Besides as harvesting only makes up a fraction of food prices
MB4 on July 10, 2008 at 3:41 PM

Good point. Take dairy farming where masses of illegal workers are not required and evaluate what part of the retail price a gallon of milk the dairy farmer receives.

The vast majority of illegal aliens working in America do not work in agriculture yet defense of illegal alien labor always is couched in terms of agriculture. That is the shell game being played by the open borders crowd. If we removed all illegals working in non agricultural jobs we would remove 90 percent of the illegals who are taking jobs American citizens and legal immigrants normally do.

It is a plantation mentality that says only illegals can do manual labor.

It is a duplicitous mentality that describes skilled trades, construction, medical, restaurant, hotel, factory, warehousing, landscaping etc as unskilled labor that citizens will not perform.

Those are the bread and butter jobs of the American public.

It is a racist mentality that implies that the children of manual laborers, legal or illegal, will not aspire to other work and are happy to keep picking tomatos for all future generations if only we give them citizenship

As you might have heard. Phil Gramm really stepped in it by accusing Americans of being whiners.
“We have sort of become a nation of whiners,” he said. “You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in …

…and inability to draw from any real life experiences…

It’s not inability; it’s unwillingness. As I mentioned previously, my goal was to explain to you what economics says, not to prove its postulates.
As for the “digs,” certain commenters here on HotAir are raving lunatic conspiracy theorists of the first order. It is in my interest, and yours as well, for them to find out that their paranoid delusions are not welcome here.

“How dare john McCain and his advisers so callously dismiss the challenges the American people face? No wonder voters feel john McCain is out of touch. He and his campaign don’t even understand the everyday issues Americans are dealing with.”

This is priceless. Hillary is not going to pay herself back the 20mil she “loaned” her campaign. Now tell me, if a politician has 20mil to flush down the commode, how can he or she be expected to understand the dilemma of the working people who wonder where the four dollars for the next gallon of gas is going to come from? And Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich. When he says “rich” you can bet he means the middle class.

unseen on July 11, 2008 at 2:16 AM

With his first couple of posts, I assumed he was a professor. The digs, and boasting, and arrogance, and inability to draw from any real life experiences, later convinced me he is newly graduated. In twenty years he could make a fine economist.

hicsuget on July 11, 2008 at 1:28 AM

careful there your “better than thou” face is showing. Or is that your country club upbringing?

Next you might be calling us all nativists or xenophopes or say we hate chineese people.

All things being equal we are not better off making our enemies wealthy and us less so. all things being equal we are better off keeping our enemies in poverty not making them able to attack us, grow there economies, build their military and compete with us on equal terms.

all things being equal there is no such thing as free trade. Free trade does not exist now and it never did.

you might want to goggle the law of entropy. Pay close attention to its study in relation to evolution and natural selection.

While your doing that research you might want to study 1st law of thermodynamics also.

Throw in the feeding habits of scavengers, and hunted prey.

you can also study the evolutionary mechinisms that plants have formed to carry their offspring far distances with no energy used coming from the plants.

While you are in the biology section look up how parasites form different types of bonds. From totally destructive to totally mutally beneficial ( you can apply this to Congress, CEO’s and the AMerican people very easily)

look up the ramifications of uncontrolled animals population. take the wolf out of the equation and you have deer dying of starvation.

All of these real world examples when combined with basic economics explain the economy better than most economists can ever hope too.

If you are really feeling like learning something study some political science and might I suggest the Art of War, and the Prince by Machiavelli.

For shits and giggles read up on Lenin and hitler, the I have a dream speech in regards to immigration , the cost of the jim crow laws on economic output, the long term cost and benefits of slavery and second class citizens, and the reunification of Germany.

Now once you read that take your knowledge of economics and your new found knowledge of real life and its processes and make a BETTER arguement.

Oh yeah and don’t make the mistake that spelling and grammer determines a person’s IQ.

If you are up to it you can even study some Graham and Buffet to really see how the stock market works.

And least I forget, the study of religion will teach you alot about human nature and its effects on economics.

there’s more but a well rounded education takes years to achieve. And placing that knowledge together from the pieces given is more an art than a science.

context doesn’t matter. you think the dems or the media oops repeated myself will put his quote in context? you think the majority of people will read the context of the quote or do you think that most people will see the headline Repbulic Gramm says AMericans are insane? Mentally unstable? bunch of whinners?

