Where in the world is Scott?

[JavaMouse]

For a while I felt I was in a similar position as G0ddard B0lt when ITWhore jumped on him about the outsourcing of that small C++ job to the Polish programmer.

I hope that you didn't feel that way due to anything I said.  I reread what I wrote, and I don't think I wrote anything that was critical of you; I like you and I'm glad you were able to get work when needed, although I think it would have been more fair if you had been helped in other, more reasonable ways.  But you are happy with that situation, so I am not bothered by it.

The problem in our country is that there's now so much illegal labor that it's driving down the standard of living in this country.  I don't mean individuals hiring an illegal to clean the bathroom. I mean businesses hiring illegals to do construction work or maid service en masse.  This drives out legal labor. At least, that is my understanding of the situation.

So far as hiring people without permits or hiring illegals - well, I guess I've never had to make that choice. I get very nervous doing illegal things. Suppose the guy painting your house fell and broke his back and had no insurance? Stuff happens. So I think I would probably pay the extra it costs for a permit or whatever.

I kind of got the impression from your post that I'm being asked to defend my stance for "following the law." Am I really such a horrible, nanny-state stickler?  Everyone has their limits on what they will or won't do.

So far as hiring your nephew, that doesn't appear to be illegal:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/parenting/hiring_your_kids.html
This is a fuzzy area, re reporting and so on. I think it's good for kids to learn about earning by doing useful work, so I don't see anything wrong with reasonable child labor.

Here's an interesting counterpoint: one of my H1-B coworkers is bringing over his in-laws to help take care of his child (not yet born).  Apparently, this is illegal, because doing so takes away work from legal childcare workers in this country.  So they will have to lie about why they are coming over - they are coming on a tourist visa to see the sights.  Well, this sounds crazy to me. It's the most natural thing to have your parents or wife's parents help out with childcare.  I think it's fine that he's breaking the law, and I wish something could be done to repeal it.  I wonder what others think.

[The Gorn]

The problem in our country is that there's now so much illegal labor that it's driving down the standard of living in this country.  I don't mean individuals hiring an illegal to clean the bathroom. I mean businesses hiring illegals to do construction work or maid service en masse.  This drives out legal labor. At least, that is my understanding of the situation.

This is not only an economic impact. It also affects citizen's perception of law enforcement and the law in general. It's a moral hazard.

Widespread flouting of the law creates cynical citizens. Soon, nobody gives a shit about the law or standards of behavior because laws aren't taken seriously on a large scale and there appear to be no consequences.

"Onesies" of transgressions like Peter finding some work in a pinch in a new country are insignificant in impact. What the US has allowed to happen is the institutionalization of illegal labor.

[Peter Gibbons]

I am going to be the devil's advocate here:

When we have a large illegal and underground society that is tolerated, there are a couple of things that happen to society. One is the acceptance of illegal behavior. When we look at prohibition and the "war on drugs", we find that the rest of society starting to accept illegal behavior as the norm. Likewise, the open acceptance of smuggling prior to 1776 laid the emotional and moral foundation for rebelling against the Crown.

Would you guys rather still live in a British colony?

This is not only an economic impact. It also affects citizen's perception of law enforcement and the law in general. It's a moral hazard.

Widespread flouting of the law creates cynical citizens. Soon, nobody gives a shit about the law or standards of behavior because laws aren't taken seriously on a large scale and there appear to be no consequences.

Would you prefer the prohibition to be still in place?
Would you have a beer today if consuming it was illegal?

Who created that law anyway? Was there really a lot of public support for such law? Even if 85% wanted the law is it moral to forbid the other 15% of making their own wine or beer? Or even hard liqueur?


Do you agree with the harsh anti drug law that created the prison industrial complex?
Is it possible that money from said complex are influencing politicians that pass those harsh laws?


What is going to happen if the vast majority of the population flouting of the laws?

