2blowhards.com: Two Sobering Articles on Immigration Reform

In which a group of graying eternal amateurs discuss their passions, interests and obsessions, among them: movies, art, politics, evolutionary biology, taxes, writing, computers, these kids these days, and lousy educations.

E-Mail Donald
Demographer, recovering sociologist, and arts buff

E-Mail Fenster
College administrator and arts buff

E-Mail Francis
Architectural historian and arts buff

E-Mail Friedrich
Entrepreneur and arts buff
E-Mail Michael
Media flunky and arts buff

We assume it's OK to quote emailers by name.

CultureBlogs
• Sasha Castel
• AC Douglas
• Out of Lascaux
• The Ambler
• PhilosoBlog
• Modern Art Notes
• Cranky Professor
• Mike Snider on Poetry
• Silliman on Poetry
• Felix Salmon
• Gregdotorg
• BookSlut
• Polly Frost
• Polly and Ray's Forum
• Cronaca
• Plep
• Stumbling Tongue
• Brian's Culture Blog
• Banana Oil
• Scourge of Modernism
• Visible Darkness
• Seablogger
• Thomas Hobbs
• Blog Lodge
• Leibman Theory
• Goliard Dream
• Third Level Digression
• Here Inside
• My Stupid Dog
• W.J. Duquette

Politics, Education, and Economics Blogs
• Andrew Sullivan
• The Corner at National Review
• Steve Sailer
• Samizdata
• Junius
• Joanne Jacobs
• CalPundit
• Natalie Solent
• A Libertarian Parent in the Countryside
• Rational Parenting
• Public Interest.co.uk
• Colby Cosh
• View from the Right
• Pejman Pundit
• Spleenville
• God of the Machine
• One Good Turn
• CinderellaBloggerfella
• Liberty Log
• Daily Pundit
• InstaPundit
• MindFloss
• Catallaxy Files
• Greatest Jeneration
• Glenn Frazier
• Jane Galt
• Jim Miller
• Limbic Nutrition
• Innocents Abroad
• Chicago Boyz
• James Lileks
• Cybrarian at Large
• Hello Bloggy!
• Setting the World to Rights
• Travelling Shoes

Miscellaneous
• Redwood Dragon
• IMAO
• The Invisible Hand
• ScrappleFace
• Daze Reader
• Lynn Sislo
• The Fat Guy
• Jon Walz

Links

Our Last 50 Referrers

« Neo Hot Rods | Main | Creativity and Personal Politics »

June 28, 2007

Two Sobering Articles on Immigration Reform

Friedrich von Blowhard writes:

Dear Blowhards,

I came across two recent items that I thought cogently summed up two strong reasons for opposing the comprehensive immigration reform legislation currently being considered in the U. S. Senate.

The first is a discussion by Roger Simon of a key reason the current legislation will not stop new illegal immigration. You can read this here. For those who may not have time to read the whole thing, you should notice at least the following remarks by Mr. Simon:

This Sunday on a talk show, I made some comments about the need for real work-site enforcement to make immigration work. On Monday, I got an e-mail from an aide to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), one of the chief sponsors of the immigration bill, that said: "Not sure where you got your facts that the immigration bill doesn't have a lot on work-site enforcement, it certainly does, including a sweeping new employee verification system."
Sweeping? New? Maybe. But it is also nonexistent. It can never be created in time to meet the provisions of the law, and it will have glaring holes when and if it ever does exist. The bill requires that within 18 months of enactment all newly hired employees must be checked by something called the Electronic Eligibility Verification System (EEVS), and within three years every employer in the United States must check every employee in the United States using it.

But there are 150 million people in the U.S. workforce and some 60 million people who change jobs every year. And this system -- which does not currently exist and has to be up and running in 18 months and completed in three years -- is going to make sure everyone in the workforce is here legally? Not a chance.[emphasis added]

The entire article, which I urge you to read, explains exactly why without serious workplace enforcement, a current impossibility, illegal immigration will continue and probably grow under the proposed legislation, given that it is being coupled with another round of amnesty for everyone who has managed to sneak in.

The second is a discussion by George Borjas of who benefits and loses economically from large scale, low skill, low wage immigrant labor. This can be read here.