I am sure the queen of France said her statement in more context. Did that save her head? You do not say certain things no matter what the context is. you do not call the AMerician people clingy, insane, whinners, bible thumping, gun crazied etc. You just don’t go their esp on the national level. you attack the media, you attack the dems you do not attack or in any way suggest the people you want to vote for you or your man are nuts.

hicsuget on July 10, 2008 at 5:30 PM

You know if more economicists studied human nature, thermodynamics, biology and other life sciences they might actually be right more times than they are wrong.

This is why most economists usally end up losing their shirt in the market. They just can’t understand why their perfect little theories /laws don’t work in the real world.

Your thesis is well written, but from a textbook, not from fact. Great theories, but they don’t exist.
[...]
right2bright on July 10, 2008 at 6:18 PM

On this blog I’ve seen you and other YEC types argue obstinately against the teachings of science when they disagree with the conservative position on biology curricula. It strikes me as very strange that you and so many others here oppose with equal obstinance the teachings of science when they agree with the conservative position. It’s highly irrational, but at least you’re consistent with it.
Also, for the record and contrary to what you seem to indicate, a concept is not disproven merely by your failure to understand it.
Finally, it must be asserted that some textbooks do contain facts—those of us who did not go to Bob Jones University can verify this from personal experience.

No, its basic thermodynamics, not economics.
…
Romeo13 on July 10, 2008 at 5:41 PM

I’ve spent most of this thread citing economics textbooks as references for my statements. Perhaps you could cite a thermodynamics textbook that backs up your statement.

What’s that? You can’t? Because thermodynamics is physics, not political economy? That’s what I thought.

LIke I said before, though, China is subsidizing our consumption. They’re doing us a favor. That we are failing to save and invest at home is a completely different matter. Ceteris paribus we’re better off with trade with China than not, and ceteris paribus we’re better off if our trading partners subsidize their own exports.

When the Chinese government subsidizes manufacturing investment, they are mortgaging their present for their future. It’s our fault, not theirs, that we’re mortgaging our future for the present.

Republicans sat on their hands when they had all the marbles between 2000 and 2006. A Republican governor nixed off-shore drilling in Florida. GWB did absolutely diddly about promoting a comprehensive energy policy. GWB never did squat about getting America to a point where we import no oil from the Arabs and Muslims who now hold us hostage to their oil and the high prices for that oil.

pabarge

Hey pabarge… shut the hell up. Use your brain. Then continue shutting up some more.

Clinton had the first shot to approve drilling in ANWR but vetoed it. (He was busy drilling something else.) The economy under Clinton was fantastic thanks to late 80s wall street fever followed by the dot-com boom. Bush was in office only eight months before we were attacked. Then the dot-com bust occurred, something also beyond his control. His main priority since then has been to protect America.

Nobody gave a crap about oil prices a few years ago because they were still reasonable. In 2004 I was griping because I drove 100 miles a day and gas was around $1.80. Now I pray for that price again. Oil pricing runups have occurred mainly under the DEMOCRAT-controlled government, one elected by close-minded single-issue liberals who are now grumpy because Pelosi and Reid are even less effective than the president they hate so much.

So again, shut the hell up. I dont usually stoop to name calling or offensive tactics, but I’ve had a rough day and mental midgets like you tend to rub me the wrong way.

Phil is right, we are a nation of whiners. No red ink on Johnny’s horrible homework. No placing kids in time out or ‘embarassing’ them in class for pointing out mistakes. A nation of spineless babies is in the making, we need to grab this pendulum and throw it back the other way NOW>

+1

PC is denounced by the rabble until the rabble is made uncomfortable and then PC is “in” again.

Gramm gave the Post an interview. WE DON’T GET TO SEE THE INTERVIEW. Instead, the Post cut/paste according to their own agenda Gramm’s content. We don’t get to read the badgering reporter asking the same question 20 times in hopes of getting a the answer he WANTS if he just asks again. OK, Gramm laid it on and now he’s taking the heat, not for his message, but for a snip that may well have been deserved by the reporter who pranced with glee to the computer to apply his personal rebuke to the public. Also, Gramm left politics and has enjoyed an insulated life for what–a decade now? He enters on stage right only to be ambushed by the press, the very press he’s criticizing.

Geez, I read the article. No one’s talking about Gramm’s economic outline, but stuck on the dumb buzz instead…3 pages of stuck on stupid. And by the way, morons need not respond. You’ve done your work and fed bobama at your own expense just because your feelings got hurt BY THE PRESS!

so much for “it’s not what you say, but how you say it” when what you organized and presented as an economic policy is ignored completely in favor of an off the cuff rebuttal to an nagging typist story-teller paid to take sound bites out of context and twist to support Obama at all cost. How many times must the public fall for the same trick before they get wise to it? Read the entire article from the Washington Post.

