"Every time I go to sleep, the sun goes down. Therefore, my going to sleep causes the sun to set." http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/149-questionable-cause I think it much more likely that illegal immigration has an effect on the lack of Americans filling those jobs than the other way around. In FACT, as I alluded to before,...it is physically impossible for Americans to fill jobs which are already filled by illegal immigrants. But again, like I said before, all of this is moot when the majority of the jobs we're contemplating adding are construction jobs, or of some other industry sector in which the ratio of Americans looking for work to currently offered positions, is heavily slanted such that there always seem to be several times more applicants than there are job openings. The relatively small handful of unfilled private sector jobs could be for any number of reasons. The FACT yet remains that there are fewer jobs being offered than there are people who want to take them. Not every single unemployed person needs to get a WPA job. That's not how the original one worked, and there's no reason a WPA 2.0 would need to work like that. You create jobs across the country in states and cities that need them (and boy do they need infrastructure improvements right now, and if you think folks are unqualified, have some of the jobs be geared to training) then the folks who do end up taking the jobs go on to use the money they earn to energize other parts of the economy, in effect creating more jobs. This is known as the multiplier effect. And yes,...it is a FACT that the country is awash in money. Just look at that chart I posted. The only reason we have debt and deficit is because most of our politicians are afraid to use even a small portion of that wealth to pay it down. Did you just pull that number out of thin air??? -Meta
For the most part, those all sound pretty reasonable. I especially like the idea of number 2,...maybe not the criminalizing it part (at least not for the donations) but how exactly would this work? What would the thresholds be? After-all, candidates want and need some way to get their messages out, and with some exception, for the most part voters want to hear those messages. That costs money. Although the problem here isn't so much in that candidates spend so much money in getting their message out, so much that it is the fact that some candidates can spend so much more than others.....but how to fix it, while still ensuring that candidates can adequately get their messages out? The issue of lobbying on the other hand seems to be a much easier topic to deal with, should we choose to deal with it. I get that part of its purpose is to help politicians get informed on the issues, but corporations really shouldn't get to have any more access to our politicians than the rest of us. -Meta
Do you agree with my point about evaluating and comparing options situationally before dismissing them based on absolute principals? -Meta
Why would a business prefer to hire illegal workers, who can't speak English, with little to no education, and other cultural issues, if they could hire legal Americans? Why are there almost no white-bread Americans working in the farm fields? As Americans refuse to perform certain work, this void will be filled by others and in many cases those others are illegal. Just because certain people and business have some money how does this give the government the right to spend that money? Tax laws exist today and government ignores this and continues $500 billion deficit spending...this is arrogance! In the prime of my career prior to my retirement my job was to fix companies who were not performing to expectations. It would be rare that 10-20% of companies spending could not be reduced either with efficiency improvements, different policy, using other alternatives, redesign, etc. IMO the federal government is less efficient than most companies, with more non-essential spending, with duplication galore, and the 20% is definitely attainable. However, since the federal government is subsidizing the nation with $500 billion deficit spending, and other welfare and stimulus policy, again IMO it is impossible to reduce government without negatively effecting the economy. And this means we will continue spending with 20% waste...
Lol at you thinking that taxing me more will come out of my personal profits earned by my corporation. I will reduce costs to maintain my profitability, including laying off workers. Kenesian economics failure
But again, my point here is that such absolute principles,.... 1. Aren't always absolute and 2. Sometimes even conflict with each-other if you've got more than one. Think of it this way, if you have a principle which truly is absolute, and yet you evaluate it on a situational basis, then there is no harm done, since if it is truly absolute, then one should always come to the same conclusions regarding it even when weighing it against different options as if it might not be absolute. On the other hand, if you were to take a principle which is in fact not absolute (as in giving it priority is not always the most moral or ethical thing to do) but you treat it as if it is, then you open yourself up to errors of logic and moral absurdities such as leaving a person to die in a well because you felt that under no circumstances could it be the moral thing to do to for you to borrow your neighbor's rope to save them. Therefore, to play it safe, one should compare the pros and cons of everything as if none are necessarily absolutes, even if its possible that some are. Make sense?? -Meta
Businesses hire illegal immigrants because the jobs they're hiring them for generally don't require a great deal of education (if any) furthermore the businesses don't have to worry about providing them with the same sorts of protections they'd be required to afford legal workers. Their status as illegal immigrants gives them fewer options and the businesses more leverage over them. Work hard and do what I say or lose your job or worse, get deported. But again,....this is all moot! Government creates U.S. currency. Both the physical form of it, and its initial value. It also institutes the laws and regulations regarding its handling and usage. It is a publicly created entity. And the government could tax it if it wanted to. It already taxes a lot of it. The only reason it does not currently tax enough to pay our bills is, again, a lack of political will! Are you still pulling numbers out of thin air??? -Meta
Hey, if you've got employees that are limiting your profits and can be gotten rid of so easily, then why do you even have them?
