Metal Reviews

Trapt, you and I will never see eye to eye on these matters.
The best we can hope for at this point is some Internet version of detente.

i wouldn't link immigration to lower wages to credit so quickly... if that's what you did Trapt.

as for immigration, it's not the only factor influencing wages, and has economic consequences that go beyond that too.

often, unskilled immigrants take jobs that locals aren't willing to do. they might do it for less, but clearly at the levels wages were before immigration, locals didn't want those jobs. these jobs get filled and immigrants contribute economically with labour and taxes.

at the skilled level, i think of it this way. a company needs skilled labour - it will resort to immigrants if a) the skill isn't available locally, b) an immigrant will provide those skills for less, or c) for both reasons. either way, said wages result in taxes and consumption at the immigrant's host country. maybe without them there, the company would have to resort to job creation somewhere else.

also, let's consider a world where labour is totally free to move and work where it wants. this meant an american company would be competing with, say, a french company to get the best talent, pushing wages upward. i know this is not the case, but with "skilled visa" rules and the ability to work from a distance, this may well occur more often than you think, and it shows that immigration doesn't necessarily drive wages downward.

as a matter of disclosure, my grandfather came from India to Mozambique (a Portuguese colony until the 70's), and my dad (with Portuguese nationality) came to Portugal from there. i was born in Portugal and work in France at a French company that will soon send me to a Brazilian subsidiary. i get paid as much as my French friends doing similar jobs.

i was going to say that ultimately immigrants just have to contribute positively to the economy, but "positive contribution" is really hard to define. there's their positive or negative effect on wages, the value of filling a needed job, taxes paid, money spent, money sent back home...

I don't see how they lower wages, its not as if the minimum wage is objectively determined by the market anyway. Under a market based system workers would compete for their labor, and their work would be paid based on the sales of their respective firms. This notion that we need 10,000,000 more field workers is insane and utterly untenable even for the fucked up mixed economy we have today

Ultimately though it always comes back to big business and how they can maximise profit by way of employing people at the lowest possible cost to them. That's how the corporate world operates. The prior discussion quickly devolved from a discussion about this trend and its far reaching consequences into a war of words exchanged over the value, or perceived lack thereof, of capitalism.

In Australia the vast majority of immigrant workers are unskilled and so are put in jobs where this isn't an issue. They are paid less but also taxed at a lower rate. It isn't until the second or even third generation that those immigrant families are able to actually afford higher education turning them into a skilled worker. At that point they are paid at the same rate as others working the same job in the same competition. That's a fair market economy in action which may be why Australia was one of the few countries which wasn't hit as badly by the GFC. I also know the minimum wage in Australia is reasonably high compared with other western countries. Of course the cost of living is also quite high. Electricity in particular is very expensive (power prices were increaded by a whopping thirty percent mid last year to cover for a two percent increase in costs attributed to a "carbon tax" our former government introduced).

I think the problem with illegal workers is that as illegal they don't really have the right to argue for how they are getting paid less than minimum wage. As Karma said yeah they're going to unionize, but that may not get them anywhere in the long run.

Workers aren't paid for what sales are or what they demonstrate themselves able to be doing. We don't live in a meritocracy. Workers wages settle at who is willing to work for the lowest wage and still get the job done. More workers means more workers willing to work for less. If they all stopped at say $8 and agreed to work no less well that would be a union. Worker collaboration and what not. The problem is that Americans or Europeans might want $8 but will be undercut by an illegal immigrant bidding $4. The company will save money going with the legal. And it's not the illegal immigrants' fault but the companies. An amazing instance that I always use to explain this is the Campbell's soup company opening their factory each morning and saying who will work for forty cents an hour, people raise their hand, thirty seven cents an hour, some people lower their hands, and around bids for nineteen cents enough people lower their hands to the number that the factory wants for the day and they go in and work.