Well, we have a perfect case study. Look at the cradle of the Western civilization: Greece.


http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-201010?currentPage=1

This is a very interesting article that is tl;dr for most people so here is an interesting part:

Tax Collector No. 1—early 60s, business suit, tightly wound but not obviously nervous—arrived with a notebook filled with ideas for fixing the Greek tax-collection agency. He just took it for granted that I knew that the only Greeks who paid their taxes were the ones who could not avoid doing so—the salaried employees of corporations, who had their taxes withheld from their paychecks. The vast economy of self-employed workers—everyone from doctors to the guys who ran the kiosks that sold the International Herald Tribune—cheated (one big reason why Greece has the highest percentage of self-employed workers of any European country). “It’s become a cultural trait,” he said. “The Greek people never learned to pay their taxes. And they never did because no one is punished. No one has ever been punished. It’s a cavalier offense—like a gentleman not opening a door for a lady.”

The scale of Greek tax cheating was at least as incredible as its scope: an estimated two-thirds of Greek doctors reported incomes under 12,000 euros a year—which meant, because incomes below that amount weren’t taxable, that even plastic surgeons making millions a year paid no tax at all. The problem wasn’t the law—there was a law on the books that made it a jailable offense to cheat the government out of more than 150,000 euros—but its enforcement. “If the law was enforced,” the tax collector said, “every doctor in Greece would be in jail.” I laughed, and he gave me a stare. “I am completely serious.” One reason no one is ever prosecuted—apart from the fact that prosecution would seem arbitrary, as everyone is doing it—is that the Greek courts take up to 15 years to resolve tax cases. “The one who does not want to pay, and who gets caught, just goes to court,” he says. Somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of the activity in the Greek economy that might be subject to the income tax goes officially unrecorded, he says, compared with an average of about 18 percent in the rest of Europe.

The easiest way to cheat on one’s taxes was to insist on being paid in cash, and fail to provide a receipt for services. The easiest way to launder cash was to buy real estate. Conveniently for the black market—and alone among European countries—Greece has no working national land registry. “You have to know where the guy bought the land—the address—to trace it back to him,” says the collector. “And even then it’s all handwritten and hard to decipher.” But, I say, if some plastic surgeon takes a million in cash, buys a plot on a Greek island, and builds himself a villa, there would be other records—say, building permits. “The people who give the building permits don’t inform the Treasury,” says the tax collector. In the apparently not-so-rare cases where the tax cheat gets caught, he can simply bribe the tax collector and be done with it. There are, of course, laws against tax collectors’ accepting bribes, explained the collector, “but if you get caught, it can take seven or eight years to get prosecuted. So in practice no one bothers.”

The systematic lying about one’s income had led the Greek government to rely increasingly on taxes harder to evade: real-estate and sales taxes. Real estate is taxed by formula—to take the tax collectors out of the equation—which generates a so-called “objective value” for each home. The boom in the Greek economy over the last decade caused the actual prices at which property changed hands to far outstrip the computer-driven appraisals. Given higher actual sales prices, the formula is meant to ratchet upward. The typical Greek citizen responded to the problem by not reporting the price at which the sale took place, but instead reporting a phony price—which usually happened to be the same low number at which the dated formula had appraised it. If the buyer took out a loan to buy the house, he took out a loan for the objective value and paid the difference in cash, or with a black-market loan. As a result the “objective values” grotesquely understate the actual land values. Astonishingly, it’s widely believed that all 300 members of the Greek Parliament declare the real value of their houses to be the computer-generated objective value. Or, as both the tax collector and a local real-estate agent put it to me, “every single member of the Greek Parliament is lying to evade taxes.”

What does this has to do with the USA? Well there is a connection. Nobody will care about Greece today if they didn't borrow billions from European banks and now can't pay them back. How do they manage to get those loans?

