THE IMMIGRATION CRISIS, PART II

     Another issue commonly brought up in the immigration debate is the notion that immigrant labor is stealing American jobs. With a 20+% unemployment rate and another approximately 20-25% underemployment rate, the issue of labor certainly needs to be addressed. Of course, none of the candidates are saying anything that will have the slightest effect on this problem, but scapegoating immigrant labor is quite common.

      The Political Right is correct when they say that we are becoming a third-world nation, but this not because of our population demographics. It is happening because governmental policies---supported by Wall Street special interests, and our public education system are failing to produce both the economic climate and the skilled workforce needed to build and sustain a productive economy.

      Look closely at the types of people attending Sanders rallies; the crowds rioting on college campuses; and the street bums and drug dealers plaguing most cities. Eliminate immigrant labor from the workforce and understand that they are whom you're counting upon to replace it. Is it any surprise that the service sector is dependent upon immigrant labor?

       America's agricultural base is likewise eroding. There have been migrant farm workers here for a long time. Before the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, this work was performed by a domestic industry called Sharecropping. Sharecroppers in the past did not have a much higher standard of living than migrant farm workers do today. The domestic sharecropping industry is not likely to return, for the reasons stated above. Realizing that, some pundits have called for replacing migrant farm labor with prison-labor and welfare/work camps. Suggestions like these should raise immediate red-flags that Wall Street and the Agribusiness Cartels are behind these kinds of suggestions. Why would any respectable business concern want to replace skilled labor with slave labor unless to maximize power and profit?

          Our agricultural base is not declining because of immigrant labor---it's collapsing because of governmental regulation and our deteriorating infrastructure. California, for example, has been in a near three-year drought while desalinization plants and other upgrades in irrigation are being blocked. Water treatment facilities in the Northwest are so inadequate that the salmon industry is comprised because of toxic levels of narcotics in the water. There have been no dams or artificial lakes constructed in the United States for decades. Likewise, our freight rail system is operating on 1970s technology. None of this is the fault of immigrant labor. It is the fault of Americans who've allowed this to happen without demanding accountability from their government.

          Right now, the US is a net importer of most fruits, vegetables, fish, sugar, and rice. Price inflation of foodstuffs is scandalous---but it is because of scarcity. Our leading cash crop in most US states is Marijuana---and that puts much of Ameroboob negligence for these problems in context.

           Our industrial base is in severe decline but immigrant labor is not to blame; in fact, immigrant labor is almost all that keeps the domestic industrial base alive. Industry is being outsourced to foreign countries for the simple reason that it is cheaper to manufacture goods abroad and re-import them into the US. Unlike agriculture, there is no shortage of skilled domestic labor in Industry. There is, however, a severe shortage in employment opportunities. The cause behind this almost exclusively tax and regulatory burdens on industry; combined with considerable financial skullduggery from Wall Street. Again, this not a problem we can blame on foreign labor.

           Finally, our technology sectors have come in for some recent criticism for importing foreign tech workers and executives. The reason for this again is government regulation---specifically Affirmative Action laws. When a company is prohibited from hiring qualified whites and cannot hire a sufficient number of qualified minorities---what is left for them to do but to import minorities?
 
              So, just as with the Border Wall, we see that the huffing from pundits about immigrants stealing our jobs is another smokescreen to divert Ameroboob attention from the fact that our economic decline is due to Americans' own negligence and narcissism.