I think what we need is interest rates modeled after Japan -- Imagine the 0% ARM.
There is an atricle on bloomberg about foreigners having boutht in havily into treasuries in 06. Apparently this may not be the case in 07. But I still think rates are going lower -- well at least after housing really falls apart.
Also bloomberg thinks new home sales might be up tomorrow--- Greenspan said the worst is over right?
Well I am pro-union, pro-immigrant, pro-free trade and oddly enough pro-markets. Oddly enough that doesn't spill over to employer/capital powers to set prices in wages.
Bodegas going broke is a natural result of labor resetting in relation to work offered. We can argue whether we should allow this category of laborers to undercut unionized ones, but I am not shedding any tears for capital enterprises that targeted non-union worker customer bases.
I don't blame anyone who comes to this country to bust their ass doing concrete work to support their families. I mean I am a bleeding heart liberal, union guy but I noticed that in the construction of our local courthouse's underground garage, a job that not only required a bazillion yards of cement, but as a matter of contract required prevailing (i.e. union) wage, the guys that actually waded through the cement hour after hour in hip boots all spoke Mexican Spanish.
Certainly you can drive by the local Home Improvement store and find some immigrant who will work for cheap. But when you go by a government construction site that at least by contract is supposed to be paying prevailing wage and the workers are still immigrants you begin to wonder what is up. Are the contractors skimming wages somehow? Or has been true since the founding of the Republic are immigrants just willing to work harder?
Because it would be hard to draw a razor blade between the language commonly used now to refer to Mexicans and that used about the Irish a 150 years ago. Both were castigated as being dirty and lazy until you actually, you know, wanted to get something built. Then suddenly your best worker was named Paddy or Miguel. Or Stanislaus.
Are we going to see the wash-out of illegal labor in construction show up in productivity data? Has undercounting of labor boosted productivity figures for construction workers till now? Guess I oughta look at the data, but it's too early for that now.
We have an unholy alliance between many leaders of the Republican and Democratic Party who have sold out our Country to finance their campaigns to maintain power. This policy may help the stock market yet has hurt the average American family. They have pitted Small business and Middle Class America against overseas workers and illegal immigrants with limited rights.
Adam Smith the one of the fathers of the free market system in his Book Wealth of Nations (which is used most universities economics programs) talks about the right of workers to negotiate wages as a key principal in a free market economy.
Yet both Parties with the help of many bought and paid for economist never mention this principal when they talk about trade or immigration policy. Economist and Politicians act baffled as to why real wages are going backwards around the world as we do trade deals ( NAFTA, CAFTA WTO CHINA ) with Countries that have workers who are treated like slaves competing with Americans. They are even more surprised as to why wages would be hurt by an unlimited supply of workers (visa) legal and (Illegal immigrants) illegal with very few rights also pitted against Americans.
The only solution is real trade and immigration reform that does not over supply our Country with workers and pit Americans against overseas child and slave labor. What do you think?
i'm a strong opponent of illegal immigration and obviously labor. while i feel bad for those out of work they should never of have work to begin with. the problem isn't the illegal immigrants, it's the people hiring them. it's quite clear by their actions (or lack thereof) how our government feels about this issue. protectionism will rear it's ugly head in this area once the proverbial poop hits more Americans, and it will.
Perversely in California school districts this will cause a desperate cash crunch at the local level. Illegal immigrants arrive at the door bringing state money so their departure will affect budgets.
Best is the traffic in the most congested regions. There are census block tracts in Los angeles where 90% of the vechicles have either no registration, insurance, lisienced operator or some combination thereof.
Of course, as another reply mentioned these workers boosted productivity in one fashion as their efforts contributed to the production numerator but their wages and hours were vastly undercounted in the demoninator. Without them inflation notches upward. This is one of the reasons they govt policies encouraged them to work here. So, an uptick in inflation and fewer generally poorer drivers and more financially sound drivers at the same time typical insurance reinvestments provide higher returns. Imagine that, a housing bust lowering automobile insurance.
I live in Arizona where the homebuilding industry has been booming and there has been a perennial shortage of labor.
But, in this last boom cycle (2001-2006) I have noticed that construction quality is in the toilet and I attribute it to the hiring of way too many unskilled (many immigrant) laborers.
The consequence? There are two.
1. 1-year (or more) builder warranties are very important (and have cost builders a lot in recent years)
2. Luxury home builders employ the same labor pool so buyer beware. A complete home inspection on a new build is critical prior to close.
The "quality" issue of housing goes far beyond labor quality. In some part the decline in labor skill sets is in response to these other factors.
Anyone want to go back to cast iron waste trees? Old wiring and fuse boxes? The cost of lath and plaster? Single pane wooden windows in putty with pigs in the jambs?
