Thread: The Minimum Wage Myth

Originally Posted by Kid<2>Nite

The point I'm looking to make here is how all too many people are typing the word "Illegal" as if it carried no meaning. Any immigrant looking to come here and make a better life for themselves and do so "legally” would find me welcoming them with open arms. If on the other hand; their first act is to come here illegally, it shows total disregard for our laws and the only tag I care to place on them is "RETURN TO SENDER"

I agree that it is far better (for the US and for the individual) for them to come here legally, however, with that legal title their entire status changes and I was pointing out how illegal immigrants are not strictly an eyesore for America, but beneficial.

Coming here legally entitles and qualifies them for higher wages, paid vacation, public aid, social security benefits, tax refunds, child care assistance, housing assistance, education assistance, low income and minority loan assistance - as well as others. After all this, we are now paying out more than we may be benfeiting from their minimum wage job.

As cruel as this seems (and again, I am not condoning it or "preferring" people to work here illegally) it is better for America to have the worker, doing the same work, for a lower salary and not have to pay out anything additional to that worker, including the taxes and SS that the worker has paid into. Illegal immigrants are not here taking away our high paying careers. They are working in fields that Americans are not applying for. If the Americans were applying for those jobs, the jobs would not be availble to immigrant workers because Americans would already be in them.

Originally Posted by TopHatsLiberal

Coming here legally entitles and qualifies them for higher wages, paid vacation, public aid, social security benefits, tax refunds, child care assistance, housing assistance, education assistance, low income and minority loan assistance - as well as others. After all this, we are now paying out more than we may be benfeiting from their minimum wage job.

Just like we are with our citizens that will work "above the table" to the point of maxxing out on EITC, then do everything "Under the table".

As cruel as this seems (and again, I am not condoning it or "preferring" people to work here illegally) it is better for America to have the worker, doing the same work, for a lower salary and not have to pay out anything additional to that worker, including the taxes and SS that the worker has paid into. Illegal immigrants are not here taking away our high paying careers. They are working in fields that Americans are not applying for. If the Americans were applying for those jobs, the jobs would not be availble to immigrant workers because Americans would already be in them.

Agree, I would much rather see the immigration quotas being filled by "techies, doctors(I know different program) and people that can contribute alot more to the country than a tomato picker or roofer. If we went to a straight consumption tax, that would take away an argument for stricter immigration controls.

Originally Posted by TopHatsLiberal

The prices do not just go up where the pipelines are effected. The price of oil is across the board. At the end of the day, the price per barrel is no different in NYC than it is in Wichita. NYC may be able to raise their prices a few cents (maybe even 15 cents) higher than Wichita, but they are not paying less for that fuel. In fact we send price letters out to our contracted customers on the last day of the month for the following month. The customers in WI pay the same as that same company in TX. Even though WI is going to get their fuel from the refinery in Whiting and TX will be getting theirs from the gulf coast.



"Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending January 6, 2006

U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged nearly 15.3 million barrels per day
during the week ending January 6, up 19,000 barrels per day from the previous week's average. Refineries operated at 89.8 percent of their operable capacity last week."
Petroleum Data For Week Ending January 6, 2006



You actually asked the owner this? Did you do this on your own or to have something to say in this thread? You may think that illegal immigrants are here taking away jobs from US citizens, but how about this:

"Undocumented Workers Give $7 Billion Annually to Social Security
According to a New York Times article on April 5, 2005, "...the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year....Moreover, the money paid by illegal immigrants and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections."

However,since illegal immigrant workers are here illegally, and ostensibly presented fake ID to the US employer, they will never collect Social Security benefits. "For illegal immigrants, Social Security numbers are simply a tool needed to work on this side of the border. Retirement does not enter the picture," reports the New York Times.

The Social Security Administration remains solvent in large part due to deductions taken from the paychecks of illegal immigrant workers, yet Social Security will never pay benefits to those workers. The workers pay in, but they never receive back.

Wouldn't the federal government detect fake Social Security numbers? According to that April 6, 2005 New York Times article, "Starting in the late 1980s, the social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect---sometimes simply fictitious---Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the 'earnings suspense file' in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.

The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990s, two and a half times the amount of the 1980s.

In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.

...the mismatched W-2's fit like a glove on illegal immigrants' known geographic distribution and the patchwork of jobs they typically hold. An audit found that more than half of the 100 employers filing the most earnings reports with false social Security numbers from 1997 through 2001 came from just three states: California, Texas and Illinois."

