Many years ago someone came up with the idea of a DVD with a time-degrading dye. Rent a movie printed on one of these, and as soon as the renter opens the package the dye starts to oxidize and fade. No need to return it, it just stops working. See how popular that was?
So, here's the perfect solution for libraries. Print-on-demand the book, assume it dies in five days, and then it is free to loan to the next person. You don't need a building full of dead trees, just reams of this paper and the special printer. This keeps the people who want paper books happy, solves the problem of paying late return fees.
The important question to my mind is how do you secure the message (legally and/or technologically) against intrusive snooping by the government and perhaps others? Both in transit and in storage. Not an easy question to answer...
Really? Two answers have already appeared here. Run your own server (so you control your local store), and/or encryption. Neither is that hard.
and I think the legal piece of it is very important and somewhat behind the technology.
Technological problems do not need legal solutions. Use the technology that already exists and you don't need "just one more law" to make your life perfect.
When I want to REALLY encrypt my email, I write it in Perl. Even better than obfuscated C. I'd use lisp but I want the recipient to be able to read it.
Oh wait. Doesn't even work. You would have to force each of your correspondents to learn the same things and expend the same amounts of time and money.
That's right, you cannot retain possession of your email because YOU HAVE TO SEND IT TO OTHER PEOPLE FOR IT TO BE WORTH ANYTHING. It's like the old saying that two people can keep a secret, but only if one of them is dead.
I am suggesting that it should be available even for the peasants who want to use such convenient systems as Gmail.
It is available to anyone who cares enough to do it. Did you ever hear of PGP or GnuPG? Nothing stops you from applying full encryption to all of your email, except the fact that when you send the key to the recipients they will have possession of copies of your email in the clear. I suppose you could keep possession (all ten points) by encrypting your email with your public key instead of theirs and never giving them the corresponding private key, which means they could not read it, but then why send it in the first place? I know, you could have even MORE possession of your email if you created a public/private pair to encrypt your email and then threw both keys away after encryption. Then not even YOU could read your email anymore. Take THAT, Mr. House of Representatives that wants to read your email!
I chose it largely because the google would claim they HAVE to (permanently) possess your email to provide the service,
I've never heard them make any such claim. In any case, the solution to that problem is so easily available that I wonder why you are still going on about it. You've been handed information about both, why are you still here?
Your inline approach is obviously confrontational.
My "inline approach" is how things were done before the Eternal September. If you find it confrontational for me to quote things you say and respond to them specifically, then stop saying such ridiculous things.
so I just scanned your reply before deciding to ignore it.
And in the spirit of ignoring my reply to you, you reply with a few hundred more words...
the discussion should be redirected back to the original topic of "Possession is STILL 9 points of the law".
This was one of your sillier and most irrelevant topics. "Nine points" refers to physical possession, not how law enforcement gains access to your email via warrants or subpoenas.
I guess I should thank you [592200] for changing the subject when you diverted the discussion,
I'm sorry, but what? You rambled on about keeping your email on your own servers and how gmail was evil for, whatever it was gmail was doing. I replied to that. Who diverted the discussion?
Upon reflection, I guess your real point is that you are a Luddite of some sort?
You truly are amazing.
You agree with me about the importance of possession and miss the old days when we had more direct control over our email? Or something.
No, I'm simply pointing out that what you want is really not possible, but you can avoid the issues of gmail quite easily if you choose to. You cannot "retrain" control of your email when you've sent it out to other people, but you can run your own email server. The former means that you cannot stop others from divulging your email; the latter means you have the most control over whether a large corporation can hand your end of the email exchange over to law enforcement without proper procedures being followed. You want to keep possession of your email on your own server? Ok, run your own server. You want end-to-end encryption? Ok, run your own server. Seems like the solution you are demanding Google provide to you for free. Why are you not running off to implement it now that we've told you you can, instead of rambling on here?
then you certainly can try to control your email better by using your own email server. Doesn't always work as well as it might. There was a certain H. Clinton who tried that approach...
H. Clinton was perfectly successful in running her own email server, which proves that pretty much anyone can. Where H. Clinton failed was in the content of the email that her server handled, not her personal email. Had her personal server not been used for State Department communications, it would not have become an issue.