When I bought my new office I paid $508 for an 8ft double pane sliding glass door in a prehung vinyl frame. Took me and one helper 20 minutes to install. Anyone want to go back to the "Age of Quality" where that same $508 could possibly have paid the architect and planning fees?
Robert,
The best example I can think of it a rental that my parents lived in that was only a few years old in North Phoenix. Walls bowing, cabinets barely attached to the walls, obvious drywall tape lines. Windows not working properly due to bad framing settling. I could go on, but when the owner offered it to my father, he just laughed and told him to fix the toilet that was only down with one loose bolt. Add to it the obnoxious HOA, tiny postage stamp yard and neighbors eight feet on either side he couldn't wait to get out of there.
the realtor owner sold after my parents left and had doubled his purchase price in profits. On the other hand my parents had to threaten him with a lawsuit to get their deposit back. Letter from the lawyer made him cough it up after five months of blowing smoke.
Remember back a while I made the comment that the unemployment rate wasn't truly reflecting the housing crash...now it is starting to sound like I was right...not coming back from Mexico at the end of the Holidays- I hope the new owner of GMAC has a collection agency on retainer in Hermosillo!
As the illegals are the first to be laid off, the homebuilders lose the per-unit benefit of the cheaper labor, squeezing margins going forward on homes built with more expensive labor.
When the 810k baseline number adjustment (~3x the ave annual adjustment) was announced a few months ago (to be penciled in ~Mar), it was not disclosed how this figure would be distributed even though it came from tax receipts from employers of these people.
That's because corporations have become so large and diverse that McFence Co could be employing maverick Mexican rocket scientists as well as hole installers, wheelbarrow operators, shovel manipulators and micro landscape architects.
On account of McFence being part of the same Group as McShoosterBooster maybe.
Yes, so this exodus south...do you think we should get them to put in a few post holes on the way across or are folks (white folks, no?) finding other jobs for them and that exodus is somewhat exaggerated by sources that are a tad slow in reporting facts (like the appearance of 12M illegal aliens) when it does not suit their purposes?
I will echo Bruce Webb. Quality workers can and do come from all over the world.
Don't blame the worker if the cabinets are falling off the wall or the drywall tape is showing through the texture, blame the builder. The workers do exactly what the foreman tells them to do and the foreman is getting the job done with the money the builder allows.
We have one of the Swift Company meatpacking plants in our valley, it was raided, checking for illegal workers, and what do you know, Immigration found some, about 150 out of a workforce of 1000. Plant production is still down until they can hire and train more workers. My son who works there expects the company will have to hire about 500 new workers to get150 who will stay.
Ricard you are right you might find this article interesting about crime and employment.
REAL WAGES DROP VIOLENT CRIME GOES UP
NPR-Violent Crime Surge Hints at Troubling Trend
Violent crime rose in cities and towns across the country in the first half of 2006, according to preliminary data from the FBI. The findings signal that a long period of declining crime in the United States is not just at an end, its heading in the other direction.
Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University who has been tracking crime numbers for 30 years. Theres clearly a growing number of people who have no future in our economy, Blumstein says. There are basically three modes of earning income: One is to have a job, the other is welfare. The third is theft.
The trend of American families feeling left out of our economy will only grow with real wages being driven down by cheap overseas labor and illegal immigration. We need to fix our trade and immigration policy soon or we will only see more destruction to American families and our way of life.
We cannot fix the problem with unions. Our competition in Countries like China who promote slave labor use unions to control the people.We must follow the EU and demand the end of child and slave labor in our trade deals. What do you think?
Well, I had my bathrooms refurbished a while back. One guy was a 'Merkin, the other guy was a Russian immigrant. The Russian guy did excellent work, the 'Merkin did slipshod half-assed work, and I finally told the company not to send him again, I wanted the Russian to finish everything.
So don't blame the immigrants for poor quality, please. Sometimes, they do a better job.
You are right to blame the builder- but the workers are also to blame in the pushdown of skilled labor.
Not to say that houses build 20 y.ears ago didn't have some of the same problems. I bought a house last year that had a bad framing error in the master bath floor. I would never sign for such crap, but the original homeowners did and lived with it for 18 years! Crap. On top of it they accepted the tile pasted on the subfloor and wondered why it cracked! When I tore it out for replacement I was literally laughing at what they had accepted. Of course it did explain why they had to price the house nearly 100k under the market at the time, but it didn't bother me one whit to tear out the fake marble crap and throw it into the dumpster. The upshot of the deal is I have a house that is now worth, with 50k of improvements, roughly what I paid- but my wife really likes it, and we have a fixed 20% down 30 year, and are happy where we are. Done, not moving again.
We have one of the Swift Company meatpacking plants in our valley, it was raided, checking for illegal workers, and what do you know, Immigration found some, about 150 out of a workforce of 1000.
