WindBourne's Journal: The long-term view of Illegal Immigration in the USA and EU

I have been giving some thought to what some of the US leaders have been saying about immigration (esp. illegal immigration). If you ignore the racial rantings of such idiots as Tom Tancredo (sadly, he is my district representative), there is an interesting angle that many Americans have not thought about.

Basically, the illegals do come here and they take the low-end jobs that regular Americans do not want. Considering that these ppl do not bleed the system (no welfare, no medical, no retirement, etc), but instead contribute to it (almost all pay taxes), it would seem to be fine(IOW, they contribute more than they take out).

But the real problem is that by having these illegals come here, it discourages us from moving forward. If they were not here, then farmers would be paying much more for workers. Likewise, we would see dishwashers, construction workers, lawn workers, etc. get paid a great deal more. In doing so, it would encourage robotics for these low-end menial jobs.

A good example is that at the Colorado Ski resorts, we need seasonal workers. But they may get lower hours if snow is bad and skiiers are cancelling.

OTOH, if a fast or medium food restaurant were to use robotics for dishwashing, and cooking, then it would be lower costs overall. More importantly, it would allow the wait staff to focus on the customer rather than dealing with the back area.

Another example is that the farmers here are not roboticizing the work when they could afford it. Now, it is much harder to do so, and instead most will start parting their farms to big businesses or selling their water to cities.

Japan has the right idea WRT to doing robotics on the moon and esp. on mars. The ability to have 24 construction and exploration going on would be useful. Because they invest in science and R&D as a nation, there system will go futher down the road.