Undocumented workers are not here competing with China. They overwhelmingly work in agriculture, food services, landscaping, construction. They are not working in manufacturing industries

And it is perfectly legal to pay employees in cash, as long you comply with all the reporting, withholding etc requirements.

Wouldn’t that defeat purpose of paying in cash?

Only low precentage of ILLEGALs work. Government has system for non residents working it call green cards. No green card illegal entry.

Gracie, I think I see that you really believe one person, even doing something seemingly minor, can have an impact on the world. When you reuse a grocery bag I say thank you instead of saying "what about all the billions of other people that aren't reusing" But you don't seem to see how every little step to decrease greenhouse gases is also helpful, even if India or China doesn't take every measure we can afford to take.

And... I am certain that the no environmental controls "is" was written the way it should have been as there is a presumed antecedent phrase...

(A policy of ) no environmental controls is coming.

And who allowed labor move to foreign soil? Federal Government ——- influences by 1%er’s. And who got shut out the blue collar worker. No matter it’s UNFAIR trade.

Illegals first, then we can argue over constitutional rights. Women have that option.

My point is that the U.S. has minimum wage laws, tax laws, and other employment laws. China has lower wages and other employment standards designed to produce lower priced products. So, if you want lower priced products, why not just import them from China? But, violating your own laws to make cheaper products is being hypocritical because you are admitting that you cannot compete with China without breaking your own laws.

A little help please. Google has failed to tell me what USCC = 9 might mean

Thank you, that was a typo. Should read USSC=9. The United States Supreme Court should be codified to be made up of 9 members. No stacking of the court by increasing the number of justices so one side or the other can appoint a new majority by stacking it with new justices of their preference. I will attempt to go back and fix the original post.

I was responding to the post that said it was illegal to pay workers in cash. It is not illegal.
Now to your other sentence. I notice you didn't have a link for "only a low % of illegals work" because that is nonsense.

OK, the majority of employers who pay their employees in cash are violating the tax laws.

Let me say how I avoid buying Chinese-made products. I buy almost ALL of my clothes from thrift stores or garage sales. I can also find hardware and sports equipment that way. For example, I have found almost new softball gloves at Goodwill that are worth $80 for under 10 dollars. I even buy shoes there. I COULD afford to buy new clothes, but they would likely be made in China or another country that does NOT like the US. It is true that items sitting in thrift stores may have been ORIGINALLY made in China, but China does NOT profit when I buy 2nd hand.
........Obviously China and many other countries, are NOT friends of the US. WE have basically, for about 60 years, FUNDED their industrial and military EXPANSION. Today, they threaten the US and align with Russia. They have greater influence in Africa than the US. And are outmaneuvering us in other areas of the world (and SPACE). We should NEVER have funded them and built them up. So, what to do now? I would suggest bringing back SOME manufacturing jobs. And buying products from countries that LIKE the US. Those may be dwindling, but we still have England, Canada, Australia, Finland, and Sweden on our side. Germany and France are having their own problems. So overall, I would be ANTI outsourcing to unfriendly countries and PRO IN-sourcing within the US.

I agree with everything written there. I would like to add to the list one of my personal peeves. At the time of WW2 the US school system included VOCATIONAL schools which meant that the GIs had the mechanical and other skills needed to fight a war. We stopped INVESTING in VOCATIONAL schools because supposedly they were too expensive to operate. i see that as a MAJOR historic mistake.

Germany has more Unionization than the US does today. And they somehow manage to make cars that are sold and prized worldwide.

You and I seem to be talking past each other. I don't understand what you are saying. People hiring and underpaying undocumented workers has no impact on China. China is not competing to update my landscaping or cook my food or clean the hotel room.

Chinese labor, and Vietnam, and Cambodia, and almost any other nation is cheaper than US labor. We all know that and understand why a US manufacturer would use foreign factories to make products. The question becomes what if anything should be our policy.

Should the US accept that we are happy to have others do the work as it saves us money or should we insist that we need to have stuff made here even if it costs a whole lot more to do it that way. Don't forget that other nations will watch what we do and react.

We could tell Maytag that our government will subsidize the building of a nice new washing machine factory. Tax abatements, new roads, even use Army labor to build the facility if you want to go all out. But next, where does Maytag get the metal to make the machine? Buy it only from US Steel? What if it is cheaper to buy Steel from outside the US and ship it here (only cheaper because the cost of labor and materials to make that steel was cheaper abroad). Do you now say all the raw materials must be from the US? Only use natural gas that was drilled here, only use iron ore that was mined here, it gets very complex.

But now you have a washing machine that costs 4,000 dollars where the same machine from China was 1000. So you slap an import tax of 3000 on the Chinese machine and we all happily buy made in America. Or do we? No we make our old machine last longer which makes Maytag less profitable than projected, so we have to prop it up to keep it in business.

Meanwhile China is not happy they are not selling us washing machines because we slapped a tax on it.. So they retaliate and refuse to buy our products.. and we sell a lot of stuff to China. In 2023 China bought 165 Billion dollars of US products. Keep in mind what China buys from us they can get elsewhere.

Google Soybean exports to China to read about how this works in the real world. We put a tariff on Chinese materials and they retaliated against our soybeans and other items . This caused us to lose export income to such a degree that the US taxpayers ended up bailing out soybean and other farmers over 27 Billion Dollars through Feb 2020


You say, but look how the cost of soybeans dropped as the farmers had to sell them and didn't have the Chinese market. You're forgetting that you are also paying the taxes to the government they are passing on to the farmers. You are losing money here, not saving.

So obviously we should therefore cancel our tariffs on Chinese steel so they cancel the soybean retaliation. Not so simple. We don't want to depend on Chinese steel and deem it, correctly, as a vital industry. And no politician wants to see those TV ads about how he is soft on China because it is too complex to expect the public to follow all the reasoning. China bashing is a favorite tactic even in this thread.

The less that we buy from China, the less they would need electricity produced from COAL. Less Chinese coal usage means cleaner air worldwide.