Americans won't do those jobs

Illegal immigration is - well - illegal.

If for no other reason, this makes it a problem.  All of a society's laws are called into question if any of a society's laws are routinely flaunted.

Those who support illegal immigration often say something like the following:

"Americans won't do those jobs"

 First of all, hogwash.  When I was young I spent many "110 degees in the shade" summer days on a roofing crew spreading molten tar.  It was hard, smelly, dirty work... and removed from my mind any semblance of a thought that I should drop out of college.

My co-workers and the boss were Americans - Perhaps one guy was "undocumented", but that's pure conjecture.  We worked like dogs - but the pay was good and there was a sense of satisfaction at the end of the day.

 When folks (like Colin Powell) say: "Americans won't do those jobs" - they're really saying one of two things:

1. Americans won't do those jobs for the pay that is being offered
2. Americans won't do those jobs under those working conditions

Option number one is a "race to the bottom".  If our society doesn't insist on "an honest day's pay for an honest day's work" - we're doomed.

Option number two is even more disturbing.  If Americans won't do a job because of the working conditions, then the working conditions need to change.

We shouldn't be tolerating "sub-human" working condition here in the US of A or in other countries.  Letting a "foreigner" perform a job under conditions that an American wouldn't tolerate is in effect an assignment of "sub-human" status to foreigners.

Mutual Funds and the decline of the middle class

Note to future historians...
In your studies of my time, you may have come across references to a category of society known as the "Middle Class" that was very prominent in the Unites States during the 20th Century, but which became extinct in the early 21st Century.

You may have wondered what led to the decline of this segment... How did so many "middle class" people slip back into the "lower class" so quickly?

The answer may surprise you... It was due to something known as a "Mutual Fund".

The concept of investing in companies had existed long before the 20th Century.  Wealthy individuals would invest money in the "stock" of corporations in hopes of reaping a large return on their investment.  In general, the investors paid little attention to what the corporation did - their primary concern was to make money.  If the natives of a small island on the other side of the world were exterminated in the course of business - the investors didn't really care.  As long as the "activities" of the corporation didn't directly harm the investors, all was well.  What happened in the Indies stayed in the Indies. 

Investing was pretty much limited to the wealthy... Few "normal" people had the funds to invest, and if they did have the funds the risk was very high because they could only invest in a small number of corporations.  Then came the Mutual Fund.  The Mutual Fund looked like a great idea... a bunch of "middle class" people could pull their money into a "fund", and that "fund" could be used to purchase stock in many companies.  By spreading out the investments, the risk of loss was lowered and the risk of gain increased.

"Middle class" people loved the idea and invested all that they could in these "Mutual Funds"... and for awhile everything was great... For awhile.

Unfortunately, the nature of "Mutual Funds" divorced the investors even further from the actions of the corporations.  Few investors had any clue of which corporations they were investing in.  They only cared that the corporations were profitable... and they had no idea how those profits were generated.

The stage was now set, and the script unfolded as could be expected...  Unbeknown to the "middle class", they had invested in the very companies for which they worked - and those companies - with completely anonymous investors - to increase their profits - started offshoring the middle class jobs to poorer countries around the world.  The corporations had no idea who their investors really were, so they had no idea (or care) whether or not their actions harmed their investors.

No jobs, no middle class.  Mystery solved.

Sentient Blood Cells

When I ponder The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything... and I do often ponder The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything... I usually end up thinking about blood cells.

Blood cells have a mission.  They pick up oxygen at one point in their journey, and then they exchange that oxygen for carbon dioxide at the midpoint of their journey... and then they go back to where they started and do it all over again.  Technically, blood cells don't even "go" anywhere under their own power... they are just moved along by the stream of plasma that's powered by the heart.

Blood cells are indispensible for our lives, but an individual blood cell is not.  A single cell can be lost without measurably altering the outcome of our lives... but if we lose most of our blood cells we die.

Blood cells have no concept of any of this.  They have no awareness of "the meaning" of what they do... they simply perform the task they are built for from the time they are born until the time that they die.

The Universe is vast and complex and full of many, many things... and we happen to be some of those things.  I'd like to think that we have a mission - just like those blood cells - but what that mission is remains a mystery.  The only real difference between me and a blood cell is that I can wonder what my mission is.

As an individual, my existence is probably as important to "something" as that of a blood cell to my body - no more, no less.  Whatever it is that "depends" on me to accomplish my mission will survive whether or not I do what I am supposed to do - but I'm thinking that it won't survive unless most of us do what we're supposed to do.