Re: OT Find Your Candidate

Shirl wrote:
Shirl:
And please don't try to convince me that because
they work so cheap, our economy "needs" them! What a crock.

Dana Carpender <dcarpend@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Maybe, maybe not. Only 23% or so of farm workers are American, so it's a huge majority who are immigrants, mostly from Mexico. The average pay is $10-12K/year, and average working hours are 42 per week, of hard physical labor. 42x52(weeks)=2184 hours per year. 10,000 divided by 2184=$4.58 per hour. 12,000 divided by 2184= $5.49/hour, still below minimum wage.

Twenty-five years ago, day laborers were making approximately $4.00/hr, which was still cheaper than putting someone on the payroll legally, so yes, they were in demand. Used to be that people would stop to hire them and tell them what THEY would pay; today, people stop to hire them and THEY set the price, and with most, it's $12/hr, give or take a dollar or two. No, there are no "benefits," nor should there be; if they want "benefits", they can become citizens and pay taxes like the rest of us (my opinion).

Of course, the vast majority get no benefits, including health care. They work outside, often in harsh weather conditions (consider the inland valleys of California and the deserts of Arizona,) with little or no attention paid to worker safety. Hell, they're lucky if they get enough clean water to drink.

How many Americans do you know who would be willing to do a long, hot day's physical labor five days a week, fifty two weeks a year ('cause it seems unlikely these folks can afford vacation time) for less than minimum wage, in horrible conditions?

If the conditions are so horrible, why do they scramble into the country for those jobs?

Because they have families starving back home. Have you never actually known any illegal aliens? Most of them live on a fraction of what they earn and send money home.

And please tell me how they can afford to show up to those horrible conditions in brand new trucks? How their kids can afford cellphones and iPods, and how can mom afford to stay home and crank out babies at the rate of one per year? Oh yeah...maybe it's partially because they live 12 to 20 in a one- or two-bedroom apartment and they've figured out how to work the American system so that they pay nothing for health care and get public assistance for food, beer, boom boxes, etc.

There is *no question* that getting rid of illegals would *change* the American economy. If we assume that we could find people to do this work for minimum wage -- a big "if" -- it would increase the cost *per worker* by $2000-$4000 per year. Insist that they all get at least minimal health insurance through their jobs -- after all, we're talking full-time jobs here -- we're talking, what, at *least* another $10,000 per year per worker? Very likely more than that. That's more than doubling labor costs for the agricultural industry.

Yeah... how in the world did the agricultural industry ever manage to make any money before the massive invasion of poor immigrants who are FORCED to work in such horrible conditions for so little money? Puhleeze.

Are you kidding me? Are you that ignorant of recent history? People didn't have lettuce in the winter, that's how. Or peaches or strawberries or green peppers or cucumbers or any out of season produce at all. There *wasn't* much of an agricultural industry; people had home gardens if they wanted produce.


If you think you wouldn't pay more for produce with numbers like that, you're delusional.

And if you think cutting off all the services to people who (a) pay NOTHING in, and (b) have managed to figure out how to USE and screw American systems wouldn't make a big difference, you're delusional, too.

So produce may cost more. But how much in tax dollars paid by equally hard-working American citizens would we NOT be spending in health care, "public assistance" and other programs for people who contribute NOTHING? It's HARDLY an even exchange.

I don't know that, and I suspect you don't either. I looked up hard numbers; care to do the same?


If, as I suspect, it would take more than minimum wage to get enough Americans to do stoop labor to keep farm production at current levels, you're going to be paying even more.

Again, how in the world did the farm industry manage to produce and market enough food BEFORE it became so completely dependent (according to you) on immigrants?

There wasn't much of one. Certainly there wasn't an industry shipping tomato sauce and apple juice and thousands of other agricultural products all over the country. That's a fairly recent development, historically speaking.

People grew grain for market, and raised cattle, and there were dairy farms. But produced being shipped from California all over the country all year long? That happened in the twentieth century, and it's always involved "braseros."


That's just one industry, but it's a vital one. Restaurant meals would also go way up, if restaurants started paying enough for bus boys, cleaning crew, and dishwashers to attract American workers, but eating out is a luxury.

Again, WHO did those jobs BEFORE the invasion of illegal immigrants? People in high school and college often worked for minimum wage or a little above as waiters/waitresses, cashiers, bus boys, cleaning crews and dishwashers. Now our young people have it in their minds that those jobs are "done by Mexicans" and therefore are beneath them. Many of our young kids don't have much of a work ethic anymore.

Not the Mexicans' fault. But I'd also point out that restaurants, as an industry, have grown *dramatically* in the past fifty years or so. We could go back to people eating at home, would be fine with me. We rarely eat out anyway. But again, it'll cause a big shift in the economy.


The invasion has changed a lot, and certainly not all of it has been for the better. CITIZENS who worked hard all their lives to finally buy a home have had property values decline dramatically in areas that have been literally TAKEN OVER. Do you think they'll EVER be able to sell those homes, with the way those neighborhoods look now, for as much or more than what they paid? Cities that were once beautiful now look like slums.

*That* is a matter for city code enforcement and law enforcement. Do you go to city council meetings? Get involved in local politics?

How do you teach your kids to respect other cultures when they
see these people throwing beer bottles on your property, leaving dirty diapers on your front lawn, defecating in your flower beds and urinating on the car parked in your driveway? How do you tell someone who doesn't speak English that bringing a shopping bag and stripping the fruit trees in YOUR front yard is STEALING? Do you think the police care? Does anybody care?

I don't know. Are you working to make them care? Have you worked for local candidates who support code and law enforcement? I'm pretty sure illegal aliens still can't vote.

I might add that my old neighborhood in Chicago took a *huge* turn for the worse, not when illegal aliens came in, but when we were taken over by all-American white trash. Who would stand out on the sidewalk getting drunk and letting little kids run wild till midnight, and talking trash about "the spics."

Dana
.

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