Earlier today I watched Lou Dobbs rant about the "special interests" in a report worthy of Nancy Grace. Since Kung-Fu Monkey just posted on something similar, I figure I'd add to the ranting.
According to Dobbs, the special interests pushing the "amnesty agenda" include big business, organized labor, the Catholic church, and the media.
It sounds like both the capitalists and the proletariat are in favor, so who's left?
Isn't there some point when you've got enough people together that they stop being special interests and start being, I don't know, a large portion of America with a valid, albeit open to debate, point of view?
But, in the massive growth-industry realm of shoddy reporting we don't believe in things like intellectual honesty or taking a careful look at difficult issues.
One of the worries, and perhaps the group that's getting hit hardest, is the working poor -- those not in organized labor. The influx of immigrants willing to work for less can drive down wages.
I'm not sure about the real statistics on this. I have seen numbers indicating average wages are gonig down, but if those include the wages of the immigrants that doesn't necessarily mean that current worker's wages are going down since they could remain the same, but the overall average be pushed down by all these new, lower paying jobs.
Moreover, whenever people work they create secondary jobs as well, since they need to buy stuff -- and if there are more jobs available that can give workers the option to quit and go to a better work-place.
Regardless, the issue deserves a better discussion than it's getting from CNN.
2 comments:
That St. Patrick's day thing cracked me up. He might be needing some stem cell therapy...
I read about a guy over there a few months ago who works in a factory. He was earning something like $7.93 back in the 70'2, his rate of pay nowadays is actually down to something like$7.13. 30 years of inflation and his per hour rate is down. They were comparing people like him to slave labour....couldn't actually disagree with that sentiment actually at those rates.
Very sad.
cheers
Dave
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