I've hated our so-called
trade policy for decades. This goes back to the 1970's when companies were sacking American workers to export the manufacturing to Japan. We allowed them and then other countries (cough: China) to dump product into our market at prices below the cost it took to manufacture them. Wall Street loved it. But it decimated a lot of smaller American companies and hollowed out the middle class.
Now we're in a position where American consumers are dependent on cheap, imported products. And several of our domestic industries rely on illegal migrant labor. The agri-business sector is especially dependent on that kind of labor. The companies play a shell game with their paperwork to hide the fact most of those workers are paid cash off the books. There has to be some kind
wink wink, nudge nudge arrangement with government regulators and inspectors to let this stuff fly. It is kind of funny how all the INS raids shown on TV the past week or so have taken place in big cities (in mostly blue states). The raids are obviously publicity stunts.
Or Dr Phil doesn't want to go on an INS raid at a slaughter house.
Sign companies who hire American born workers and pay them on the books are subject to having OSHA, EPA, DOT, etc crawling up their ass. But a cattle processing plant in the Texas panhandle appears to be getting a pass on those hassles. If a migrant gets maimed on the job out there they just patch him up and send him home. If one of our workers gets seriously hurt on the job there's going to be all kinds of hell to pay.
Here's the sad thing: if we booted every illegal worker out of the country it's likely businesses like those cattle processing plants way out in the sticks would probably shut down. Working in a slaughter house is a pretty horrific, nasty job. I'll drive past these places on road trips from Oklahoma to Colorado. The buildings are hundreds of yards off the road yet even at that distance the stink is so powerful it makes me gag. American born people wouldn't do those jobs for what the migrants are getting paid. But even if they did I'm sure the workers comp insurance premiums on those American workers would be staggering. It's likely most of our meat would end up being imported
(and subject to those tariffs).
Meanwhile, there is serious growth in the construction of new manufacturing plants in Mexico. We seem to be giving every foreign-born person the message they're not welcome here. If there is a big surge of job growth South of the border we may see millions of people
self-deport. In the background America has a worsening fertility crisis. Birth rates are falling fast because we have priced so many young adults out of being able to afford parenthood. We're going to be a rapidly aging nation with a shrinking working-age population. That will be "great" for our tax base. The military might have to bring back the draft. Anyway, 20 years from now this country might be begging for any kind of immigrants it can get.
GAC05 said:
Hopefully, Musk will develop some space-based manufacturing that will make everything dirt cheap.
Haha. Doing anything at all, ever, in space is only going to be extremely expensive. The costs of getting anything off the ground and into orbit is insane.