The "money quote" from Professor Borjas' critique of the President's Council of Economic Advisors' study claiming that immigration results in a net $30 billion benefit is the following:

The same model that generates the $30 billion net gain implies that [native] workers suffered a substantial wage loss. In fact, the total wage loss suffered by native workers is given by this other formula (p. 8 of my 1995 paper):
Wage loss as fraction of GDP = - "labor's share of income"
times "wage elasticity"
times "fraction of workforce that is foreign-born" times "fraction of workforce that is native-born"

Let's stick in numbers:

Wage loss = -0.7 times -0.3 times 0.15 times 0.85

which equals 0.0268, or 2.7% of GDP. Since GDP is around $13 trilliion, the implied wage loss is around $350 billion. We are not talking about change anymore!

Finally, if you add the wage loss of $350 billion to the net gain of $30 billion, you get how much employers benefit--almost $400 billion. Of course, some of the gains made by employers eventually trickle down to consumers. But surely employers must keep an important portion: why else would they spend so much trying to lobby Congress for a never-ending supply of cheap labor? [emphasis added]

At the end of the day, this bill is a very strange animal that not only primarily benefits "special interests"--chiefly, illegal immigrants and the people who employ them--but also fairly seriously misrepresents itself as a cure to a problem, when in fact it will essentially institutionalize the problem.

Lastly, am I the only person who sees a strong resemblance between the weirdly stage-managed buildup to the Iraq war and this piece of legislation, apparently being forced through via parliamentary judo and without public hearings?

Cheers,

Friedrich

posted by Friedrich at June 28, 2007

Comments

It's truly chilling the lengths that our ELECTED officials will go to ram this piece of shit (sorry) legislation down our throats. Another issue to cover, maybe not here, is the apparent awesome white guilt in this country. This is no way to ease our collective guilty consciences, if we even have anything to feel guilty about.

We’re Americans and they are not. Those are the breaks. Flinging open the door and letting all this crap will not make me feel any better. And I believe once the fallout becomes apparent, those pushing this for purely emotional reasons (unlike those stupid, sinister pricks on Capital Hill) won’t feel any better either.

Posted by: Matt on June 28, 2007 1:23 PM

The problem starts at the top, employers who take advantage of illegal cheap labor. BTW, this is done on our shores, but also abroad as manufacturing has migrated to third world countries where wages may be a few dollars a day.

I don't blame the immigrants for coming across--but they do need to go through legal methods, regardless of how tough that may be now.

If the 12 million illegals are suddenly granted citizenship rights, how long do you think they will be willing--or even able, since they'll have to adhere to the law--to work for below minimum wage? How long before they take on the jobs that are at a dearth already? Many illegals desire (that's a good thing) and in fact despite their status already are receiving college educations (not so good--who's paying for it?). While they will be entering the work force officially and paying taxes, they will indeed add a tax burden on social security, education, and welfare benefits which they have for the majority, paid nothing in in prior years.

No easy solutions to be protective of American citizen rights while being humane to those in need, but clamping down on employers and overhauling immigration and citizenship rulings may be the first thing to look at. Quickly.

Posted by: susan on June 28, 2007 2:22 PM

What happens to the anti-immigration spokespeople whenever they get a widely viewed forum to make their points? Pat Buchanan was on "Meet the Press" Sunday and he's been anti-immigration, pro-protectionist for years, and yet he was almost inarticulate in quoting specific facts and specific negative issues with immigration. His "opponent" in the debate (can't even remember his name) basically took the tack of "I go to church with illegal aliens and they are gentle hardworking law abiding people and you are a big bad bigoted meanie if you say anything bad about having them in the country" and Buchanan was really pretty lame in re-framing the debate to the important points. What's up with that? There are actually very good arguments to be made here---why can't the opponents to the bill actually make them with any clarity? Hell, why can't the supporters of it, for that matter? His churchgoing friends aren't law abiding if they are here illegally, are they? And why would the supporters have no better argument than someone must be bigoted if they have interest in enforcing legal immigration??

There's just something very odd about the whole thing. Whether we want to legalize large immigration from Mexico or not, why would anybody think large illegal immigration was good? It has to be for some sort of corrupt financial purpose---there simply is no other explanation for an issue which really shouldn't be controversial. Nobody would argue that all the neighborhood kids should be able to just climb the fence of their backyard and eat all the apples off their apple trees without permission.

