back from vacation, traveling again

Well, we got to spend a couple of weeks vacation in Europe,
and it went better than should have any right to expect, with
the only partial hiccup being not being able to get a night train
from paris to venice, instead burning up most of a day
watching the french countryside and the alps stream by.

We went from paris to venice to florence to rome. Strangely
enough, I think italians are ruder than french people. The
french waiters that were rude seemed like they had attended
a class in rude, but now they are just trying to achieve c+, they're
really not striving for that A grade anymore.

The italians that were rude seemed more like they were saying
'why the heck are you coming to my country and taking my job?'.
Except of course we there to buy $8 ham and cheese sandwiches.
Which to me it makes the treatment that mexicans get in the US
even more astonishing. They are there to literally steal our jobs,
and yet there are no riots, mass lynchings, firebombings, car burnings
that you'd expect from our imperfect america. Funny.
(funny strange not funny ha ha).

Here's where someone pipes up to say that they are doing jobs
that no one else wants. I call bullshit. When we lived in louisiana
I cut my own grass because it was something like $200/month
for a lawn service. Now in texas we have a guy that does it for
$80/month, and my allergies haven't felt this good for 5 years.
Our guy is a legal resident, but he has to charge the same cutrate
prices that the illegals do. There were people that could run a lawn
service with legal workers and pay them a decent wage, of course
they only cut rich people's lawns...now that doesn't exist. The owners
make money, the workers make nothing but that's ok because
they are living 5 to a room and don't have the overhead of taxes,
social security, car insurance, etc. No health insurance? go to the
emergency room, they have to treat you.

Now the highway workers are majority mexican. How many of those
are legal? Can companies that hire citizens compete effectively? no.
Bang! those jobs are going away. If you are poor or black (or both)
you are now effectively screwed. Once our current crop of illegals
is legitimized, a new batch will swarm it's way north, until our fair
republic will look a lot like mexico looks now, with vast swarms of
hungry people surrounding enclaves of rich lawyers and doctors.

I'm down in mexico now for work and that's how it looks to me.
The only way out I can see is for us to control the only thing that is
under our power to control, which is the border. Close the border,
then we can negotiate everything else. You want to send guest
workers, send us cheap oil. To avoid forcibly evicting most of the illegals,
we'll accept deep and lasting reforms in the mexican economy.

Mexico has resources, hardworking people and potential. Rather
than sending us the hardest working risk takers, they should allow
those people to build a new mexico, instead of cutting our lawns.

Comments

Anonymous said…
On most new construction highway projects in Texas, you are required to submit monthly certified payrolls. You are required to pay wages as defined by the specs. On certain maintenance projects, you are only required to pay minimum wage, but you still have to furnish certified payrolls. Both require I-9 forms for all employees. They do check the forms. They will stomp a mud hole in your organization if you attempt to cheat.

So, if you see a Hispanic worker on a highway project, he is legal or the company isn't.
7:32 PM
Joe said…
The people getting screwed then are the workers, they submit fake documents that look valid but no one checks SSAN's. They pay payroll taxes and soc. security, and they'll never see a refund or ss payments.

It would just take a flag from the ss administration to point out numbers that don't agree with the names, or that have multiple jobs in different states.
7:42 PM
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