I was on a business trip in Kansas, Missouri & Nebraska a few weeks ago and saw a huge convoy of white Dept. of Homeland Security buses - maybe 15 to 20 buses. I was on I70 heading east toward KC and I35 & the last leg home.
Later that weekend I heard the news - meat packing plant raids up and down the Great Plains. Many hundreds if not thousands of undocumented workers & their families sent back. It was quite an operation & I only saw a small part of the whole thing.
The Swift plants were part of that raid.
The thing that was most disturbing was they found many of these workers not only had false documents but had gone so far as to steal identities of real US citizens. Including taking out credit cards, mortgages, etc.
This is one of the best articles I have ever read about explaining the core issue behind illegal immigration. Congress has formed an unholy alliance with the lobbyist money changers in Washington to sell out small business and the middle class. Please read this article and tell me what you think.
By Froma Harrop
RCP-Theres a popular game in America that goes, Ill cut your wages, but you dont cut mine. And the outsourcing of your factory job to China is a good thing, because it makes my paycheck go further at Wal-Mart. We hear this theme a lot in the debate over illegal immigration.
Consider the recent raids on Swift meat-processing plants. Federal agents arrested 1,187 illegal immigrants at facilities in six states. Mere hours later, economists warned that depriving the industry of illegal labor could raise hamburger prices.
Illegal immigration is usually presented as a win-win situation: Undocumented foreigners earn far more than they could back home. Consumers get a bargain.
Nowhere to be seen are Americas working poor who get stomped on 13 different ways. They have to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs and housing. Low-skilled natives and legal immigrants also end up subsidizing the undocumented because they tend to live in the same communities, which must provide hospitals, police, schools and garbage pickup.
Who doesnt suffer from illegal immigration? For starters, the people who write about it. I speak of the journalism profession, which has the habit of covering the issue by anecdotes. Reporters thrive on sympathetic stories about illegal immigrants who work hard and go to church
But, were a busload of illegals from Australia to turn up at their newspaper and offer reportage at 10 percent below the going rate, the writers would call the authorities so fast that your head would spin. And the publishers argument that thanks to the cheap Australians, hes able to trim a few cents off the newsstand price would make no impression.
As it turns out, the meat-processing companies that employ so many illegal immigrants have been enjoying a nearly 50-percent discount on what was the going rate. In 1980, the average meat-processing job paid $19 an hour. The companies then moved their plants to rural areas, far from the Midwest cities and their unions. The industrys wages now average about $9 an hour.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce likes to wail about the labor shortage. It says there arent enough chambermaids, dishwashers, etc. to work for its members at lousy wages. Odd, but when theres a shortage of labor or anything else doesnt the price of it go up? The price of unskilled labor in the United States hasnt gone up. Its gone down. Because of immigration, American-born high-school dropouts experienced a 5-percent loss in wages during the 80s and 90s, according to a study by Harvard economist George Borjas.
In 1980, the average meat-processing job paid $19 an hour. The companies then moved their plants to rural areas, far from the Midwest cities and their unions. The industrys wages now average about $9 an hour.
John - it was two weeks after the raids I was back in Kansas & Nebraska on business and heard an ag radio station advertising a company sponsored meat cutters training seminar with starting salaries in the $15/hr range.
Coincidence or result of the raid?
Also the advert indicated the companies needed to increase the level of skill available to them because the plants were trying to automate away the worst aspects of the jobs (one of Rob't Cote's primary complaints about 'ultra cheap labor' is it discourages automation... I'm an ex-process engineer & agree).
I'm not saying we are making progress but as I was listening I was thinking there may be a ray or two of hope.
Ken Melvin, tackling the issue of illegal immigrants and how it affects the official unemployment figures in the US:
E/P Ratio, Disappearing Americans, and Illegal Immigrants
In the beginning - a model. For this model, 80% of the current population of some 300 million are between 16 and 65, and some 70% of this 240 million, i.e., some 166 million, are available for work for which they are qualified that pays a decent wage. That is to say that, in the model, some 166 million of the current 300 million (US population November 2006) are in the labor pool or labor force. If 150 million of the 166 million citizens are employed in 2006, then the remaining 16 million are unemployed. The ratio of this 150 million employed to the 240 million of the population between 16 and 65 years of age, 62.5%, is known as the employment to population ratio, E/P. The ratio of the 16 million unemployed to the 166 million people available for work as a percentage, 9.6%, is the percent of work force unemployed, or the rate of unemployment.
If someone cant find work, after awhile they may look for work less often and after a greater while they may stop looking altogether. In the real world of labor statistics, such persons are dropped from both the unemployed and the labor force, i.e., they are dropped from both the numerator and denominator of the equation for calculating the unemployment level. This masks and distorts both increases and decreases in unemployment. As unemployment increases, discouraged job seekers are dropped from both the rolls of the unemployed and the rolls of those available for work lessening the increase in official unemployment. Similarly, when employment increases, those who had given up looking for worked move back into the labor force.