Posted by: annette on June 28, 2007 2:53 PM

Well, for now the wicked witch is dead (cloture failed) so we can relax a little and reflect.

What I don't get is what guys like Kennedy are really thinking? Are they deluded, or being hypocritical, or just running on auto-pilot or what?

Anyway, Kaus has a great oped in the WP showing the similarities between Bush's Iraq and immigration policies. It is a tour de force. Sorry I don't have the link.

Posted by: Luke Lea on June 28, 2007 3:44 PM

It's not only that flooding the country with low skill, low wage illegals benefits certain strategically placed employers. In general, it creates great apprehension and therefore timidity in terms of both wages and working conditions in the native low and semi-skilled workforce, which rebounds to the benefit of employers in areas of the economy barely affected by illegal immigration. In other words the flood of illegals is a great weapon for the beating down of labor. And you don't have to be a lefty - I'm not - to see this.

Posted by: ricpic on June 28, 2007 5:37 PM

Isn't our government wonderful? It promotes education as though it were some kind of panacea, as though being uneducated would subject a person to a fate worse than hell. (How did you describe illegal immigrants? "Large scale, low skill, low wage immigrant labor", I believe.) Then that same government turns around and tries to sneak through legislation that permits business and employers access to millions of these uneducated, low skill immigrants we're "officially" not supposed to want in order to find a malleable work force to "do the jobs Americans just won't do." What's going on here? Obviously we NEED people who are uneducated and will do grunge work. So why not use the idiots we already produce right here in our own country? Why import them? Aha!!! Could it be we're hiding something? Perhaps 50 years of failed social policy is bubbling to the surface and our vaunted leadership would rather cover it up than fix it. I suspect so. And by the way, how long would it take our current crop of institutions to ruin the imported labor? Soon we'd just have to replace those with yet another round of illegals. Anyone who professes loyalty to our current government has my sympathy.

Posted by: Bob Grier on June 28, 2007 6:28 PM

ricpic: apart from all other points, which I generally agree with, the "beating down of labor", I think is a very good thing.
Maybe it will demolish, or at least weaken down the unions and the government/union racket (why nobody ever notices that big smelly elephant and all his piles?)
I'd prefer, of course, to resolve this problem the fair way, not involving a flood of illegals. The demolition of laws requiring union labor for all government jobs, and often on privately owned jobs, too (condo/coops in NY, for instance). But I'm not holding my breath for legal process.
So maybe the market (of human resources, in this case) will help?

Posted by: Tat on June 29, 2007 12:05 AM

Giving your country away - it worked out so well for the Red Indians, didn't it?

Posted by: dearieme on June 29, 2007 10:44 AM

This president or the next one does not need one piece of legislation to close the borders and get rid of illegals by attrition. Since this president is not going to close the borders and this congress, along with the next, is not going to make him, border-enforcement patriots have only one choice. They must support presidential and congressional candidates that have a good record on this issue.

If people think they are too busy to contribute money (which reduces special interest influence) and to pound the pavement and to man telephones, consider Valley Forge and read the below passage from Colonel Travis' last letter from the Alamo (where the letter now hangs). The emphasis is all Travis's. You see, the Mexicans attacked because there were too many AMERICAN settlers coming into Texas.

"Fellow citizens and compatriots; I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. . . . The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot . . . . I SHALL NEVER SURRENDER OR RETREAT. . . . Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. . . . VICTORY OR DEATH."

Posted by: Paul Henri on June 29, 2007 10:50 AM

What's strange to me about the immigration debate is how so many Republicans are suddenly concerned about low-wage workers. The same party that champions tax cuts for the rich as a way to stimulate the economy are suddenly worried (with the exception of Bush et al) that a policy which will improve the economy overall and help business is bad for the poor?

It also does not appear to be true that illegal immigration is significantly bad for native low-wage workers. At my place, I quoted a WSJ study which showed that an overwhelming majority of economists think illegal immigration has had a net benefit on the economy, and a large majority of economists believe undocumented workers have "slight" or "no" impact on the bottom rung of the wage ladder.

As seen on this blog and every other conservative blog I've read on the topic, a big chunk of the anti-immigration/anti-amnesty folks are simply racists who don't want America to get any more racially diverse. (I'm referring here not to the authors of this blog, but many of those who comment.)

