I've already pointed you toward a number of large poultry producers (like Pilgrim's Pride, for instance, which is larger than Tyson) which also hire illegals. I could also show you stories of small producers here in GA which hire illegals, and of the huge percentage of general immigrants in the poultry production industry.

I'm pointing out that your assertion that Tyson has lower overhead costs than its competitors due to this practice is not at all likely to be true. You, on the other hand, keep asserting that as fact even though you haven't shown any evidence of it and I'm showing you evidence to the contrary which you keep ignoring.

I don't understand your Walmart example at all. I'm not familiar with the case…how many workers were involved? Were they actually paying them less than their documented or citizen workers? If so, by how much? Enough of a difference so that you'd expect that this one group of workers decreased pay was influencing the overall pricing of every unit item sold at every Walmart across the country? That seems like an absurd stretch. Even the 11 million that they had to pay in the settlement wouldn't be a substantial difference in their total operating costs, so it makes no sense to argue that there should have been measurable price increases at Walmart as a result of this one incident.

Sorry, I won't try to prove a negative.

How am I to prove that companies do not employ illegals? I rely on ICE. You may quibble, but Tyson was found guilty of using illegals. That's positive proof. Their price in the market is the same as everybody else. That's positive proof. The money they made from lower illegal costs went to extra profit.

Wal-Mart not long ago settled an 11 million lawsuit for hiring illegal cleaners. Did the costs at Wal-Mart go up after that? No. The money they saved previously via illegals went to extra profit, not lower prices they had to increase when they were caught.

You are jumping past the need to prove your own assertion. What poultry producing companies do NOT employ large numbers of immigrants? Pick a poultry producer and google it, and I'll bet you'll find stories of INS raids, or at least allegations of undocumented workers, and most assuredly, a large percentage of immigrants (legal or not) working for very low wages across the board.

What evidence do you have that Tyson's overhead costs are lower than other industry participants?

If that is so, I take it the fair companies are operating at a loss? That's not the case, Tyson et al merely makes a larger profit while not reducing the price point.

Come on CS, prove your assertions.

The conclusions you drew from that assertion rely on the idea that Tyson isn't just one example of many in that industry, but rather that it is the main perpetrator of hiring illegals. If you aren't claiming that Tyson does this to a greater degree than its competitors, then there would be no basis for claiming that their prices could in any way be lower than their competitors as a result of the practice.

In case this isn't clear, let me ask…were you, or were you not, trying to say that Tyson's hiring of illegals could possibly give them an edge in the market (which would then either allow them to lower consumer prices for their product or take higher profit as a result of the lower overhead?)

It was your supposition that all companies employ illegals. My assertion was that, as example, Tyson, used illegals but did not reduce price as a result. You must prove that there is no price difference due to the fact that all companies employ cheap illegal labor. I don't have to prove you are right, and I believe I did back up my assertion.

Tyson and a handful of other companies (Pilgrim's Pride, which is actually the largest poultry producer, and which has also been caught hiring massive numbers of undocumented workers) dominate the industry, so pricing as reflected by overhead of these very large producers does in fact help set the industry pricing.

Smaller producers either hire workers at similar low wages (if you do start to investigate to try to verify your claims, you'll see that a very large percentage of poultry plant workers are immigrants, which include some undocumented and some legal immigrants- all of whom are working for very low wages) or find a niche where they can charge higher prices (free range farms, for instance.)

Again, the onus really isn't on me to prove that other poultry producers are hiring illegals in similar numbers to Tyson, but I think you'll have a hard time proving that they are. I know for a fact that Pilgrim's Pride- the number one producer, has been caught out, and smaller producers here in my neck of the woods have as well.

To be honest, I was really surprised by your claim that illegal alien workers hasn't put downward pressure on consumer pricing, because I thought that everyone on all sides of that debate pretty much agreed that it does. I haven't seen anyone saying that certain companies are skimming higher profits by hiring illegals- instead it has always been pretty apparent that the hiring is industry wide and that consumers do in fact benefit by lower food prices. The question is whether or not it's ethical for us to want cheaper food at the expense of poor working conditions for immigrants.

Your logic is convenient to your conclusions. So you see illegals in all companies. Convenient. And wrong. Tyson's price is fixed by the market, they are not cheaper than other chicken providers. You are trying to require me to prove a price break that doesn't exist or agree that it doesn't exist because everybody does it. That's logically facetious. If everybody does it, cite it.

