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Re: Illegal Immigration: Why the Gov't Looks the Other Way
jw (jwas@ix.netcom.com(jw))
24 Sep 1996 02:10:39 GMT
In <na716472-2209962008520001@nyc-ny27-06.ix.netcom.com>
na716472@anon.penet.fi writes:
>
>In article <523uko$l6h@sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com>, jwas@ix.netcom.com(jw)
wrote:
>something that ain't necessarily so.
>
>> >The Author previously wrote:
>> >
>> >You make it seem that one situation is mutually exclusive of the
>> >other. They are not, and they are currently happening
simultaneously.
>
>jwas wrote:
>
>> Not with the *same jobs*. No Mexican comes to the USA
>> to take a job that had moved to Mexico.
>>
>> The two situations, then, *are* mutually exclusive
>> for any given job: and so, overall, for all jobs,
>> the more there is of one, the less there is of the other.
>
>The Author responds:
>
>jwas left a dimension out of his simple analysis. It is
>discrimination. I don't know how legal discrimination is in
>Mexico, but legal or not, if factory operators move to Mexico
>and discriminate and hire the best of the bunch, the lesser
>preferred Mexican job applicants will be left empty handed,
>unless of course they cross the border and work in the U.S.
>for peanuts. So there can be ever increasing traffic in BOTH
>directions.
Your objection is fallacious, in three ways.
First, I did not say that traffic
cannot "ever increase" in both directions. I said that traffic
in each direction is reduced by the traffic
in the other direction. If you think for a minute,
you will see that the two statements are not
equivalent. You have missed the point.
E.g., the more purchases you make
by cash, the fewer you make by credit card;
yet both groups of purchases may grow, year by year.
There is a flow of U.S.-generated jobs and a flow
of Mexican job-seekers. They meet, north
or south of the border. The more meetings
occur north of the border, the fewer occur
south of the border. Yet both flows can
increase, year by year.
Second, your assumption that the U.S. companies
can hire "the best" workers south of Rio Grande,
but only inferior ones north of Rio Grande,
is implausible: wages are higher north
of Rio Grande, even for immigrants.
Third (and more importantly), your argument is
logically untenable. The people that American
companies hire in Mexico - whether they are,
as you say, "the best of the bunch", or not,
do not go to the USA to look for these jobs, and
so emigration is diminished.
As for those other Mexicans who are *not*
hired for these *new* jobs, they would *also* not
have been hired for these *new* jobs in Mexico if the
new jobs did not exist at all, or if they were located
in the USA. The creation of these new jobs
cannot be the cause of their emigration.
Your argument would only make
any sense if you could claim that the total number
of jobs in Mexico is diminished by an influx
of USA capital! But that is absurd.
>Sorry, jwas.
You ought to be :-)
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