Quote: (10-28-2012 03:27 PM)basilransom Wrote:
Quote: (10-28-2012 05:18 AM)solo Wrote:
In Sweden we have recieved people from South East Asia who come here to work as berry pickers during the summers for some years now, a job Swedes don't seem to want to do. It is a risky endeavor on their part since sometimes there have not been enough berries or they have been scammed, but a lot of the time amazingly they have been payed enough to cover the travel costs and return with more money than they would have had, had they stayed in SEA.
There are other jobs which don't require a long university education for someone to be productive at. For instance housekeeping etc.
Also, I think with the financial/economic crisis, the Welfare State will continue to be dismantled in the EU. Or what negative externalities are you talking about?
In your limited berry picker case, Sweden may well benefit, on net. But that's not the way immigration usually is. In America, for instance, you have poor Mexicans and Guatemalans coming and working low wage jobs. They have families, with above average fertility. Each child costs the educational system at least $10k a year, probably $15k a year. Then there are the added costs of healthcare, law enforcement, increase in land prices due to population increase... If it were just single, well-behaved adults coming and working, there might be a net benefit. But it isn't that way.
In a welfare state, below some level of income, people are a drain on the system, depending on the benefits they receive. It's not enough for immigrant labor to be cheap. But big business likes it because the costs are borne by the people, not by the corporation. Plus it grows the market for their goods.
Also, a lot of the times the cost of something, like produce, would only need to go up a couple percent to double the wages paid to labor. So having to pay higher wages to natives is not as challenging as it might seem.
It's not like the undocumented workers aren't putting more money into the economy
- they work, they do work @ below market rates -> lowers the cost of food and housing for everyone. (same way Chinese in China subsidize the American lifestyle, either via low pay, horrible conditions or environmental externalities)
- most use someone else's ssn - so that money goes to the fed/mica/soc sec
- they have to live someplace, eat, travel and consume themselves -> all of that gets translated as sales tax and property taxes.
If the argument is that they're leeches on society via the social network for citizens - that extends to all poor working people in this country.
The Chinatowns, Trailer Parks and Ghettoes of the USA have the same amount of social dysfunction (if not more), and drain those same resources of Health Care and Education.
And if you really think about the healthcare needs of this population, it's largely related to working dangerous jobs that Americans won't work.
America has always needed a low price labor force to work it's fields and factories but also to consume. Slavery, Indentured Servants, horrible conditions in factories in the cities... Right now this trend is moving towards the white collar sphere. the 1-2 punch of high education costs and low wage service sector jobs....
Arguably, if Rich Farmers in the Midwest didn't get welfare, i mean agricultural and ethanol subsidies in Corn, those farmers from Central Mexico would be able to sell their "underpriced" corn to the American market, and they'd stay at home and work their own fields.
I digress.