The first rule of Fight Club...
All right, immigration redux. I have been listening, reading, and watching the fiasco that is the illegal immigration debate, and I have to point this out; every time an immigrant activist says that their cheap labor keeps the price of produce down, my brain screams "bullshit" at... well, I geuss my brain.
Yes, it is true that if farm workers were to be paid more, the cost of bringing crops to market would increase. However, if it goes too high, either people cannot afford, or will not pay for the crops.
Farm owners like money as much as the next person. If labor is too expensive, mechanization will be pursued. Don't tell me that some crops cannot be efficently harvested mechanically. We, as a species, have gone to the moon. Don't tell me we can't figure out how to build an efficient orange harvester.
Any ways, if you ever get into an argument with an undocumented worker, and he or she mentions crop prices, just say two words; "Apollo 11".
Discordant thought; Emma Thompson to Helena Bonham Carter... what goes on in Kenneth Branagh's head?
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Helena Bonham Carter
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4 comments:
sure, they could invent an orange picking robot.
But it would be only a matter of time before the robot developed AI, started killing people, and began looking for Sarah Connor.
DO YOU WANT THAT ON YOUR CONSCIENCE? HUH? DO YOU???
I thought not.
You know, I used to work on a farm. I picked corn and watermelons, then I sold them by the side of the road in a bikini.
Do you know why farm families have a lot of kids? CHEAP LABOR. I'm serious! If they don't pop 'em out, they use the neighbors' kids. Where I grew up, manual harvesting was a great after-school/summer/seasonal job. You worked under the table, you got paid a few bucks an hour (or in my case, a percentage of what I sold waving down cars, half-naked), you got to spend all day outside, it was exercise, it was GREAT! Much better than working at the Golden Arches, and more satisfying than just collecting an allowance.
Maybe orange growers should take a peek at Grafton, Ohio, and see how we roll. We never had a problem finding labor, and there were some damn rich farm families out there.
We sort of do the same thing...we're in "tobacco city," meaning there's been lots of tobacco farming. The farmers hire kids who will work for $5-$7 an hour (cash). BUT, some also hire illegals (Mexicans for the most part).
Here, though, the illegals also work in carpentry and painting a lot. And don't tell me they're charging less than someone who's not hiring illegals. I'm not buying that.
Kenneth Branagh's only thoughts should be of me.
Huh.
Oh, hi.
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