The period from the mid 1990s to 2000 provides a good example of what occurs during a decrease in unemployment. During this time, the number of jobs added exceeded the population increase by a significant ratio for a period of some six years but unemployment only went down some 2%. The official unemployment rate in 1994 was 6.1%. If the available work force in 1994 was 145 million this 6.1% unemployment equates some 8.8 million unemployed persons. If the 1994 available work force was 145 million and the population grew at 1%/yr during the period, by 2000, one would expect the work force to be approximately 1.07 times 145 million or about 155 million.
Some 15 million jobs were added during this period from 1994 to 2000. Of these 15 million added jobs, some 10 million went to cover the increase in work force due population growth. Some 2.6 million of the remaining 5 million jobs went the change in the number of unemployment from 8.8 million in 1994 to 6.2 million in 2000. The remaining 2.4 million represent some portion of the work force that had been disappeared prior 1994. This means that the a
In 1980, the average meat-processing job paid $19 an hour. The companies then moved their plants to rural areas, far from the Midwest cities and their unions. The industrys wages now average about $9 an hour.
First off, if one lives in a rural area "far from the Midwest cities", then $ 9 an hour is decent money, certainly enough to get by on. I've lived in rural areas of Kansas and Colorado, and when one's rent is $ 250 a month, then grossing $ 18K annually is more than adequate.
Secondly, I question whether the average meat-processing job in 1980 really did pay $ 19 an hour. Adjusted for inflation, that's $ 40 an hour in 2005 dollars - does anyone believe that the "average" meat-processor should or would get paid $ 80K annually ?!
This was a very interesting article I found on The Conservative Voice. Do you think slave labor should be a moral issue in trade deals?
TCV-In the US, slavery was outlawed at the national level in 1865. Oppressive child labor was outlawed at the US national level in 1938. Yet child labor persists around the world as national and multinational companies seek lower labor costs and greater profits. Adult consumers around the world benefit with cheap goods made with child labor.
Will worldwide morality over this issue become so great that all countries will banish child labor forever as they did the once prevalent black slavery? Or will the benefits that accrue to consumers and corporations by child labor prevail? Will economics trump morality or not? Stanly asked. Read the rest of this entry »
Michael - I lived in one of those towns, two of my best friends parents worked in those plants.
The plant in our town was a 'Wilson's Meats' plant - company BK now. Medium-small rural Minnesota town. Pay scale about $14/hr with benefits pre-1980. My college roommate worked there on a temp summer job (intro-temp wage scale) and still did better than $10/hr.
Nearby was a large Hormel plant & a Rath plant - both paid approximately $15-$2O/hr. I knew people who worked at both. It provided a middle class lifestyle - medical insurance, vacations, kids went to college.
Google 'Austin Hormel P9 Strike' and you will get a load of info on how it all unravelled... some was due to 'corporate greed', some due to 'union short sidedness'. I saw the sausage being made - there was more than enough of both to go around.
A second factor was state subsidies. States like Iowa (under Gov. Terry Bransted) gave 'rural development' subsidies like crazy to companies like IBP, Excel, etc., to set up low wage competition to the high wage packers... wages were so low they had to 'import' Mexicans to run the plants. I guess I shouldn't complain though 'cause now we have some of the finest local Taqueria's north of the border now
But why would governors do that to their own citizens with good jobs, you ask?
Because their constituency (large CAFO operating corporate 'family' farmers) wanted lower processing costs so as to lower cost and give their facilities an advantage - and it worked but in the process ruined a lot of Middle America by undercutting local wages nearly everywhere. Markets after all work at the margins - both up & down.
Lastly - you say $9/hr can cut it in rural Midwest & High Plains because rent is only '$250/month'... do you realize why rent is that low? Because there isn't any income to support higher rents.
Also explains why WalMart is the only merchant left and why no doctors want to take up residence there. No income to support them.
Increase average wages on the plains & it starts to look like America again.
Swift and company is hiring. go take one of the available jobs for a day and decide if 80K a year will keep you there. easy money, no special skills needed,
I think what we need is interest rates modeled after Japan -- Imagine the 0% ARM.
There is an atricle on bloomberg about foreigners having boutht in havily into treasuries in 06. Apparently this may not be the case in 07. But I still think rates are going lower -- well at least after housing really falls apart.
Also bloomberg thinks new home sales might be up tomorrow--- Greenspan said the worst is over right?
Well I am pro-union, pro-immigrant, pro-free trade and oddly enough pro-markets. Oddly enough that doesn't spill over to employer/capital powers to set prices in wages.
