Guard The Borders Blogburst

I watched a documentary last summer about the loss of jobs in America. Small, middle class towns formerly supported by jobs in maufacturing (such as Thompson TVs, Rubbermaid, RCA, etc) are dead and defunct because the plants closed. Can you guess why? The Trade Agreement with China (thanks Willie!). Here's a few interesting facts:

Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in the world. Dell+IBM+GM+GE+Microsoft+HP = Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart buys its product from 6,000 suppliers. Wal-Mart built its gargantuan buying headquarters in China, because 80% of those suppliers are in China. They buy finished products in China (where the factory workers are paid $25-50/month) and then RETAIL them for LESS than what it costs American manufacturers to make them.

This is how they do it: Wal-Mart, as THE buying giant of the world, cuts costs by TELLING manufacturers what product they want, and how much they'll pay for it. The manufacturer who can meet Wal-Mart's lowest price is the winner - all the rest die. This strategy is what killed American manufacturers like Rubbermaid, and guess who bought all the auctioned off pieces? China.

When Clinton signed the Trade Agreement giving China Most-Favored Nation status, he promised that the burgeoning population of China would be a vast, endless market for American goods. Well *shocker* he was wrong: the trade deficit with China is now at $136 BILLION, up 31% from last year, and still rising. The Chinese can't afford American products, so they don't buy American products.

Long Beach, CA, serves as a major port for Chinese import and export. Last year, America shipped to China $3 billion worth of raw materials: scrap paper, scrap metal, cotton, and leather hides. The Chinese exported to America $36 BILLION worth of consumer products: clothes, shoes, electronics, toys, etc. We send them raw materials, they turn it into finished products and send it back. We sell $3 billion and BUY BACK $36 Billion.

I personally won't shop in Wal-Mart. I haven't for about 5 years since they put the little main street in our town out of business (including me). That, to me, was a micro-economic view of what Wal-Mart has done to the country on a macro-economic scale. (Besides, going into Wal-Mart in Texas is like walking into Mexico, and invariably irritates me.)

The documentary I mentioned above (by Frontline) basically outlined the impact Wal-Mart has had on our national economy. On a philosophical level, you've seen a shift from American products, manufactured in America by motivated and productive Americans, being the BEST, highest quality in the world to Americans becoming the largest consumer of cheap crap from China. In the meantime, those productive Americans are now without jobs, those little main streets are empty and derelict, and Wal-Mart bags $286 BILLION dollars in profit. If you believe that American corporations have the right to refuse decent wages to Americans in favor of importing crap from the government "labor camps" of China, then you are the perfect Wal-Mart customer. Think about THAT, the next time you gloat over how cheap the stuff is in Wal-Mart.

More to the point, the same geniuses who touted the disastrously failed Trade Agreement with China are the same ones who whine about how we need the illegal aliens "to do jobs American aren't willing to do." Well, if you've formerly made $56,000/year, plus benefits, running a machine for Rubbermaid, how easy do you think it would be to run to a job picking lettuce for $4/hour?! What makes it okay to import and exploit illegal labor from Mexico to undercut the American worker? How much sense does it make for corporations to pay Mexicans less than a fair living wage, so that the TAXPAYER then has to support that illegal Mexican and his family?! NONE at all.

Furthermore, how can the small business that provides physical services to customers compete with illegal laborers that cut corners by using extended family labor? On a radio program a few weeks ago, I heard countless American workers recount how they lost contracts because illegal aliens agreed to do the work for far less and much quicker - and no wonder, because they had their entire family working, including the kids! One man who couldn't find work as a sheetrocker saw his jobs going to a man whose wife and children worked on the site. How are American workers supposed to compete with illegal (but free!) child labor?!

My husband supervises multiple construction subcontractors who ALL use illegal Mexican laborers. He is aggravated beyond belief because his inspectors find fatal flaws in each and every phase of construction - without exception. The sub ends up having to demolish and remove all the faulty construction and replace it, sometimes more than twice! Costs skyrocket and schedule delays cost so much more than budgeted, and it all comes down to this bottom line: the illegal aliens do not have the proper know-how or expertise or capability to do the job right the first time. I cannot fathom how many millions of dollars the subs will have to squander before they reach the conclusion that they'd be better off hiring skilled American laborers who understand their instructions and produce a more professional product than cutting corners by hiring illegals who don't know what they're doing and produce a shoddy product.

Back up and look at the bigger picture: you may think our products are cheaper because the corporations are paying illegal workers far less than they would have to pay American workers, but those ILLEGALS have to survive somehow and they do it it by sucking off the American TAXPAYER. So, the stuff you buy isn't as cheap as you thought it was, you're just paying more for it in the form of higher taxes! (City, State, and Federal)

Who hasn't seen their property taxes skyrocket because the schools are bursting at the seams and constantly need money? In San Antonio, the hospital system had their own separate tax included in our homeowner's property tax to PAY THEM for all the free care they provide to illegals. Yes, my property tax supported a hospital system that would've bankrupted due to the strain of caring for illegals. So not only was I paying more for my medical services (as a citizen who actually paid for care), but now I was paying for free medical care for ILLEGALS in the form of my increased property taxes.

The economic burden of unbalanced trade and illegal immigration is stripping Americans of options. But the cultural and societal impact is even greater. While the American birth rate is barely at replacement, illegal immigrants are reproducing far faster - nearly 3 times as fast. Poverty is spreading; crime and instability follow. Movements pushing bilingual integration are proliferating, and more and more American traditions fall away in favor of ethnic celebrations. American money flows freely throughout the world, propping up the toothless European governments who are all incapable of their own defense; and supporting the entire eceonomy of nations like Mexico. The best interests of China, Mexico, Canada, etc, all seem to weigh more heavily on our politicians than the
best interests of Americans.

Civilizations die from suicide, not murder.
--Arnold Toynbee

We are cutting our own throats. We are electing politicians who fail to see the big picture, who ignore the lessons of history, and who don't care enough to make the hard decisions NOW, while they still can. It's OUR fault, and it's OUR responsibility to make it right.

Close the borders, deport the illegals, cut off China, f***the UN, and shut off the flow of money to the rest of the world since we're always the bad guys anyway.

America First, ALWAYS.
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This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It was started by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration facing our country, join our blogburst! Just send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.