I'm not sure what you mean by "absolute" principle. I do, however, hold the principle that my neighbors have a right to not have their person or property violated. Therefore I oppose laws that violate their person or property, such as taking what they own and giving it to someone else.
A principle that is unquestionable (as in dogmatic) and which ought to be held to regardless of any specific circumstance. eg: if there is a case in which refusing to borrow your neighbor's rope w/o permission is not the most moral thing to do, then not borrowing things w/o permission should not be considered to be an absolute principle. -Meta
It isn't easy to get rid of them. It means everybody else has to step it up a notch. More importantly, if I am in a position to HIRE again, higher taxes resulting in lower profit margins will discourage the action. This idea that you can raise taxes and skim it off of company profits is simply false. Companies are in business for one single purpose. To make profit for the shareholders. If you remove that incentive, most businesses will close the doors. Whats the point of running a business with little or no profit? What I find most disturbing though, is this ill conceived notion that taxation should be used as a mechanism for social justice or reducing wealth inequality. Taxation is SUPPOSED to be imposed to pay for our collective bills, not as a means of taking from one person and giving to another. Many states that have conformed to this liberal ideology of utilizing taxation to attempt to reduce profits have done one thing. Pushed their businesses out of the State to other states where margins can be increased. Many states with lower tax burdens are seeing growth in their industrial and commercial market sectors and states with heavy tax burdens and costs are seeing stark declines. In many cases bankrupting the state. What is most scary is that some people want to impose this failed taxation policy on the nation as a whole. Here is an idea. If you want some of my profits, start your own company that competes with me and do it better and cheaper. THAT is how its supposed to work.
Obviously, nothing is absolute. I do however hold that it's wrong to initiate trespass against one's fellow man. Might I, in an emergency, take a rope to save someone falling down a well? Yes, but I would do so knowing that I was violating someone's property to do so, and I would hope that he would have given me permission were I able to ask. I certainly would not set up an arrangement where I threatened him with force to make him pay me money to I could use it for things I considered important.
Illegal immigrants have jobs in the USA for one reason; because Americans won't take those jobs. A huge portion of American workers are uneducated. All businesses have worker liability no matter if they are legal or illegal. When OSHA shows up they don't care who is legal or illegal. A 'lack of political will' is a meaningless statement. What we have today in laws, etc. is what our political system gives us for myriad reasons. Just because you don't like US policy does not mean there is no political will. No...you're right...the US government is 100% efficient... - - - Updated - - - They said they would 'reduce costs' which means less labor is required while sustaining the same profit margins...
That's the point. If your taxes are higher, you can't eliminate employees without hurting your profit. And if your profit goes down, so does your income, regardless of the tax rate.
Not necessarily true. Often times, in my business, many workers are unbillable based on project load. These are additional overhead costs that we maintain to keep people employed and prevent having to go out into the market place to find new candidates to fill positions when demand rises. I would say that my staff has about 25% unbillable time. High taxes means that I would be less willing to keep them on staff through slow periods, and would just lay them off to maintain profit margins. When the needs arise, I would go out and hire again, while expecting that the remaining staff work some over time to get through the bumps. The left is unable to take profits from companies through taxation. It simply doesn't work that way. Again, companies are in business to make a profit. The desire to utilize taxation as a means of reducing profit for social justice is just going to back fire. Same as raising minimum wage. Companies are not going to maintain prices as overhead burden increases. All they are going to do is raise prices to maintain profits. The problem that I have, especially as a business owner, is that people on the left think they have a right to dictate to me what an appropriate profit is. You can try and disguise it however you want, but its yet another attempt by the left to equalize wealth through redistribution. What I am telling you is, all you will do is create an environment that forces business to relocate to more business friendly locations where the burden is reduced which increases profitability. Its all about stealing, using the strong arm of government on the left. Its about force. The left believes they have a right to dictate my wealth, my profits, and they attempt to continually use the government to do their bidding. Either through wage laws or taxes. If those on the left, and those that advocate for this mis-use and abuse of government power would simply redirect their efforts to actually attempting to make more wealth, rather than steal it, maybe the country as a whole economy would improve. Instead, its easier to grab my money and tell me that its only fair. Unfortunately, "fair" in the mind of a liberal is a very very one sided concept.
