You are truly out of touch with the common worker. Your response is filled with wrong information. Let's break it down with common sense.
You said foreign labor isn't desperate. Oh really? That's why they risk their own lives to leave their home country to come here, and do labor that most American citizens do not want to do at all. Just read that yourself a few times. They obviously do not want to get deported, so yeah, it is desperation to do anything they can to make a wage and keep a low profile. You don't think they would love a high wage job? So they settle for low wages and that's not desperation? Dude, listen to yourself.
Legal foreign labor isn't desperate. They aren't risking their lives coming here. They get visas and typically arrange things through conventional transportation beforehand. The only segment of this labor that could arguably be called desperate are asylum seekers, but given the rather broad interpretation of what an asylum seeker is now, they are a rather diverse group at this point. Some of them literally are fleeing oppressive regimes, but others are better described as economic refugees.
As for illegal labor, that's the foreign labor that can be better described as desperate, although there are plenty of cases where they are just misinformed. NGOs recruit many people from Latin American countries with promises of citizenship and a better life to lure them into the caravans they send north. This is a major operation at the Darien Gap. It happens because human trafficking is a massive industry that makes a lot of money.
So, if exploitation is your concern, then you should criticize these NGOs for exploiting these people. Many of them don't make it here because cartels are often involved in the transport or intercept some of the caravans.
If the argument is that settling for a lower wage is "exploitation", then I guess that describes a large portion of society in general. We can't all be millionaires though, and even if we were, the value of money would adjust to make that much money worth a lot less.
Legal foreign labor doesn't have to worry about being deported unless they commit crimes or their employer lays them off.
Yes, it IS exploitation. They are purposely hiring these workers knowing full well they do not want to pay a native born because a native born would demand higher wages. That's exploitation.....
Now, this part, I agree with.
Rich people are the reason industry exists? That's a very narrow view. In one sense, it is a true statement, but ask yourself: How did they become rich? They are obviously not making the products, delivering them, doing all the "dirty work" so that they can make a lot of money. They need workers to do it. So I can easily say they would NOT be rich without the workers. It is a symbiotic relationship. They need each other. But if the workers helped make you rich, why do you not reward them justly, instead of trying to minimize their wages? Common sense.
Depends on competition and the nature of the industry. There are certainly some industries that would benefit from paying their workers better, and the best way to incentivize that is to pay according to output or commission. It's why sales people make more the more they sell. You could apply similar logic to manufacturing, for example.
It's hard to make that argument for low margin industries, however. There's a good reason that food service pays like crap. It's low skill, and margins tend to be slim. Franchisees of fast food chains do ok for themselves financially, but they aren't raking it in when looking at industry overall. Small businesses don't tend to pay as well because of this margin aspect too. As for big business, there are still some lower margin industries that preclude high pay for most workers, but I agree that a lot of them don't have that excuse.
Ok. I really want you to re-read what you wrote about regulations. You said regulations are in place to limit competition? Are you for real? Regulations are to INCREASE competition. They are in place to PROTECT the consumer. How do you think quality checks came into being? Think. Please think. Why do they try to prevent mergers? Why do they want to avoid monopolies? If regulations are put in place to limit competition, then there would be more mergers and more monopolies. MORE competition helps the common person because it lowers prices. Bruh, you got to do better.
That's generally only one type of regulation - antitrust laws. The vast majority of regulations limit competition rather than increasing it. Another example of how it limits competition is through things like licensing. While there are aspects to licensing that are logical (like requiring doctors to have certain degrees or certifications), there are others that are clearly aimed at favoring established businesses (like requiring contractors to have a large amount of capital, to pay a huge fee for a license, or to have exorbitantly expensive insurance policies).
Companies throughout time have always tried to cut corners. That is why regulations were in effect to prevent the common citizenry from being exploited, and put in danger with health. Think about how food became safer. How water became safe to drink. That was not out of the goodness of the CEO's heart. It was forced upon them. Why do you think a certain group of people want to remove regulations? It darn sure isn't to protect the consumer. It is to make MORE money.
Once again, there was a time when some of that was true, although a good example of how this has changed is with the FDA. In its current form, the FDA is a revolving door between regulators and executives of pharmaceutical companies and agricorporations. Regulators make regulations that favor certain players in these markets in order to get jobs in those companies after they complete their time in the agency. This happens in most of the major regulatory agencies throughout our government.
And yes, I do blame these companies for corrupting these agencies. However, until we put forward a law that prohibits regulators from later having a job in their affected industry for a certain amount of time after leaving the agency, there is nothing in place that will stop this problem. As long as the problem persists, regulations from these agencies in general will not be a net benefit for the average citizen.
You are correct in the sense that companies lobby for regulations that benefit THEM. That doesn't mean the consumer benefit. You use the example of healthcare. The insurance industry is a clusterf***. Consumers are being denied healthcare. These are not good results of lobbyism and you keep proving my point. The blame goes to companies for always looking out for their bottom line instead of helping people. You keep proving that by your own words.
But again, I'm also proving that regulation is not the answer you think it is, unless certain restrictions are first present.
Yes, it IS bigoted on what you are saying. You obviously have no idea what these people go through, or what their skills and talents are. You automatically assume with zero proof that they are "lesser than". You still haven't explained how you came to the blanket conclusion.
Well again, if my assumptions are incorrect regarding quality, why should any company hire Americans? They cost more but provide nothing more than a foreigner would, at least given your assumption.
You may view it as exploitation to pay one person less than another for the same job, but the same thing happens between citizens. If one citizen is willing to work for less than another, then there's a chance that means this person will get the job instead of the one who demands more. If I have 2 applicants for the same job, and I think the quality of their work is probably about the same, but one of them clearly demands less pay, I'm going to go with that person. You'd be a fool to hire the more expensive person in that scenario (assuming that both people are legal labor).
One more thing to prove you keep proving my point. Let's pretend we do deport all these foreign workers. You have argued that companies will then resort to automation. How does that benefit the common worker? They STILL won't get paid because companies don't want to actually pay a living wage. So whether it is foreign labor or automation, at the end of the day, they DON'T WANT TO PAY PEOPLE. That's the problem.
Automation benefits consumers by providing cheaper products. The savings that a company makes from automation usually results in lower prices (just like the same can be true for using cheap labor). Granted, price is affected by other things as well. Our current agricultural market is distorted by subsidies and limits on what you can bring to market. We pay far less for meat than we normally would and far more for milk, cheese, and produce than we normally would. If food was not restricted or subsidized by government, then the market would have more logical prices for food, and the cost of meat could be lowered by automation rather than subsidies. Produce and dairy products would be lower due to no restrictions on what is brought to market. You'd still have quality restrictions, but there wouldn't be limits on amounts. At the same time, taxpayers wouldn't have to subsidize agriculture.
Also, automation does actually create jobs. Automation usually still requires a human element to operate machines or to supervise them. Machines can still break or malfunction. This also produces jobs for repair personnel. Unlike unskilled labor, these jobs tend to pay better -- sometimes very well.
Hopefully nobody gets sick from recalled foods!
