-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
While Republicans have been trying to leech the credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, President Obama has upstaged them by laying out his immigration reform plan. This is a signature political issue that the Republicans have tried to make their own. However, the E-Verify program will test whether they really want to solve the problem or whether, like bin Laden, they’re more interested in maintaining the issue for its political usefulness.
The E-Verify system looks for a match between the name and SSN of the worker who applies for a job. If there’s a mismatch then the worker may be undocumented, or the worker has to contact the SSA to get the records corrected. The E-Verify program, if widely implemented, would dramatically reduce the incentive for illegal entry.
However, business hates it. The Florida Chamber of Congress has succeeded in getting mandatory E-Verify removed from a Florida immigration reform bill. Republicans are caught between their business overlords and the Tea Party.
The Florida Chamber of Congress cites out-of-date error rates and concerns over identity theft as the basis for their objection to mandatory E-Verify. Could it be there’s another reason? Maybe it’s because businesses can take advantage of the illegal’s vulnerability and pay them less than the minimum wage and violate work safety rules, as pointed out in Obama’s recent speech.
The error rates for E-Verify are steadily improving with most errors occurring due to typos and changes in names or citizenship that are not reported to the Social Security system. Workers need to get these errors fixed in order to receive their full Social Security benefits to which they are entitled.
The problem with identity theft occurs when an undocumented worker uses someone else’s (matching) name and SSN when applying for a job. That problem has been solved by something called “E-Verify Self Check” where individuals can access their status before applying for a job. The system knows whom you’ve worked for over the years and can ask the kind of questions that only the legitimate worker would be able to answer correctly. Therefore, workers can be verified and identity thieves won’t be able to verify their data.
Another problem for E-Verify is the case of Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting that is before the Supreme Court (Kagan, J., recused). At issue is a 2006 Arizona statute, the Legal Arizona Workers Act that requires all employers to participate in the E-Verify program, which is preempted by a federal law that specifically makes that system voluntary. The law was signed by then-governor of Arizona Janet Napolitano, now the Secretary of Homeland Security, the department that runs E-Verify. What you have is the Obama administration’s Solicitor General arguing against the most effective tool in the administration’s arsenal against illegal immigration.
As pointed out by Justice Ginsburg during oral arguments:
How can Arizona take a Federal resource, which the Federal Government says is voluntary except in certain circumstances, and turn it into something that’s mandatory?
The E-Verify Modernization Act of 2011 seeks to make E-Verify permanent and mandatory. It will be interesting to see if the bill suffers the same fate as the Florida legislation.
H/T: VC, Miami Herald, Adam Serwer, Daily Finance.
“The larger businesses get the further the management is removed from witnessing the consequences of their decisions, hence the more effectively sociopathic they become. The larger a business gets the more people are involved, and the greater the rewards for the leadership grow, and thus the greater the likelihood that a true sociopath will make the effort to rise into the ranks of leadership and control, and thus the more likely the company is to be truly sociopathic.”
Replace every instance of business with government and you have a more accurate set of statements. If your really going to argue this point, tell me which business decided to drop hundreds of millions of dollars of ordinance in a weekend?
“Your system of superhuman hyper-vigilance on everything doesn’t work, it requires an infinite amount of information that is impossible to acquire, and a prescience about dangers that nobody has.”
If this is so then why do you have faith in the FDA? Are they staffed with superheroes?
How about we just start shooting them and getting them out of our way….was there not something about the Kurds, the Poles in Russian, the Jews and other undesirables in Germany….or do I need to go back to school and relearn what Pol Pot did…or..we did to the US Natives….
Other than that….what is the real grief…
Tony,
You’ve been doing an excellent job on this thread. Good show.
@puzzling: Business naturally want to kill their customers by poisoning them?
Some businesses just want your money and really do not care if you live or die afterward. Do you deny this has happened? They don’t want to poison people, they just don’t care if they poison people. Is that distinction incomprehensible to you?
When insurance deny a woman treatment for her cancer by declaring that her teenage acne was an “undisclosed pre-existing condition” and therefore grounds to deny her claim despite her paying into their company for 35 years: They aren’t taking joy in her suffering, they just do not give a shit if she lives or dies in agony, they just want to keep their money, and the more they delay the more likely she is to die and stop bothering them.