As shown by this information, the federal bureaucracy clearly knows which companies employ probable illegal immigrant workers, and it even knows which workers are likely illegals.

And the government does nothing about it. Not one penalty was levied by the federal government against an employer in 2004 for hiring undocumented workers.

SUMMARY

The equation to explain the whys of illegal immigration into the US is simple:

Add: Widespread abject poverty and starvation in Mexico after US corporations relocated their cheap-labor plants from the US-Mexico border to Asia, and after Mexican banks and telecommunications were privatized, creating dozens of instant billionaires and plunging millions into poverty.

Add: An extremely porous, under-enforced US-Mexico border.

Add: US employers anxious for more profits, and willing to exploit the poverty and fears of illegal immigrants to do so.

Add: The federal government anxious to curry favor with , and garner votes from, business owners and the Hispanic community...thus, willing to under-enforce borders and immigrations laws, and ignore illegal hiring by employers.

Add: The Social Security Administration dependent on taking in $7 billion annually of contributions from illegal immigrant workers who will never receive benefits from the system.

THE RESULT: Millions of illegal immigrants working for low wages and in poor working conditions, grateful for "scraps to fall from the US table of prosperity," per Dr. Groody.

Wealthier US businesses, and a much-richer Social Security Administration, neither which reimburse local and state authorities and taxpayers for the costs (education, health care, law enforcement and more) associated with illegal immigrants.

And a very angry US citizenry, who vilify immigrants for being here, rather than blaming the business owners who hire and exploit them, the US government which lets them enter the US and profits greatly from them, and the Mexican government which is happy to see them immigrate out of their country.

"Our nation virtually posts two sign on its southern border: 'Help Wanted: Inquire Within' and 'Do Not Trespass," says Pastor Robin Hoover of Humane Borders.

"Without the help of immigrant labor, the US economy would virtually collapse. We want and need cheap immigrant labor, but we do not want the immigrants."


So when it comes time for you to retire, you gonna give up some of your retirement benefits that someone else paid for? Most likely not.
Immigrant Workers

As for the refinery output for january being at 89.9%. I believe that figure will increase as we get into the increased demand during the warmer summer months when people are driving more.

A few years ago the owners restaurant was shut down for a bit when they catered to a hispanic wedding. They butchered a goat on the premises. He was also hit with undocumented worker charges. Since then, the owner promised to do everything above board from that day on if given a second chance. He freely admits his earlier mistakes and is quite candid about his efforts to do the right thing. The local customers and I believe him, and have responded in kind. He now has two thriving restaurants in town.

The feds will most likely never do anything about the widspread problem of illegal workers as all they only see is the social security money that is described in your post. What the feds conveniently ignore is the burden the illegals have on the local goverments. Driving without a license/insuranse is a huge problem on Oregon. Guess who is responsible for many of the violations. This also hikes up the insurance rates. There are a lot of illegals that find their way into prison. Schools systems are inaundated with non english speaking students (kids of illegals). Illegals also take a share of health and welfare benefits. When an illegal gets seriously hurt and goes to a hospital, Who do you think pays for that?

It is time Mexico looks to building their own economy instead of leaching off the U.S. It is also time for the U.S. companies to be weaned off the illegal labor teat.

I am not at all saying that there are negatives to having illegal workers here in the US, but you cannot ignore that there are benefits.

Originally Posted by TopHatsLiberal

I am not at all saying that there are negatives to having illegal workers here in the US, but you cannot ignore that there are benefits.

Whether the benefits outweigh the cost remains to be seenas it could take decades to see the whole picture and impact. The change in demographics alone is staggering.

Two things however really irk me about the situation. 1) How Mexico treats immigrants from central america, which is totally different than how they expect us to treat illegals coming in from Mexico. 2) From the goverment on down, Mexicans actually believe they have some sort of right to be in the U.S.A. If they come illegally, they have no such right. Last year when we had volunteers guarding the border President fox was incenced that his people's rights were being violated. Is there ANY law that states Mexicans have a right to illegally sneak into U.S. land?