Then, let’s WATCH the entire interview and see if I’m right.

unseen on July 10, 2008 at 4:47 PM

Nailed it.

there are the conservatives who do nothing but complain about other conservatives and who in the process help liberal Democrats. This is not to say that criticism is not sometimes warranted, but if that is all you do then you could be seen as working for the Democrats.

Terrye on July 10, 2008 at 4:04 PM

Terrye, I really don’t know where you stood on these issues around or on June 2007, but here is my input – if it applies.

Right… like the immigration reform elites who call the others bigots….

So then, we have resorted to such a low level of debate that the real issues do not stay in the cross hairs any longer.

And it was instigated by who?

It’s only the the real elitist bigots who resort to such name calling!

NEVER was there any discussion from us “obstructionists” about not supplying farm workers where needed!!
That was an intelligence insulting, bigoted charge, led by none other then the cotton lettuce-picking Chertoff (and others) himself!!

As the saying goes.. the rules are set by the aggressor.
After all those intelligence insulting charges from the immigration reform elites, all bets were off the table for having an intelligent debate!!

Do you not see this you bigoted pricks!?
How would you like to be called bigots?
How does it feel?

See there.. it would be much better if you owned up to your sanctimonious screw ball reasoning and humbled yourself to serve the USA rather than your selfish interests.

What chance is there that we see the elitists humble themself anytime soon?

Funny how you bait people, post controversial statements,

Having opinions that are not the same as yours is not “baiting” you. At least it shouldn’t be. If it is you have a problem.

then get offended when someone responds in like.

right2bright on July 10, 2008 at 5:27 PM

Not “in like” at all as I did not call someone a bigot and anti-Semite.

Thats a MAJOR standard of living hit…

Romeo13 on July 10, 2008 at 6:21 PM

Let them eat cake, I suppose.

Speaking of talking out of both sides of their mouths, there are the conservatives who do nothing but complain about other conservatives and who in the process help liberal Democrats.

Complaining about Juan “McCain/Kennedy, McCain/Feingold, McCain/Lieberman, McCain/Gore” McBernie is not complaining about a conservative.

This is not to say that criticism is not sometimes warranted, but if that is all you do then you could be seen as working for the Democrats.

Terrye on July 10, 2008 at 4:04 PM

You are seeing things that aren’t there.

If you want to go out there and buy some ground and put out some crops and pay some people to do the work and show those plantation owners who produce the food you eat how it is done..then just jump right in there. No one is stopping you. Go ahead.

But no, you will sit back and talk about plantation owners and lousy business people etc.

Terrye on July 10, 2008 at 3:56 PM

I actually belonged to 4-H when I was a kid and had the best garden in Okanogan county three years in a row till we moved. It ain’t rocket science.

If someone has to rely on illegal labor in America to succeed they should just hang it up.

Romeo13 on July 10, 2008 at 7:06 PM

Technology is relatively strong right now. Profits are growing at a healthy clip and its labor market has avoided the extreme distress in the financial services sector. And it’s a huge source of both profit and employment compared to what it was decades ago. That is my main point. To reduce the whole sector to call center jobs is ridiculous.

On your point about the S&P, that doesn’t refute anything that i’ve said. I was just using the relative size of various sectors to demonstrate that while one sector may contract other sectors can expand to provide growth and employment.

right2bright on July 10, 2008 at 6:18 PM

There really isn’t a way for me to argue with anecdotal evidence. I’m not saying manufacturing isn’t declining, as both anecdotal and the statistical data bear that out. The manufactoring sector in the US is in secular decline and has been for quite some time. I am saying that the very processes which have been causing that also have given rise to other sectors which have provided growth and new employment which have made the country as a whole more wealthy and kept unemployment low. The statistical and economic data does bear this out. The 6% unemployment that people talk about with trepidation today would have been considered full unemployment a few decades ago. I’m all for taking steps to make our manufacturing industry more competitve such as relaxing regulatory constraints and lowering corporate taxes but the imposition of protectionist policies will harm the country as a whole and thus should be avoided.

As for my profession, I’m one of those evil capitalists. I’m a research analyst for an institutional investment firm.

phronesis on July 10, 2008 at 6:34 PM

LOL… been in technology for 29 years, and I see more senior technology people UNEMPLOYED than ever before.

Feel free to call a technology help desk, and then guess what country those jobs are in.

Feel free to see where most of the components come from, where they are manufactured.

As to the SP500 it is essentialy (before the recent drop) right where it was pre 9/11. If you put your money in it long term you would be right back where ya started. I know, I’ve watched it… for years…