Contact ICE now if you have Illegal Rooming house to report.

[long isle]

Originally Posted by MykeWhyte

there is an american black market that require the work of illegal immigrants. back in the 1700's and 1800's, it was called slavery. in the 1900's, it was pay discrimation.

To insinuate that cheap labor isn't a staple of this nation is disingenuous.

[AfriqueNY]

Remove illegal immigrants and cheap slave wage imported Walmart crap and the price we pay for goods will skyrocket. That's fine with me. But can you all live with that?

[Interlude]

Originally Posted by AfriqueNY

Remove illegal immigrants and cheap slave wage imported Walmart crap and the price we pay for goods will skyrocket. That's fine with me. But can you all live with that?

Surprised to see you parrot conservative talking points. Goes to show how much the traditional Democratic and Republican parties have come together on the cheap labor issue.

The skyrocketing cost of goods fantasy made up by the big business lobby. The cost of paying better wages, spread out amongst hundreds of millions of consumers, is very small.

Walmart living wage: If the company paid its employees more, how much would prices go up?

This study calculated that if Wal Mart paid a better wage, the average family would only see about a $30/year hike in prices. Haven't watched the video in awhile so I forget if they factor the tax savings for all the social programs that Wal Mart employees have to utilize because their wages suck (which Wal Mart actually facilitates by, among other things, holding classes teaching their employees how to apply for benefits).

It also doesn't factor in that if we go this path, wages will rise overall, allowing the average consumer to have more buying power. If your own wage goes up, it's not a big deal if your goods cost a little more.

The more likely outcome of this is that corporate bonuses and stock prices might suffer. Cry me a river.

[AfriqueNY]

Corps will pass the increased overhead costs on to us. You know that. There is no way our supply chain can pay good wages and still enable us to buy cheap crap.

[Interlude]

Originally Posted by AfriqueNY

Corps will pass the increased overhead costs on to us. You know that. There is no way our supply chain can pay good wages and still enable us to buy cheap crap.

1) I don't know that. If they could just raise prices, why don't they do it now? Facing consumer blow back for rising prices, they would have no choice other than to re-examine their own costs, which currently include massive giveaways to the 1% who own and manage these corps. I have no doubt that this would negatively impact their bottom lines. I don't care. A business that cannot exist without exploiting illegal labor has no right to do business here, any more than we allow child slave labor, $1 per day wages, or other abhorrent practices prevalent in the third world. (P.S., the fact that we allow businesses that exploit these practices abroad, to the detriment of both third-world workers and our own workers who cannot and should not sell their souls for a manufacturing job, is a disgrace).

2) As the link I posted explains, even if they passed 100% of the costs to consumers, the average Wal Mart consumer would only incur ~$30 per year in added consumer costs. The expenses simply aren't that relevant on a large scale. And the average consumer would see higher wages as workers regain power in the supply and demand dynamic, just as they did in the mid-20th century heyday of the American middle and working classes.

3) Why do we need to keep buying cheap crap? This type of consumerist lifestyle is bad for us, bad for others, and bad for the environment.