vapid talking points.
The young man makes too much sense. He has no future here… /sarc
She should come to my neck of the woods, where Anglo guys still do this work, and roofing and roadwork and landscaping too. It's a sight to behold. But it'll change eventually I suppose.
The elite D-Left demand an imported slave class. Like they have built-in In China.
Vance is a welcome contrast to pheasant Hunter Walz.
They are scabs, crossing a line and working for wages that Americans won't work for.
Well, the first words out of his mouth was a lie. There are not 25 million illegals in the country. According to the census there are 46.2 million foreign-born residents of the U.S. Vance is saying more than half of the foreign-born population of the U.S. is here illegally. Vance has basically doubled the actual number.
But this bald-faced lie will give Michael K license to double Vance's wildly inflated numbers. So just wait for Michael K to claim there are 50 million.
It's a good thing that there are now so many part time jobs created, you know, to absorb all of the people who have lost their full time jobs. Biden-Harris, they thought of everything.
All of this, and they only have to borrow $4 trillion a year!
Considering how hostile you and others on this blog are to unions, it is precious you calling people scabs.
Well said and absolutely the truth. No one can compete with slave labor, whether it is in China or the United States. We literally are importing slave labor and we know it. Why? Because businesses have to ( and want to ) compete and cut their labor costs ( republicans/libertarians). Democrats are smarter, they are importing votes. They could care less what happens to the American citizens they destroy to do it.’
You don’t need to follow the news daily or even on a weekly basis to make the right decision at the ballot box.
It’s not a sin to want to preserve your sanity in the face of relentless, sensationalist reporting designed to grab your attention rather than inform. And for this the author shares some responsibility with any number of her Blog posts.
Lastly, not only are people who consume less news more mentally balanced in our era, they are likely to have a better grasp on reality.
The news tells us for example that the US is on the brink of civil war, that Japan is an economic basket case, and that swathes of Europe have become no-go zones because of the African new arrivals. While there maybe kernels of truths in the stories, the general impression conveyed is anything but true.
Americans are mostly civil in person, public safety in much of Europe has more or less remained the same in the past decade, and Japan is fairly vibrant and livable.
There is a compelling case that one should believe what one sees and feels, instead of what the news tells them.
Prove there aren't 25 million, Freder.
Assuming I give you that, good job of discounting the rest of the valid argument.
I spotted the fatal flaw in this argument in less than a blink of the eye…
I am really curious, and I don't know where I would look to find the answer, but are the illegal aliens entering the country actually looking for work and if they are, what are they qualified to do? I don't know why the focus is on house building particularly but okay, let's take house building. While there might be one or two jobs that are strictly manual labor and don't require literacy or any other skill, you aren't going to get a job on a construction site without some ability to do something worth paying you for. These aren't job training sites.
This isn't original to me, I read it on X, but apparently the lighting was manipulated during this interview in a manner not favorable to Senator Vance.
Can any of you explain how deporting 25 million people (a much higher proportion being working age men than the general population) is going to not be inflationary (not to mention the cost of implementing such a plan), especially in construction, food production and hospitality. Like it or not, undocumented labor is a good chunk of the reason that food is so cheap in this country.
Prove there aren't 25 million, Freder."
The number of illegal immigrants has been 11-12 million for at least 20 years. Add another 10 million over last 3.5 years and 25 million is pretty close, if not too low.
Truth is no one really knows the number. That’s part of the problem. Vance’s is a reasonable guesstimate based on recent history.
Vance is the one who put that ridiculous number out there, it should be his duty to prove there are.
If illegal immigrants are building the new homes why are houses way more expensive than ever and where are the cheap labor windfalls going?
So many assumptions, so little time.
" it should be his duty to prove there are."
He's not here, you are, you called him a liar, prove it. Here's your big chance!
Here is what you wrote, Freder:
"Well, the first words out of his mouth was a lie."
If you know it is a lie, then you should be able to prove it conclusively, Freder. If you can't prove it, then you don't know it is a lie.
I am not at all hostile to unions, but you seem to be hostile to workers for somebody who seems to want to be perceived as caring about them.
Did somebody pull the string with the little plastic ring on it embedded in Rich's back again?
This is Freder's point. We can't let working Americans make a decent wage because it would be inflationary. It's almost like these workers are keeping wages down, which is the whole point of importing so many of them. They are the shock troops in breaking the wage price spiral, because, God forbid we should fight inflation by printing less money! That would hurt the wealthy! No we will fight inflation by suppressing wages using scabs!
That's the Freder solution.
Considering how hostile you and others on this blog are to unions, it is precious you calling people scabs.
I have no quarrel with private-sector unions. People should be free to choose whether or not to join a union, but other than that, current labor laws are quite satisfactory.