But I'm done. This was always more Charles' bag than mine.

at the unskilled level it does seem to be easier to point out a relationship between immigration, especially illegal immigration, and downward pressure on wages.

whether the company would be willing to pay a legal resident the legal wage for the same job in the first place, whether a legal resident would have taken said job... it's still hard to figure it out. wish Charles would weigh in.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/01/blame_t ... singleton/

The controls in the system that favor friction do appear more and more frustrating as compared to a Canadian or British system, agreed. The Republicans in the House appear hell-bent on a suicidal stand, if the polls that I've seen bear to fruition in the 2014 election.

Unfortunately the author feels to need to invoke 'white supremacy' in point two, which is not only unnecessarily inflammatory, but very hard to prove.

At least everyone in Congress is still getting paid!

Hmmm I don't know. He is looking at the founding fathers as seeking to maintain 'white supremacy'. Some of the dudes owned slaves, even the ones who didn't own slaves didn't necessarily think whites and blacks were equal. I would argue that the problem is the author's conflating of white supremacy and wealth, which I can agree with in terms of defining whiteness, but ignores a lot of impoverished, rural whites that the Founding Fathers were equally skeptical of. And the author does kinda address that too. Eh, white supremacy is a loaded phrase that only works to keep his word count down when he could have phrased things in the ways that I just did.

True fact. Republicans blaming Obama for the shutdown as a way to let DC employees getting a vacation boggles my mind.
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/09/30/federal- ... paychecks/

What about Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Iowa, Wisconsin and so forth? Casting the rural versus urban thing in terms of race overlooks too many exceptions. Yes, it was a loaded phrase that distracts from his real points. Edit--I see only now that I forgot to include another sentence: that these states were white rural free states that were generally out of the halls of power in the federal government.

For the Canadians and Brits (and Australians) here, are government shutdowns an American thing? Or do they happen in your countries too?

Wiki

Not only is your post massively misinformed, but in their lifetime the legislatures of the respective states would've passed laws that effectively gutted slavery. What does owning a slave have to do with "maintaining white supremacy", it was a common practice in those days and no more than a few years after the countries founding in the North Slavery was effectively finished. Not to mention serving in Colonial regiments guaranteed slave enlisters freedom, so those "evil" white slave owners made multiple avenues for freedom.



You're conflating two different things. Many other races owned black slaves including Native Americans, does that mean that Native Americans were advocating "Native supremacy"? Whiteness as well is a relatively modern concept, going back as far as the Romans it was more of a level to delineate culture as opposed to a racialist view of some twisted "Aryan" concept.



I have no qualms about this, federal workers are non-competitive and their wages are completely arbitrary. Bureaucracy/costs of keeping those useless fucks employed are a reason we're in debt, of course people don't like to talk about this. Fuck those federal leeches.

Above the Ohio River. there were what four or five colonies underneath the Ohio River where dudes continued owning slaves. The Articles of Confederation proposed ending slavery, but it didn't pass because over half of Founding Fathers didn't want it to pass. A Polish friend of Jefferson left the dude all of this money to free his slaves; Jefferson remodeled his kitchen instead. That simply addresses the issue of slavery amongst the Founding Fathers and not racism. Just because they would free slaves that doesn't mean they didn't see them as beneath white folks. The fact that racism persisted after the Civil War demonstrates that racism is a wholly different beast that can lead folks in government to act in defense of white populaces.

Whiteness and race didn't actually emerge as a concept till European colonialism via Herder, Kant. True fact. Slavery does not equate to a racialized system of supremacy. American chattel slavery based on its ideological roots in racism is one of the most heinous fucking things throughout history. Much worse than any past form of slavery, whether it be Greek or maybe even Native Americans. Unless Native Americans thought that blacks were inferior than them and hence fated to be slaves. In which case I would imagine that they got that from Europeans alongside horses, guns and smallpox.

[/quote]Yeah, fuck dudes who sweep buildings... Ass.

Anyways, the Slate article was about a state constitution that is the only constitution of a modern democracy not revised since WWII, and much longer than that obviously.

By 1840 two decades before the civil war Slavery was abolished in the North. A few rogue colonies that persisted from 1777-1840 really doesn't make much of a difference. Secondly, the Articles folded because of debt incurred from the Revolutionary war, not because of racism I've actually never even heard that claim before. Jefferson didn't actually do anything with the money that he inherited from the Polish's guys estate he deferred it to another individual to deal with. His record is spotty but that doesn't make him a "Racist".

