Will Taco Bell be Open Today?

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Denver-area contractor Chuck Saxton, who hires temporary workers, is sympathetic to the movement. “I’m going to go to support them. These guys come here, they work hard and they’re honest,” he said. “They provide a vibrancy to our economy and our country that is fading.”

Of course Chuck loves his illigal workforce. You know why they work hard and they’re honest Chuck? Because if they fuck up there’s ten more of them in the Home Depot parking lot chomping at the bit for the same job. Chuck, do you relly think that things are going to be the same if “we’re all equal”? Do they look so appealing when you have to pay them benifits and respect their rights?

Shit Chuck, you might as well unionize them while you’re at it… turn them on to the dysfunctional American Work Ethic.

I’m off to find a taco and a Dos Equis… fuck everyone.

Free trade means free trade of labor too

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This article states better than any of my inept ramblings why it is that this whole immigration brouhaha is a bunch of protectionist crap.

From the standpoint of economic theory, liberalizing the flow of labor is no different from liberalizing trade. Both redistribute a nation’s wealth, with a net positive effect. The difference is that liberalizing trade disproportionately benefits richer countries, while easing immigration
restrictions would help the world’s poor.

Dani Rodrik, an economist at Harvard, estimates that a worker in the first world earns 10 times more than someone with similar qualifications in the third. Even a light loosening of immigration restrictions, Rodrik argues, would provide a far bigger boost to the world’s poor than knocking down all the famously crippling agricultural subsidies.

I am big on eliminating farm subsidies to begin with. Africa can produce higher quality cotton at a fraction of the rate of the US before our ag subsidies kick in, and NAFTA destroyed Mexican corn farmers by flooding the market with cheap, subsidized American corn while Mexican officials ignored the quota system put in place to soften the blows to Mexican farmers. Even while competing with massive US subsidies, Brazil kicks everyone’s ass when it comes to soy production. But Rodrik is right, if one immigrant African worker makes 10 times more money in the US than at home there is no way that eliminating ag subs could come anywhere near to improving the poverty that remittances from the US could. If an immigrant sends home just 10% of their pay- they have contributed an entire year’s wages to their family.

After all, for many in those countries, their biggest asset is their labor,
and the current system forces them to sell it at much lower than market value.
If free trade is a tide that lifts all boats, then so is free labor. But this
time, the smallest boats get the biggest boost. If we’re going to ask countries
to let in our goods, we should be willing to let in their workers.

I know very few of us who would be willing to give up the niceties that we get for cheap from imported sources. I’m sitting here right now in a skirt made in China and a t-shirt made in Guatemala. I know the horrible conditions these clothes were made under- yet I still wear them. So is it that you don’t mind the crushing poverty wages as long as you don’t have to see it. Or maybe you don’t like the idea of competing with someone who is more desperate than you for work. If that’s the case- then legalize the immigrant workers and let them organize. I can promise you that if they have legal rights to better pay then they will use them. The only reason they work for less than minimum wage now is that they have no recourse. But think about it- would you work for less than minimum wage if you had legal recourse- hell no!

All Colbert, all the time!

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Shakespeare Bill has forwarded me a link to the entire text of Colbert’s speech and a link to the video that may work faster.

But just to give y’all a taste of what you’re missing- Colbert to the White House Press Corp:

But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The president
makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those
decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make,
announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your
family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking
around in your head. You know the one about the intrepid Washington reporter
with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know fiction.

And I can’t forget to mention the intrepid Helen Thomas! The Christian Science Monitor is a fantastic paper and it’s nice to see some journalists still have a set of steel ovaries and a rightous sense of humor. Go Helen!

Steven Colbert- I want to have your babies!

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(this photo was shmaelessly stolen from Shakespeare’s Sister- deal)
Steven Colbert and his truthiness should be added to my hot brains list.

I wish I was still sleeping with the cable guy for free cable- just to I could watch Colbert work his magic. But I’ve seen the cable guy that works my neighborhood now and even if it was doggy style with Colbert on the TV screen in front of me- I couldn’t do it. Even if it was gay porn of Colbert and Jon Stewart getting it on in front of me I couldn’t do it- the cable guy is just that gross (think handle bar mustache, giant beer belly barely contained by his cable guy shirt and a mullet and you’ve got my cable guy now)

So the point of all this Colbert worship is that he roasted The Great Decider at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner the other night. It is fantastically funny (though the Great Decider is less than amused) and much of the audience looks uncomfortable.

I give you Colbert’s entire speech (cut into three bits at You Tube) it takes forever to download but it is soooooooooo worth it.

Viva la truthiness. Viva Colbert!

Colbert Roasts Bush 1

Colbert Roasts Bush 2

Colbert Roasts Bush 3