Re: Entrepreneurial (i.e., Undocumented) Immigration, NAFTA, and such

A thought in retrospect (and with a tip of the hat to Chuck Dupree whose comments generated it)

There is one aspect of this mess NO ONE seems to be saying regarding two supposedly separate issues -- but how both non-documented immigration and NAFTA are costing US jobs. (Although, as the Outrageously funny Doug Stanhope puts it: "Here's a guy without shoes half the time, can't read or write much of the time, walks -- WALKS -- a thousand miles half the time crawling on his hands and knees to get across our southern border. And if THAT GUY can take YOUR job away from you, then fuck you. You don't deserve a job." Or words to that effect.)

Everyone remembers Ross Perot's "giant sucking sound of jobs going south." And that's true as far as it goes as more and more American (or Japanese businesses in America) companies move to Mexico.

The corollary and result so few ever mention is that NAFTA is ALSO responsible for the tremendous increase of illegal immigration into the US, because it actually LOWERED salaries in southern Mexico making it damn near impossible to keep a family together even with a decent job. And of course, the insistence on the USA to use corn for biofuel instead of cellulose (stems and leaves) making the price of what is the staple food in Mexico (and other Meso-American areas) rise faster than oil prices.

So thanks, Bill and Hillary.

I still say the president who did the most for the world was Jimmy Carter -- in 4 short years he caused (or allowed) BOTH the Shah of Iran and the Nicaraguan El Monstro Somoza to be deposed (and later blown up) --- more long-term really good stuff than any other prez in the 20th century.