You mean me, do that?

The New York Times is running an ongoing editorial section about immigrants and the impact on the U.S. unemployment number, economics and societal impact of and on immigration.  There is a select group of authors, academics, business leaders writing a few paragraphs on their opinion which I am finding interesting.  Having lived outside this nation twice in the richest nation in the world at a per capita level both times, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, I was able to see the immigrant reality from yet another angle so here are my thoughts.

Why is the unemployment number not going done?  Because Americans have grown soft, expectant of government protection and lazy to physical work.  Thus the threshold, as it has always been, to immigrant laborers is opened wide.  Americans, generally, are not going to do hard, physical labor nor does any nation when you can bring in cheaper workers from other nations to do it. In Luxembourg, the primary manual work was done by Portuguese.  In America, the ethnicity has shifted with economic wealth through the time of our existence.  It has been Germans, Italians, Irish, African Americans, Chinese but rarely since the 1800s, white Americans. So there has to be a demographic / economic link to this that surpasses geographic boundaries!

The title of today's blog is fitting I believe.  It is fitting for it captures the basic nature of America and the post industrialized world in which the post WWII economies find themselves struggling in every way today.  Americans, Germans, French, Canadians, etc, are not going to "lower" themselves to do manual agricultural, shovel-ready construction type work.  There are three primary reasons I believe: first is a physical unpreparedness today, second is a mental refusal to be seen doing that sort of work which translates to arrogance and thirdly, and most profoundly, is the "entitlement" safety net mentality in these same post WWII nations.  The sentiment is that I will not do that sort of work because I can draw unemployment so it is "my right" to choose not to work!

My students have heard me say many times that in Adam Smith's principles of the Free Enterprise, he was quite clear that labor must migrate to the work and not wait until the work migrates to the labor.  Voila, in the post WWII nations led by the US, labor is not going to go to the work but is waiting, to some degree, for the work to come to them and, oh yes, will be paid by we the taxpayers until that hallow confluence takes place. THAT is the societal mentality I see today.

There are millions of jobs available today, TODAY in this great nation that Americans will refuse to consider for they are too hard, too far away, not close to my family, etc, etc.  Think about that for a few minutes and really let it sink it!  Remaining next to one's roots, while noble, is really poor judgement when you can depart the home nest and secure employment, right?  To my recent blog, "think like an immigrant," all of our great grandparents were immigrants or children of immigrants "off the boat" is the term used often.  So if you were on "that boat" and had not job, no education, no language skills, no societal values in that new distant land of "Williams" that rests just across that horizon shrouded by clouds of unknown, how would you act?

Here is how we would all act; we could act like immigrants in a new land. We would seek out work to put food on the table for those we love and cherish and not wait for the check to arrive on the 15th 'cause the mail man ain't coming this month!  I think I make a reasonable point in all of this.  There are jobs  ..... GO FIND THEM!  If, today, you are waiting on we the taxpayers / the government to insure you have a future that is rosy and profitable, I do not see that for the new generation past the Baby Boomers for that future is mortgaged now all the way to my grandchildren. That is simply not only sad but criminal!

You mean me, pull that cotton, run that picker, dig what, shovel what, etc?  YEAH, that is exactly what I mean.  Listen to the principles of the Free Market upon which capitalism is built and hard work resides at the core.  See anybody digging a ditch lately?!!!! I haven't but have seen quite a number of Latina slinging dirt to raise their families. Go ahead, shout at me now!