Today I was reminded of a situation, several actually, where foreign immigrants here in my area have done exceedingly well since coming to America. They all happened to involve Asians or Indians (but it could have been any nationality) who made their fortunes in retail businesses such as convenience stores, grocery stores, liquor stores, home furnishings, women's fashions, etc. They all worked extremely hard, long hours, and saved virtually every cent they made. Being hard working and frugal seems like great virtues, right? But is it really?
What they all seemed to have in common was that they were from countries where poverty was the norm and you either had to work yourself to near exhaustion or you starved. That's the only way they knew how to live. Entire extended families moved here together, pooled their meager cash, and started a business. Mom and dad, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, and spouses worked in shifts keeping their business open sometimes 24-7.
The entire family might have only a couple of vintage cars and live in the same house. They never went out for dinner or enjoyed any recreational activities. It was just work, eat, sleep when you could, then start the process over the next day. The kids would go to school, do their homework, then work their shift at the family business. They were allowed no extracurricular activities. It was a brutal schedule, but it paid off monetarily. Over time they became quite well-to-do.
I've seen this personally when selling homes to them, sitting on college scholarship committees, etc. Understand, this is not to say ALL immigrants live like this. Many quickly adapt the "American lifestyle" (which in retrospect might not have been the wisest thing).
But think of the big picture: How can established businesses here now compete with their extreme work ethic and pay "brother-in-law" wages that almost demand a communal lifestyle? Aren't these the conditions that spawned labor unions a century ago? If everyone is working extreme hours and pinching every penny, would our economy collapse? Will this become more common with our next incoming wave of immigrants? For capitalism to work, enough people have to spend to keep the cycle going.
Where is the fine line between working hard, living modestly, and saving vs enjoying the fruits of your labor, ie: living one family per residence, each adult having a car, enjoying eating out occasionally, taking a vacation, etc? Will we someday find an economic equilibrium (statistics say we may be doing that right now), and if so, how much social upheaval, either locally, regionally, or nationally, will this transition cause our society?
I don't have an answer. It obviously isn't a black or white issue. Your thoughts?
S
A few years ago I had a Realtor bring to me a Vietnamese couple who owned a liquor store in south Dallas, an area where I'm sure almost all transactions are in cash. They had a large down payment, and drove a new Mercedes (the BIG one) and a new Toyota SUV. I later learned the Realtor arranged for them a "no documentation" loan, more commonly called a "liar's loan". That was an apt description as they only claimed to make, jointly, $13,000 a year. Hmmmmm.
Just last week I had an oriental gentleman approach me about building him a new, very expensive home, asking if we could have a contract showing a sales price several hundred thousand dollars less than it actually was, with the balance made up in cash. I refused. I'm sure he was trying to document that his house was worth less than it actually was (to save on property taxes), or was trying to burn off some unreported cash income, or both. Either way he was scamming the system, a system that is now in a deep hole, a system that us honest taxpayers are now being asked to sacrifice for. I also had a man of middle eastern descent (?) recently propose something similar, too. It seems many of our new immigrants are bringing with them from "the Old Country" their casual attitude about paying taxes. Just look at the troubles today in Europe, particularly in Greece and Italy, where tax avoidance is rampant. Believe me, it's not just "over there."
Last Friday the IRS reported that taxpayers here still owed an estimated $385 BILLION from 2006, that's net AFTER the $65 BILLION they collected through audits. (That could amount to as much as $3-4 TRILLION in lost revenue over 10 years!) In fact, they admitted they had a voluntary tax compliance rate of only 83%, and I would imagine its only gotten worse these last several years due to the troubled economy.
So let's review: Our government is a TRILLION dollars a year short of break even, they're cutting back on everything from social services to military spending to paper clips, yet 17% of all taxes owed go uncollected. Considering how much (probable) tax fraud I've seen right here in my own back yard, imagine how much goes on all across the land? We're punishing the good, honest folks who pay their taxes on time by cutting back their services or threatening to cut back their Social Security, Medicare, etc, while the cheats are living the good life. And don't even get me started on the massive tax breaks the rich have bought for themselves. Grrrr!
OUR SYSTEM ISN'T WORKING! No band-aid is going to fix it. We need some extreme, deep changes. And just replacing a figurehead at the top isn't going to make a hill-of-beans difference. The person at the top doesn't control the system; the system controls devours them. Remember these words.
S
