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Well, if immigration is open than we wouldn't have to hire illegal aliens because there would be any, and with everyone being paid minimum wage obviously it'd be a more balance labor market.
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Most illegals who've entered the USA in the past 10 years did so legally; they get work visas and simply overstay because we've no effective means of policing the interior in regards to this matter.
Further, we're already around 9% unemployment (officially) - which does not take into account those who've given up looking for employment and those who are underemployed. Along with these groups, the employed who have minimal skills would be harmed by open immigration.
Why? Because there'd be more people with low skill levels competing for the same number of jobs. This would depress wages which are marginally above the minimum wage & make getting an entry level job harder. This would a disproportionately negative impact on minority (especially NAM) communities, as they tend to be the least educated.
Unless you're taking the long view of trickle down economics, the immediate benefits of this would be felt by (A) those who own businesses making use of such low skill sets & (B) those who can afford domestic help (etc.), such as having someone else clean your house or watch your kid.
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Immigration fills in for the people who aren't willing to work in the country they're accepted into while also generating more production from a higher workforce of workers skilled in areas that might not necessarily be readily available in a home population.
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Current immigration statutes in the USA are very loose in regards to skilled labor. The fact of the matter is that an "open door" immigration policy may result in more skilled labor, but the majority of the influx of labor would be low to unskilled, with results detailed above.
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Not to mention the fact that it's an incredibly humanitarian policy, allowing people to find asylum instead of making them die in whatever storm of suffering is sweeping over their country.
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1) Mass emigration of skilled labor is hardly beneficial to 3rd world countries.
2) A nation's first priority is it's citizens. We should not be the global police nor the global wellfare agency.
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Anyway - I have heard a lot about the going back to the gold standard nonsense. To me, that makes less than no sense - gold is not nearly as important a commodity now as it was even 50 years ago.
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Eh? When we had the gold standard it was set at $20.67/ounce. In 1950 gold was at $40/ounce. In 2010 it's $1,410/ounce.
Gold Prices Link. Contrast this with crude oil, which is worth a bit under $100 per BBL, each BBL being 42 gallons.
Oil Price Link
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We do take a **** ton of oil from the middle east and whatnot, but we still have Alaska mainly untapped. That's the one thing America REALLY has that it's not tapping into. If oil was more heavily controlled, America would have a much stronger economy. I firmly believe this.
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America's total proven reserves are roughly 21 billion bbls
LINK... contrast this with Venezuela, which has 297 billion bbls
LINK...
Anyways, if you want to have a discussion regards oil reserves within the USA, are largest quantities are in the form of unconventional oil (
link) - and have a whole host of problems regarding extraction & processing.
This means, for the USA to have a petroleum backed dollar, we'd most likely have to import oil just to back our own currency.
Further, I must ask: how would the USA, which currently has the dollar as the international reserve currency, benefit from having the value of the dollar increase? How would that have a positive impact on our already massive trade deficits?