In 2001, Greece entered the European Monetary Union, swapped the drachma for the euro, and acquired for its debt an implicit European (read German) guarantee. Greeks could now borrow long-term funds at roughly the same rate as Germans—not 18 percent but 5 percent. To remain in the euro zone, they were meant, in theory, to maintain budget deficits below 3 percent of G.D.P.; in practice, all they had to do was cook the books to show that they were hitting the targets. Here, in 2001, entered Goldman Sachs, which engaged in a series of apparently legal but nonetheless repellent deals designed to hide the Greek government’s true level of indebtedness. For these trades Goldman Sachs—which, in effect, handed Greece a $1 billion loan—carved out a reported $300 million in fees. The machine that enabled Greece to borrow and spend at will was analogous to the machine created to launder the credit of the American subprime borrower—and the role of the American investment banker in the machine was the same. The investment bankers also taught the Greek-government officials how to securitize future receipts from the national lottery, highway tolls, airport landing fees, and even funds granted to the country by the European Union. Any future stream of income that could be identified was sold for cash up front, and spent. As anyone with a brain must have known, the Greeks would be able to disguise their true financial state for only as long as (a) lenders assumed that a loan to Greece was as good as guaranteed by the European Union (read Germany), and (b) no one outside of Greece paid very much attention. Inside Greece there was no market for whistle-blowing, as basically everyone was in on the racket.

So now the law abiding German Taxpayers will pay for the excesses of the freewheeling Greek Citizens.

While Greece is certainly not a very good model to follow there is a delicious twist of irony here: You have to call Greeks - Greek Citizens while it's common to refer to people from generally law abiding countries with the somewhat derogatory (IMHO) term - taxpayers: German Taxpayer, American Taxpayer, ... Like the defining characteristic of those people is just to pay taxes to be squandered by the politicians.


</end of devil's advocate>

[JavaMouse]

Since you're speaking as devil's advocate, my reply is to this personality:

Would you guys rather still live in a British colony?

Well no.  But by asking this question, it sounds like you think open rebellion against the US government is an option to be considered.  Throughout US history there have been groups of people who think this is a good idea, I consider those to be the lunatic fringe.

Would you prefer the prohibition to be still in place?
Would you have a beer today if consuming it was illegal?

I don't consume alcohol, so I would not have a beer.  In addition, I don't consume illegal substances and never had the desire.  Coffee is the strongest mind-altering drug I'm tempted by.

Wiki has some info on prohibition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeal_of_Prohibition
I don't know if this is factual.  Basically, some groups saw the problems caused by alcohol and argued to make it illegal, simple-mindedly believing that making something illegal will stop it.  During prohibition, problems seemed to get worse if anything, and anti-Government sentiment increased, hence it was repealed.

I'm trying to understand this analogy.  Let's see: if people hadn't flouted prohibition, the law would not have been repealed.  Then there'd still be no alcohol use in this country today. That would be a good thing, IMHO. OTOH you are saying because people flouted the law, prohibition was repealed and now we can drink beer, so yay, flouting the law is good! So in this example, we disagree.  I don't see this particular item being a good example for why we should flout a law which we think is bad.

Hiding Jews from Nazi Germans - now there's an example where flouting the law is a good, ethical thing to do. As devil's advocate, I assume you think this is a bad example because you only risk your own life to save another with no benefit to yourself.

Do you agree with the harsh anti drug law that created the prison industrial complex?

No, but I think the people who flout the law in this case are particularly foolish.  Further, most of them are not doing it to protest an unjust law, they are doing it because they think that they can get away with it, or despair of legal means of getting by.  How is it admirable that these people are disobeying the law?

Is it possible that money from said complex are influencing politicians that pass those harsh laws?

Wouldn't surprise me.

What is going to happen if the vast majority of the population flouting of the laws?

Are you suggesting we should all go out and buy us some crack or marijuana to protest the unfair drug laws?  Or because everyone should partake of the supposed pleasures of drug use? I don't agree with this.

Well, we have a perfect case study. Look at the cradle of the Western civilization: Greece.

The snippet about Greece is a good example of how large-scale erosion of respect for the law is a bad thing. I wonder if the average Greek is really sitting back eating German bonbons at this point; I suspect the average Greek is not very happy with life: "Greece will cut wages and freeze pensions for three years as well as increase the main sales tax to 23 percent from 21 percent." It will be interesting to see how that all proceeds.

By the Greek example, you are saying (as devil's advocate) that being unethical pays off. In some cases this can be true. I think there's a certain amount of Darwinism involved. Most people behave ethically because it creates a more productive environment for all - literally productive; human societies are more "successful" in such an environment.  I am very glad I am not a "Greek citizen" but instead an "American taxpayer." I do believe my quality of life is better here.

