"Unfair Competition"

Hi Gang:
Here is my commentary for the CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) website for this week.
Our government and our elected representatives are supposed to represent the citizens of our nation and to make decisions that are in the best interests of our nation and our citizens.  Certainly there are different political ideologies that may cause politicians to take opposing positions where what needs to be done to live up to this goal.
The debates may rage about the benefits to increasing taxes or reducing taxes.  To providing incentives for the wealthy to make contributions to charities or to increase or decrease various regulations.  In a perfect world, the voters would listen to the positions taken by the candidates for various public offices and make their decisions as to who would best represent them when they vote.
However, today it is clear that the most of our citizens are not being represented by their representatives.  This is not just conjecture of this columnist’s perspective but is the apparent conclusion that most of our fellow Americans have come to.  Consider that Congress now has an approval rating that is quickly descending into the abyss of singe digits!
Consider the increasing number of people who are staging demonstrations across our nation.  I expect to delve into this issue in greater detail next week- so please stay tuned!
For years American jobs have been exported and foreign workers have been imported.  This is actually getting worse rather than better even in this economic era of extreme hardship most American workers and their families are suffering through.  While employers are certainly free to make whatever decisions that they think will best serve their companies and increase their profit margins, the government can impose tariffs and take other steps to stop the human tsunami of foreign workers who are here legally and illegally working in our country.  However, nothing of real substance is being done by either major political party.
Think of how viciously candidates attack each other to attempt to deliver a knock out blow to eliminate their political competition while they stand by passively ignoring the plight of the average American who is drowning in ever increasing prices for essential commodities, where the costs of higher education continue to soar into the stratosphere and even when those student graduate, unlike their parents, they will not likely find that the degrees that cost so much money, time, talent and energy will provide them with employment opportunities.
This may well mark the beginning of the end of America’s Middle Class, the engine that powered America’s generations old success story.
Yet few if any politicians are even willing to address this issue!
The politicians engage in inane arguments over who has created more jobs- all too often those jobs pay little more than minimum wages- wages so low that no one could possibly survive on those meager paychecks- yet most of the candidate for the Presidency are not talking about the need to enforce the immigration laws to block the flood of H-1B “High Tech” workers and none of them have taken on President Obama for his decision to terminate deportation hearings for some 300,000 illegal aliens and then deciding to abuse his authority under the banner of “prosecutorial discretion” provide those illegal aliens with employment authorization!
Immigration is about far more than simply debating whether or not a fence should be built on the southern border.  Immigration is far more than talking about going after employers who intentionally hire illegal aliens.  Certainly those two issues most be addressed- but immigration is a system with many components and yet most of these other essential components of the immigration system are not even being talked about.  The journalists are not asking the vitally important questions about these issues and the politicians are certainly not raising these issues!
This is a new and truly insidious version of “Don’t ask, don’t tell!”
Think about how workers become infuriated when a promotion becomes available on their jobs and the employers don’t hire some long time employee to fill that position, but rather hires someone from outside the company!
Workers want to know that if they are hard working, talented and diligent that they may advance their careers.  Even if one of their colleagues get a promotion that they think they should have gotten, at least the promotion of an employee inside a company can reassure workers that there may well be a reward for hard work.
Today it is increasingly likely that not only will employers not promote long time company employees and simply look outside the company, today these employers may well look outside the country!  Not because the person hired is better qualified but because that employee will work for lower wages and have reduced expectations of fringe benefits!
As more foreign workers enter the American labor market, accepting lower wages and reduced benefits, American workers are being forced to similarly accept reduced wages and reduced benefits!  This is, illegal, but violations of law only matter if they result in those who violate those laws are fined and/or prosecuted.  You are not likely to find any employer getting hammered for these employment practices, consequently, those laws do not matter!
Employers may well expect loyalty from their employees, but it is the rare employer who is loyal to his (her) employees and today, the American workers will likely find no one in their corner!
Even many unions are happy to welcome foreign workers, even if they are illegally present in the United States provided that those employees have one ability- the ability to pay union dues!
The time has come to deal with the immigration crisis in honest terms.
It is time for our nation’s leaders, on all levels, to come to terms with the fundamental fact that the basis of our immigration laws is to protect our nation and our citizens from aliens whose presence has the potential to have a serious adverse impact.  Ignoring those laws exposes our nation and our citizens to a variety of serious threats and challenges!
A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls!