Like Franklin Roosevelt, however, I am vehemently opposed to public-sector unions. There is no one representing the taxpayer when they sit across the table from politicians who got elected thanks to union muscle. They should be outlawed.
Because as soon as they make an amnesty claim, they get a work permit and a right to housing. Supply and demand both forces up the price of housing, and forces down wages.
From what I've read, the NGO's are working in cooperation of this Administration to grease the skids and get thousands across the border every single day - for the past 4 years. Customs and Border patrols interact with a percentage of these - a small percentage - and the rest proceed, unhindered by anything. The illegals have transport already organized and ready. Sometimes, even their baggage is managed, by these NGOs. And then they turn up, magically, in small communities where they are housed in mass, bused to their employments sites in vans, working for something less than minimum wage. It's the new vision of a Company Town. Here is one such case, covered by a couple of journalists:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/feds-find-million-cash-while-investigating-staffing-firm-supplying-haitians-charleroi-pa
https://www.city-journal.org/article/charleroi-pennsylvania-grapples-with-surge-of-haitian-migrants
Let's force wages down by forcing American workers to compete with low priced imports. There is a word for those kinds of workers...
@Micharl K., considering that he claimed to have been a trap shooter, Walz seemed awfully awkward handling that shotgun. And it was striking to me that he couldn’t remember the name of Beretta’s patented “Kick-Off” recoil reduction system. I mean it is football season.
Easy-peasy. Abolish all government handouts to able-bodied men, and women who are not caring for young children. They go to farm country and harvest crops, or they starve to death. Let's put an end to families in which the past four generations have lived on the dole.
Educate is indeed the correct word. Leftie journolists who would never want to be caught dead near the business school at alma mater Eff U. have hard time understanding what the measures of employment can tell us. Vance is entirely correct…
The usual standard piece from Althouse. But two points:
1) A strong case can be made that there is too much news and more information leads to less perception. No wonder people retreat.
2) Many politicians actively seek to hide from making news except in the most trivial fashion by concealing their policies behind smokescreens of vapidity. In this the populist politicians are less culpable since they exploit the information vacuum created.
I watched the clip it was an excellent conversation I think both people made excellent points it's a complicated issue and the illegal immigration part is just a fraction of the real issue of what has undermined the American dream. The bigger issue is the dismantling of the American workforce that started in the 1970s first by dismantling the power of trade unions and the erasure of taxation of the billionaire class who has now exploded to hoard all of the wealth that is created by the working class.
One thing I question is where are these illegals working for below market wages? Many of the illegals in the trades around me have shiny new trucks just like their bosses. It’s tougher for them to get them registered but someone’s figured something out on that, too…
Cutting through her cant, her argument is that we let, say, 10 million illegals into the country. And they need housing. And the only people who will build that housing are the illegals. And therefore we need to let the 10 million illegals in the country.
I leave it to the reader to find the flaw in the argument.
I mean I'm not arguing in favor of illegal immigration, she said against all available evidence.
Absolutely Freder levels of dishonesty. https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2021.S0501?q=S0501:%20SELECTED%20CHARACTERISTICS%20OF%20THE%20NATIVE%20AND%20FOREIGN-BORN%20POPULATIONS&g=010XX00US&tid=ACSST1Y2021.S0501 gives the foreign-born population as 45.3 million in 2021, and Vance never said 25 million were here illegally - he said 25 million were here who shouldn't be. Like many Democrat policies, the stuff they do illegally is only part of the problem.
I did general construction and roofing more than 40 years ago before I went to engineering school. I was making $12 an hour. I doubt the rate has gone up much in the last 40 years, and I can't remember when I saw a white man on a roof in Texas. THAT is the impact right there. Suppression of wages.
Like it or not, undocumented labor is a good chunk of the reason that food is so cheap in this country.
A Democrat argument since at least the 1850s.
Unions often kill mom and pop shops. Why do leftists hate mom and pop shops?
Shorter Lulu Garcia-Carville -Navarro "But it never occurred to me that I was wrong."
Prove it - Freder. with facts. You can't - because it happens to be true.
Most people who don’t work can’t work in the regular economy. They’re in the military, they’re parents, they’re sick, they’re old.
She said, without evidence.
The reporter is silenced by the person she’s interviewing? Didn’t Vance know an interview means submitting to a lecture by know nothing reporters?
Here in DFW TX area, from what I have seen over last 8 years or so, construction crews are darn near 100% Hispanic.
She conveniently leaves out parents, mostly women, who choose to stay at home rather than get a paying job.
"...Now, climb up there on that roof, young man!"
Is it sloped?