You have to call Greeks - Greek Citizens while it's common to refer to people from generally law abiding countries with the somewhat derogatory (IMHO) term - taxpayers: German Taxpayer, American Taxpayer, ... Like the defining characteristic of those people is just to pay taxes to be squandered by the politicians.

Hm? This statement makes no sense. Articles refer to citizens as taxpayers when they are discussing how taxes are spent, but it would be weird to hear these groups referred to as taxpayers if taxes were not in the discussion.  Here's an example: "30% of American taxpayers are overweight". The only way this sentence would make sense would be if the article went on to discuss how overweight causes higher taxes or some such thing.

People like this are celebrated like great leaders and for them is OK to break laws and contracts.

Well no, no they're not. Recall the opprobrium heaped on the evil bank managers a little while ago?  Have you not seen the movies "Wall Street" or "Boiler Room"?  (Excellent movies btw).  The "common man" hates these people and would probably be willing to string them up.  In societies were the law gets little attention, I'd wager these people would not have escaped injury. I'd say the vast majority of people who are aware of Hurd consider him to be scum. Certainly there are a minority of people who think that getting away with unethical things in order to further your "success" is praiseworthy. We call these people sociopaths.  They often love to shock people by flaunting their antisocial behaviors, so they can be quite vocal. You will find "a lot of people" praising Hitler on the internet, too.  That doesn't mean the vast majority of people love the guy.

"The law is like a barrier.
The snakes crawl underneath.
The lions jump over it.
The cattle waits in front of it."

I'm sure there are a lot of prematurely dead people who thought that way. For example, Ted Bundy.  Cattle are not sheep, and have a way of going batshit crazy on lions and snakes.

[Peter Gibbons]

Well no.  But by asking this question, it sounds like you think open rebellion against the US government is an option to be considered.  Throughout US history there have been groups of people who think this is a good idea, I consider those to be the lunatic fringe.

No. I just think that the British government should have listened to the people.

Let's see: if people hadn't flouted prohibition, the law would not have been repealed.  Then there'd still be no alcohol use in this country today. That would be a good thing, IMHO.

People have been producing various types of alcohol from fruits and grains for thousands of years. Why should suddenly those people become criminals? I would venture to say that refined sugar is more harmful to human health than alcohol. How about we made it illegal?
What about coffee? Over consumption of coffee is also harmful - let's get a rid of it too.
Growth hormones that are fed to animals and end up in humans? I would ban those too. Genetically modified crops ... ...

Are you suggesting we should all go out and buy us some crack or marijuana to protest the unfair drug laws?

I am suggesting that the American presidents that smoked but didn't inhale and the ones that inhaled should have done something instead of being hypocritical about the issue.

Hiding Jews from Nazi Germans - now there's an example where flouting the law is a good, ethical thing to do.

I actually thought about this but was afraid that mentioning the Nazis means this thread is dead according to the Internet Law.

[The Gorn]

Re: Greece.

There's an interesting conflict between modern society where everything the government does is administered by massive databasing (tax collection, GIS for land records, etc.)

It sounds in many ways like Greece is a very free country where the government is incapable of looking over your shoulder to see how you run your financial life. But that's because Greece has poorly organized tax collection services and poorly organized land records, for starters.

Greece sounds like a Republican's dream with a high percentage of the self employed. But they're total rogues.

In the US things could not be this way because we database everything. The county knows down to the square inch what my lot size and extent is and who owned it before me and exactly what mortgages existed on the land.

Good ideas, Peter. When are we going to have the next ComputerConsultantsForum TED talks? 

[Peter Gibbons]

Goddard I hate corruption and tax cheating but lately have come up to the realization that the black market is what stops governments from raising taxes to 75% or 85%.

I know this idea seems very radical so feel free to shoot it down.
Just please don't shoot the messenger

[The Gorn]

Goddard I hate corruption and tax cheating but lately have come up to the realization that the black market is what stops governments from raising taxes to 75% or 85%.

I know this idea seems very radical so feel free to shoot it down.
Just please don't shoot the messenger

I meant to say:

There's an interesting conflict between modern society where everything the government does is administered by massive databasing (tax collection, GIS for land records, etc.) AND the rights and freedom of individuals.

