U.S. businesses accept pesos. Immigration hawks go nuts.

[BCPVP]

[ QUOTE ]
First of all if the business can arbitrage the exchange rate for Mexican pesos vs. U.S. pesos then they can make some extra profit. I'm positive that's what they're doing. Go to your local bank that will do currency exchanges and convert some U.S. pesos to Mexican pesos. Then get a quote on the exchange rate from U.S. pesos to Mexican pesos and see how bad a deal you got at the bank. I'm sure that business is giving an exchange rate that's worse than at the bank.

[/ QUOTE ]
From the link:
"In fact, customers are getting ever so slightly charged for the use of pesos, since the company set their conversion rate slight higher than the official exchange of 11 pesos per dollar."

[John Kilduff]

[ QUOTE ]
Linky

The neo-cons can't stand the fact that illegal immigrants take money and jobs from the US. Now some evil greedy corporations are making it as easy as possible for people to take money out of the Mexican economy and put it into the US economy. Naturally the neo-cons are... even more upset.

THERRR TAKIN ARRR JERRRRRBBBBSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

The peso part of this should be a non-issue, in my opinion. Exchage rates are exchange rates, and banks or businesses will convert currency: no big deal about that.

The Neo-Cons are not against immigration, and apparently, are not even against illegal immigration (witness Bush's recently failed "Read my lips: it's not an Amnesty!" bill). Chertoff, too, has managed to have completed construction of perhaps a dozen miles of the many hundreds of miles of fence he was charged with constructing. The argument of Bush and Chertoff seems to be that illegal immigration can't be ended unless illegal immigration is made legal.

Most of the American public is against illegal immigration, and would also like to see stricter controls on legal immigration- but the Neo-Cons aren't in either camp. Neo-Cons aren't generally known for heeding what the American people want, but are rather known for charging ahead with their own visionary dreams and utopian schemes (a la Iraq, where they are trying to make Middle Eastern Muslims into Demopublicans like themselves). The Neo-Cons generally don't care to hear or heed the voice of the American people, and they don't believe it when Middle Easterners tell them what they want. Neo-Cons just know.

There exist many rational reasons for concern over illegal immigration and for concern over total legal immigration levels, but the fact that many pesos are being accepted and exchanged, isn't among those reasons.

The sooner the Neo-Cons are out of the government, the better, and I don't much care at this point if they are replaced by Democrats or Republicans. In my view, the Neo-Cons have done more to harm America than have multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrat. Some of that harm is already apparent, but much more will manifest given time.

The peso issue is indeed symbolic, but it's such a non-issue, that those who are leery of unbridled immigration would do better to focus on things that actually matter. Making a big issue out of pesos just makes anti-immigration forces look silly, and if they really think that lots of pesos being exchanged is a great negative, then they probably are silly. Bigger negatives, IMO, are increased crime rates, lack of assimilation, and lack of shared cultural values/lack of shared belief in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights (although tragically, many lawyers and politicians today seem to be guilty of that as well. Americans who fail in that department actually have less excuse than foreigners, who cannot be expected to simply and suddenly believe in things they didn't grow up around).

The future of America is not looking particularly bright to me at this moment. The Neo-Cons have exploded the federal budget, gotten us into grave trouble overseas, allowed terrorists to escape Afghanistan and to roam freely in Pakistan, attempted a monstrously expensive failing experiment in Iraq, greatly increased social spending at home yet produced scant benefit, failed at controlling immigration, have managed to turn much more world opinion against the U.S., and have generally bolloxed up nearly everything that could be bolloxed with one exception: they may have succeeded at having prevented more actual terror attacks on U.S. soil. Due to Neo-Con policy, though, airlines search everyone equally in defiance of common sense. Due to Neo-Con policy, too, our basic rights have been eroded.

Hopefully the next Administration will have more common sense, and more respect for the Constitution, but I won't be holding my breath for either.

Thanks for reading.

[GoodCallYouWin]

The only problem with immigration is the welfare state.

[Brainwalter]

[ QUOTE ]
The only problem with immigration is the welfare state.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT. And it's a secondary problem of the welfare state: you have to start greatly limiting the number of immigrants.

[John Kilduff]

[ QUOTE ]
The only problem with immigration is the welfare state.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd agree that that's a lot of it, though I wouldn't go so far as to say it's the "only" problem.