If it was possible for you to somehow increase your profits by laying off workers and asking everybody else to "step it up a notch", then why haven't you already done it? Why wait until your taxes have increased? Why not maximize your profits right now??? If the point of running a business is to make profit, then you ought to be doing things which make profit, regardless of tax rates. Tax rates are not 100%, not anywhere close, and I do not foresee them being 100% anytime in the near future. So if getting rid of workers increases profits, then why aren't you getting rid of them? If hiring more workers increases profits, then it seems to me you ought to be doing that... Businesses which are profitable do not tend to shut down just because profits are small,...depending on the business, they may relocate, but they don't shut down unless there aren't any profits at all and they are losing or are at risk of losing more money than they bring in. So unless you can show that taxes cause a business to become unprofitable I don't see you having a point. Personally, I think there are things that can be done to simply this area of the tax code, and there are certainly some questions of fairness that can be discussed, but this whole idea that raising taxes on businesses and or individuals doesn't raise revenue is a silly one at best. -Meta
The are allot of cost associated with employees, including various payroll taxes. If taxes where to rise, I certainly wouldn't be hiring more human liabilities, nor keeping them on through slow spots. I'm willing to lose a little margin to keep good staff I have. There is no inherent benefit to losing profit margins to mail to the irs. Cost to benefit ratio. That's the point.
Agreed. Obviously, if at all feasible, the most ideal option would be to get the permission of the person who owns the rope before using it to save a life. And while we now already agree on the main point I was trying to make, that does bring up another interesting question... What if you were in fact able to request the rope owner's permission, but they refused? In my opinion, in the case where the rope owner is absent or otherwise unavailable to grant permission, the implications of what the most moral (least immoral) option is is pretty clear. At worst, one simply assumes that, were the owner present, he would of course give his consent as I too believe most people would. But in the case where the owner is present but refuses consent, Assuming there are no other feasible options for saving the person's life I think we then dive deep, head-first, into a true moral grey area. -Meta
The political moral gray area is instituting a system whereby people's property is taken from them and distributed to others.
If you're talking about taxes in general, then I'm not so sure that subject is quite as grey as you think. After all, we haven't even yet agreed upon how proper ownership of property should be determined. As for me, I think the idea of proper moral property ownership is something which is completely separate from the simpler idea of physical possession. My view is that property is only ever initially justly owned by the creator(s) of that property's value, and that such just ownership can then only be transferred by certain types of agreements involving the current owner. For instance, if I agree to loan you my bike for 10 days, even though the bike is no longer in my possession, I am still its primary owner, depending upon the specifics of the agreement, you may have a right to use it within that 10 day period, but after the 10 days is up I would expect you to return my bike, and rightfully so. So let's agree to establish shall we, that physical possession does not equate to just ownership. Agreed? -Meta
Of course possession is not ownership. A thief in possession of my wallet is not the rightful owner. Rightful ownership is only acquired through voluntary title transfer, such as by gift or contract. For instance, when an employer pays wages to an employee the employer is transferring title of the money from herself to the employee. When you buy a hamburger, the hamburger stand owner transfers title of the hamburger to you, and you transfer title to your money to the hamburger stand owner.
So you magnanimously keep people on the payroll and unnecessarily decrease your profits, but if taxes are increased you'll start firing people. Doesn't make sense to me.
The point is, a transfer of physical possession does not necessarily imply a transfer of full ownership, even if that transfer was voluntary. -Meta
Understood. Possession is not ownership. Ownership only comes about through voluntary title transfer.
