Imigration in America

[Jester]

I'm still not sure drugs and easing immigration are the answer. Unless, the government actually works hard to either discourage usage, to dry up demand, or to promote the distribution of drugs, to undercut the market price. Whatever was in demand would need to be readily available to prevent an illegal black market.

What sets the price of drugs? It's surely not production costs - that happens at pennies to the dollar in South America, or Afghanistan, or in grow-ops, or meth labs. It's not transport costs - they weigh little and cost a lot. It's not taxes - they're untaxed. There's no patents to pay for. So what is it?

It's the cost of doing the trade illegally, the costs of smuggling, and the markup the middlemen get to charge. Change that, and the cost will plummet. The market price could be undercut by an absurd margin, by a legal supplier. You don't need to change demand, you don't need to promote drug use. Just legalize, and the gangs lose their no. 1 source of revenue.

Can you see any legitimate government doing that? Allowing is one thing, but promoting?

Go to a pharmacy, or a hospital. If you've got the basics of chemistry, you can find near-exact equivalents for speed, heroin, opium, tranquillizers, you name it. It's all there, in the *legal* pharmacopoeia, already.

To legalize, you don't need to promote the use of drugs. In fact, you can set your education and propaganda against them. You just have to make them available.

I just don't see the moralistic US being able to do a 180 on drug policy. We don't even allow people to buy more than 1 package of OTC pseudo-ephedrine at a time now for fear they will turn it into meth.

There's a difference between "unwilling" and "unable". I'm offering my solution. I think it would work - or at least, work a hell of a lot better and cheaper than what's happening now. Whether there is the will to implement this solution is another matter. If the US will never adopt any policy but drug war, then obviously, the drug war will continue.

And, for the human traffic; until there is enforcement of hiring illegal labor, there will be illegal labor. So long as there is a way to come to the US and make more than the squalid slum they came from, they will come.

So long as migrating to work is illegal, yes. If migrating to work was easy and legal, then there would be much less market for people to enter illegally. Why pay for a coyote, when you can just go to the border and apply?

So, even when the number is liberal, or very, very liberal, there will be others who are willing to come and undercut the current lowest rate. The whole reason illegal immigrants are employed is that employers pay cash for wages only. No health insurance, no social security, no taxes.

First, there is a restricted pool of people who want to migrate. It's large, but it's not infinite. There is also a restricted pool of opportunities, and once they are filled, people will no longer come to fill them. If migration stops because the jobs are already filled, then great. Equilibrium! You might have to fiddle with lowering minimum wage laws, but I wouldn't be opposed to that.

Second, lots of illegal migrants receive paycheques, which means they pay social security - and never collect. I'm sure they don't get much in the way of a benefits package, but they do generate tax revenue. Cash under the table does not generate a paper trail, and if they're hoping for citizenship, they're going to need a paper trail.

For 100 employees, that can add up to over $2 million in illegal savings per year. It's a win-win for the employer and employee, but a net loss for the State who must support the dead weight (roads, hospitals, schools, and other services). It's not unusual for certain businesses to keep two sets of books.

I'm not actually sure it is a net loss for the state. Again, labour generates production. Production generates taxes. Taxes pay for programs. Now, that does have to be weighed against the costs, but do remember Bastiat - just because it's easy to see the costs going out the door, and difficult to see the tax money coming indirectly, doesn't mean we can forget about it.

However, you are absolutely right that it is employers' savings driving this. But, if minimum-wage guest-worker labour was readily available in whatever quantities you needed, would employers risk hiring illegals on a large scale? Would migrants choose to migrate illegally for terrible wages, when they had the option of migrating legally for minimum wage? It would at least diminish the problem. I suspect it would more or less eliminate it.

-Jester