Originally Posted by bonehead

Two things however really irk me about the situation. 1) How Mexico treats immigrants from central america, which is totally different than how they expect us to treat illegals coming in from Mexico. 2) From the goverment on down, Mexicans actually believe they have some sort of right to be in the U.S.A. If they come illegally, they have no such right. Last year when we had volunteers guarding the border President fox was incenced that his people's rights were being violated. Is there ANY law that states Mexicans have a right to illegally sneak into U.S. land?

I have not paid enough attention to Pres Fox and his position on Mexicans coming to the US or how Mexico treats people from other CA countries. Do you have links so that I can read this information you are referring to?

This was in the news today:

"U.S. Farmers Trace Mexican Workers' Lives
By CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jan 16, 3:22 AM ET



Kerrie Baker's two Mexican employees live above her dining room. They don't speak English and she knows about 30 words of Spanish, but they get by with smiles and the occasional visiting interpreter to the remote, upstate New York dairy farm.

So when Baker said she was leaving for Mexico last month, the men didn't quite believe her. Then she returned with photos of their mountain village, and even of one man's startled mother. When the woman realized who Baker was, she started crying and said, "Take care of my baby."

Baker and other farmers aren't waiting for Congress to take up immigration reform this month — they're crossing the border to understand the issue by visiting the far-flung homes of their employees.

But they don't go just for charity, says Wisconsin dairy farmer John Rosenow. Instead, the trips are an investment in a new kind of worker they hope won't disappear.

Hispanics make up about 40 percent of all U.S. agricultural employees based on 2004 census figures, the Pew Hispanic Center said.

But the interest comes from the newest farmers hiring Mexicans, the dairy farmers along America's northern edge. A Cornell University survey said 72 percent of the largest farms in New York, the third largest dairy-producing state, hired their first Hispanic employee since 2000.

Overwhelmingly, the farmers said their biggest problem was understanding their new workers, with 96 percent noting the language barrier. More than half also mentioned cultural concerns.

A new Cornell project and a Wisconsin-based nonprofit program called Puentes, or Bridges, cater to dairy farmers, though similar cross-border programs for farmers or agricultural leaders exist in Pennsylvania and Kentucky.

Bruce Goldstein of the Washington-based Farmworker Justice Fund says the visits are fine but the real test is whether wages and working conditions improve. The Cornell survey said the average Hispanic dairy worker gets $7.51 an hour.

Cornell took its first group of farmers across the border last month, bouncing in vans an hour past the paved road to a central Mexican village.

"Down there, they're grinding out a living the way we used to farm in this country 70 or 80 years ago," said Thomas Maloney, the Cornell extension associate who arranged the trip. "Believe me, once you go and see it, you understand why people travel 3,000 miles for a job."

Baker returned to her farm on just west of the Adirondacks with stories of Mexican cows producing just eight pounds of milk a day, compared to more than 70 pounds from her own. When she asked local students how many had relatives in the U.S., more than half raised their hands.

"That was the best $900 I could have spent for my dairy farm," Baker said. Inspired, she'll start a new language course called Dairyman's Spanish in the spring.

Rosenow, of Waumandee, Wisc., said he's helped place Mexicans on dozens of farms after the first one he hired worked 54 days straight, "with no complaint."

Rosenow has crossed the border three times with Puentes. He remembers visiting a former employee who had used his U.S. earnings to build a bakery. "I didn't have a clue," Rosenow said. "I thought he'd want to live here (in America) someday."

Now Rosenow asks his workers what they need to learn. He's taught a business course and a driving class, and his farm set up a banking system where workers' families in Mexico can access the money with ATM cards.

"Anything I can do to make things better for my employees will make this business run better," said Rosenow, who now works about 70 hours a week instead of 90 or 95.

And after explaining to workers how higher-quality milk gets a better price, his farm makes $1,200 to $2,000 more a month. The money goes for bonuses on top of workers' $375 weekly salaries.

At Baker's house, 22-year-old Gabriel Monfil Arcos and 27-year-old Juan Arcos Garcia prepare for the midday milking of more than 300 cows. Garcia says he's surprised but happy "la patrona" made the journey.

Downstairs, the men look through Baker's photos of Mexico. After a few minutes, she says, "Tell them I want to give them a bonus for Christmas. I've never done that before. Tell them it's because they're special."

She waits for the translation and, soon enough, the smiles."

Originally Posted by bonehead

As for the oil spill, Exxon is still fighting paying the fines and the lawsuits to pay the fishermen impacted by the spill. It isn't over yet. Until then Exxon has not paid it's debt to society as far as I am concerned.