There was an economic interest in the South to maintain Slavery obviously, racism is a tangential issue in this at best. It has fuck all to do with the failures of Reconstructionism and the fact that it took the federal government almost a century later to "quell systemic" racism. Once again poor whites were treated just as badly as slaves in the Antebellum South, and the government did nothing on behalf of them either. It has to do with the failure of the state as expected, and the fact that the people themselves largely and rightfully shouldn't care about anything other than what concerns themselves.


Its a market and is inherently amoral. You're equating morality a process that couldn't give two shits about how you feel. Add to the fact that slaves often sold other Africans to the Spaniards and Portuguese for financial gain and you have a system that obviously benefits the Africans as well. I don't care to argue the point further, the US government has set Africans back even more with the failed policies of the Great society. Slavery is a horrible thing, but systematized tax based poverty is in some ways worse. You can run away from the North in the olden days to escape the master's whip, but their condition in being relegated to the ghettos created by the government has been inescapable for three generations now.




[/uote]Yeah, fuck dudes who sweep buildings... Ass.[/quote] You mean the building that was constructed by generations of human cattle taxpayers who fund his worthless job also subsidized by taxpayers to sweep? Yeah fuck you. But this is democracy at work though.

Duh, slavery was abolished in the North. That doesn't mean that racism didn't persist in the North. After 1777, they weren't colonies; they were states (GA, SC, NC, VA). I never once said that the Articles failed because of slavery or racism. An initial proposal as an element in the Articles of Confederation was to abolish slavery. That addition did not make it into the original Articles. Am I this bad of a writer or are you that bad of a reader? And maybe Jefferson didn't remodel his kitchen, but he sure as hell didn't free the slaves that the dude asked him to do: All of this is to say that the Founding Fathers may have not been that concerned with a notion of equality that went beyond the scope of Reason-ing, white, bourgeois males. Is that really all that questionable?
No idea what you're argument is here. Yes, poor whites are oppressed alongside raced groups.
Yes, the government fucks over blacks. The initial argument was simply that the Constitution under-represents urban areas insofar as those areas are often working class white and black folks. I'm glad you agree.

Yes, public funds go towards the creation of buildings that run and manage public affairs. And those buildings require upkeep. Yup.

Parliament has recesses, but 'government' continues in all its glory, seems to be an American phenomenon (especially since it's only part of the government that shuts down...!).

Saw a story on twitter about a bunch of Washington veterans wanting to visit the memorial knocking over the 'closed because government shutdown' signs and going in anyway. Hope they didn't get fined or anything ridiculous...

A friend of mine's grandfather was visiting DC to see the WWII memorial with a bunch of other veterans! I wonder if that's the same group. Most of the war memorials are more like parks than museums so I don't know why they would be closed due to the shutdown.

DC right now is basically packed with bureaucrats day drinking and getting free shit because local businesses offer free stuff to anyone with a non-essential government worker badge.

Our "government" is a joke.

I remember back in 08 during the build up to the election, I was taken to task for insisting that this administration would be a disaster, far worse than W.



All this lame duck excels at is dodging responsibility and emabarassing the country. Not that the Congress is any better, and that includes both sides of the aisle. But still, a leader would figure out a way to get shit done. Instead, we get golf round, what is it up to now? 146? I lose track.

Also a big at slavery being a product of "white supremacy" exclusively. Aside from it being whites that abolished the practice, whites are but a small fraction of it's participants throughout history... and, well, of course blacks STILL practice it in Africa.


But it's so much easier just to spout the same old threadbare marxist talking points, I guess, namely everything bad that has ever happened, is happening and will continue to happen is due to those evil white European folk. That tripe may be a big hit on kampus, but to any thinking person it just ain't gonna fly.

How long is the "racism"crutch going to be used before people start saying "Enough, already!"? In fact we're already seeing the backlash; whites can be beaten over the head with the vague, nebulous hammer of "racism" for so long before they begin hit back.

