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["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

> As I understand it, it is a good thing to have money pass through many 
> local hands. Somehow this magically improves the local economy. Money is 
> surreal, of course, but it represents energy expended and potential 
> purchasing power. If the money leaves, so does the energy and the 
> purchasing power.

I see.  That would be a valid point (on the part of the nay sayers, not you 
personally, Gene)  IF the money was going to be earned there by someone who 
was going to spend it locally.  I'm in a place that never saw a Mexican 20 
years ago and has a very large population of them now.  And yet I have yet 
to meet the first good ol' boy who says he can't get a job because of a 
Mexican.  The most bigoted racist SOB around freely admits that they are 
taking no one's job.  As to the idea that they drive down wages, they're not 
stupid, they demand a pretty good wage and they get it ... and by all 
accounts they earn it.  The logging and sawyer businesses around here were 
disappearing fast.  Cows and sheep and pigs were disappearing.  Once 
cultivated fields were being overgrown.   Now the sawmills are booming, 
every hollow and hillside is full of cows and goats.  Vegetable fields are 
springing up everywhere.  The reason is the Mexicans.  It isn't that they 
work cheap according to my neighbors.  A logger has had to raise wages, find 
housing, arrange for medical and dental treatment, and provide 
transportation - none of which he had to do before.  He's willing, eager, to 
do it he says because Fernando and Victorio actually show up for work every 
day, would be ashamed to admit that they were not strong enough or 
knowledgeable enough for any task, and don't mind long hours so long as they 
are being compensated for them.   Hershel and Harley showed up when they 
felt like it, had 100 imaginary illnesses, and were always saying why they 
couldn't do something (bad back).

That is, these people are creating wealth, prosperity (how ever you want to 
view it) where none was being created before and where none was likely to be 
created ever.  I don't know how much cash is leaving this area and going to 
Mexico, but more power to them.  Lot's more is staying here than before and 
no mistake.

And more than that, they crowd out the cursed Yankees.

James