Bodegas going broke is a natural result of labor resetting in relation to work offered. We can argue whether we should allow this category of laborers to undercut unionized ones, but I am not shedding any tears for capital enterprises that targeted non-union worker customer bases.
I don't blame anyone who comes to this country to bust their ass doing concrete work to support their families. I mean I am a bleeding heart liberal, union guy but I noticed that in the construction of our local courthouse's underground garage, a job that not only required a bazillion yards of cement, but as a matter of contract required prevailing (i.e. union) wage, the guys that actually waded through the cement hour after hour in hip boots all spoke Mexican Spanish.
Certainly you can drive by the local Home Improvement store and find some immigrant who will work for cheap. But when you go by a government construction site that at least by contract is supposed to be paying prevailing wage and the workers are still immigrants you begin to wonder what is up. Are the contractors skimming wages somehow? Or has been true since the founding of the Republic are immigrants just willing to work harder?
Because it would be hard to draw a razor blade between the language commonly used now to refer to Mexicans and that used about the Irish a 150 years ago. Both were castigated as being dirty and lazy until you actually, you know, wanted to get something built. Then suddenly your best worker was named Paddy or Miguel. Or Stanislaus.
Are we going to see the wash-out of illegal labor in construction show up in productivity data? Has undercounting of labor boosted productivity figures for construction workers till now? Guess I oughta look at the data, but it's too early for that now.
UNHOLLY ALLINANCE DESTROYING AMERICA
PART 1
We have an unholy alliance between many leaders of the Republican and Democratic Party who have sold out our Country to finance their campaigns to maintain power. This policy may help the stock market yet has hurt the average American family. They have pitted Small business and Middle Class America against overseas workers and illegal immigrants with limited rights.
Adam Smith the one of the fathers of the free market system in his Book Wealth of Nations (which is used most universities economics programs) talks about the right of workers to negotiate wages as a key principal in a free market economy.
Yet both Parties with the help of many bought and paid for economist never mention this principal when they talk about trade or immigration policy. Economist and Politicians act baffled as to why real wages are going backwards around the world as we do trade deals ( NAFTA, CAFTA WTO CHINA ) with Countries that have workers who are treated like slaves competing with Americans. They are even more surprised as to why wages would be hurt by an unlimited supply of workers (visa) legal and (Illegal immigrants) illegal with very few rights also pitted against Americans.
The only solution is real trade and immigration reform that does not over supply our Country with workers and pit Americans against overseas child and slave labor. What do you think?
i'm a strong opponent of illegal immigration and obviously labor. while i feel bad for those out of work they should never of have work to begin with. the problem isn't the illegal immigrants, it's the people hiring them. it's quite clear by their actions (or lack thereof) how our government feels about this issue. protectionism will rear it's ugly head in this area once the proverbial poop hits more Americans, and it will.
Perversely in California school districts this will cause a desperate cash crunch at the local level. Illegal immigrants arrive at the door bringing state money so their departure will affect budgets.
Best is the traffic in the most congested regions. There are census block tracts in Los angeles where 90% of the vechicles have either no registration, insurance, lisienced operator or some combination thereof.
Of course, as another reply mentioned these workers boosted productivity in one fashion as their efforts contributed to the production numerator but their wages and hours were vastly undercounted in the demoninator. Without them inflation notches upward. This is one of the reasons they govt policies encouraged them to work here. So, an uptick in inflation and fewer generally poorer drivers and more financially sound drivers at the same time typical insurance reinvestments provide higher returns. Imagine that, a housing bust lowering automobile insurance.
I live in Arizona where the homebuilding industry has been booming and there has been a perennial shortage of labor.
But, in this last boom cycle (2001-2006) I have noticed that construction quality is in the toilet and I attribute it to the hiring of way too many unskilled (many immigrant) laborers.
The consequence? There are two.
1. 1-year (or more) builder warranties are very important (and have cost builders a lot in recent years)
2. Luxury home builders employ the same labor pool so buyer beware. A complete home inspection on a new build is critical prior to close.
The "quality" issue of housing goes far beyond labor quality. In some part the decline in labor skill sets is in response to these other factors.
Anyone want to go back to cast iron waste trees? Old wiring and fuse boxes? The cost of lath and plaster? Single pane wooden windows in putty with pigs in the jambs?
When I bought my new office I paid $508 for an 8ft double pane sliding glass door in a prehung vinyl frame. Took me and one helper 20 minutes to install. Anyone want to go back to the "Age of Quality" where that same $508 could possibly have paid the architect and planning fees?
