Imigration in America

[Jester]

The price a user is willing to pay for them (both monetary and physically).

No. The price a consumer is willing to pay is the demand curve. Day one, Econ 101 - prices are determined by the intersection of supply and demand.

Right now, demand is high, and supply is restricted. Costs of smuggling and running illegal operations drive the price up for everyone, and where there is little competition between dealers, there are market power issues as well that increase prices. Get rid of all that, and prices will drop dramatically.

I just don't see the same progressive government that is contemplating outlawing salt allowing the use of heroin. They know what's best for us.

As I said. This is not about what I think *will* happen. It's about what I think *should* happen.

By the by, nobody is advocating outlawing salt, straight up. There is the push to legislate the maximum salt content in processed foods, and there is the crazy idea in New York to disallow salt in restaurant preparation. Even the craziest of the crazies is not saying you can't use salt yourself to your heart's content, or discontent, as the case may be. (And yes, at least the second idea is entirely ridiculous, and I suspect will go exactly nowhere.)

The gangs will turn to kidnapping, and other crimes (e.g. Somalia).

What's possible in Somalia, or some parts of Colombia, is not possible in the United States. Kidnapping and ransoming on a large scale is not a plausible revenue stream for gangs in the US.

In very limited supplies. I'm sure Pfizer and Merck would be able to find a ready supplier though.

Supplier? Hell, they'll be the producers! New, designer heroin, now with nasal decongestants! Methamphetamines with viagra - for the young at heart!

My point there is that every nation already sells these "bad" drugs, in slightly altered forms, as perfectly legal perscriptions. We've just stigmatized a segment of them for no good reason, and created a gigantic problem in doing so. (Our brilliant idea now is to ban the legal ones, one by one, until everything you can get high off of is banned except for gasoline and alcohol, because we're complete hypocrites when it comes to our favourite drug.)

The traffic goes both ways. Slavery is illegal, and legalizing slavery would not be an answer to reducing the flow of human trafficking.

Where did this come from? Who's talking about slavery? The key to getting rid of slavery is substitutes - wage workers can do more or less the same thing as slaves. However, similar logic still applies: abolishing slavery did not abolish exploitation of former slaves.

The people who come now don't know if there is a job for them or not. They come based upon hope alone.

Maybe you think they come based on hope alone. But they actually come based on what they hear, what they see, what friends and family tell them. They don't know that there's a specific job for them, but they know that there are jobs. When the jobs start to dry up, they stop coming, or head home. Notice the massive decline in illegal migration since the beginning of the economic crisis? Hope is one thing, but the migrants aren't idiots. They aren't sticking around where there's no work. When they go home and tell everyone there aren't any jobs left, fewer will make the trip.

Paper trails lead to investigations and deportation. They know the game. Most illegal workers don't pay any taxes.

Got a source for that? Because it contradicts everything I've ever read on the topic.

My understanding is that, ever since fines for employers were ramped up, the game changed from "we'll hire you under the table" to "their papers looked legit, officer!" and illegal migrants started receiving normal paycheques under false social security numbers. Specific numbers are difficult to find, but the IRS gets eight million returns a year that do not correctly match any social security number. That's billions in revenue. There are only maybe 11 million illegals in the US, total. Most of these returns are from border states - hmmm, I wonder why?

I think there is something that can be done for guest workers, beyond making it easier to become documented (in a US embassy in their home nation preferably). If the law allowed that guest workers payed no social security, minimal taxes, and had some cheap option for health care, then it might work. It would be ironic that guests workers, would from a libertarian sense, be freer than the citizens.

I suppose, in that particular libertarian sense that is utterly tone-deaf to democracy. Citizens collectively make their own rules, and their "unfreedom" is chosen rather than imposed. Guest workers have no such responsibility for their political future.

-Jester