I've been working on a list of left-wing arguments for Trump. This is one of them.
since you know everything Freder - how many illegals have entered the country - thru Biden/Kamala's open southern border - over the last 3+ years?
It is clear that the patrons of the leftmedia would rather hear leftmediaswine pimp for the Democrats with simplistic talking points than search for solutions by listening to alternative viewpoints. Vance ought to avoid sarcasm with ignorant humorless lefties.
They are being give all sorts of free goodies - and advantages to work. The illegals have not assimilated nor do they speak any English. I know this because I talked to some of the people sponsoring them.
Another factor on that topic is that Democrat and RINO policies have forced young people out of the labor force and into indoctrination centers called universities. Summer jobs? Meh! Apprenticeship? Meh!
Out of proportion to the TX population as a whole? It seems like a lot of Hispanics have been living in TX for quite awhile.
Garcia-Navarro is an entitled b*tch. Someone needs to tell her that she's not half as smart as she thinks she is. Talk about condescending!
In the past 10 years the roofing industry workers have transitioned from (almost exclusively) black males to exclusively Hispanics. A number of houses where I live have new shingles due to a wind storm. Tex-Mex tunes blare from the rooftops all day. Fortunately I like that style of music.
Breezy is correct, but you can't expect Freder to be able to cut and paste AND add too. C'mon man!
Ann Althouse said...
"I've been working on a list of left-wing arguments for Trump. This is one of them."
We need this sooner, rather than later. The die-hard leftist holdovers will remain unconvinced, but centrists and left-of-center moderate people may open their minds to alternative candidates other than Harris, or Trump.
If you have 25 million illegal immigrants leave the country, all of a sudden you free up about 10 million housing units. (Based on average household size.) Note that we build about 1.5 million housing units per year. Not having enough people to build housing without the illegal immigrants is a bogus argument.
Freder is stressed. Poor baby.
Labor arbitrage. Immigration reform. Planned Parenthood. The trifecta of a progressive society. That said, Ad-Vance-ing.
If a town of 60,000 suddenly had an influx of 20,000 migrants, wouldn't the cost of housing go up. I suppose if all 20,000 had the skills of licensed electricians, plumbers, and carpenters and immediately set to work building houses, then the price of housing would eventually go down, but sadly many of our migrants are not licensed electricians. Also, not many are teachers, social workers, correction officers, ER nurses and the other useful trades necessary to absorb an influx of 20,000.......If unlimited immigration is such a good thing, let the good people in Congress make their argument and pass approval of such laws. We did at one time have unlimited immigration, and the duly elected lawmakers decided against it. If a change is desirable, then let it be enacted in law rather than in Presidential border policy.
And before that, cotton was cheaper.
That's the Freder solution.
That is not my solution, it is reality. You have been bitching about is "Biden's inflation" for the last four years, yet many of the things Trump is campaigning on, (e.g., tarriffs, mass deportation-both the cost of implementing it and the impact on prices) are inflationary.
We all know guys like Walz. He didn't pick the gun for hunting; He visualized himself getting photographed with a shotgun, and called up a buddy to find out which one would be best pick to buy him some 'cred'. He likely doesn't know anything about the gun, further than that - as evidenced by the video of him, trying to load it, in his brand-spanking-new hunting duds.
"I've been working on a list of left-wing arguments for Trump. This is one of them."
Almost every decent argument for Trump comes from the POV of the left, IMHO, anyway. I have moved way left since I started commenting her as a W fanboi, lo, these many years ago. A lot of it is due to Trump.
One thing, Trump elucidated how the government can use its power over migration to crush the ability of workers to negotiate a decent wage. Back when I was a benighted rightie, I would have said that it is up to the boss and the worker to negotiate a fair wage, but now I see how purblind that position was.
Don't even get me started on the endless wars, which I also used to support. Trump is what you call a leader, who shows the way forward. If we were a cult, like the Democrats, one might even call him an actual "light bringer," because what Obama brought was anything but clarity. His big insight was "reward your friends, punish your enemies," and "bring a gun to a knife fight."
Please Explain. How is detaining and deporting 25 million people (which according to Trump, is going to be a "bloody business) a left-wing argument for Trump?
Easy-peasy. Abolish all government handouts to able-bodied men, and women who are not caring for young children. They go to farm country and harvest crops, or they starve to death. Let's put an end to families in which the past four generations have lived on the dole.
So, basically, you want to re-introduce slavery (or if we are being kind, involuntary servitude.
I reviewed worker's comp claims in CA for a while, a few years, and found that roofers were mostly illegals and many did not even speak Spanish. The number of claims were very high as they did not use safety gear.
They call her a "reporter"?
"I don't think that many people who look into this agree with you" she said without evidence.