Posted by: JewishAtheist on June 29, 2007 12:57 PM

What we have with JA is a communication gap.

As he sees it, he uses the R-word like a matador would when making a deadly thrust into the beast's heart. "Gotcha! I win!" he smiles with satisfaction. And to him, the D-word is a signifier for an unqualified good. Only an uncultured, low, mean person doesn't see that, he believes.

But here is where the communication gap occurs. To me, both the R-word and the D-word, as used by JA, are little more than magic incantations or a credentialing ritual, announcing him as (in his mind) a Righteous Person, but to me, as a man I can't discuss anything with on account of his fanaticism at worst and intellectual laziness at best.

Posted by: PA on June 29, 2007 2:32 PM

Bravo, PA! JA's concept of tolerance, if taken to its absurd conclusion, would mean the end of nation states as we know them. The Japanese would have no right to remain Japanese, France would disappear, etc. Perhaps this is what JA wants. If so, he should make that plain instead of labeling as "racist" those persons in America who prefer that the US remain European. I have no problem with my ethnic identity. I like it. I want my ethnicity to remain the core of this nation, because it is the defining element in its creation. I am willing to fight to preserve it. I see nothing unethical about this.

Posted by: Bob Grier on June 29, 2007 3:24 PM

Mr. Atheist:

I think getting your information on the economic impacts of immigration solely from the Wall Street Journal, probably the most pro-immigration major publication in America, is a dicey strategy. Not to put too fine a point on it, I've read tons of studies on the subject, they all disagree at least slightly if not in a major way with each other, and the WSJ can be counted on to pick and choose those that put the brightest possible spin on the topic. I would at least recommend that you diversify your sources of information on this topic before concluding that their word is, ahem, gospel.

Personally, my opposition to mass low-skill immigration has resulted from seeing the impacts of this trend on Southern California since I moved there in 1981. The impacts on the local public school system, healthcare system, transportation system, housing, crime and many other aspects of life have not been good, and in fact are progressively becoming more serious.

In addition to these issues, I am also irritated by the "externality" issue; to wit, that many employers seem to have no shame about using what amounts to subsidized labor, and to demand that their fellow citizens--i.e., me--pay them subsidies. The wages paid to such employees simply do not fully reflect the full costs that these same employees and their families place on society. In many cases, the externalities that their employers are shoving on the general public is as large or larger than the wage that the employer is paying. I can see why such employers are delighted to get workers at less than 50% of their true cost, but why should I be entranced about having to make up the difference out of my taxes or via other mechanisms?

As for being concerned with poor people, that is partially a matter of communal fellow feeling. I see no reason to apologize for this. It is also a matter of naked self-interest: as a high-income individual in a society with considerable income redistribution, more poor people means more redistribution and more taxes I have to pay.

Finally, there is a simple aesthetic issue at work. Extreme income differentials, especially when they are reinforced by skin color, don't make for a comfortable living situation. I don't personally like being instantly categorized as a middle-aged-white guy, hence rich, in any social situation. This kind of social division simply wasn't as pronounced in 1981 before vast numbers of lowi-income people from a homogenous ethnic group moved in.

As for your accusations of racism, I find them to be knee-jerk and thoughtless. I work and socialize with anglo, asian, black and latino people. When I moved to the Southern California area in 1981, I was rather excited by the racial and ethnic diversity. I had some interesting adventures dating. What has happened since, however, has turned this area into not a polygot society, but into a ethnically divided one, and this is not a step forward towards some kind of racially harmonious future.

I would advise you, in short, to think a bit more carefully before leveling charges of evil intent.

Posted by: Friedrich von Blowhard on June 29, 2007 4:04 PM

Really people, please ignore JA. Clearly he has nothing to add but dubious assertions and a penchant for cursing. Believe me, he will go away if you do that. Whatever his hidden motives are, he craves attention. So don't indulge him.

Posted by: Paul Henri on June 29, 2007 4:18 PM

What's wrong with 'not wanting America to get any more racially diverse'? For that matter, what's right about wanting America to become more racially diverse? Why is the D-word such a totem for liberals like JA? I wonder what JA and his ilk think of Putnam's study that diversity reduces trust and social cohesion, not just across racial/ethnic lines, but within them.