They should even be allowed to use "full-service" email systems such as Gmail without sacrificing their Constitutional rights.
If people choose to use a commercial service and agree to the contract, then they should be free to do that. The Constitution doesn't have much to say about Google since Google is not now and never has been a government agency.
Let me say that if there were a better option available, then I would drop Gmail in the proverbial New York minute,
I note your subjective evaluation ("better option"), instead of the objective evaluation of "keeps my email on my server". The "better option" in terms of privacy already exists and you have not chosen it. In fact, you call it "shallow" and "feeble". Therefore, we must assume there is some other criterion that you find more important than "privacy".
and I certainly would not use Gmail for any "subversive" email that would actually do something like unfairly upset #PresidentTweety.
And now you've become just another political troll. Thanks for the entertainment while it lasted. Enjoy ranting about something you could solve for yourself without trying to force a multi-million dollar company to do things your way.
Google does not have a monopoly on email. You are free to choose another service, or run your own. The fact that you do not tells us that this issue is really not that important to you.
The complicated reality is that the victims (AKA customers) are different and have different priorities and would exercise their freedom differently if they were allowed to.
Other than those whose employers demand the use of gmail, and who are paying for these services, gmail users are not customers of google. The customers are the ones who pay for the data that google gleans from their gmail service. So you are wrong in referring to gmail users as "customers". They are "data".
You are also wrong in saying they are not allowed a choice. Nobody holds a gun to someone's head until they use gmail.
Our best hope for REAL improvements in Gmail would be a serious threat from a superior email service.
You are free to start one, if you think you can make a profit from providing free email services to others.
Me? I think freedom is more important than money.
Obviously not. The option of keeping your email (as much as is possible in the real world) on your own servers has existed for decades and still does. It costs more to do that than to use the "free" gmail services, however. Freedom or money, you takes your pick, and demonstrate which is more important when you do.
I would like to encourage deep and thoughtful discussions, even on Slashdot.
Also obviously not. You're ignoring the most basic facts about email while complaining about a free email service, and dismiss as "feeble" any attempts at educating you.
Yes, I understand, pointing out that you could have what you claim to want right now is "shallow" and "feeble". It's more important to complain about how a free service that you've chosen to handle your email for you does things you don't like.
Of course, the fact that you cannot actually have what you want anyway is also "shallow" and "feeble", and you have no reply available to that.
This would NOT be an issue in this same way if we were allowed to retrain physical possession of our email.
Uhhhh, the entire purpose of email is to send it to other people. Perhaps hundreds of other people. How do you retrain [sic] possession of something you must distribute to others for it to be of any value?
There could be an option to store the email on our own computers.
There is. Get a domain name. Pay for business class internet service. Install an email server. Oila, as much as can be possible, you store your email on your own computer.
As for end-to-end encryption and keeping your email secret, you still have to distribute the decryption key to the recipients, each of whom will now have a copy of your email in their physical possession and not yours.
If the House of so-called Representatives then wanted to read my email,
I doubt that any member of the House is interested in reading your email.
Do you know how much a gallon of prepared tea would have cost in 1980?
No, and it isn't relevant. This specific brand wasn't on the market in 1980. When it appeared, it sold for $1.49. Now it sells for more than $2. In a period of about two months. Prices aren't going down, son.
I spend a lot of time thinking about global warming when I notice the temperature getting hotter between September and February.
I'm sure you do. Except where I live we've been having freezing rain and massive snow storms that we normally never saw. So I spend a lot of time thinking about global climate change and why it isn't called global warming anymore.
Critical thinking is not synonymous with a degree in the humanities.
Well, what sort of numbskulls put a Fascist in charge? The kind that can't think critically.
What sort of numbskulls resort to labels instead of rational arguments for or against someone they hate?
This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you're seeing a relentless assault on the humanities.
What kind of numbskull sees a comment that says that humanities degrees don't prepare anyone for a well-paying job in an increasingly technological society and resorts to crying about a "relentless assault on the humanities"?
