Farmer on NPR said he couldn't find an American who would pick fruit...

[Picaro]

We are actually importing Mexicans to do the work that black people used to do. Stupid.

Reagan's pet wetbacks and the lack of enforcement has driven many black contractors out of the construction business, as well as honest contractors and employers. There are American citizens having to pretend to be 'illegal aliens' to get jobs through these 'staffing agencies' now. It's ridiculous.

 

[Conservative65]

I can find him plenty that would offered the chance to do it and solve the illegal problem at the same time. Send the criminals packing and offer those jobs to those who say they can't find one and/or who rely on social welfare to live. If they refuse, ANY and ALL handouts they are getting immediately go away.

 

[xotoxi]

Why do you assume that someone who can't speak English is lazy?

Maybe they aren't very intelligent and can barely speak their own language.

If that's the case, WTF would we want them here?

It's not our choice to WANT someone here.

If they are here legally, they can be here and speak whatever language they want.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

PBS is trotting out their annual crops-rotting-in-the-fields scare stories. It's fake news. There is no such thing as a "labor shortage". It's like saying there aren't enough Americans. We have enough people to run a country. In fact, we became the richest people on the planet when we had a third as many people living here.

But Congressman Luis Gutierrez says the entire economy would collapse if we didn't have 30 million illegals here milking our cows and mowing our lawns for us.

If the rapture occurred tomorrow, and it turns out only illegals go to Heaven, the next time you bought milk at the supermarket, you probably wouldn't even notice you'd been left behind.

According to a long and seemingly meticulous article I found at Progressive Dairy, and taking into account milk prices are very low "as the dollar has gotten stronger against other currencies, China has reduced its imports of American milk products, and Russia stopped importing American milk products as a result of the tensions surrounding the conflict in the Ukraine" the average price consumers were paying when they wrote the article per gallon of milk was 3.40 of which producers received 1.53. In terms of hundredweight, the numbers were 39.40 cwt and 17.85 cwt, respectively.
How much does the farmer get when a consumer buys milk? - Progressive Dairyman

And a chart I found at the University of Maryland's agbiz site listing the expenses a dairy farm can expect in terms of hundredweight includes three labor-related costs:

• custom hire (whatever that is, wink) .35 cwt
• employee benefits .05 cwt
• labor .90 cwt

for a total of 1.30 cwt for the labor on the dairy farm, or 3 percent of the amount the consumer pays in the store for a gallon of milk

https://www.arec.umd.edu/sites/arec.umd.edu/files/_docs/Milk Production Costs.pdf

.

Thank you for the link. "Custom hire" is things like hauling the milk or hiring someone to harvest your hay if you grow your own. Things like that.

And, as I said previously, milk is not a labor intensive operation. One of the dairy farms I visited this past June has 250 milk cows and employes two people other than the owner and his wife.

Here is a good link that deals with more labor intensive crops...USDA ERS - Labor-Intensive U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Industry Competes in a Global Market

 

[Harpy Eagle]

Goddam, leftists can be thick. Listen carefully: There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. A. Labor. Shortage.

To say there is a labor shortage is the same thing as saying we don't have enough Americans to do all the things that need to be done in America. I trust you can see how manifestly stupid that it.

You have such a childlike view of the world. It is not about if there are "enough Americans" it is about if there are enough people with the right skills in the right location. Sheer numbers mean nothing

 

[Aldo Raine]

Kick out all the Mexicans and South Americans and the market for Americans to take the job opens up.

Illegals are depressing the job market.

That's the reason businesses want them here, and now they may get a yuge tax cut as well!
MAGA!

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Why do you assume that someone who can't speak English is lazy?

Maybe they aren't very intelligent and can barely speak their own language.

If that's the case, WTF would we want them here?

It's not our choice to WANT someone here.

If they are here legally, they can be here and speak whatever language they want.

Yep, and that's one of the problems.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

There is no subject on which more people are stupider than on economics.

This farmer cannot find Americans to work for a price he can afford to pay and stay in business.​

So if farmers had to hire Americans and the price of milk went from $3.40 to $3.89 per gallon to cover the increase in wages, the farmers would go out of business? All the dairies would shut down and America would be a country without milk for our cereal? Is that what you think?