The larger businesses get the further the management is removed from witnessing the consequences of their decisions, hence the more effectively sociopathic they become. The larger a business gets the more people are involved, and the greater the rewards for the leadership grow, and thus the greater the likelihood that a true sociopath will make the effort to rise into the ranks of leadership and control, and thus the more likely the company is to be truly sociopathic.
Many companies don’t need your repeat business, or sell a commodity that is very difficult to trace. If Bob eats a sandwich and the wheat had a carcinogen in it, his symptoms will never be traced back to the farmer that grew the wheat and used an illegal pesticide on his crop; heck they won’t even be traced back to the sandwich he ate six months ago, Bob will be just another cancer statistic.
Your system of superhuman hyper-vigilance on everything doesn’t work, it requires an infinite amount of information that is impossible to acquire, and a prescience about dangers that nobody has.
And what truly amazes me, is that out of the 94 or so comments on this thread, a few people have been so busy trying to piss down each others’ pants legs, they forgot the original question.
It’s devolved into a bad Monty Python skit.
Take your Ritalin and stay focused people, please!
Puzzling:
that was an interesting link. Doesn’t surprise me though, when people have a mind to do something and think they are right, they will pretty much do anything to support their position.
It seems especially true of busybodies who think they know what is good for the rest of us. God save us from people who have our best interests in mind.
ekeyra:
“Those firms should have been allowed to fail and their resources absorbed back into the market and put to more efficient purposes. With that being said if im unafraid of allowing the “too big to fail” financial giants to go out of business, why would it be of any concern that any other business failed?Yes there will always be loss of capital, especially time and opportunity, when a business goes under, but id hardly classify it as a disaster, specifically because if there is enough demand someone will step in to take the place of the failed model and preform its function more efficiently.”
And that is exactly what the market was starting to do until the government started yelling fire and made the water available for free.
Business naturally want to kill their customers by poisoning them?
I’m not sure about that proposition, although we do know that government has deliberately poisoned people. Of course that was for a larger benefit to the 66%, so it was entirely moral.
Are you talking about the same FDA that denied the Plan B contraceptive for years, that routinely denies novel drugs to terminal patients as “experimental”, and is now pulling cancer drugs like Avastin from the marketplace due to government’s view of cost/benefit, individual choice be damned?
@ekeyra: Was the internet, social media, and enhanced mobile communication a disaster?
For the typewriter industry the word processor was the disruption that caused a disaster, back in the early 80’s or whatever. But as I said, I don’t care if they go out of business, do not take the word “disaster” or “tragedy” for a business as something I advocate preventing in any way. Amazon was the disaster for big-box bookstores. I can like Amazon and still imagine how the world looks from the CEO Suites of Borders or Barnes & Noble: Pretty damn bleak, I’d guess.
@ekeyra: Im just pointing this out to let you know im pleasantly surprised to find any area you seem to think is out of the government’s purview.
Wow, it is hard to imagine you misunderstanding me any more than you do; you need to put your preconceptions of me aside and listen to what I say, not what some cartoon character in your head is saying.
1) By “disaster” I meant a disaster to the companies put out of business with no gain for consumers, another business man, or anything else. The disaster is the net loss, but so be it, I don’t want to protect anybody from competition, as I said before.
2) You are wrong, it IS a zero-sum game in most localities. There are a finite number of visitors to rent rooms. Everything to grow that number that can be done has been done. It isn’t getting bigger without some miracle infusion of big bucks, which 99.9% of the time nobody has and nobody is offering. That makes it a zero-sum game.
3) As I already stated, it doesn’t bother me if a company goes out of business one bit. That includes if it goes out of business by being forced to pay a minimum wage. Tough luck, if your business model depends upon what we have legally defined as exploitation then it does more economic harm than good by engaging in unfair competition with those obedient to the law, and encouraging crime, unemployment, sociopathic competitive practices and reliance on the government and charities, and thus, good riddance to that business.
I think one primary role of government is to protect people from exploitation. I understand we disagree, but apparently you don’t comprehend what I am saying. I do not want the government directing the economy, I do not believe in tax breaks or legal breaks or subsidies to promote one business or industry over another.
