Not the problem
Reading some halfway valid stuff about immigration versus jobs. Got me to thinking.

The notion that "Americans won't take those jobs" is partly true, but not because we're lazy. It's partly numerical and partly cultural.

Numerical: Farmers have grown accustomed to paying a certain amount to Mexicans, and IT firms have grown accustomed to paying a certain amount to Hindoos. They can get better quality work for lower wages because the money effectively grows when it reaches Mexico or India. It's a hidden bonus created by a differently structured economy. The Mexican or Hindoo can support a large family with those amounts of money, and being the sole support of a family in a family-oriented culture that respects men makes the work worth doing.

Cultural: I can see the change within my own life. Back in the '70s I was willing to do low-level jobs because I mistakenly and stupidly believed that working hard would eventually lead to getting respect and having a wife. After the idiot delusion popped in 1984, I was no longer willing to take low-level jobs. I got fussy. The job had to contain plenty of intrinsic pleasure, because the external motivation was gone.

A third major (and unrecognized) factor is the loss of Infrastructure For Drifters. Before 1980 most cities, including tiny rural villages, had old hotels and boarding houses where a seasonal worker could live cheaply. By cheaply I mean $2 a night or $10 a week. In today's dollars, that's $10 a night or $50 a week. Cities and towns also had cheap cafes and diners. Thus: Out of a typical ten-hour day, you were working one hour for shelter and one hour for food and one hour for taxes. The rest was yours to save for winter or send home. Pretty good deal.

Now those hotels and cafes are gone, and seasonal living is incurably EXPENSIVE. No more furnished rooms, no more blue plate specials. Die-Versity laws, zoning rules, health department regs, and dead small towns have eliminated this level of room and board.

Again Mexicans and Hindoos benefit from solid social structure. They're willing to share larger houses to cut the expense because the pride and pressure of Family make the temporary sacrifice worthwhile.

In short, we don't have an immigration problem. We have a civilization problem. A nation is supposed to open the path to decent work and decent family life. Culture should make those things the path of least resistance. Our culture has conspired on all levels, governmental and corporate and religious, to turn decent families and decent jobs into unattainable mountains. Only infinitely increased share value counts. Nothing else.
  ¶ 5:00 PM