As for the economic arguments, whatever they show, the issue is cultural. I am sufficiently R-word not to want America to become more third world, more Latin American in its politics and culture.

I am at a loss to understand how it came to be accepted liberal opinion that wanting to preserve America's culture is somehow R-word. I love American culture, and I love Americans. I mean the actually existing American people of today, not some future microcosm of the globe. The loss of America as it is today would be a terrible loss to the world.

If it's R-word to believe that, then so be it. I'm R-word.

Posted by: PatrickH on June 29, 2007 4:28 PM

I think getting your information on the economic impacts of immigration solely from the Wall Street Journal, probably the most pro-immigration major publication in America, is a dicey strategy.

Every economic survey I've seen agrees, but you'll always be able to criticize the source. Several sources appear to point to this, which is summed up by CATO:

Economists Rachel M. Friedberg of Brown University and Jennifer Hunt of Yale University wrote recently in the Journal of Economic Perspectives that "despite the popular belief that immigrants have a large adverse impact on the wages and employment opportunities of the native-born population, the literature on this question does not provide much support for this conclusion.

Also, I specifically excluded the authors of this blog from my charge of racism. I've read enough here to know that you aren't like that. Many of your commenters, on the other hand, are, and they even admit it. My point, though, is not to dismiss their arguments because they are racist, but to reveal their crocodile tears for low-wage workers for what they are.

Regarding diversity, I wasn't arguing it's necessarily a good thing; I was just pointing out that the dislike for diversity is a prime motivation for immigration opponents. I think if they were more honest about their motives, they wouldn't get too far.

Posted by: JewishAtheist on June 29, 2007 6:07 PM

Who really cares anymore if someone calls you a racist?

Of course Jewish Atheist excluded the people who author the blog-he's sucking up. Bold man, there.

You know what I say about being called a racist? So what--everybody else is! And if you disagree with that statement, prove me wrong.

Show me one group of people in America who are minorities that don't favor affirmative action, who are marching in the street and blistering the phone lines demanding that Congress get rid of it. Answer: none of them are. Not one.

Go around the world and show me all the non-racist, non-white countries. You can't. They don't exist.

They either openly or tacitly support racism here, and they openly run their own non-diverse countries in a blatantly racist way. No other group cares one whit about being racist or openly displaying racism.

Not ONE WORD is uttered by the left of this racism, not ONE!

See, this atheist guy really doesn't support egalitarianism. If he did, he wouldn't hold different groups of people to two sets of standards. I'm the real egalitarian here. I say if everybody else is racist, then I can be too. There you go, same standard for everybody. Now we're all equal.

And of course, when you just admit that you are a racist, these so-called egalitarians equate you with Hitler, or the Klu Klux Klan. Have you ever noticed that those folks are white too? Never a minority racist, lik Mugabe, or Mbeki, or Mao, or any of the whole host of others--the list is endless, of course. No, never.

See, you can be racist wihout being a murderer. Racism is just showing preference to people of your own group, like nepotism or the old boy network. All other groups in America and all over the world do it--why can't you? But we have to equate racism with murderers to villify it, when it is the most natural thing!

And that's what all these non-white groups do to cow you into submission--equate you with mass-murderers. That's nice, isn't it? Of course, so-called egalitarians are never equated with mass murderers, like Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mao, but you are.

All these groups would also like you to believe that their associations and grievance groups are due to white discrimination, to remedy it and check it, and not to use the law to discriminate against you. Obviouly, task one has moved decisively to task two, and we all know it. Its just the nature of the beast. There's no neutral ground. Either you dominate the environment, or you are dominated. Its time now for the rest of us to make that choice.

Two years ago, when I first happened upon this blog and others, if you had hurled the racism charge, people would have scattered like flies, covering their ass, insisting that oh yes, racism is bad and I'm not for it, etc. I would probably have been one of them. But the tide is turning. We are all becoming more aware by the internet of the truth, not just of news but of history as well. The magic word is losing its magic. We don't care anymore. Fighting for survival has a way of stripping away the veneer. We are being backed into a corner, and we know it. Now the fight is on. Things are going to get a lot uglier too.

If you were half as smart as you think you are, JA, my supremacist friend, you would figure that out. You are not on the offensive anymore--we are. You need to make nice talk, tell us how we are all so smart and handsome, rather than trying to poke a stick in our eye. But even some people with huge IQ's can't see the obvious eh? Blinded by hate, are we?