This is from a story done in 1999 - Ten years after Exxon's oil spill. Maybe, just maybe, it is not as bad as you have been led to believe? Bad yes...but maybe not as bad?

Ten years after

VECO executives look back at the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill cleanup: A logistics challenge, an economic shot in the arm and a disaster whose lasting damage, they say, is not to the environment

Jim Prevost
PNA Contributing Writer


On a flat-calm Friday morning 10 years ago in March, the tanker Exxon Valdez lay hard and fast upon Bligh Reef, where she had been since just after midnight. At her side a thick, black gunk oozed to the surface in waves that folded one upon the other at the hull before spreading out across the water’s mirror surface.

In Anchorage, 100 miles to the west, rush-hour radio reports of the grounding set in motion the first stirrings of what would develop into the largest peacetime logistics operation in U.S. history.

Pete Leathard, president of VECO Corp., was driving to his Anchorage office on March 24, 1989, when he heard on the radio that a tanker had hit the rocks.

Chief Executive Bill Allen was at the office when Leathard arrived, but hadn’t heard about the disaster.

“I told him about it,” Leathard said, “and he called to see if it was real or not, and asked if they needed any help. They said yes.”

Allen had founded VECO in 1968 as an oil field service company. The firm specialized in operations, some drilling

and construction, mainly in the oil fields, but also in the mining industry.

Following an oil spill in Cook Inlet in 1987, area oil transporters and producers had formed the Cook Inlet Response Organization and hired VECO to furnish trained people to respond to spills.

By the end of the day on March 24, VECO had flown all 60 of its trained oil spill response technicians from Kenai to Valdez, and by Sunday had a full management staff on site working closely with Exxon.

Stabilizing the tanker

“In the early stages, Exxon had nobody here,” Leathard said. “So we acted without any contract, as sort of their vehicle to make some things happen.”
The oil company’s main concern at first was stabilizing the tanker, which still held two thirds of its oil, and then bringing another tanker alongside to off-load the remaining crude. At that point, nothing was being done about the oil in the water.

“They just said, ‘Do what you can, and we’ll cover you for it,’ so we started to mobilize and to do stuff,” Leathard said.

Exxon wanted permission from the state to apply chemical dispersing agents to the oil slick, but the state didn’t want to take responsibility, Allen said.

Exxon asked Allen to try to persuade Gov. Steve Cowper to authorize it.

“I told him, ‘We’re going to have a hell of a mess if you don’t,’” Allen said. “So, finally, he said OK. But, about the time he said OK, the wind came up. It blew so hard, it blew the roof off the control tower at Valdez. And that spread the oil everywhere.”

Allen and Leathard agree that if dispersants had been sprayed on the slick while the weather was calm, the wave action that followed would have broken up and dispersed the oil and subsequent damage would have been considerably less.

Instead, after the storm, conditions went back to flat calm, with the bright sun weathering off the crude’s light ends, leaving a thick mat of oil fouling beaches throughout the sound.

The natural flushing action carried the slick out of Prince William Sound to the southwest, where it contaminated beaches on the lower Kenai Peninsula, Kodiak and the Alaska Peninsula.

The logistics

In addition to stabilizing and off-loading the tanker, Exxon took on the on-water cleanup chores and left VECO in charge of cleaning up what had hit the beaches — an undertaking that required enormous resources.
“People don’t realize that Prince William Sound is really remote,” Leathard said. “Where the action occurred, where the oil was, you’d send a boat out, it would spend about an hour down there, and then it would come back. That was a full day. As it spread down around the sound, we had boats out where they were out of contact.”

To establish a communications network, VECO established a system of radio repeater stations on mountain tops around the sound.

They also leased and purchased tour boats and fishing boats, barges, landing craft and pleasure craft for use as work platforms, decontamination stations and living quarters. Exxon and VECO agreed that they had to provide places for people to live out on the water, next to the spill, if they were going to accomplish anything.

“In making that decision, we were also agreeing that you’ve got to have food, you’ve got to have water and take care of sewage,” Leathard said. “Anything you clean up you have to be able to dispose of. The logistics of all that just mounted tremendously. One of the biggest deals about the oil spill was supporting the people you brought in to deal with it. For instance, you couldn’t just have people (relieving themselves) on the beach. You had to have porta-potties on the beach in order to have people there.”