Massively "efficient" enforcement doesn't spell good things for the common person. I even mean stuff at the grass roots level, like red light cameras and automated traffic speed ticket cameras.

I think you're completely correct.

Greece sounds like a weird combination of a socialist Winter Worker's Wonderland and a laissez- faire free for all.

[JavaMouse]

Well no.  But by asking this question, it sounds like you think open rebellion against the US government is an option to be considered.  Throughout US history there have been groups of people who think this is a good idea, I consider those to be the lunatic fringe.

No. I just think that the British government should have listened to the people.

Well, they might have, given some time.  The system does change from within.  US society is incredibly different from what it was 50 years ago - in some ways worse, in many ways better. I agree we have a lot of problems - the biggest one, I think, is the massive interference of corporations in our government, and the power wielded by these corporations.  "We, the people" are not entirely running the government anymore.

Let's see: if people hadn't flouted prohibition, the law would not have been repealed.  Then there'd still be no alcohol use in this country today. That would be a good thing, IMHO.

People have been producing various types of alcohol from fruits and grains for thousands of years. Why should suddenly those people become criminals? I would venture to say that refined sugar is more harmful to human health than alcohol. How about we made it illegal?
What about coffee? Over consumption of coffee is also harmful - let's get a rid of it too.
Growth hormones that are fed to animals and end up in humans? I would ban those too. Genetically modified crops ... ...

The longevity of a practice should not make it a sacred cow.  Slavery was practiced for millennia.  Only recently was it banned, and suddenly all slave-owners were criminals (well, were forced to release their slaves).  How is that wrong?

BTW banning any of the substances you mentioned wouldn't take any skin off my nose.  I do consume some of that stuff, but I'm not going to suffer without it. Same for alcohol.  Also BTW, did it sound like I was in favor of prohibition?  I am not; it was tried and it didn't work. I believe it would be a net positive for society if everyone stopped drinking alcohol - I believe it's too bad (but predictable) that the Prohibition law didn't/couldn't work.

And again, does it sound like I'm in favor of the passage of arbitrary laws to limit freedom?  No, I'm not.  It's good to keep as many freedoms open as possible. There is a balance between society's needs and individual freedom, big arguments are had over the right balance, blah blah blah.

I am suggesting that the American presidents that smoked but didn't inhale and the ones that inhaled should have done something instead of being hypocritical about the issue.

Well sure, I wish that too.

Hiding Jews from Nazi Germans - now there's an example where flouting the law is a good, ethical thing to do.

I actually thought about this but was afraid that mentioning the Nazis means this thread is dead according to the Internet Law.

Oh, oops.  Godwin's Law has been obeyed.

[JavaMouse]

Greece sounds like a Republican's dream with a high percentage of the self employed. But they're total rogues.

Maybe more like a Libertarian's dream?  What sucks is that you get two classes of people - those who have no choice but to pay taxes, and those who are self-employed who manage to evade taxes.  Actually from what I understand, that happens a lot in the US too - cash paid under the table and never reported.  I don't know if it's as big a factor here as it is in Greece.

[David Randolph]

In broad terms, if you want to have a law abiding society, have only the laws that can be enforced. That means that laws need to be short enough to be read and understood by most people AND so few that the enforcement agencies can enforce them all.

For example, in many locations in this country, it is not possible to drive "keeping up with the flow of traffic" and obey all the laws and regulations on the books. Thus, police are forced into doing "selective enforcement". Experienced traffic enforcement police know that they can always find some reason to pull anyone over that they want to. There are so many rules that everyone is breaking at least one. (Thus, the politicians who write laws to ask for immigration status only for those who are pulled over know that they are handing a tool for discrimination into the hands of any racist policeperson.)

Laws have costs on society. There are education costs and there are enforcement costs. When there are so many laws and regulations that they can not be enforced (the costs are too high), then we move from a law abiding society into one where corruption and bribes rule. Looking at the last few decades of laws written by Congress, I think we are there now.

[Peter Gibbons]

Could not agree more.