In South Florida its uncommon to find construction crews that are all citizens or green card holders. Plenty of illegals working in construction either being paid legally or under the table and many of those under the table also get government benefits. It makes applying for legal immigration a fool's errand compared to the border jumpers.
"That is not my solution, it is reality"
That is what you and Harris believe, yes, that inflation must be brought under control through the suffering of working people. God forbid that we should put downward pressure on rents by deporting those here illegally! That would harm the affluent! The Democrats! The owning classes who pay the wages would be forced to tighten *their belts*! You know, the big donors to the Democrats!
Oh, and how much damage to the economy is being caused by sanctions because Biden wants regime changed in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, etc, etc, etc. Sanctions are nothing but more Smoot Hawley, and they are all about stuff that is really none of our business.
Tariffs are one more protection for American workers; no wonder you don't like them. The US grew to the economic powerhouse it once was based on a tariff regime in the 19th Century, we grew so rich from that system that the US dollar took over the place of the British Pound and we became the preeminent industrial power in the world.
"And just like that, a policy to repair the nation’s infrastructure was born."
Shovel-ready.
Each U.S. state has different rules about what assistance asylum seekers can receive from the government. This may include benefits such as housing support, financial support, food support, and support for pregnant women, babies, and young children. For some benefits, if you have U.S. citizen children, you may be able to receive benefits on their behalf, regardless of your own immigration status. - AsylumAdvocacy.org
So walk across the border, claim asylum, have a baby, who is automatically a citizen, and you are magically on the dole! It's magic, and we are not borrowing a penny over $4 trillion dollars a year to support this!
None so blind as those determined not to see, Freder.
I have moved way left since I started commenting her as a W fanboi, lo, these many years ago. A lot of it is due to Trump.
I'm a lot more populist than I was. Not sure that's the same thing as leftist, but it's not what I used to be (free-trade Libertarian).
Went to an elite High School in Dallas and later SMU. Solid middle class upbringing. Got into tech sales and made (and still do although just laided off) 6 figures. After the dot com bubble burst I was un/underemployed for about two years. I roofed, bartended, did construction, worked on a yard crew and drove a front end tire loader. Managed to pull down about $100k a year working 2-3 jobs in 80-100 hour weeks. It’s not that folks won’t do the jobs; it’s that folks are looking for a bit better pay than what is paid under the table. In my case, I just wanted to work and was often paid less than better skilled or tenured illegals. Vance speaks the truth here.
He looked like a guy who was trying to figure out the extra button on a Benelli.
Good point, Sally327. In TX now, Hispanic Non White is the largest group, slightly ahead of "Just White", going by Wiki. One difference between CA and TX is that CA Hispanics vote more D than TX Hispanics. I wonder if that shows Hispanics are able to assimilate into the dominant political group/party?
Also - I had a relative (White dude) who worked in trades/construction and he quit because he "felt isolated and out of place" being often the only Anglo.
All these Trump supporting business owners, paying people under the table.
The problem is people willing to ignore the law to undercut American works.
So little consideration for those around the world patiently waiting on lottery, process and sponsorship, watching caravans rush ahead of them.
Yep… I wonder if she even considers that she lost the argument, let alone realizes she did?
FF - Do you not understand Supply and Demand? With fewer manual workers available and assuming demand is fixed, the wage rate paid to manual workers must go up.
Mark - There are business owners that break the rules/laws. They should be held accountable. I support Everify.
My fault! I thought it was attached to his head, attached to the string embedded up his exhaust port.
Coop - Public or private?
The people paying workers under the table are much more likely to support the policies of Harris and Biden than Trump. You may have missed the memo, but the owning classes love the competition for jobs and apartments and houses. You know, the "America is already great!" Democrats.
So you are ok with flooding illegals in so long as they get a fair wage? Make it make sense.
Illegals working in construction are not making slave wages, at all. They make good money. Even the ones hanging around Home Depot aren't working for less than $20 an hour.
If you need foreigners to work in your country, you establish a program to oversee the orderly migration of workers to where they are needed. Open borders is not about needing workers.
All the while that FF pontificates how working people must necessarily suffer lower wages and higher rents under Biden-Harris policies, that there are no other choices, he claims that there are no legitimate reasons for working people to vote for Trump.
Purblind.
Freder:
Yale University disagrees with you.
https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/yale-study-finds-twice-as-many-undocumented-immigrants-as-previous-estimates
It is utterly bizarre to hear self-described progressives parroting corporate-America talking-points that wage increases cause inflation. I mean, you're essentially adopting one of the major Bush Jr. beliefs, which led to economic policies that had massive infusions of cheap money flowing into real estate speculation (unproductive) rather than wage growth (productive, because it channels talent and effort into the areas of the economy that most benefit from it). We saw what that led to in 2008.
