Why does Lou Dobbs crusade against open immigration?

[The Backlash Cometh]

First, I agree with him. It is the only position he has that I agree with completely, because I know you can't improve the situation for the poor who currently live here, until you can stabilize wages and provide job security. But that's going on a tangent.

The purpose of this thread is to determine WHY Dobbs became such a major proponent of closing up the borders when he is a Libertarian who believes in the free market? Wouldn't someone like that agree with Bush's position?

[rodeodance]

1. he argues for a living wage--which many in the US do not have.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. How much is this in opposition to a free marketer's position?

First, let's determine something: When the Democrats were in control, wasn't Lou Dobb a fierce free marketer? If so, why did he change?

[Selatius]

16. Maybe Bush's ultra-rightwing economic stance shocked Dobbs

I believe Bush's economic policies are so rightwing that the only prominent person I can think of who was even further to the right than he is Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, the ultimate free-marketeer.

[ken_g]

3. He's used the term "Race to the bottom" for out-sourcing and

the hiring of illegals.

[Robert Oak]

4. uh, wrong, he is not a Libertarian

He's a conservative Republican who believes that corporate America is ruining the nation and one must have a balance between labor and corporate power.

He believes both parties are purchased by multinational corporations and are corrupt as hell. A pox on both parties is his position.

He also has a Harvard degree in economics and he is very aware that without a middle class, the entire nation will eventually collapse economically.

Immigration policy is part of labor economics. One cannot just allow
a nations labor laws to be ignored, minimum wage laws ignored, health costs ignored, unions busted by use of illegal labor and not expect servere economic consequences.

Also, there are many credible studies by world leading labor economists which show that illegal (not legal) aliens are costing the nation financially. The US taxpayer is basically supplementing this labor
through social services for businesses. The unemployment rate is very high for legal residences in the types of jobs that illegal labor is typically used.

Bottom line is he is coming from economics and these various policies
are massively lowering the middle class in the US, ballooning trade deficits, budget deficits ...as well as border security.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Thank you for a very thorough post, except that I seem to recall

Lou Dobbs was pro free market, which if taken to its natural course, would not take him where he is today.

[Selatius]

12. He's pro-free market, not pro-annihilate the American worker

My hunch is if you forced him to choose between "free trade" in its current form and "fair trade," he'd probably choose the latter.

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Selatius, I had passionate discussions with free marketers about

this years ago, and I told them that economic regulation would eventually be the product of free market because people would willingly subject themselves to labor controls to ward off human misery. THEY DIDN'T BUY MY ARGUMENT! Lous Dobbs was one of those smug pricks who helped defeat the Democrats because people like Dobbs promised that free market would cure all our economic ills. Well, they were wrong. I just wanted just one of them to say it out loud.

[Robert Oak]

13. ah, "free markets"

isn't what the current trade policies are in any way.
They are promoted as that, but if you read them they are extremely
biased towards multinational corporations having all of the power
and do quite a bit to limit labor power.

They also are just plain nuts. The China PNTR for example gives away US manufacturing expertise, intellectual property, demands that US multinationals employ Chinese labor, partner with state owned Chinese corporations and so forth.

Not exactly following free trade theory. Also, international trade theory is much more complex and must be strategic trade...which is not at all what is happening.

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. As long as China keeps buying up our debt, people like Bush will

continue to lick their boots. Why don't we sell them some more cheap visas so it will make it easier for them to set up camp here in the US to steal that intellectual property/

[Robert Oak]

20. on NPR

yesterday I heard a report of Chinese companies moving to the US to
employ Americans.

That is just completely nuts. US corporations gave our industry away...now it's owned by the Chinese who come here for the labor.

Anyway, more evidence that whatever economic propaganda you hear justifying these trade agreements, is just that propaganda.

All that is happening is a transfer of our industrial might to China.

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. Obviously our congress has been paid off. You can't have what

is happening here in America without some serious corrupt politicians selling their votes.

[applegrove]

5. he is taking the case of the American worker. He is not against trade -

but wants it done in a way that helps the worker. That would be my guess. And the American worker would be in for an employees market come 2014. Sometimes the market favors the employers, sometimes the workers. With guest workers - that will not be allowed to happen. Don't know why Lou would be against an Amnesty - cause that would help create more middle class workers who benefit from the sudden retirement of the boomers in 2014. US will need all the workers it can get.

Perhaps Lou doesn't know about 2014 at all?


Don't know.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. 2014? Apparently I don't know about it either.

Of course, that's two years after the end of the world. ;-)

[GrumpyGreg]

11. The first boomers will retire,at 65,in 2010----what is important about

the year 2014?

[applegrove]

14. 2014 will be the babies born in the 1950s retiring. The hump.

[GrumpyGreg]

22. Thanks! n/t

[dogman]

6. He likes the America he lives in.

He sees this as destruction of the middle class.

[Selatius]

8. Dobbs rejects free trade in its current form

He's not a freemarketeer. If he were, he would not be objecting to the outsourcing of American jobs, nor would he even bother listing all the major fortune 500 companies that routinely outsource jobs, and he has as much scorn for companies that knowingly hire illegal aliens as he does for those that outsource.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Well, it's obvious he's not a free marketer, today.

But that's not how I remember Lou Dobbs back in the Clinton-Gore days. I remember he was smug, pompous and very pro-free market.

I wish someone could find some archives of his old shows.

[SoCalDem]

15. He's a zenophobe.. always has been

[McCamy Taylor]

19. Because rival MSNBC/GE relies on illegals/outsourcing for manufacturing.

He is playing a cold blooded game of "Attack CNN's rival" that is all.

His stance on the War in Iraq is equally callous.

[jazzjunkysue]

23. I'm convinced his mother put him in the basement when he was bad.

He was probably touching himself. I dunno.