Robert,
The best example I can think of it a rental that my parents lived in that was only a few years old in North Phoenix. Walls bowing, cabinets barely attached to the walls, obvious drywall tape lines. Windows not working properly due to bad framing settling. I could go on, but when the owner offered it to my father, he just laughed and told him to fix the toilet that was only down with one loose bolt. Add to it the obnoxious HOA, tiny postage stamp yard and neighbors eight feet on either side he couldn't wait to get out of there.
the realtor owner sold after my parents left and had doubled his purchase price in profits. On the other hand my parents had to threaten him with a lawsuit to get their deposit back. Letter from the lawyer made him cough it up after five months of blowing smoke.
Remember back a while I made the comment that the unemployment rate wasn't truly reflecting the housing crash...now it is starting to sound like I was right...not coming back from Mexico at the end of the Holidays- I hope the new owner of GMAC has a collection agency on retainer in Hermosillo!
"The consequence? There are two."
There's a third.
As the illegals are the first to be laid off, the homebuilders lose the per-unit benefit of the cheaper labor, squeezing margins going forward on homes built with more expensive labor.
When the 810k baseline number adjustment (~3x the ave annual adjustment) was announced a few months ago (to be penciled in ~Mar), it was not disclosed how this figure would be distributed even though it came from tax receipts from employers of these people.
That's because corporations have become so large and diverse that McFence Co could be employing maverick Mexican rocket scientists as well as hole installers, wheelbarrow operators, shovel manipulators and micro landscape architects.
On account of McFence being part of the same Group as McShoosterBooster maybe.
Yes, so this exodus south...do you think we should get them to put in a few post holes on the way across or are folks (white folks, no?) finding other jobs for them and that exodus is somewhat exaggerated by sources that are a tad slow in reporting facts (like the appearance of 12M illegal aliens) when it does not suit their purposes?
don't forget the increase in crime due to lack of work. it happens, illegal or not.
I will echo Bruce Webb. Quality workers can and do come from all over the world.
Don't blame the worker if the cabinets are falling off the wall or the drywall tape is showing through the texture, blame the builder. The workers do exactly what the foreman tells them to do and the foreman is getting the job done with the money the builder allows.
We have one of the Swift Company meatpacking plants in our valley, it was raided, checking for illegal workers, and what do you know, Immigration found some, about 150 out of a workforce of 1000. Plant production is still down until they can hire and train more workers. My son who works there expects the company will have to hire about 500 new workers to get150 who will stay.
Ricard you are right you might find this article interesting about crime and employment.
REAL WAGES DROP VIOLENT CRIME GOES UP
NPR-Violent Crime Surge Hints at Troubling Trend
Violent crime rose in cities and towns across the country in the first half of 2006, according to preliminary data from the FBI. The findings signal that a long period of declining crime in the United States is not just at an end, its heading in the other direction.
Alfred Blumstein, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University who has been tracking crime numbers for 30 years. Theres clearly a growing number of people who have no future in our economy, Blumstein says. There are basically three modes of earning income: One is to have a job, the other is welfare. The third is theft.
The trend of American families feeling left out of our economy will only grow with real wages being driven down by cheap overseas labor and illegal immigration. We need to fix our trade and immigration policy soon or we will only see more destruction to American families and our way of life.
We cannot fix the problem with unions. Our competition in Countries like China who promote slave labor use unions to control the people.We must follow the EU and demand the end of child and slave labor in our trade deals. What do you think?
Well, I had my bathrooms refurbished a while back. One guy was a 'Merkin, the other guy was a Russian immigrant. The Russian guy did excellent work, the 'Merkin did slipshod half-assed work, and I finally told the company not to send him again, I wanted the Russian to finish everything.
So don't blame the immigrants for poor quality, please. Sometimes, they do a better job.
You are right to blame the builder- but the workers are also to blame in the pushdown of skilled labor.
Not to say that houses build 20 y.ears ago didn't have some of the same problems. I bought a house last year that had a bad framing error in the master bath floor. I would never sign for such crap, but the original homeowners did and lived with it for 18 years! Crap. On top of it they accepted the tile pasted on the subfloor and wondered why it cracked! When I tore it out for replacement I was literally laughing at what they had accepted. Of course it did explain why they had to price the house nearly 100k under the market at the time, but it didn't bother me one whit to tear out the fake marble crap and throw it into the dumpster. The upshot of the deal is I have a house that is now worth, with 50k of improvements, roughly what I paid- but my wife really likes it, and we have a fixed 20% down 30 year, and are happy where we are. Done, not moving again.
We have one of the Swift Company meatpacking plants in our valley, it was raided, checking for illegal workers, and what do you know, Immigration found some, about 150 out of a workforce of 1000.
I was on a business trip in Kansas, Missouri & Nebraska a few weeks ago and saw a huge convoy of white Dept. of Homeland Security buses - maybe 15 to 20 buses. I was on I70 heading east toward KC and I35 & the last leg home.