I'm sorry, but a degree in the humanities is not a great equalizer between rich and poor, and what kind of numbskull tries to turn that into class warfare? Saying that a degree in Pan-African Social Systems isn't a pathway into a high-paying job isn't an attempt by "the man" to keep "them people" down where they belong. Painting this discussion it those terms is just stupid, and shows a serious lack of critical thinking itself.
That mean increasing interest in these areas of study. One vastly untapped area for this would be women going into STEM.
Amen. I know for sure that if there had been more cute chicks in my STEM classes there would have been a lot more guys in those classes who would eventually become engineers, scientists, etc. You know, come for the "stems", stick around for the STEM!
Maybe there ought to be a program in STEM education that mirrors what car companies do at auto shows. They put bikini-clad babes in, on, and around the cars to attract the attention of the people who might actually know how to drive and want to buy cars.
One of the ads one of the insane people came up with in "Crazy People" was "buy this car and have sex with this woman." (Also: "Volvos: boxy but nice".) Can you imaging the glut of STEM graduates if colleges developed a "get an A in a STEM class and get a free night at the Mustang Ranch!".
I didn't list a salary anywhere and still had no applicants from the US.
Maybe because people in the US know what "NIH" means and knew it would be a bad job at low pay?
Also, we hire research assistants en masse at $30k/yr.
"Research assistants" is a catch-all job title for anyone from bottle washers to skilled electronics and computer engineers. At $30k/year, you're talking bottle washer, and the skills necessary for those jobs are minimal and easily learned on the job.
They don't think about why everything is cheap and gets cheaper.
I spend a very tiny portion of my day thinking about why everything is getting cheaper. I do occasionally stop and think about why everything is getting cheaper as I am grocery shopping, when I notice that a gallon of prepared tea has gone down from $1.44 to $2.19 over a period of about two months.
I never said anything about pushing them to the front of the line.
I didn't say you did. I said they were pushing to the front of the line to get into the country before those honest, law abiding immigrant applicants who did the paperwork and got their visas legally. They aren't actually pushing into a line, it's a metaphor. They actually ignore the line of applicants altogether. You want to reward them for this behavior.
No, what I'm saying is that if an employer had access to as many legals with temporary work visas
Illegal immigrants don't have work visas.
If you dried up the illegal jobs by creating a ton of legal employees,
There are already a ton of legal employees. If you "make sure they are paying them market rates" then they'd have the employees they need. We already make sure they pay more than they want to for legal employees, just not "market rate". But they can hire illegals for much less. That's a driving force why they do. If you add on higher employee taxes you only drive more companies to hire illegals because they will save a lot more hiring the illegal off-the-books than anyone they hire on them. You have to understand that "market wage plus employment tax" has to be much more than just "below minimum wage".
The only reason people are here illegally is for the jobs.
That is not true. They are here for two reasons: the money, and a higher standard of living. Jobs are just one means to money, and even the jobless here have a higher standard of living than the places many illegals come from.
If you dried up the illegal jobs by creating a ton of legal employees,
We have a ton of legal employees available and the illegal hiring has not dried up. Therefore your claim is already demonstrably false.
If there are jobs available and no one to do it, why don't we let people come in?
Because they are coming in illegally, pushing to the front of the line of those who obey the law and wait for their visas patiently. And because the assumption that there is no one available to do it is not correct either. The falling unemployment numbers are a measurement failure, ignoring those who have simply stopped looking for work. They are unemployed, they would probably like to work, but they stopped looking.
I think at the same time we need to increase the penalty of hiring illegals and add prison time if someone knowingly does that.
And yet you just said:
Allow companies to hire as many "illegal migrant immigrants" as they want legally
You want penalties and prison time for employers who do something that you want to make legal.
Currently many illegals actually make less than minimum wage because they are paid under the table.
Which will continue since there will be, in your program, a dual incentive for employers to pay under the table because the employee is an illegal migrant worker who he would be sent to prison for employing AND would cost more in payroll taxes if he were paid on the books.
And I'm tired of anecdotal evidence trying to out-argue general results.
A degree in the humanities is not useless.
For most people, yes it is.
I have a BA in English Literature and a master's degree in information science.
I wasn't aware that "information science" was a humanities degree.
I am a very well regarded virtualization and cloud engineer.