Things will get worse here quite shortly--we're in for an economic shock of tremedous magnitude. You watch as your kingdom collapses. The lassitude of the public you banked on will be replaced with a ferocious anger. And the minority pets you have used to push your agenda won't want to stand in the way of this one to protect you. Nope, not from this one.

The empire is ending. The world is changing. Its moving forward, and its also moving back. It will happen here and in Europe. And we will win. We have been free too long to become slaves again. And I'm going to enjoy seeing you eat it.

Tell all the mexicans you've got staying in your house that you so generously support that they best get ready to leave. It might not happen in a month or two, but it will happen. You're right--we don't care about low-wage folks. We care about ourselves. This isn't altruism--its survival. We're getting tribal now, and getting mean, because that's what we need to do to survive. Keep shoveling the shit, my friend. People know the smell. You're not fooling anyone anymore. The giant is awake.

Posted by: BIOH on June 29, 2007 9:27 PM

BIOH's comment was powerful, elegant, and filled with many truths. People with such talent are needed in this culture war. This was one of the few long posts that I read.

Racist has become a word that the user must define before anyone can understand him. It is a 20th century word, not a clean and short Anglo-Saxon word. It is not even part of a liberal scientist's vocabulary, unless he is cursing. Liberals refuse to believe races exist when it is in their interests. Liberals become nominalists when they discuss the word. Even lexicographers can't agree on its meaning. (Now I must get back to work.)

Racist has come to mean, in a strictly scientific sense, a white person that prefers his anatomical characteristics, culture, language, and nation. By attacking whites for embracing instinctually-derived characteristics, anti-racists have defined themselves into a corner. Everyone embraces these characteristics. Racism, therefore, must be accepted as natural as losing one's voice when addressing a beautiful woman.

Posted by: Paul Henri on June 30, 2007 5:17 PM

I get so bent out of shape by people who suggest that anybody who didn't support that "POS" immigration law is a racist. Give it up! That no longer works!

The Center for Immigrations Studies notes:

"WASHINGTON (June 20, 2007) — Some businesses in Georgia argue that they need large numbers of immigrants because there are not enough native-born Americans to fill jobs that require relatively little education. However, state employment data show that as the number of less-educated immigrant workers has grown dramatically, the share of less-educated natives holding a job in Georgia has declined significantly.

Between 2000 and 2006 the share of less-educated native-born adults (ages 18 to 64) in Georgia holding a job declined from 71 percent to 66 percent. (Less-educated is defined as having no education beyond high school.)

Less-educated blacks in Georgia have seen a somewhat larger decline in employment, from 66 percent holding a job in 2000 to just 60 percent in 2006.

This release is available on line at:
www.cis.org/articles/2007/georgiarelease.html"

I'm sorry, but how is forcing up the number of US citizens, especially black citiens, not working a sign of great racial tolerance? I am seeing a really bad sign on the left. First push up the number of people who won't be able to take care of themselves and then step in and say, "Oh, well, we'll get a government program to take care of you." Most healthy (mentally and physically) people don't want to be "taken care of" they want to take care of themselves and to enjoy the supreme LIBERTY that comes from doing so.

Posted by: D Flinchum on June 30, 2007 6:06 PM

Didn't you see on TV the problem in the Hamptons, with the day laborers waiting in the corner, like hookers, to be picked up to work for the day into the rich estates.

I mean, if those guys are so rich as to have estates, why can't they hire a legal worker? They spend millions in art pieces, and cars, and what not, but cannot afford to hire someone unless it is below minimum wage???

What cheapos....

In the meantime, the social costs are being borne by people who have nothing to do with them and derive no profit from the whole business.

There is no such thing as cheap labor. There is subsidized labor, which is anohter kettle of fish.
Basically if your employee has to go into a government program or appeal to private charity to make ends meet, then you are being subsidized by the public at large.

If instead of labor it involved elecricity, and you got your electric bill reduced by tapping into the line for free, and letting the other users pay to make up the difference, people would see it for what it was and run you out of town. But because it involves labor, they do not react.

I for one, I am getting tired of subsidizing other people's profits and getting nothing in return.

Posted by: Adriana I. Pena on July 6, 2007 1:13 PM