” I don't accept the premise of your second paragraph. How is it proven that consumer costs wouldn't be much higher if there weren't so many employers paying lower wages to illegals, for instance? How do you know what effect it would have on prices if we didn't have a willing population of undocumented workers coming across our border?”

Let's flip this question. Can you cite any company that undercuts its competitors by using illegals? It's clear illegals are hired throughout our economy, but no where do you see a price break for consumers based upon the lower wages these companies pay. You wish to ignore the very obvious fact that illegals merely make companies more money because they sell their products at the same price that companies who play by the rules must.

Let's take Tysonh chicken. They have been caught hiring large numbers of illegals, paying them sub-legal wages, and yet their chicken costs as much as everybody else.

That's what is getting fed to us.

That's a euphamism for: “You taxes are going up. We just aren't telling you yet”.
Once they add in the higher electricity and gas prices for the Cap and Trade, we'll all be paying the governement about 10% extra out of our pay.

That's the biggest distraction of all.

SEC. 152. PROHIBITING DISCRIMINATION IN HEALTH CARE.

(a) In General- Except as otherwise explicitly permitted by this Act and by subsequent regulations consistent with this Act, all health care and related services (including insurance coverage and public health activities) covered by this Act shall be provided without regard to personal characteristics extraneous to the provision of high quality health care or related services.

(b) Implementation- To implement the requirement set forth in subsection (a), the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall, not later than 18 months after the date of the enactment of this Act, promulgate such regulations as are necessary or appropriate to insure that all health care and related services (including insurance coverage and public health activities) covered by this Act are provided (whether directly or through contractual, licensing, or other arrangements) without regard to personal characteristics extraneous to the provision of high quality health care or related services.

Also, I think that to penalize people for not having insurance is BS. Most people don't go without insurance because they want to. They do it because they can't afford it. And for those who can't afford it, we already have something in place: Medicaid. Is that where the money is supposed to come from? Apparantly not, because, if you've read the bill, you'll see that Medicaid continues to be in operation.

(here is the text of the bill, for anyone who is interested: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bi…)

Ultimately, this is going to come down on the taxpayer, regardless of what Obama says, and in that, he IS a liar.

He also said he was going to cut the National Debt in HALF (during campaigning), and instead, he's more than tripled it, bailing out businesses that should have been allowed to stand or fail on their own. In that he was also a liar.

I do, however, agree that health insurance companies should not be permitted to deny insurance to (or drop the insurance of) people who have preexisting conditions, become ill, or are higher-risk.

I simply have a problem with the Government's growth under Obama. He's gotten the government into things that it has no business in (such as bailing out businesses. and before you say it, I didn't agree with Bush getting the government into the Shiavo issue, either. Neither of those things is the business of the government). Instead of shrinking government, another of his campaign promises, he's grown it, getting into more and more of our personal lives.

THAT'S what we have to worry about. The health bill is just smoke to distract us from the fire.

I don't accept the premise of your second paragraph. How is it proven that consumer costs wouldn't be much higher if there weren't so many employers paying lower wages to illegals, for instance? How do you know what effect it would have on prices if we didn't have a willing population of undocumented workers coming across our border?

Good to see you jump right in.

I said CO appeared to be a good businessman. I'm just saying single payer removes the whole subject from the business spread sheets. Why should casual increase employee wages just because he no longer had to pay insurance?

US companies have time and again shown that paying less for employees, illegals paid under minimum wage, does not translate into a reduction of cost to consumers; so removing insurance costs doesn't guarantee casual will pass those savings on as increased wages.

Your idea improves the employer's fate, what guarantees do you have for the workers?

Actually Hemm, the more logical 'reform' that co might support is the elimination of the tax preference for employer provided insurance, which is what forces him to provide this as part of his employees' compensation. Get rid of that arcane tax law and he could then choose to increase his employees' wages by the amount he's currently funding the health plans if he doesn't want to expend his time on it, and they could use their own money to purchase a similar HSA.

He appears though to be coping with that situation quite well, just as the Whole Foods' CEO and just as a lot of other corporations could…except for those corporations that have had to bow to union demands for gold plated insurance policies.

And why, pray tell, does a good businessman like yourself have to pony up time and bucks to provide insurance? Do you enjoy the prospect of spending your hard won profits on insurance payments?

How do you compete with European companies that don't have this expense?
Casual, it seems to me it would be a good business move to back reform that fattens the bottom line. You sound like you should be for a single payer system, I never would have thought you were a left wing radical.