2 million un-employed (completely unacceptable)

[Epidemic]

I am terribly mad at both democrat and republican alike on this one.

2.5 million un-employed (13,000,000) illegals. All the while also importing tallent to fill the higher level postions with legal immigration.

In a time of un-employment should we not redouble our efforts to get rid of people holding jobs that our citizens could hold.

On the blue colar side of the house they keep pay so low as to not be attractive to citizens.

And on the white collar side they take several hundred thousand jobs a year. Since the recession began I believe we have imported legally somewhere on the order of 600,000 or more white collar laborers and 3 to 4 million Illegal misc white and blue collar workers.

[Harold7]

Maybe if our so-called education system was producing a quality product Americans would be getting those high tech jobs instead of importing foreigners... we're great at creating more lawyers, sociologists, political/social activists etc., but woefully deficient in engineering and sciences... just compare where American students place in international testing in math and the sciences.

[shawshank62]

Maybe if our so-called education system was producing a quality product Americans would be getting those high tech jobs instead of importing foreigners... we're great at creating more lawyers, sociologists, political/social activists etc., but woefully deficient in engineering and sciences... just compare where American students place in international testing in math and the sciences.

That is bull. The reason jobs are leaving America is because its much cheaper to produce products in foreign countires since they 1) Pay workers less 2) Longer working hours...more production 3) Much less interference from the government (no EPA on your back...dont have to worry about pollution etc.)

That is the reasons jobs arn't in America, not because of the "education system"

[Epidemic]

But we do not have controll over those nations... Nor do we have control to tell our business that they can not make a good profit. So that leaves restrictions on imported labor which is completely in our control and enforcement of laws restricting illegals access to work... You are supposed to prove citizenship via birth certificate or green card. If you brought the rath of government down on small business, big business and all the other business's who hire illegals you would see a marked reduction in illegal immigration after a time, You would see a subsequent rise in pay scale on the jobs who now needed to compete for american workers.


Side note American education system is flawed but it is not because of financing as much as a flawed system of distribution and focus of education. We seem to focus on the liberal arts more than the sciences.

[osprey4]

Why are you mad at politicians? Very few of them have ever created a job. And as John Kerry said himself, we live in a free market society, if companies want to ship jobs overseas, they have every right to do so.

[Epidemic]

Because the politicians are not doing anything to stem the flow of illegals.

The politicians will not enforce existing laws which state that you may not hold a job in america if you do not documentation. If that were enforced there would be no immigration problem at all. Once again if you fine the hell out of companies who employ illegals. Companies will not hire illegals. If illegals can not make a living in the US they will end up back home and telling people not to go cause it is a waste of time. Every amnesty, "guest worker program" simply increases the desire to take the chance.

I have no problem with immigrants but during hard times, or during the government should control who enters the country legally as well.

[Gomer]

Ep:

Side note American education system is flawed but it is not because of financing as much as a flawed system of distribution and focus of education. We seem to focus on the liberal arts more than the sciences.

What's cheaper? A state of the art liberal arts lab, or a state of the art science lab?

I am sure you have heard the expression: Those who can, do; Those who can't, teach; Those who can't teach, teach gym. I would have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of being a science teacher. But I am not going to spend 4 years digging a hole of $20K so I can graduate and settle for a life of meager pay. Especially when there are so many fields in the sciences in which you can make a good living.

Now Joe liberal arts degree on the other hand... his options aren't near as impressive as mine. Most of his job options are right up there with teaching as far as salary goes. Makes the decision to teach a whole lot easier for him than for me.

[Prison Kids]

I would have to say that the majority of businesses I speak with are not able to afford hiring on more staff, and many of the larger clients are moving operations overseas, in order to greatly increase the profit margin.

What are we doing to prevent this?

Well, I know that in Oregon, the Minimum wage has gone from $5.50 an hour in 1997, to $7.05 now, making it impossible for many farmers and industrial plants to hire non-skilled labor (when you can hire nearly 4 to 1 overseas on the same wage).

I feel if we are going to slow this and find a perminent solution, we need to be able to compete with the world's labor work force. In order to do this we need to drastically bring the cost of living down, So we can afford to pay our labor force less, and begin to compete with the overseas markets, wich will also produce uppper level positions as well, to design and manage these plants.

Just my thoughts... (ouch, that hurt...too much thinking too late)

[originel]

What's cheaper? A state of the art liberal arts lab, or a state of the art science lab?

while this is true, there are other forces at work here. I think that fine arts play a very important role in american education.

I am going to start generalizing, please realize that this does not apply to everyone:

i am an electrical engineering student so i see exactly what you guys are talking about, the students in our department are probably about 1/2 foreign (and by foreign i mean is a citizen of another country and is just studying here, not someone who is of a non caucasian ethnicity). I can really see a fundamental difference between foreign students and domestic students. Foreign students are very smart and very dedicated, but they lack creativity. They can do theory all day long, but when it comes to designing a real project from the ground up they have problems. On the other hand domestic students are very good at creating projects from the ground up, we just can't bias a transistor to save our lives and i personally think this is because of fine arts that we do in when we are younger.

and getting back on topic, i agree with ya epidemic about illegals...if laws were just inforced things would be so much better! during the worst parts of the recession last year and the year before it was very very hard to get jobs as a teenager here in texas...largely due to the large number of illegals here.

[chipbgt]

I want to play devil's advocate for a second,

A lot of people have a problem with foriegners coming into the country and "stealing" jobs that they claim rightfully belong to Americans. Why? Are any of us more entitled to a good job because we just happen to be born in a country of wealth? Are we better people just because our parents are from America? We didn't choose to be born here, nor did immagrants choose to be born where they were born.

Perhaps we have a lot of americans running around unemployed because our sense of entitlement has gotten in the way of our sense of hard work. The most qualified person usually gets the job, and americans sometimes <gasp> arent the most qualified. Or someone is willing to do the same job for less pay. Maybe we have so many illegals doing "blue collar" work because some americans think they are better than that. I guess to some no work and no pay is better than work for less pay.

I guess what I am trying to say is foriegners are willing to come do jobs for a certain wage that americans just wont do. I dont blame people for hiring foriegners, this is a free market we live in here. Gotta take the good with the bad.

.........ok did any of that make sense?