Yes, we all know the high-school dropout who started his own billion dollar computer company without a day of college, or those who dropped out of college to start their career and flourished. The exceptions do not make the rule in this case.
A good education is a good education.
Did you learn how to use tautologies in your English Lit classes? A good education can be a good education and not be relevant in any way to the job that one wishes to be employed in.
It also hurts companies that need entry level 50k employees but now need to pay them 100k just because of a minimum wage.
It only hurts those companies who want to import those entry level workers from another country and pay the higher "minimum wage", which means they will be more likely to hire US and help build a better trained workforce through on-the-job training. That's a win for the US.
Allow companies to hire as many "illegal migrant immigrants" as they want legally but make them pay a higher payroll tax. This would make sure that the "illegals" aren't "stealing american jobs"
Increasing the incentive for people to come to the US illegally, and giving companies incentive to hire them, won't mean the illegals are stealing US jobs? Well, I guess, technically you are right. You can't "steal" what is being handed to you on a silver platter.
Society didn't make this promise. The high school counselor who gets rated in her job by how many college applications go out made that promise. The colleges, starting with the trade schools like IT Tech make those promises. "Society" is sitting there saying "what kind of job do you think and African Studies major deserves?" And now there's the push for that African Studies major who has about enough skills to sweep the factory floor to be making $15/hr because he deserves it.
So they make it easy (except financially) for people to college.
You've overlooked the student loan program which makes it easy financially for people "to college". It's hard for people to pay it all back based on their liberal arts degrees, but going to college is easy.
but I could have gotten each degree at least a year quicker if it had focused on the major and not required all the extraneous crap.
That was supposed to be the difference between a University and a college. Colleges are closer to trade schools. Universities are supposed to be turning out well rounded citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
So, here's the perfect solution for libraries. Print-on-demand the book, assume it dies in five days, and then it is free to loan to the next person. You don't need a building full of dead trees, just reams of this paper and the special printer. This keeps the people who want paper books happy, solves the problem of paying late return fees.
If the ice falls into the ocean and there's only Hellen Keller around, does it make a sound?
If the ice falls on Hellen Keller, does she make a sound?
Odd. I find Pip's voice (and character) wildly irritating.
The only downside to Pip is her shacking up with that Fairbrother lad just to piss her gran off.
Seriously, there's also Global News Podcast; World Update Daily Commute; Friday Comedy from BBC 4; Larry Miller Show; and Uncontrolled Airspace.
What's even more WTF is that someone keeps modding him up for it.
Why: I fantasize about Pip. Her accent is hot. Plus she knows how to drive a tractor.
The important question to my mind is how do you secure the message (legally and/or technologically) against intrusive snooping by the government and perhaps others? Both in transit and in storage. Not an easy question to answer ...
Really? Two answers have already appeared here. Run your own server (so you control your local store), and/or encryption. Neither is that hard.
and I think the legal piece of it is very important and somewhat behind the technology.
Technological problems do not need legal solutions. Use the technology that already exists and you don't need "just one more law" to make your life perfect.
use GPG, PHP, or some other form of encryption.
When I want to REALLY encrypt my email, I write it in Perl. Even better than obfuscated C. I'd use lisp but I want the recipient to be able to read it.
Oh wait. Doesn't even work. You would have to force each of your correspondents to learn the same things and expend the same amounts of time and money.
That's right, you cannot retain possession of your email because YOU HAVE TO SEND IT TO OTHER PEOPLE FOR IT TO BE WORTH ANYTHING. It's like the old saying that two people can keep a secret, but only if one of them is dead.
I am suggesting that it should be available even for the peasants who want to use such convenient systems as Gmail.
It is available to anyone who cares enough to do it. Did you ever hear of PGP or GnuPG? Nothing stops you from applying full encryption to all of your email, except the fact that when you send the key to the recipients they will have possession of copies of your email in the clear. I suppose you could keep possession (all ten points) by encrypting your email with your public key instead of theirs and never giving them the corresponding private key, which means they could not read it, but then why send it in the first place? I know, you could have even MORE possession of your email if you created a public/private pair to encrypt your email and then threw both keys away after encryption. Then not even YOU could read your email anymore. Take THAT, Mr. House of Representatives that wants to read your email!