Later that weekend I heard the news - meat packing plant raids up and down the Great Plains. Many hundreds if not thousands of undocumented workers & their families sent back. It was quite an operation & I only saw a small part of the whole thing.
The Swift plants were part of that raid.
The thing that was most disturbing was they found many of these workers not only had false documents but had gone so far as to steal identities of real US citizens. Including taking out credit cards, mortgages, etc.
dryfly,
The really distrubing thing is that they hadn't had a lifetime of routine innoculations. Beef tatar anyone?
Illegal Immigration: A Rich Americans Game
This is one of the best articles I have ever read about explaining the core issue behind illegal immigration. Congress has formed an unholy alliance with the lobbyist money changers in Washington to sell out small business and the middle class. Please read this article and tell me what you think.
By Froma Harrop
RCP-Theres a popular game in America that goes, Ill cut your wages, but you dont cut mine. And the outsourcing of your factory job to China is a good thing, because it makes my paycheck go further at Wal-Mart. We hear this theme a lot in the debate over illegal immigration.
Consider the recent raids on Swift meat-processing plants. Federal agents arrested 1,187 illegal immigrants at facilities in six states. Mere hours later, economists warned that depriving the industry of illegal labor could raise hamburger prices.
Illegal immigration is usually presented as a win-win situation: Undocumented foreigners earn far more than they could back home. Consumers get a bargain.
Nowhere to be seen are Americas working poor who get stomped on 13 different ways. They have to compete with illegal immigrants for jobs and housing. Low-skilled natives and legal immigrants also end up subsidizing the undocumented because they tend to live in the same communities, which must provide hospitals, police, schools and garbage pickup.
Who doesnt suffer from illegal immigration? For starters, the people who write about it. I speak of the journalism profession, which has the habit of covering the issue by anecdotes. Reporters thrive on sympathetic stories about illegal immigrants who work hard and go to church
But, were a busload of illegals from Australia to turn up at their newspaper and offer reportage at 10 percent below the going rate, the writers would call the authorities so fast that your head would spin. And the publishers argument that thanks to the cheap Australians, hes able to trim a few cents off the newsstand price would make no impression.
As it turns out, the meat-processing companies that employ so many illegal immigrants have been enjoying a nearly 50-percent discount on what was the going rate. In 1980, the average meat-processing job paid $19 an hour. The companies then moved their plants to rural areas, far from the Midwest cities and their unions. The industrys wages now average about $9 an hour.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce likes to wail about the labor shortage. It says there arent enough chambermaids, dishwashers, etc. to work for its members at lousy wages. Odd, but when theres a shortage of labor or anything else doesnt the price of it go up? The price of unskilled labor in the United States hasnt gone up. Its gone down. Because of immigration, American-born high-school dropouts experienced a 5-percent loss in wages during the 80s and 90s, according to a study by Harvard economist George Borjas.
For some reason, the job of keeping prices
In 1980, the average meat-processing job paid $19 an hour. The companies then moved their plants to rural areas, far from the Midwest cities and their unions. The industrys wages now average about $9 an hour.
John - it was two weeks after the raids I was back in Kansas & Nebraska on business and heard an ag radio station advertising a company sponsored meat cutters training seminar with starting salaries in the $15/hr range.
Coincidence or result of the raid?
Also the advert indicated the companies needed to increase the level of skill available to them because the plants were trying to automate away the worst aspects of the jobs (one of Rob't Cote's primary complaints about 'ultra cheap labor' is it discourages automation... I'm an ex-process engineer & agree).
I'm not saying we are making progress but as I was listening I was thinking there may be a ray or two of hope.
What, have we all had enough of B. Delong and M. Thoma?
Ninja
Why do Thoma and Delong keep pushing the trade at all cost no matter how bad of a deal?
Ninja & Dryfly
What do you think about this post?
Angry Bear-Heres a post by reader
Ken Melvin, tackling the issue of illegal immigrants and how it affects the official unemployment figures in the US:
E/P Ratio, Disappearing Americans, and Illegal Immigrants
In the beginning - a model. For this model, 80% of the current population of some 300 million are between 16 and 65, and some 70% of this 240 million, i.e., some 166 million, are available for work for which they are qualified that pays a decent wage. That is to say that, in the model, some 166 million of the current 300 million (US population November 2006) are in the labor pool or labor force. If 150 million of the 166 million citizens are employed in 2006, then the remaining 16 million are unemployed. The ratio of this 150 million employed to the 240 million of the population between 16 and 65 years of age, 62.5%, is known as the employment to population ratio, E/P. The ratio of the 16 million unemployed to the 166 million people available for work as a percentage, 9.6%, is the percent of work force unemployed, or the rate of unemployment.