​

​

You keep harping on milk, one of the least labor intensive agricultural products. Why not make this same calculations for lettuce or strawberries or grapes.

 

[xotoxi]

There is no subject on which more people are stupider than on economics.

This farmer cannot find Americans to work for a price he can afford to pay and stay in business.​

So if farmers had to hire Americans and the price of milk went from $3.40 to $3.89 per gallon to cover the increase in wages, the farmers would go out of business? All the dairies would shut down and America would be a country without milk for our cereal? Is that what you think?

​

​

You keep harping on milk, one of the least labor intensive agricultural products. Why not make this same calculations for lettuce or strawberries or grapes.

Good point. I never really thought the immigrants were hired to milk cows.

Around here, there are a lot of Jamaican migrant workers pickin' apples.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

But like I said, GW tried to do just that and it was a complete disaster:

International response[edit]
The tariffs ignited international controversy as well. Immediately after they were filed, the European Union announced that it would impose retaliatory tariffs on the United States, thus risking the start of a major trade war. To decide whether or not the steel tariffs were fair, a case was filed at the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Switzerland, Brazil and others joined with similar cases.

On November 11, 2003, the WTO came out against the steel tariffs, saying that they had not been imposed during a period of import surge—steel imports had actually dropped a bit during 2001 and 2002—and that the tariffs therefore were a violation of America's WTO tariff-rate commitments. The ruling authorized more than $2 billion in sanctions, the largest penalty ever imposed by the WTO against a member state, if the United States did not quickly remove the tariffs.[2] After receiving the verdict, Bush declared that he would preserve the tariffs.[3] In retaliation, the European Union threatened to counter with tariffs of its own on products ranging from Florida oranges to cars produced in Michigan, with each tariff calculated to likewise hurt the President in a key marginal state. The United States backed down and withdrew the tariffs on December 4.[4]

2002 United States steel tariff - Wikipedia

That's just dirty.

Maybe, but it's also reality. It's a philosophy that liberals hate the most called Action/ Reaction.

If you and I decided to meet at a bar one night, and I extend my hand to shake yours, you will respond accordingly in most cases. This is action/ reaction. A positive action usually results in a positive reaction.

But if we met and I pushed you into the wall instead, it's likely you'll push me back even harder. A negative action which caused a negative reaction.

It's just nature is all. But the reason liberals hate it is because they try to convince their followers that if they take a negative action, it will cause a positive reaction. Most of their followers believe them too in spite of it's failed history.

GW did try to do good for America. He tried to make a positive action in the US, but knew it would be a negative action with our trading partners. All is fair in love and war I guess.

The reality is we can't compete with countries who don't care about their slaves./citizens who pay them barely enough to survive unless we become like them. Or we stop importing from them.

That's true, but ask yourself: is that political policy or in the hands of regular Americans?

If you ask me, I say it's the American consumer that caused a lot of our problems. When we shop, we shop to save the most money that we can while being able to obtain the products we really want. We don't care where our products are made, how much automation they use, how much they pay their workers. Just get me my products as cheaply as possible. It's why Walmart is number one and has been for many years.

Until our attitude about buying goods changes, no American policy can have any real impact. If I have to pay three or four bucks for a head of lettuce that was produced and processed by Americans only, I'm willing to spend the money. But unfortunately, I'm not like most American consumers.

I have problems with the opposite side of the coin as well. I was/am pissed that unions have driven the cost of buying a car to rates I cannot afford because they need to afford to pay a moron $25 - $50 an hour to stand on an assembly line and tighten bolts for a living. So I'm also against unions.

I'm for a fare wage. If someone works for a living they should be able to live decently on those wages. Not extravagantly but decent. And for those who can't go to college because of money or iq they don't deserve to be treated as less than human. Living wages for them too. College should get you better than living wages not just living wages.

People don't start companies and create jobs as a social obligation, people open up and maintain companies to produce products or services for profit...... that's it. Your labor is only worth as much as your employer can pay another person to do the same quality of job. They are not obligated to make sure you or anybody else makes a living wage (whatever that is).

