That is a major factor of course, and I think it is very apparent from reading this thread that people want to move towards a more socialist economic system. It's not a market-oriented economy at all if you are restricting labor employment, and it's simply a populist measure like the socialist aspects of Western Europe. People talk about someone "picking the strawberries," and it would be nice if that was all it was restricted to, but it covers a much larger spectrum than that. Inflation is already high (2%) at more than half the GDP growth (4%), which cuts in half any real growth in relation to the average American worker. Moves to fill the manual labor shortage with American citizens would result in inflation of at least 5-6% and probably for a protracted period of time.909er said:
Just strawberries? No, it's peanuts, corn, cotton, cabbage, lettuce, oranges, apples, cantelopes, watermelons, milk, poultry, pork, beef, etc. When prices on staple food items shoot up by at least 25% (the US agricultural sector would collapse leading to importation of basic food items) it will have a domino-effect on inflation as it always does. However, it wouldn't just be limited to agricultural products. The trade deficit would increase at least by tens of billions of dollars. This would lead to a further devaluation of the US dollar and inflation in every part of the US market. And fast food would be more expensive because they hire illegals all the time. :lol Don't believe me?
The most overvalued prices are in countries with manual labor deficits, while the lowest prices are in those with labor surpluses, excluding some East Asian economies that horde foreign exchange reserves to artificially devalue their currency to make their exports more competitive on the international market.