I chose it largely because the google would claim they HAVE to (permanently) possess your email to provide the service,
I've never heard them make any such claim. In any case, the solution to that problem is so easily available that I wonder why you are still going on about it. You've been handed information about both, why are you still here?
Your inline approach is obviously confrontational.
My "inline approach" is how things were done before the Eternal September. If you find it confrontational for me to quote things you say and respond to them specifically, then stop saying such ridiculous things.
so I just scanned your reply before deciding to ignore it.
And in the spirit of ignoring my reply to you, you reply with a few hundred more words...
the discussion should be redirected back to the original topic of "Possession is STILL 9 points of the law".
This was one of your sillier and most irrelevant topics. "Nine points" refers to physical possession, not how law enforcement gains access to your email via warrants or subpoenas.
I guess I should thank you [592200] for changing the subject when you diverted the discussion,
I'm sorry, but what? You rambled on about keeping your email on your own servers and how gmail was evil for, whatever it was gmail was doing. I replied to that. Who diverted the discussion?
Upon reflection, I guess your real point is that you are a Luddite of some sort?
You truly are amazing.
You agree with me about the importance of possession and miss the old days when we had more direct control over our email? Or something.
No, I'm simply pointing out that what you want is really not possible, but you can avoid the issues of gmail quite easily if you choose to. You cannot "retrain" control of your email when you've sent it out to other people, but you can run your own email server. The former means that you cannot stop others from divulging your email; the latter means you have the most control over whether a large corporation can hand your end of the email exchange over to law enforcement without proper procedures being followed. You want to keep possession of your email on your own server? Ok, run your own server. You want end-to-end encryption? Ok, run your own server. Seems like the solution you are demanding Google provide to you for free. Why are you not running off to implement it now that we've told you you can, instead of rambling on here?
then you certainly can try to control your email better by using your own email server. Doesn't always work as well as it might. There was a certain H. Clinton who tried that approach...
H. Clinton was perfectly successful in running her own email server, which proves that pretty much anyone can. Where H. Clinton failed was in the content of the email that her server handled, not her personal email. Had her personal server not been used for State Department communications, it would not have become an issue.
They should even be allowed to use "full-service" email systems such as Gmail without sacrificing their Constitutional rights.
If people choose to use a commercial service and agree to the contract, then they should be free to do that. The Constitution doesn't have much to say about Google since Google is not now and never has been a government agency.
Let me say that if there were a better option available, then I would drop Gmail in the proverbial New York minute,
I note your subjective evaluation ("better option"), instead of the objective evaluation of "keeps my email on my server". The "better option" in terms of privacy already exists and you have not chosen it. In fact, you call it "shallow" and "feeble". Therefore, we must assume there is some other criterion that you find more important than "privacy".
and I certainly would not use Gmail for any "subversive" email that would actually do something like unfairly upset #PresidentTweety.
And now you've become just another political troll. Thanks for the entertainment while it lasted. Enjoy ranting about something you could solve for yourself without trying to force a multi-million dollar company to do things your way.
I understand this is your way of having a serious conversation on /. You are pretty entertaining, so please continue.
so one of the many abuses of monopolists
Google does not have a monopoly on email. You are free to choose another service, or run your own. The fact that you do not tells us that this issue is really not that important to you.
The complicated reality is that the victims (AKA customers) are different and have different priorities and would exercise their freedom differently if they were allowed to.
Other than those whose employers demand the use of gmail, and who are paying for these services, gmail users are not customers of google. The customers are the ones who pay for the data that google gleans from their gmail service. So you are wrong in referring to gmail users as "customers". They are "data".
You are also wrong in saying they are not allowed a choice. Nobody holds a gun to someone's head until they use gmail.
Our best hope for REAL improvements in Gmail would be a serious threat from a superior email service.
You are free to start one, if you think you can make a profit from providing free email services to others.
Me? I think freedom is more important than money.
Obviously not. The option of keeping your email (as much as is possible in the real world) on your own servers has existed for decades and still does. It costs more to do that than to use the "free" gmail services, however. Freedom or money, you takes your pick, and demonstrate which is more important when you do.
