HOBB Community

I saw some of the comments from NAHB, and others, about the need for illegals in the building industry. Many industries have become dependant on the cheap illegal laborers. A repetitive phrase from NAHB was “buyers will ultimately pay” if something is done about the situation. So we don’t follow or enforce federal and state laws if it’s economically difficult on industries to do so? What is sickeningly interesting about some of the stories about the need for illegals is some of the issues closely parallel those that were brought up when the idea to abolish slavery was being considered as law.

It was believed by the South in the 1860s, who held an estimated four millions slaves, that the agriculture industry could not survive without slaves. Here in my disastrous home, (construction defects) just a mile from Richmond VA city limits, the public once overwhelming found slavery to be immoral, but the handful of wealthy business owners who pulled the strings of state government disregarded the public will, and rejected a law to abolish slavery solely to serve their pocket books. This greed based morality lead to a war that killed more Americans than all the foreign wars combined thereafter.

While this is still a different issue, one theme stands out in NAHB rhetoric that has encouraged over eleven million illegals to come here. It’s A-morale rationalization, really no different than those who considered slaves as nothing more than property, and their fate a purely economic issue. It’s a reoccurring theme in home building. It amounts to “you make us operate within the law, you’ll pay.” But that is what’s happening to homebuyers anyway, in the tracts. 

The cost of new homes has put record profits into the accounts of CEOs and major shareholders, who time and again credited record profits to the ability to raise prices well above the increasing costs of labor and materials (based on NVR inc. reports). Homebuilders don’t base home sales price on what it costs them to build, it’s what people are willing or able to pay. When companies talk about rising costs hurting the consumer, they are really often talking about billions in profit being reduced.

A seemingly acceptable alternative to paying a wage that would attract and keep skilled workers in homebuilding has been to tolerate a high level (hundreds of thousands of new homes) of shoddy construction, in part due to unskilled labor. Thus far it has been more cost effective for builders to target and restrict homebuyers consumer rights, when faced with the consequences of shoddy work produced from builders who cut costs at every possible corner.

What are the limits to an industry that will openly state that they need to continue to violate the law to maintain profit? HOBB members can often tell you first hand the awful side effects of A-morale business mentality manipulating morale and social issues. Rephrased, they (NAHB and other business interests) warn us that if they must operate within U.S. laws, Americans will pay. They said the same thing about slaves about 150 years ago. And as then, it isn’t really that people won’t work unless they’re put into slavery. The issue then as now, was born out of a fear of the financial consequences if business interests had to treat workers as human beings with rights. If that hurts the building industry, then so be it.

If we want to help the eleven million and growing illegals in the US have a better life, then legal Americans can choose to do so. Today it’s the handful of Americans who wish to exploit them for profit that are making the choice illegally. To me, the NAHB comments on the dependency of illegals to the US economy is scarcely different from the rhetoric slave owners once spewed to justify and hold their position. Unfortunately, one difficult truth remains on either side of the argument about how to deal with the illegal situation. We can do the right thing or nothing, but either way some painful consequences are now inevitable. But the last people we should listen to are people like the NAHB. These are the very people who created this massive problem, and it would seem naïve to believe they care about Americans or illegals in any of their reasonings or solutions.   
 
rrjackson4(@)keepernsol.com
owner: www.ryanhomesnightmare.com (http://www.ryanhomesnightmare.com)

OUTSTANDING MR. JACKSON!
Thank you for that exceptional historical analogy of exploitation and its long lasting consequences.
As I’ve said before; NAHB and its members had a plan for greater profits, build homes bigger, more grandiose, with the cheapest disposable materials, cheapest unskilled labor and limit all liability and profits will be greater.  It is a success story of historical proportions. Builders have no incentive to build homes right the first time when they have successfully limited their liability and are not held accountable whether it be legal or immoral.

Great comparison rrjackson, I agree.  It is spin and too many people fall for it.  I was reading an article last week on affordable housing and the builder was being bragged up in the press for providing these homes.  Each home had expensive cosmetic materials like countertops, flooring, etc, but I bet not one of them was WELL BUILT.  I have seen  how builders build in several states now, and it's what's under the "skin" that counts.  That's where the problems lie.  Dress it up with fancy countertop material and it's still a defective house.  But the spin on providing cheap housing is that it's "charitable."  I wonder how blessed those homeowners will feel when they're sick from mold because the darn house leaks?