College is one option, but trade school is a better one. If you choose a field where workers are in high demand, you can make a decent living and easily be able to repay your loans. But the problem with trade schools is that most trades require physical work; a no-no for many millennials today.

So you and I both decide to open up a widget company. In my company, I pay as little as I can for labor while at the same time, be able to find workers. In your company, you believe in a living wage, so you overpay your workers.

In the end, I end up taking away your customers and you eventually have to close up. Why? Because I can produce widgets cheaper than you can, and as I stated, consumers respond to lower prices. Nobody wants your widgets for $7.00 each if they can buy mine for $4.50 each.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

There is no subject on which more people are stupider than on economics.

This farmer cannot find Americans to work for a price he can afford to pay and stay in business.​

So if farmers had to hire Americans and the price of milk went from $3.40 to $3.89 per gallon to cover the increase in wages, the farmers would go out of business? All the dairies would shut down and America would be a country without milk for our cereal? Is that what you think?

​

​

You keep harping on milk, one of the least labor intensive agricultural products. Why not make this same calculations for lettuce or strawberries or grapes.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

There is no subject on which more people are stupider than on economics.

This farmer cannot find Americans to work for a price he can afford to pay and stay in business.​

So if farmers had to hire Americans and the price of milk went from $3.40 to $3.89 per gallon to cover the increase in wages, the farmers would go out of business? All the dairies would shut down and America would be a country without milk for our cereal? Is that what you think?

​

​

You keep harping on milk, one of the least labor intensive agricultural products. Why not make this same calculations for lettuce or strawberries or grapes.

Thanks for proving my point for me! Even with the robot picker there are still a dozen people doing the packing, which way more than it takes to run a dairy farm

 

[cnelsen]

You idiots destabilized Mexican agricultural communities and now you don't like the repercussions

Who, exactly, "destabilized" Mexican "agricultural communities"?

Anyone that supported free market capitalism. Primarily conservatives and neo-liberals..

The biggest economic hit on rural Mexico was NAFTA, and the biggest cultural hit has been mass illegal immigration to the US. The villain is globalism, nationalism is the cure.

Yes, of course I'm talking about NAFTA. NAFTA devastated Mexico's agrarian communities.

And yes I know Clinton signed it into law. But it was years in the making and the outcome was telegraphed from the outset, Reagan laid out the vision and the rubes swallowed his shit and begged for more. Reagan and Bush Sr. did the heavy lifting, Clinton was there in time to get the accolades.

Globalism was sold to the rubes as free market capitalism. Government is the problem they said. We have to allow our corporations to compete globally they said. And the rubes begged for it. Now they wallow in their own stupidity and look for a savior to reverse course. Only their ignorance has led them to the greatest con man we have seen thus far. Trump is not a nationalist, he is an opportunist and a megalomaniac.

I'm not sure who you mean by "rubes", but the free trade true believers are found along K St and in a sprinkling of libertarians around the country. Free trade has never been a "one-issue-voter's kind of issue". In other words, it isn't so much that the "rubes" swallowed anything, but, rather, they weren't asked.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

There is no subject on which more people are stupider than on economics.

This farmer cannot find Americans to work for a price he can afford to pay and stay in business.​

So if farmers had to hire Americans and the price of milk went from $3.40 to $3.89 per gallon to cover the increase in wages, the farmers would go out of business? All the dairies would shut down and America would be a country without milk for our cereal? Is that what you think?

​

​

You keep harping on milk, one of the least labor intensive agricultural products. Why not make this same calculations for lettuce or strawberries or grapes.

Thanks for proving my point for me! Even with the robot picker there are still a dozen people doing the packing, which way more than it takes to run a dairy farm

Oh yes, it does. But I posted the video to show that automation is the future of agriculture and not foreigners or illegals. The people sorting through the leaves are not doing any grueling work. It's a job I think many Americans could handle. It's really not much different than people who work in factories inspecting parts for a living. They simply sort through the product, put the good product in one bin and defects in another. I did the same kind of job when I worked for a temp agency when I was very young. It was at a peanut plant where the nuts would pass by on a vibrating conveyor belt, and I took the burnt or severely broken nuts and threw them in the waste basket. It was one of the easiest jobs the agency sent me on.