Inflation is the result of the supply of money growing faster than the supply of stuff. Period. Wage growth is not inflationary if it tracks productivity or if it represents adjustments of supply/demand relationships that have been unbalanced by bad government policies--which is what we have had through this entire run of the government importing massive numbers of immigrants to drive down the wages of American-born workers.
Just one example: Corporations claim that they need massive numbers of H1-B workers because there aren't enough American software engineers or chemical engineers or whatever. But the scale-up time for producing more Americans with this training is what, 4-6 years max, depending on how early in high school you need to provide advanced mathematics and computer-science classes? Yet the H1-B scam has been going on for 30 years now. Why haven't colleges been producing more software engineers or whatever to fill this massive structural deficit? Because the wages in those fields, despite being higher than average, still aren't high enough to entice enough American-born talent to seek those job rather than, say, pursuing law school or MBA programs, or just not bothering because you can make a reasonable percentage of the salary without having to work nearly as hard when you are 18-22. If we didn't have H1-B programs, and American companies had to pay an equilibrium market wage to engineers, engineers would be making the kind of money that plumbing contractors or lawyers or "influencers" (well, .05% of them) make now.
The undergraduate courses needed for engineering are MUCH harder than those taken by future lawyers, marketroids, journalists, etc. A lot of sufficiently talented people would be motivated to pursue different paths if they knew there was a big enough payoff after graduation--which is exactly what happened in the 90s, when talent flowed into the DotCom boom because there was real money to be made.
tl;dr version: the presence of millions of unskilled laborers (or transfer-payment recipients) does not prevent not inflation: it prevents wage growth.
Governments are way over-obligated and under-sourced on incremental resources to meet already-promised benefits. Accordingly, disappointment must be parceled out in ever-widening doses. Except for Germany, public debt loads are straining sustainability everywhere.
Future benefits require economic growth, and yesterday's investments to meet today's and tomorrow's growth were not made. So societies are underinvested relative to tomorrow's expectations.
The relationship between fundamentals and future capability is poorly understood.
I wonder how many guns he handled as "Command Master Sergeant ?"
The number of illegals used to be, by about 2012 or so, 10-11 million. Yale did a study that said it was closer to 20 million some ten years ago. Mix in 10 million more during Biden-Harris, paroled in or known got-aways.
I'm getting that about 20 million illegals in the U.S. is correct. That would mean only half of the foreign-born were invited in some way. +10 it sucks, as most say above, and it screws the working class for the benefit of the laptop class.
20 million breadcrushers.
So, you or the human programming you, likes censorship ?
Lulu is out of her league. It is such a pleasure to watch him dismantle these Leftists.
None of us objects to trade unions. It is government employee unions, which FDR opposed, that are creating most of the trouble.
As to the 1970s being the time you refer to, JFK legalized them by executive order in 1962. Funny how that timing works.
More to the point, wages that Americans can’t work for, not if they pay social security taxes, and income taxes, and try to set aside money to buy a house, and maybe put some money into a 529 account for their kids to attain a better life someday.
When the big electrical utility in Los Angeles decided to lay off citizen engineers and replace them with H1B imports, the laid off engineers were required to train their replacement as a condition to receive severance their pay.
I've worked part-time in construction and heavy renovation for my entire adult life. Despite being trained as an academic, most of my jobs and acquaintances were in the building trades, and these acquaintances and friends include several illegal immigrants from all over the world, people I care for deeply but believe should go home.
Illegal immigration has destroyed the possibility for any citizen to create a lasting business in several trades, something to pass down to his employees and kids. Unless he is willing to hire illegals, he can't compete for private or government or big business contracts. He has to break the law and pay people under the table. Nobody likes it. The legal workers paying taxes resent it. Illegal workers are often a safety risk because of language difficulties, and you can't do background checks on them, so it can be dangerous to let or bring them into someone's home or workplace. Yes, most I have met are hard workers and lovely people, but I've seen bad accidents because of the inability to communicate, and in recent years, I have observed and heard about more and more dodgy and criminal illegals bouncing from place to place.
And they are forced to live like slaves, are endangered themselves because they fear the police, and are often exploited. Meanwhile, except for licensed trades, pay has fallen for everyone.
I've never met an illegal worker who pays his taxes, not in restaurant or construction work. Nor have I met a boss who pays payroll taxes on them. That's a complete myth. From county work crews to every big grocery store, public officials and private owners pay legal subcontractors to bring in illegal crews and look the other way.
