Illegal Immigration

Today I got a forward from a relative of mine. I believe this relative was well meaning, but there was such malice and fear behind the forward, I could not help but to respond. The forward read something like this:

You think the war in Iraq is to blame for our budget problems (and hence our economic problems)? No, it's the fault of illegal immigrants. We're spending billions of tax payer dollars on them. Here's a list of 14 items proving it. Contact your legislators so we can kick them out!

Now, I agree that there are a lot of problems with illegal immigration in this country, but my relative's forward did nothing but vilify the immigrants. So I responded with a list of my own. Here it is:

1. Calling people "illegal immigrants" hides their humanity. You forget they are also human beings, people like you and me. I am going to refer to them as people, not illegal immigrants.
   
2. We did have a push for immigration reform a few years back. Unfortunately many (but not all) Republicans blocked its passing.
3. A lot of people are leaving the horrible economic conditions in their home communities with the hope and promise that there are jobs here in America.
4. Many (not all) of these horrible economic conditions are caused by political instability and policies of globalization. It is now widely understood that much of the political instability in developing nations during the past century came from US government backing dictators and coups. (Read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" or "Shock Doctrine" if you don't believe me)
   
5. These people would not have jobs here in America in the first place if legal Americans didn't hire them.
6. Legal Americans are hiring them because, as employers, they don't have to pay taxes on them (hence the tax burden gets shifted onto the rest of us - ie, the cause of some of those figures the forward lists).
7. To not vilify only the employers, I'd like to point out that many legal Americans would not WANT these jobs, working incredibly (and possibly illegally) long hours at pesticide laden fields, multinational big box warehouses, or in meat processing facilities.
8. Horrible, unsanitary and dangerous jobs like these would not exist at all if consumers cared about more than buying the cheapest item on the shelf. Think about that next time you bite into a beautiful, store-bought strawberry. Try to imagine who picked it.
   
9. Finally, as much as it sucks that our government spends a lot of money on illegal immigration, I would rather have my government spending money within the country to try and fix our internal problems, than spending it halfway across to world to kill people.

We are all connected in this globalized world. Think about the consequences of your actions and the consequences of your spending choices. And in the worlds on one wise man, "Cast not the first stone."

Economics is Politics

This summer I read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine. It was intense. The Shock Doctrine shows how the driving force behind many recent political maneuverings have been about an economic showdown. One on side of the ring you have the regulatory Keynesian economic policies. On the other you have the unregulated free market policies of Milton Friedman.

Before reading this book, I was like "well, some regulation is good to protect the environment but welfare does not work, our school system has a lot of problems, and government is bloated and ineffectual." I said this from experience: I worked in government. However, reading this book made me realize that I wasn't thinking about the implied values of each system.
The private sector largely has one bottom line: Increase revenues.
The public sector also has a bottom line: Protect the health, safety and welfare of its citizens.
Is this a simplification? Yes. But at its core the difference is there. When push comes to shove, a company needs to either stay profitable or go bankrupt. Governments are built to answer to their constituents.

Klein uses the formerly-communist countries of South America as one case study. Under Keynesian (socialist) policies, these democracies were approaching First World status. People didn't want free market policies. The US had to forcibly replace democracies with dictators because no freely elected politician would sell out his/her people. These coups weren't about Cold War influence - it was about pushing through economic "reforms." (Also: note the language American media uses toward the contemporary socialist: Hugo Chavez)

With free markets, the poor got poorer and the rich got richer. The middle class vanished and things became very dog eat dog. As a whole, the country became more poor. That is what pure capitalism, without regulation brought to South America. Look around. It's happening here in the US too.