"Free market" v. Cheap Market: The ICE Men Cometh

On Tuesday the ICE men came to town's like Worthington, Minnesota, surrounded the Swift packing plant and hauled away around 250 illegal aliens who will most likely be deported. There's lots of debate about the importance of the "free market" and how we must have it to compete globally. In Thursday's St. Paul Pioneer Press, Ed Lotterman is his column on economics hit the nail on the head about how this "free market" works.

The following paragraph sums up how this "free market" economics works:

"Employers like cheap labor. In a competitive sector like meatpacking, if one company increases its vigilance in hiring, it will be disadvantaged compared to competitors that do not. If effective enforcement applied to all plants, the available labor supply would be smaller and wage rates would rise. Profits of packing companies would not be hurt in the long run, but meat prices to consumers would rise."

It's all about a cheap market of labor. Read Lotterman's entire column.