I

our country is to survive and if our children and their children are to get their share of the “American Dream” the citizens of this nation must take their citizenship seriously!

We the People must be the best citizens we can be, citizens who are worthy of the gallantry demonstrated by our valiant men and women in the military, law enforcement and firefighters, who routinely go in harm’s way in defense of this nation and our citizens.  
My goal in writing this and other commentaries is to point out our nations many failings before more victims pay the ultimate price for the incompetence and ineptitude of our government.
The first step in problem-solving is to first identify the problems and vulnerabilities and then devise strategies to overcome them.
If you find yourself to be in agreement with this commentary, I ask that you forward it to as many of your friends and family members as possible and encourage them to do the same.  We need to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”

The practice of good citizenship does not end in the voting booth, it only begins there.

The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines!


The collective failure of We the People to get involved in make our concerns known to our politicians have nearly made the concerns of the great majority of the citizens of this nation all but irrelevant to the politicians.  I implore you to get involved!
I believe our nation’s is greatly benefited by the rich diversity of our people which is why I could never imagine living anywhere except New York City, arguably the most diverse city in our nation if not, in fact, the world.  However, my idea of diversity most certainly does not include members of MS-13, the Mexican drug cartels or members of other transnational gangs or members of al-Qaeda!

If our government’s failures to secure our nation’s borders and effectively enforce our immigration laws concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation! 

All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!

We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.

This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!

You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!

Democracy is not a spectator sport!

Lead, follow or get out of the way!

-michael cutler- 


Please check out my website:

       
On Friday evenings from 7:00 PM until 8:00 PM Eastern Daylight Savings Time, I my show, “The Michael Cutler Hour” on the USA Talk Radio Network on Blog Talk Radio.
I hope you will be listening!  (Please tell your friends and neighbors!)
Here is a link to the program:


The Michael Cutler Hour 
Friday7pm Eastern


 Archived shows here:
  USA Talk Radio

The call-in number for a live show is 310-982-4145

Call in via Skype for free here
(while show is Live)

http://www.caps-blog.org/articles/2011/10/06/unfair-competition/

Unfair Competition

The
various campaigns for the elections of 2012 are ramping up. 
Politicians may loudly complain about the candidates who “go negative,”
which is to say that they hurl accusations at their opponents, but at
the end of the day, it seems that the majority of the candidates could
start a new event at the next Olympics: “Championship Mudslinging!”

For many candidates, there are no limits as to what they will do or
say to eliminate their competitors.  Their goal is to win at any cost.

Winning means getting the job that they desperately want.  Whether
the candidate seeks to be the sheriff of a small town, the mayor of a
medium sized city, the governor of a state, a member of the United
States Congress or the ultimate position, to be the next President of
the United States, to them, these elected positions are jobs. And they
will stop at nothing to get those jobs.

Now think about how many of those candidates talk about the need to
open our borders to more foreign workers.  They could care less about
how the massive influx of foreign workers creates unfair competition for
American workers who are trying to stay afloat economically as jobs
become more scarce.

Just as these politicians have no concern about how personally
damaging the mudslinging can be to his (her) opponents and their
families, these politicians could not care less about the harm done to
their fellow Americans when it comes to accepting campaign
contributions.  They “glad hand” the folks with the deep pockets and
fully understand that when they accept campaign contributions they have
entered into a tacit agreement with those who write the checks to
deliver on policies and actions that favor the deep pocketed
contributors.

Corporations exist for one purpose–to make a profit.  It does not
matter what they may produce or what service they may provide, they are,
in reality, all in the same business, to make as much money as
possible.

I believe in free enterprise, but there have to be some controls in
place.  Without any regulations, left to their own devices, most
corporations would pay scant attention to any environmental laws, worker
safety laws and even consumer product concerns.  Think back decades
ago, about the infamous Ford Pinto–the car that had a nasty habit of
exploding in flames if rear-ended by another car.  The engineers at Ford
knew that they could solve the problem of the exploding gas tanks, but
those in charge of the company back then, decided that it would be
cheaper to bear the costs of lawsuits filed by those who were injured or
by the survivors of those who perished and likely suffered horrifically
before they died, then simply spending a relative few dollars on each
car to prevent immolation of the occupants of their defective vehicles.