Another important decision for Alaska was the determination that local people impacted by the spill would benefit from the money spent on its cleanup. Local people would be hired, local suppliers would used, and local boats would be utilized. VECO hired Norcon Inc. as a subcontractor to provide union workers on shore supporting the cleanup effort while VECO, with non-union personnel, worked offshore.

Exxon’s treatment “wrong”

To get the project under way, hiring centers were quickly set up in the local communities. Allen and other VECO people played a major role in acting as front people in dealing with the communities, opening offices in front of the spill, putting people on the payroll and providing food.
“Exxon went overboard, in giving us the authority to do that, to try and make sure that as much of the impact as possible was mitigated,” Leathard said.

“They went full-bore with everything,” Allen said, “then got sued for $5 billion. The next time it happens — it probably never will again, but — why would a company come in and do what Exxon did, when you’re going to turn around and get hit like that?”

“They won’t,” Leathard agreed.

While stopping short of accusing anyone of misrepresenting facts in the matter, Leathard said there was definitely a twist put on information regarding the spill, in order to maximize the apparent damages done to the state and make more money from the oil giant after the spill.

“I think that was wrong,” he said.

Leathard pointed out that Exxon made sure VECO hired all the Alaskans they could hire. Furthermore, all materials and supplies were to be bought through vendors in Alaska. VECO spent nearly $300 million in the first three months.
“Even the rubber products,” he said. “We emptied the stores, going for rubber boots and clothing, because everybody had to be protected to work on the beaches.”

Many items were ordered to be manufactured in China. Others were imported from France and other countries around the world, Leathard said, but it all came back through Alaska suppliers.

The economic impact

The commercial impacts of the cleanup benefited a sluggish Alaska economy. Employment increased throughout the state. As many as 125 communities had residents employed on the cleanup. By summer the state’s unemployment rate dropped to its lowest level since pipeline days.
At the project’s peak, more than 2,000 vessels were leased to Exxon and VECO.

“Just about everybody in the fishing industry who had a boat for hire got hired,” Leathard said. “Their boats got paid for.”

Eventually 17,000 people owed their jobs to the oil spill. At the high point of the cleanup effort, there were 3,000 VECO and Norcon personnel directly involved in shoreline operations, with 9,000 more supporting the undertaking.

Over the life of the project, Exxon spent more than $2 billion, about half funneled through VECO. About 90 percent of the money spent by VECO on the cleanup was spent in Alaska.

The spill resulted in the largest single-season impact on the Railbelt economy since pipeline construction.

Banks reported large increases in third-quarter deposits. Car dealerships reported a 30 percent increase in sales over the previous year. The Alaska Housing Finance Corp. loan delinquency rate fell nearly in half. Alaska business bankruptcy rates fell by more than 60 percent.

These benefits came about at a cost that is still being assessed and, in some quarters, hotly debated. Leathard is doubtful about any long-term environmental effects.

“There was damage immediately — there’s no question. But as far as long-lasting damage, I don’t think it’s there,” he said.

He has no doubt, however, that Exxon was treated unfairly after the spill. Accidents happen, he said, and nobody seriously thinks Exxon ran their ship aground on purpose.

“I have no love for Exxon. Hell, they’re a monster corporation. But I just think the system is wrong, when you do that.”

The lasting damage from the spill, as Leathard sees it, is the damage to the image of the state caused by Exxon’s shabby treatment. He sees a different scenario if a like event should ever take place here.

“I don’t think an Exxon will do it again,” He said. “I think they’ll say, ‘Hell — I might as well save my money, do the minimal I can, put on a good show.’ And, boy, they will. They’ll spend more money on publicity than on mitigating the damage, as a result of what’s happened since.”

Attitudes have changed

Allen said the atmosphere is much more positive today. People look at oil companies differently than they did at the time of the spill. Also, he said, his assistance in getting Gov. Tony Knowles acquainted with oil industry leaders shortly after Knowles’ election has worked out well, and the Legislature has changed its view of the oil industry.
“So, the whole picture has changed,” Allen said. “Right now, I think that we need to do everything we can to keep the atmosphere that way, and to even encourage it more.”

Allen said he wasn’t discouraged by the current low prices for Alaskan crude, or subsequent layoffs and cutbacks by BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc. He said that if the attitude is kept positive, oil will start back.

“It may take two or three years, but it’ll come back,” Allen said, “and Alaska is going to be a good place to be for a long time.”