And let's stop pretending there are jobs Americans won't do. There are plenty of Americans working in animal butchery, night-time industrial cleaning, roofing, nursing homes, etc. And most of the illegals I've know in agriculture work as little as possible, have kids, and stop working to live on the dole as quickly as possible.
Illegal immigration has destroyed generations of jobs that could have pulled American men, white and black -- and Hispanic -- into the middle classes. And it is only getting worse, and we are now getting gangs and more and more criminals and exploiters among the illegals, preying on them, and us.
Freder Frederson
Vance is the one who put that ridiculous number out there, it should be his duty to prove there are.
For once, I absolutely agree with Freder.
Vance should identify and deport every single illegal alien in the country ... since that is the only way to accurately determine that correct number.
If he can only deport 24.5 million illegal aliens, then I am just fine with Freder calling him a "liar".
Rehajm: there are some sleazy insurance companies that will sell a policy to one legal guy, who then rents out the car or work truck to illegal drivers. Or they sell a policy to someone with fake ID. Here in Georgia chicken country, a lot of accidents, including horrific ones I know of, end with everyone fleeing the vehicle, the sleazy insurance company not paying out, and the victims suffering and losing everything. If the car owner is legal, he will say someone took his car. How is this allowed to continue? Ask any Democrat or Big Chicken Republican. Or anyone in the sanctuary county next door, where the sheriff just cuts them loose. I'm glad our sheriff enforces the law, but that doesn't make the victims whole. Of course, if we did this, we would go to jail and owe big.
Walz’s line about trap shooting bothered me a bit. I’ve never shot clay pigeons (except stationary clay pigeons fixed to a backer board in N-SSA), but don’t trap shooters normally use over and under shotguns?
Es Verdad! !n 1972 a vanload of my family members and a couple of friends pulled up behind a van w/ladders in Miami. We asked directions of their driver. Our guy, (a commercial/industrial painter), asked the driver of the ladder van, (a local house painter), to ballpark a couple bids on the houses at hand. The bids were way too low for our guy to believe. illegals depressed the labor costs locally. Our guy said he couldn't make a living there.
Happened in Computer Programming too.
When I was a small contractor in Milwaukie [right next to Portland], I used to get day laborers from the MLK Workers Center. This market replaced rando Home Depot pick-up. The minimum was $20/hr—more for skilled guys. The center, sponsored by Portland and Multnomah County, was sort of 1099-ing all this cash business.
It was great. You could go to an official place, you only had to hire them for a minimum 4 hours, making it accessible to every property owner. Many were hispanic Americans but most were hispanic "undocumented." Good for the laptop class and as a good sanctuary city facilitated illegal immigration.
Meanwhile the U6, labor participation rate, of another entire community was dismal, i.e., black Americans. I thought it very ironic going up to the Mississippi district, which was completely gentrified during my 15 years there, and seeing the sprouting of Black Lives Matter signs in 2020. The whiter the district the more BLM signs.
When Trump said "black jobs" in his usual clumsy way, he meant illegal immigration's effect on our native unskilled labor. And why is so much of the urban black labor unskilled? You just have to look at the Chicago Public School system and 90 years of unbroken Democrat Party rule in Chicago. The Dems are racists, pure and simple. But, that's the Democratic Party for you!
I'm glad I got this off my chest.
"When Trump said "black jobs" in his usual clumsy way, he meant illegal immigration's effect on our native unskilled labor."
So- bottom line- you understood what he was saying? Maybe he's not as clumsy as you're making him out to be?
So how do you propose to [pick all the cotton] that we need in this country by removing all the people who are working [on the plantations]?
- Lulu in 1861
Psycho Chicken
Qu'est-ce que c'est?
Bawk bawk ba bawk bawk
Ba ba bawk bawk bawk bettah
Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away, oh-oh-oh
Psycho Chicken
Qu'est-ce que c'est?
Bawk bawk ba bawk bawk
Ba ba bawk bawk bawk bettah
Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away, oh, oh, oh, oh
Ay-ya-ya-ya-ya-ya, ooh
don’t trap shooters normally use over and under shotguns?
At the higher levels of competition they usually use specialized single-barrel or O/U double-barrel break-action guns, depending on the event. Casual shooters might have a pump or semi instead.
It's worth noting that the mayor of that particular town, and several other members of the City Commission, happen to own strings of high-capacity rent houses, and have been enjoying spectacular success, for some reason..
Another argument, missing here, is made often by Mike Rowe. You also have to explain that identity/personal worth/real worth does not just come from attending college to obtain a bachelor or higher degree. There are plenty of people making great 6 figure incomes that either went straight into the work force or taking a couple of years to learn a technical skill and becoming very efficient at it. We need to educate children about this career option, rather than what we do, which is look down upon this option during K-12.