I believe in the function of the FDA, because large businesses have already proven in the past they will kill and poison and sicken people for profit, and the free market didn’t fix it, and I think people need to be protected from that shit.
(I stress function because I think the stated purpose is a job of government even if our current implementation is wrong.)
I believe in the function of the SEC, because businesses constantly prove they will defraud investors and cook the books, and the free market didn’t fix that when the market was free, and I think people need to be protected from that shit.
I believe in the function of most business regulation because businesses have proven they will sell carcinogenic baby formula, Televisions that spontaneously burst into flame, houses that used tinder for insulation or roofs that collapsed with the first inch of snow, baby blankets that were so impermeable they smothered babies, and on and on and on.
But those are all about protecting workers and consumers from predators, not about controlling or directing the economy or protecting one favored business or class over another. The protections should be applied equally to all businesses, from strip clubs to churches without exemptions or favoritism.
I am not a cookie-cutter liberal. My views are not something I read in a book and regurgitate on demand, they are not the views of some favorite politician or philosopher. I have read a lot of those, and I do agree with some paragraphs and some arguments, but to me that is like having to learn some algebra before constructing original proofs: My views are original with me, so do not attribute to me views you think I have.
Stamford,
I think GM would be a better example.
“Im not even saying i disagree with you about that particular case, but is harping on dubya really going to be your rebuttal to literally everything? I hated his monkey face too but i dont bring him up as a counter example everytime i disagree with someones point.”
No, but he is the perfect rebuttal example … in particular, your statement that when one fails in business that he or she won’t be given the opportunity to do so again.
“Really? Well, I think George Walker Bush would have something to say about that …”
Im not even saying i disagree with you about that particular case, but is harping on dubya really going to be your rebuttal to literally everything? I hated his monkey face too but i dont bring him up as a counter example everytime i disagree with someones point.
One more illustration of your disaster scenario. The typewriter industry is all but in the rigor mortis stage. Should we be wringing our hands as to what to do when all those typewriter factories close? Was the internet, social media, and enhanced mobile communication a disaster?
“If Business X comes in and takes just 20% of the trade from Business A, and 20% of the trde frm Business B, it can kill Business A, Business B, and run out of capital itself. There can be enough oxygen in the room for two people, and not for three.”
You are still representing economics as zero-sum.
“OF COURSE others may step in and pick up the trade, that doesn’t mean the disaster never occurred, and my point was that the disaster could occur.”
Businesses fail all the time. The only time ive ever heard it being called a disaster was when politically connected financial firms started getting into trouble and began clamoring for taxpayer dollars to cover their losses. Those firms should have been allowed to fail and their resources absorbed back into the market and put to more efficient purposes. With that being said if im unafraid of allowing the “too big to fail” financial giants to go out of business, why would it be of any concern that any other business failed?Yes there will always be loss of capital, especially time and opportunity, when a business goes under, but id hardly classify it as a disaster, specifically because if there is enough demand someone will step in to take the place of the failed model and preform its function more efficiently. It is not the end of the world if a business goes under, its not even the end of the good or service they provided, which seems to be your fear.
“except those that managed to outlaw Walmart, which I do not think is the government’s place, either local or federal”
Im just pointing this out to let you know im pleasantly surprised to find any area you seem to think is out of the government’s purview.
“Most of those mainstreet businesses were stable for half a century before Walmart came, and that makes Walmart a disruptive catastrophe, which they could not insure against, and one they could not have done jack about because they did not have the capital or manpower to resist.”
Thanks for making my point for me. You see walmart as a disruptive force, and im sure the pharmacists put out of business would see it that way too. Consider the number of consumers who can now afford their medications thanks to lower prices, would they see walmart as a disaster or a godsend? The answer lies in their actions. If they truly disliked walmarts cheaper meds they could continue patronizing the local pestle and mortar. Simply because walmart offers cheaper meds does not mean anyone is forced to buy them. If however, consumers choose to patronize walmarts more affordable med and the local pharmacist goes out of business, I think thats a clear indication of where their priorities fall. So yes walmart put a local pharmacy out of business, but it has made life enhancing medication available to a larger number of consumers who could not afford the the local pharmacists prices. Whether or not it is a distaster is entirely dependant on your perspective and not on the fact that people prefer lower cost goods and services to higher costs.