The onlly "government" that fucks blacks over is the democratic party; all they did was enable a shifty continuation of plantation politics.
Everybody knows by now (or should) that a large part of the "great society" was to secure that blacks would vote democrat.



Is it any coincidence that as welfare rewards more children born without a father (great society, indeed), that that is what is going on? From there you can see how well that's been working out.


And since blacks overwhelmingly vote democrat, by extension, could it not be said that blacks are actually their own worst enemy?

Bah, my people came over from Ireland in the late 19 century, and for starters, never owned or oppressed anybody. Moreover, they were treated like garbage. So peddle that "po' po' put upon black folk" nonsense elsewhere.

Excuses, excuses and more excuses. Yeah, that's working out swimmingly, innit?

There were each year, between the fall of Constantinople and the siege of Vienna, tens of thousands of white Balkans inhabitants (predominantly Hungarians) who were enslaved and deported to the Ottoman world by Turkish raiders. Arabs and Jews were the usual middlemen in Africa, making a handsome profit out of both the African tribal chiefs who sold their kinsmen into slavery, and the Europeans who were at that point paying for a commodity and didn't do the enslaving themselves (a macabre but nevertheless important consideration!). Never mind the quasi-servile status of (child) labourers in many of trapt's marxist utopiae all around the world to this day, or the status of the woman in pretty much the entire Middle East.

I guess that's all white man's fault.

Another thing that I've never been able to accept is how collective guilt can be applied to all whites for the actions of a relatively few, yet if that same principle is applied to other racial groups (distrust of blacks due to their propensity for violence and crime, for example), you are deemed a bigot. It's hairball logic.

I've grown up around blacks, and trust me they are the most racially conscious, ethnocentic group in America by far. Of course, ethnocentricism, tribal thought, whatever you want to call it is a part of human nature, yet only whites are punished for it. Strange.

Further, the percentage of white Americans that owned slaves was very small (less than 20%, I believe it was along the lines of 17%, though my memory may be off), the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution put a formal end to the institution of slavery 89 years after the birth of the Republic, and the importation of slaves came to an end in 1808 (as provided by the Constitution), a mere 32 years after independence, and slavery had been outlawed in most states decades before the Civil War. So it's a realtively small slice of slavery throughout history, yet nearly 150 years later, it's still being used as the go to excuse for the failures in the black community. The fact that the overwhelming majority of whites in America today are descenadants of European immigrants that came over after slavery was abolished should be noted as well.

Blacks in America are fed the line that every shortcoming in their lives is due to white supremacy, racism, the effects of slavery etc...

As a parent, if I blamed whatever failures or mistakes made by child on something else over and over and over again, would it it be at all shocking that he will continue to fail in life?

As for modern day racism, where is it? Certainly it exists (as it does amongst all racial groups), but where is this rampant, daily all encompassing racism that is constantly trotted out? There are some (and many of these race hustlers make a living off of it) that would have us believe the US is stuck in depression era Mississippi. The fact of the matter is, black on white racism, hate crimes, are in the majority. In fact white on black hate crimes are so rare the media has to invent them (ala the white hispanic Zimmeramn, most recently). I could literally flood this thread with recenet cases of black on white violence, whereas I would be hard pressed to find anything other than an occasional anomally (since, yes I anm sure it does happen, though lets be honest here: it's rare) of white on black violence.
When the NAACP declares that a gift card containing the phrase "black hole" is racist, well,they've officially jumped the shark.

A couple more things: black ethnocentrists claim to be Eqyptians, etc etc... well wouldn't that make them the orignal slave-masters? Who built the pyramids?

Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_(colonist)

Just sayin', is all.

I'll have to correct you on this: the myth of the Pyramids having been built by masses of slaves has been debunked for some time now. It would seem that these buildings were erected by the hands of the great many farmers in between harvest times (you know, the Nile flooding etc.). Of course there was slavery in ancient Egypt, but not on such an epic scale.

Just wanted to get that out of the way. It didn't make me cringe as much as trapt's rant about the great European cathedrals having been funded with Aztec gold, at least