I would like to encourage deep and thoughtful discussions, even on Slashdot.
Also obviously not. You're ignoring the most basic facts about email while complaining about a free email service, and dismiss as "feeble" any attempts at educating you.
Of course, the fact that you cannot actually have what you want anyway is also "shallow" and "feeble", and you have no reply available to that.
Protesters should just arrest Black Bloc assholes.
"You're a protester, you're under arrest!"
"I'm a vigilante, I'm arresting YOU."
"I protest you arresting me. Therefore I am a vigilante, too."
This would NOT be an issue in this same way if we were allowed to retrain physical possession of our email.
Uhhhh, the entire purpose of email is to send it to other people. Perhaps hundreds of other people. How do you retrain [sic] possession of something you must distribute to others for it to be of any value?
There could be an option to store the email on our own computers.
There is. Get a domain name. Pay for business class internet service. Install an email server. Oila, as much as can be possible, you store your email on your own computer.
As for end-to-end encryption and keeping your email secret, you still have to distribute the decryption key to the recipients, each of whom will now have a copy of your email in their physical possession and not yours.
If the House of so-called Representatives then wanted to read my email,
I doubt that any member of the House is interested in reading your email.
Do you know how much a gallon of prepared tea would have cost in 1980?
No, and it isn't relevant. This specific brand wasn't on the market in 1980. When it appeared, it sold for $1.49. Now it sells for more than $2. In a period of about two months. Prices aren't going down, son.
I spend a lot of time thinking about global warming when I notice the temperature getting hotter between September and February.
I'm sure you do. Except where I live we've been having freezing rain and massive snow storms that we normally never saw. So I spend a lot of time thinking about global climate change and why it isn't called global warming anymore.
if you like Fascism.
Neogodwin.
You _can_ teach critical thinking.
Critical thinking is not synonymous with a degree in the humanities.
Well, what sort of numbskulls put a Fascist in charge? The kind that can't think critically.
What sort of numbskulls resort to labels instead of rational arguments for or against someone they hate?
This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you're seeing a relentless assault on the humanities.
What kind of numbskull sees a comment that says that humanities degrees don't prepare anyone for a well-paying job in an increasingly technological society and resorts to crying about a "relentless assault on the humanities"?
I'm sorry, but a degree in the humanities is not a great equalizer between rich and poor, and what kind of numbskull tries to turn that into class warfare? Saying that a degree in Pan-African Social Systems isn't a pathway into a high-paying job isn't an attempt by "the man" to keep "them people" down where they belong. Painting this discussion it those terms is just stupid, and shows a serious lack of critical thinking itself.
That mean increasing interest in these areas of study. One vastly untapped area for this would be women going into STEM.
Amen. I know for sure that if there had been more cute chicks in my STEM classes there would have been a lot more guys in those classes who would eventually become engineers, scientists, etc. You know, come for the "stems", stick around for the STEM!
Maybe there ought to be a program in STEM education that mirrors what car companies do at auto shows. They put bikini-clad babes in, on, and around the cars to attract the attention of the people who might actually know how to drive and want to buy cars.
One of the ads one of the insane people came up with in "Crazy People" was "buy this car and have sex with this woman." (Also: "Volvos: boxy but nice".) Can you imaging the glut of STEM graduates if colleges developed a "get an A in a STEM class and get a free night at the Mustang Ranch!".
I didn't list a salary anywhere and still had no applicants from the US.
Maybe because people in the US know what "NIH" means and knew it would be a bad job at low pay?
Also, we hire research assistants en masse at $30k/yr.
"Research assistants" is a catch-all job title for anyone from bottle washers to skilled electronics and computer engineers. At $30k/year, you're talking bottle washer, and the skills necessary for those jobs are minimal and easily learned on the job.
They don't think about why everything is cheap and gets cheaper.
I spend a very tiny portion of my day thinking about why everything is getting cheaper. I do occasionally stop and think about why everything is getting cheaper as I am grocery shopping, when I notice that a gallon of prepared tea has gone down from $1.44 to $2.19 over a period of about two months.
I never said anything about pushing them to the front of the line.