When profit motive turns to naked greed very often people are made to suffer.

In order to maximize profit, corporations seek to minimize costs. 
Sometimes this can be a good thing. Learning to maximize efficiency and
eliminate waste are good strategies and help to keep costs down. 
However, when the drive for maximum profits causes companies to
outsource their jobs and/or import cheap foreign labor, whether by
hiring illegal aliens at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder or by
bringing in foreign workers under various nonimmigrant visas such as the
H-1B Visa Program to replace talented and dedicated American workers,
then we have a very serious problem.

On September 28, 2011, New York’s Mayor Bloomberg, in addressing the Chamber of Commerce,
made an incredible statement in which he urged Congress to eliminate
the cap on the number of H-1B visas that are issued to foreign workers
with specialty skills who work as scientists, engineers and computer
programs. There’s a cap of 85,000 H-1B visas issued annually. “This is
just absurd to deny American workers access to the workers they need,”
he said. “Let the markets work.”

I presume that the quote that it is “absurd to deny American workers
access to the workers they need” was probably a misquote and he likely
meant that it was absurd to deny American employers the workers
that they need.  What is absurd is that there are ever more American
workers who have the required training, skills and experience to do
these jobs but they have been sidelined by companies and the law firms
that they hire, to make certain that only foreign workers are hired to
do these high-tech jobs.

The high-tech industries don’t generally hire illegal aliens.  They
hire temporary workers who have the education that makes them desirable
as employees of many high tech industries.  These foreign workers also
have another valuable trait:  they will accept significantly lower
salaries than their American counterparts.  Often, immigration law
firms, not unlike salesmen who want to close a deal, do whatever they
can to get employers to hire foreign workers.  For the law firms, their
livelihood depends on this and so they are very motivated to make
certain that foreign workers take priority over American workers.

If you don’t believe me, check out this video of a segment of Lou Dobbs Tonight that aired on November 15, 2007
and dealt with the issue of H1B visas and made it clear that there is
no shortage of American engineers, computer programmers and others with
graduate degrees in the high tech industries.

What will really infuriate you is the clandestinely recorded 4-minute video of an immigration lawyers’ conference in which lawyers were being coached to not find qualified U.S. workers!”
The lecturer who is instructing the attorneys is a guy by the name of
Lawrence M. Lebowitz, the Vice President of Marketing for the firm of
Cohen & Grigsby.  This video was posted on YouTube by the Programmer
Guild, an organization that is comprised of computer programmers.

The lawyers attending that seminar were being coached as to the ways
they could game the immigration/visa process to make certain that
foreign workers got the jobs and not the Americans who had the
qualifications for those jobs.  This way, the lawyers would get their
high fees and the companies would pay less than prevailing wages for
these workers.

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) aliens would be
excludible if they sought to immigrate to the United States to perform
skilled or unskilled labor unless:

“The Secretary of Labor has determined that (A) there are not
sufficient United States workers who are able, willing, qualified and
available at the time of application for a visa and admission into the
United States and at the place where the alien is to perform the work,
and (B) the employment of the alien will not adversely affect the wages
and working conditions of the United States workers similarly employed.”

Prior to the Second World War, the enforcement of our immigration
laws was the responsibility of the United States Department of Labor out
of the obvious concern that a massive influx of foreign workers would
have a negative impact on the American workforce.

Today, the Middle Class stands on the precipice of extinction and,
not surprisingly this generation has become the first to expect to not
be as successful as the previous generation.

It is time for the government to address a fundamental fact, without
creating jobs, nearly every unemployed American could be working if jobs
were liberated—liberated from foreign workers who have displaced
American workers.

  • Print
  • email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • FriendFeed
  • MySpace
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Google Bookmarks
  • LinkedIn
  • Mixx
  • Blogplay
  • Add to favorites
  • BlinkList
  • blogmarks
  • PDF
  • Yahoo! Bookmarks
  • Diigo
  • NewsVine