Some businesses are doing well. For example, HVAC.
“Happened in Computer Programming too.“
Absolutely the h1b program is pure slavery because if you loose your sponsored job you get sent back to India, so there are no complainers or requests for raises. Big IT wins! The democrats have delivered to the donating tech lords.
See my link above.
"We need to educate children about this career option, rather than what we do, which is look down upon this option during K-12."
All those Ed school degree holders educating (if that's even the right word anymore) children need *somebody* to look down on.
Trump will drain as much as he can.. but it will be up to Vance, four years later, to finish it and hopefully keep the swamp drained.
Freder, HOW do higher wages, or any other higher price cause inflation?
The ONLY thing that can cause inflation is an increase in the money supply. Or the velocity at which it is spent.
Definition of inflation: General increased in average price levels.
Higher prices, including wages and salaries are a result of inflation, not a cause.
I
It remains quite astonishing, after the last 8 years and all that has been exposed, that there are still those that hold Trump singularly and solely accountable for failing to drain the swamp beginning in 2017 when the entirety of the federal government was fully weaponized against him with the full corrupted cooperation of all the dems and at least 50% of the elected "republicans" who also happily went along with the threat of impeachment if Trump went too far.
You have to bring your A Game if you want to debate Vance. He's perfectly civil, he sounds and seems reasonable, and if you are not prepared and intelligent (Kamala is neither) he will cut you up. With a smile and a warm handshake--but you've still been demolished.
I would like to hear why it would be inflationary. Freder. We employ thousands of people whos job it is to find and deport people that are here illegally. Under normal circumstances that is. Under this administration? Not so much.
"I've been working on a list of left-wing arguments for Trump. This is one of them."
Most of Trumps policies are those that an anti-nafta centrist Democrat would hold in the 90s. I can remember when unions and environmentalists argued against Nafta and other free trade agreements because they were just a way to avoid US labor and environmental laws. And back then, as a Republican, I agreed with them.
Bill Clinton on illegal immigration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IrDrBs13oA
Cesar Chavez on the effects of illegals concerning unionization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH1c0cgORA0
Thanks Tina, yes. I’m just over the GA border and have witnessed one of those accidents where the driver flees. Perp rear ended a school bus and ran to the woods. Police were trying to track…
@Freder
Most of Trumps policies are those that an anti-nafta centrist Democrat would hold in the 90s. I can remember when unions and environmentalists argued against Nafta and other free trade agreements because they were just a way to avoid US labor and environmental laws. And back then, as a Republican, I agreed with them.
Bill Clinton on illegal immigration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IrDrBs13oA
Cesar Chavez on the effects of illegals concerning unionization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH1c0cgORA0
That's why in CA you can buy "uninsured motorist coverage" to pay for that possibility.
Big Mike. Yeah. Trap is a uniquely American game. People that do a lot of it own special single barrel 12 gauge shotguns with 28 or 30 inch barrel. I'm uniquely awful at it. There are 5 stations everyone shoots five times in rotation at each station. I'm addicted to skeet. And yes. I use a Browning O/U 12 gauge with Skeet and Skeet chokes.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnson(D) had financial fingers in the pie of a old hotel - bought and sold with tax payer money -that netted 10 million dollar real estate profit.
Her: the reason that there is a housing crisis is that not enough houses have been built.
JD: And that we have 25 million people who shouldn’t be here. I think it’s both.
Her: I know you do. I don’t think that many people who look into this agree with you.
Anyone who claims that those 25 million people aren't taking up a lot of housing that would otherwise be available to Americans is too stupid / dishonest to listen to.
This is the kind of thing that JD does that bothers me. he should have interrupted her right there, and called her out on her BS/
"So you're saying that the 25 million aliens here illegally aren't taking up ANY housing at all"? Pound her until she's forced to retract the stupid point before you let her move on
This. 1000x this:
We cannot have an entire American business community that is giving up on American workers and then importing millions of illegal laborers. That is what we have thanks to Kamala Harris’s border policies. I think it’s one of the biggest drivers of inequality. It’s one of the biggest reasons why we have millions of people who’ve dropped out of the labor force. Why try to re-engage an American citizen in a good job if you can just import somebody from Central America who’s going to work under the table for poverty wages? It is a disgrace, and it has led to the evisceration of the American middle class.
The thing is, these days, in the skilled trades you have to know how to read and speak english. You also have to be able to do basic math. Geometry at the least. Skilled jobs are coming back.
I'm a Trump voter, I understand what he meant. Are you saying when it comes to persuadables Trump never steps on his own dick?
Name the Republicans who voted with the Dems for impeachment? Trump let much of what happened to him happen to him. You can start with his Attorney General Jess Sessions - who caved to leftist pressure regarding the bogus Russian investigation. But you Drago - do not hold Trump responsible for any bad decision.
