The 6 Pack Economist

Orginally Posted in September 2008

 I have gone through a change on immigration.  I used to be a “kick em all out and close the borders type of guy.”  I have now changed to “work, pay taxes, and speak English” and you can stay.  I have changed because of personal experience.

 While working on a buddies house we took a break and had beer on the porch.  A few Mexicans came over asked if there was work to be done.  At the time we were pretty much done but even in their broken English they kept asking for work.  They all had jobs for during the week but if there was work to be done on the weekends they wanted to do it.  I have to say I was very impressed with their initiative.  And that if anything embodied the American can do attitude it was this.  Sure it increases the size of the labor force and there by decreases the wages for this labor, but nothing was stopping the rest of the born in this country Americans from working. 

 Of course many large corporations take advantage of this in rather unfair ways but when I see people with limited skills complain about the lack of work available for them I can’t help but think they merely need to ask for the work.

 If you are a highly skilled person and you can not find work in the field that you trained in I feel for you.  You put a lot of effort into acquiring a skill and can not find work in that.  On the other hand if you have no skills and you will not work for whatever you can get I can’t help you nor do I want to. 

 I also believe that the less you work the more apt you are to work even less.  Simply put you are used to sitting on your ass and refuse to get off it.  Aside from temporary unemployment I believe people should pull their weight. 

 This brings me back to the immigration issue.  These people have so many things going against them.  They don’t speak the language, the culture is alien, and they have no connections.  But the work they do merely requires a strong back and a work ethic. 

 I also believe that we have created this situation ourselves.  We have so much in this country.  We have gone soft.  From high school kids to high school drop outs.  Perhaps this is a symptom of the hand out society that people expect something for nothing I am not sure.  It seemed to happen to those about 4 years younger then I.  I remember being in high school and fighting the other dishwashers for extra shifts to make more money.  Later towards the end of college these high school kids would show up to work late if they even showed up.  This was about the same time these same jobs started to be taken by immigrants. 

 It was not the wage.  It was more then what I made when I did the same job and we did not pay the immigrants any less.  It was all under the table by the way.  So it was not a case of the immigrant making more because he did not have taxes taken out.