I didn't say you did. I said they were pushing to the front of the line to get into the country before those honest, law abiding immigrant applicants who did the paperwork and got their visas legally. They aren't actually pushing into a line, it's a metaphor. They actually ignore the line of applicants altogether. You want to reward them for this behavior.
No, what I'm saying is that if an employer had access to as many legals with temporary work visas
Illegal immigrants don't have work visas.
If you dried up the illegal jobs by creating a ton of legal employees,
There are already a ton of legal employees. If you "make sure they are paying them market rates" then they'd have the employees they need. We already make sure they pay more than they want to for legal employees, just not "market rate". But they can hire illegals for much less. That's a driving force why they do. If you add on higher employee taxes you only drive more companies to hire illegals because they will save a lot more hiring the illegal off-the-books than anyone they hire on them. You have to understand that "market wage plus employment tax" has to be much more than just "below minimum wage".
The only reason people are here illegally is for the jobs.
That is not true. They are here for two reasons: the money, and a higher standard of living. Jobs are just one means to money, and even the jobless here have a higher standard of living than the places many illegals come from.
If you dried up the illegal jobs by creating a ton of legal employees,
We have a ton of legal employees available and the illegal hiring has not dried up. Therefore your claim is already demonstrably false.
If there are jobs available and no one to do it, why don't we let people come in?
Because they are coming in illegally, pushing to the front of the line of those who obey the law and wait for their visas patiently. And because the assumption that there is no one available to do it is not correct either. The falling unemployment numbers are a measurement failure, ignoring those who have simply stopped looking for work. They are unemployed, they would probably like to work, but they stopped looking.
I think at the same time we need to increase the penalty of hiring illegals and add prison time if someone knowingly does that.
And yet you just said:
Allow companies to hire as many "illegal migrant immigrants" as they want legally
You want penalties and prison time for employers who do something that you want to make legal.
Currently many illegals actually make less than minimum wage because they are paid under the table.
Which will continue since there will be, in your program, a dual incentive for employers to pay under the table because the employee is an illegal migrant worker who he would be sent to prison for employing AND would cost more in payroll taxes if he were paid on the books.
I'm really tired of this thread of thought.
And I'm tired of anecdotal evidence trying to out-argue general results.
A degree in the humanities is not useless.
For most people, yes it is.
I have a BA in English Literature and a master's degree in information science.
I wasn't aware that "information science" was a humanities degree.
I am a very well regarded virtualization and cloud engineer.
Yes, we all know the high-school dropout who started his own billion dollar computer company without a day of college, or those who dropped out of college to start their career and flourished. The exceptions do not make the rule in this case.
A good education is a good education.
Did you learn how to use tautologies in your English Lit classes? A good education can be a good education and not be relevant in any way to the job that one wishes to be employed in.
It also hurts companies that need entry level 50k employees but now need to pay them 100k just because of a minimum wage.
It only hurts those companies who want to import those entry level workers from another country and pay the higher "minimum wage", which means they will be more likely to hire US and help build a better trained workforce through on-the-job training. That's a win for the US.
Allow companies to hire as many "illegal migrant immigrants" as they want legally but make them pay a higher payroll tax. This would make sure that the "illegals" aren't "stealing american jobs"
Increasing the incentive for people to come to the US illegally, and giving companies incentive to hire them, won't mean the illegals are stealing US jobs? Well, I guess, technically you are right. You can't "steal" what is being handed to you on a silver platter.
society promised would get them the good life.
Society didn't make this promise. The high school counselor who gets rated in her job by how many college applications go out made that promise. The colleges, starting with the trade schools like IT Tech make those promises. "Society" is sitting there saying "what kind of job do you think and African Studies major deserves?" And now there's the push for that African Studies major who has about enough skills to sweep the factory floor to be making $15/hr because he deserves it.
So they make it easy (except financially) for people to college.
You've overlooked the student loan program which makes it easy financially for people "to college". It's hard for people to pay it all back based on their liberal arts degrees, but going to college is easy.
but I could have gotten each degree at least a year quicker if it had focused on the major and not required all the extraneous crap.
That was supposed to be the difference between a University and a college. Colleges are closer to trade schools. Universities are supposed to be turning out well rounded citizens.