Xequecal wrote:
It indicates there's a demand for unskilled labor positions, but only if they're allowed to pay less than minimum wage. If these jobs were profitable for minimum wage, they'd hire Americans, not take the risk of importing illegals. If we end handouts and keep minimum wage, Americans will not get these jobs as they won't be profitable, and if we end minimum wage, Americans will be forced onto the 100-hour a week jobs to survive.
No it doesn't. It indictes there are a bunch of people here who will take jobs for less than minimum wage beause they're here illegally and lack legal protection, and the company takes advantage of that. If those people weren't available, the companies would
have to pay laborers from this country, and wages would be higher sicne there would be millions fewer workers. Moreover, if there was no minimum wage driving prices up, that wage would be a lot more liveable.
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I'll give you this in regards to worker safety laws, companies wouldn't be allowed to create unsafe working conditions. But your philosophy indicates basically everything else has to go, things like laws that limit working hours are passed for the same reason as minimum wage and have similar effects.
No, my "philosophy" (which I don't have) indicates nothing of the sort. It indicates that people should not get
free money for not working. You keep trying to make these things that help people
who acually do work be "basically" the same as entitlements for people who
do not work. That's the key element. The merits of various regulations protecting workers are not the same issue as benefits for people who do not work.
Obviously they have the same "effect" as handouts; to support people's living expenses. That's the point; to achieve that effect without free handouts that trap people into essentially permenant dependance on government assistance.
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AsAnd why is that? It's because welfare pays more than minimum wage, so why should anyone who is independent bother to accept it when they can get more for doing nothing? If we got rid of welfare and minimum wage, all those people would be forced to accept such jobs to survive.
Now you're getting the picture.
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You're dodging the issue. If they "created their own work," well then now they have a job. Moving doesn't address the issue either, they either have to get a job or a handout wherever they go to stay alive. There is no third option here. If there are no handouts, you don't survive if you don't work. There's no way around it.
You're moving the goalposts. Before it was "take a shitty job or starve" now it's "work or starve". Duh. That's the goal. Get people off the handouts and working. (again, if we ignore private charity, which will encourage people to get off it and work because they can only handle so many people)
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Honestly, there is no plan. I am of the opinion that we spend too much money on welfare, and the handouts are too big, but there should be a base level of comfort provided to crowd out employers from offering jobs that barely offer survival wages for ridiculously backbreaking labor, and forcing people to take them out of a need for sheer survival. Americans shouldn't be forced to do the third-world 16-hour/day jobs where they do nothing but work and sleep except for their 5 holidays for the entirety of their lives.
Except that there shouldn't be any basic level of comfort to prevent that. Again, you're simply eliminating workplace-protection laws for no good reason, and you're pulling these jobs out of thin air. You're also ignoring the fact that employers have to compete with each other for labor.
Quite frankly, if a person has no useful skills, has made no effort to get an education, and otherwise offers nothing but a strong back, why the hell shouldn't he have to work at a hard job for low wages rather than get a handout? We're not doing the same things in America as they are in third-world countries, and in any case, if people want to keep selling large amounts of goods in this country, someone has to be able to buy them. It isn't as if decent jobs are going to just magically disappear because there's no welfare.