If someone cant find work, after awhile they may look for work less often and after a greater while they may stop looking altogether. In the real world of labor statistics, such persons are dropped from both the unemployed and the labor force, i.e., they are dropped from both the numerator and denominator of the equation for calculating the unemployment level. This masks and distorts both increases and decreases in unemployment. As unemployment increases, discouraged job seekers are dropped from both the rolls of the unemployed and the rolls of those available for work lessening the increase in official unemployment. Similarly, when employment increases, those who had given up looking for worked move back into the labor force.
The period from the mid 1990s to 2000 provides a good example of what occurs during a decrease in unemployment. During this time, the number of jobs added exceeded the population increase by a significant ratio for a period of some six years but unemployment only went down some 2%. The official unemployment rate in 1994 was 6.1%. If the available work force in 1994 was 145 million this 6.1% unemployment equates some 8.8 million unemployed persons. If the 1994 available work force was 145 million and the population grew at 1%/yr during the period, by 2000, one would expect the work force to be approximately 1.07 times 145 million or about 155 million.
Some 15 million jobs were added during this period from 1994 to 2000. Of these 15 million added jobs, some 10 million went to cover the increase in work force due population growth. Some 2.6 million of the remaining 5 million jobs went the change in the number of unemployment from 8.8 million in 1994 to 6.2 million in 2000. The remaining 2.4 million represent some portion of the work force that had been disappeared prior 1994. This means that the a
In 1980, the average meat-processing job paid $19 an hour. The companies then moved their plants to rural areas, far from the Midwest cities and their unions. The industrys wages now average about $9 an hour.
First off, if one lives in a rural area "far from the Midwest cities", then $ 9 an hour is decent money, certainly enough to get by on. I've lived in rural areas of Kansas and Colorado, and when one's rent is $ 250 a month, then grossing $ 18K annually is more than adequate.
Secondly, I question whether the average meat-processing job in 1980 really did pay $ 19 an hour. Adjusted for inflation, that's $ 40 an hour in 2005 dollars - does anyone believe that the "average" meat-processor should or would get paid $ 80K annually ?!
"Secondly, I question whether the average meat-processing job in 1980 really did pay $ 19 an hour."
Ok, but it did.....
Child Slavery Threat To Justice
This was a very interesting article I found on The Conservative Voice. Do you think slave labor should be a moral issue in trade deals?
TCV-In the US, slavery was outlawed at the national level in 1865. Oppressive child labor was outlawed at the US national level in 1938. Yet child labor persists around the world as national and multinational companies seek lower labor costs and greater profits. Adult consumers around the world benefit with cheap goods made with child labor.
Will worldwide morality over this issue become so great that all countries will banish child labor forever as they did the once prevalent black slavery? Or will the benefits that accrue to consumers and corporations by child labor prevail? Will economics trump morality or not? Stanly asked. Read the rest of this entry »
LOL
Really, Larry ?
Source ?
Michael - I lived in one of those towns, two of my best friends parents worked in those plants.
The plant in our town was a 'Wilson's Meats' plant - company BK now. Medium-small rural Minnesota town. Pay scale about $14/hr with benefits pre-1980. My college roommate worked there on a temp summer job (intro-temp wage scale) and still did better than $10/hr.
Nearby was a large Hormel plant & a Rath plant - both paid approximately $15-$2O/hr. I knew people who worked at both. It provided a middle class lifestyle - medical insurance, vacations, kids went to college.
Google 'Austin Hormel P9 Strike' and you will get a load of info on how it all unravelled... some was due to 'corporate greed', some due to 'union short sidedness'. I saw the sausage being made - there was more than enough of both to go around.
A second factor was state subsidies. States like Iowa (under Gov. Terry Bransted) gave 'rural development' subsidies like crazy to companies like IBP, Excel, etc., to set up low wage competition to the high wage packers... wages were so low they had to 'import' Mexicans to run the plants. I guess I shouldn't complain though 'cause now we have some of the finest local Taqueria's north of the border now
But why would governors do that to their own citizens with good jobs, you ask?
Because their constituency (large CAFO operating corporate 'family' farmers) wanted lower processing costs so as to lower cost and give their facilities an advantage - and it worked but in the process ruined a lot of Middle America by undercutting local wages nearly everywhere. Markets after all work at the margins - both up & down.
Lastly - you say $9/hr can cut it in rural Midwest & High Plains because rent is only '$250/month'... do you realize why rent is that low? Because there isn't any income to support higher rents.
Also explains why WalMart is the only merchant left and why no doctors want to take up residence there. No income to support them.
Increase average wages on the plains & it starts to look like America again.
[/end rant]
dryfly,
You're a good egg.
You should read Marx's Revenge by Meghnad Desai.
Michael
Swift and company is hiring. go take one of the available jobs for a day and decide if 80K a year will keep you there. easy money, no special skills needed,
also Micheal
try to buy a new car on $9 an hour. anywhere in the country.