“The piss poor management that ran their business into the ground isnt likely going to be handed the reigns of another business.”
Really? Well, I think George Walker Bush would have something to say about that …
@Roco: If only that were true.
I agree it is not true, but why do you think that happens? Why do you think people that control tens of millions of dollars do not follow the prescriptions of the ECON 101 crowd? What self-interest does it serve for them to rehire a “piss-poor” management team?
People don’t know enough about E-Verify. Many think illegal immigration is a liberal plot to hand out food stamps and welfare checks. Try to tell them different and you’ll run into a wall of xenophobia.
@ekeyra: Its also foolish to assume that simply because another business opens that they will simply divide customers equally.
I didn’t say that, and they don’t have to divide equally, and that is the point of the marginal discussion you dismiss but proves my point: If Business X comes in and takes just 20% of the trade from Business A, and 20% of the trde frm Business B, it can kill Business A, Business B, and run out of capital itself. There can be enough oxygen in the room for two people, and not for three.
Your insistence that this is not the case is simply counter-factual. OF COURSE others may step in and pick up the trade, that doesn’t mean the disaster never occurred, and my point was that the disaster could occur.
IT ALSO does not mean that most businesses have a “dynamic business environment,” that is NOT reality either. Most businesses have fluctuations in trade and are adjusted to it; 20% more or less customers on a particular day or week or pay period is not going to give them a fit, and those fluctuations do not constitute a “dynamic business environment” because the variability is predictable even if the specific daily numbers are not. It is like the weather: I may not be able to predict if next week will be clear or clouded, but I can predict the winter will be cold and the summer will be warm.
The standard business environment is less dynamic than the standard office workers environment of which it is typically composed; the business is stable while the workers come and go. That isn’t “dynamic.”
The standard business environment is also over its growth spurt, this is also just verifiable statistics. A few delay that fate for many decades, but there is a reason there are only about 8000 functioning public companies for 11 million businesses in this country; fewer than one in a thousand companies can grow to giants. (And the number of privately-held companies that choose not to go public is insufficient to materially change the point of that statistic.)
What kills an established business is usually something disruptive and unexpected. A manager can be as savvy as you want, there are hundreds of one-in-a-million events that, each by itself, could cripple her business. She can’t plan for all of them, and on a cost-benefit analysis she can’t protect against all of them.
Not to mention, some aren’t protectable at all. The hometown pharmacies and mainstreet stores put out of business by Walmart never had a chance against Walmart (except those that managed to outlaw Walmart, which I do not think is the government’s place, either local or federal). No matter how savvy and courageous they were, Mom and Pop could not compete against Walmart’s army and capital.
That doesn’t make theirs a dynamic business environment; it wasn’t changing all the time. Most of those mainstreet businesses were stable for half a century before Walmart came, and that makes Walmart a disruptive catastrophe, which they could not insure against, and one they could not have done jack about because they did not have the capital or manpower to resist.
A “dynamic” environment is one that is changing frequently and requires constant vigilance to respond. Disruptive life-threatening events are not “dynamic” for either people or businesses. (Maybe for people at war they are.)
Changing topics: I do not think ALL of business is a zero-sum game, and didn’t say that. I spent 25 years helping people bring brand new products to market, or doing that on my own in my own businesses.
Yet markets ARE finite. Roco’s example doesn’t really mean anything; in the vast majority of towns with two hotels, not a single thing will happen in the next five years to change the lodging market. There will be only so many sight-seers, tourists, honeymooners, hikers, skiers, Dude Ranchers, or whatever requesting rooms. The chances are that whatever attracts these visitors is already long stabilized, and there is only so much lodging they need and only so much they will pay for it, and the reason competitors leave these places alone for decades at a time is not because they have gone unnoticed, it is because the market is finite and not worth the risk of trying to capture a profitable share, and they have no great ideas for how to capture a profitable share for a reasonable amount of money.
Businesses follow the evolutionary model of punctuated equilibrium; it is typically disruptive events that trigger or create the opportunities, and disruptive events that kill them off. But by definition the disruptive events are infrequent, so in-between there are long stretches (for a given business) of stability and competition in finite markets.
EKEYRA:
“The piss poor management that ran their business into the ground isnt likely going to be handed the reigns of another business.”
if only that were true.