Jeff - not Jess.
Yes. HVAC is licensed and regulated.
Instapundit has a post up today about venture capitalists paying 6 figures for single proprietor HVAC businesses.
Donald Trump is basically Dick Gephardt circa 1988.
I opposed him back then but that was when globalization had a rational other than being an iron rice bowl for a lot of people.
In Tucson, a blue city in a red state.
There is a list, plus some GOPe Congressmen who "retired" rather than defend him.
In Tucson, a blue city in a red state.
The Democrats control all but one state office thanks to the McCain RINOs. Both senators are lefty Democrats. They will control the state as completely as California pretty soon.
The Tucson and Phoenix Socialist Democrat machine runs the state and will for the foreseeable future. It's a good thing we are old, Mike.
You know, if we deport the 1 million people who have had their final court case and lost, and then did criminals...that would probably be enough.
The rest we can review and decide what do with them. If the border was effectively sealed, with strong defenses against bullshit asylum cases (BTW, most of those cases the applicant loses)
Just look at the way K Welker at MTP badgered Vance this morning. I heard someone else say that the mainstream media is beyond showing their bias, they’re now openly promulgating propaganda. I think it was Molly Hemingway. And it’s 100% truth.
There are not 25 million illegals in the country.
That is a flat-out lie. You have no way of knowing just how many illegals are here.
All I can offer is the experience of one. (My grandson.) He has been trying to break into the concrete trade for the last two summers. (I don't know what else to call it, I'm just the grandma.) All I understand is that he started with grunt work, and ended in finishing, whatever that means. He finally got hired by a temp agency. Let's just say he's been learning a few Spanish words and been shared Mexican food. He's the only white kid. But he wants to work, he likes to work, and he likes working with cement/concrete. But he's sure having a really hard time competing for a job out there.
"Name the Republicans who voted with the Dems for impeachment?"
Actual assertion: "...at least 50% of the elected "republicans" who also happily went along with the threat of impeachment if Trump went too far."
Try and pay attention if its not too much trouble.
And how did I know you would leap to defend the GOPe-er dem suckups?
McConnell and Ryan and McCain and Murkowski et al smile....
are the migrants also learning the trade? or already know it when they come over? or have really good master tradesmen to learn from?
Michael K's list contains 10. Most of those are just D's in drag. Drago - where do you get the 50% number?
I support Everify
=================
take a stroll into USCIS centers around the country and read the strictures on why e-verify does not mean anyone can be let go + remedy for non-verify.
Freder was told there would be no math.
Just spit balling but I wonder if he finds it difficult because a lot of contractors won't hire him on the expectation that he's only going to stick around until he can get a sales or estimating position.
Tina Trent said...
Yes. HVAC is licensed and regulated.
Not really. The AC part, at least handling the refrigerants, is supposed to be federally regulated. Supposed to be...
The HV part? Not so much.
Regulations on any trades or skilled work are highly variable across the country, and even within states. I could, in my county in NY, advertise myself as a plumber or electrician and catch a lot of odd jobs. But I can't work legally in any of the nearby cities as a plumber without first apprenticing with someone else for years- many of whom know far less then me about plumbing. I've met them... When I worked for the state itself- I tested for my job, and the job description covered both what plumbers and electricians did for the state. But that was only good when working for the state in state owned and operated buildings.
What I couldn't do was any work involving handling refrigerants- I didn't have my federal license. Didn't want one. But all these new split unit ACs? The way they're set up now- they're DIY projects. The units themselves and the refrigerant lines come charged and sealed. They're basically plug and play. No evacuating the system and filling with refrigerant. So- not regulated in most areas. Any handyman can advertise themselves as an installer...
I know a German plumber who, with his midwife wife waited years to immigrate legally. They had 60,000 Euros saved but finally won a lottery to come.
A lot of companies took this approach, and it was diabolical. I think even Disney did it. It should have been prosecuted. If I were subjected to it, I like to think it would inspire me to be extremely creative with my training programs, in the most insidious and disruptive way possible.
I just have to say, this is an excellent thread. Thank you again, Ms. Althouse !
One would think the ruination caused by importing a bunch of africans to pick cotton would have taught us a lesson, but apparently not. We'll have to learn it again with Mexicans this time.
Christopher B - I know he would hate doing either of those two. He’s a hands on kind of guy.
Narayanan - All I know is he’s back to doing walls, which is basically grunt work. Maybe the economy isn’t so great right now and the job market in that area has plenty of cheap labor? Who knows. He’s in the reserves so manages to make a few dollars with that.
Straighten up!
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