 

[cnelsen]

PBS is trotting out their annual crops-rotting-in-the-fields scare stories. It's fake news. There is no such thing as a "labor shortage". It's like saying there aren't enough Americans. We have enough people to run a country. In fact, we became the richest people on the planet when we had a third as many people living here.

But Congressman Luis Gutierrez says the entire economy would collapse if we didn't have 30 million illegals here milking our cows and mowing our lawns for us.

If the rapture occurred tomorrow, and it turns out only illegals go to Heaven, the next time you bought milk at the supermarket, you probably wouldn't even notice you'd been left behind.

According to a long and seemingly meticulous article I found at Progressive Dairy, and taking into account milk prices are very low "as the dollar has gotten stronger against other currencies, China has reduced its imports of American milk products, and Russia stopped importing American milk products as a result of the tensions surrounding the conflict in the Ukraine" the average price consumers were paying when they wrote the article per gallon of milk was 3.40 of which producers received 1.53. In terms of hundredweight, the numbers were 39.40 cwt and 17.85 cwt, respectively.
How much does the farmer get when a consumer buys milk? - Progressive Dairyman

And a chart I found at the University of Maryland's agbiz site listing the expenses a dairy farm can expect in terms of hundredweight includes three labor-related costs:

• custom hire (whatever that is, wink) .35 cwt
• employee benefits .05 cwt
• labor .90 cwt

for a total of 1.30 cwt for the labor on the dairy farm, or 3 percent of the amount the consumer pays in the store for a gallon of milk

https://www.arec.umd.edu/sites/arec.umd.edu/files/_docs/Milk Production Costs.pdf

.

Thank you for the link. "Custom hire" is things like hauling the milk or hiring someone to harvest your hay if you grow your own. Things like that.

And, as I said previously, milk is not a labor intensive operation. One of the dairy farms I visited this past June has 250 milk cows and employes two people other than the owner and his wife.

Here is a good link that deals with more labor intensive crops...USDA ERS - Labor-Intensive U.S. Fruit and Vegetable Industry Competes in a Global Market

It is unbelievable that that is put out by the USDA. This quote alone:

The most recent data from ERS indicate that labor accounted for 42 percent of the variable production expenses for U.S. fruit and vegetable farms, although labor’s share varied significantly depending on the characteristics of the commodity and whether the harvest was mechanized.
​

In the first place, labor doesn't account for 42 percent of the retail consumer cost, it's 42 percent of the "variable production expenses". So that probably doesn't include cost of machinery, cost of storage, cost of transportation, taxes, the farmer's profit, etc. It is likely only the labor, seed, irrigation, fertilizer, and, possibly, tillage, so, yeah, it could be 42 percent, that STILL is a negligible part of what you pay in the store for a box of strawberries.

Moreover, cheap labor disincentivizes mechanization, and it feeds the urban illegal population. But the whole argument is beside the point anyway. If ALL farmers had to pay Americans American wages (or teenagers--remember that?), then they would still all be on a level playing field and it would be a wash.

 

[Cellblock2429]

How about 15 per hour plus partial benefits.....that's a start. No American should do that job for any less.

That is a very high number, enough to kill many millions of jobs.

Then let the jobs be killed.

Time to put your theory to the test.

Consider it a "Market Correction".

I can't afford fifteen bucks for a loaf of bread. No more GOP "experiments". Iraq, The Bush Tax cuts for the rich, defunding education, derivatives, cutting healthcare, and all the other GOP "experiments" are more than this country can bear.

/----/ Everything you posted is horseshit. But we understand that's all you have

 

[cnelsen]

Goddam, leftists can be thick. Listen carefully: There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. A. Labor. Shortage.

To say there is a labor shortage is the same thing as saying we don't have enough Americans to do all the things that need to be done in America. I trust you can see how manifestly stupid that it.

You have such a childlike view of the world. It is not about if there are "enough Americans" it is about if there are enough people with the right skills in the right location. Sheer numbers mean nothing

If you believe in "labor shortages" you are the one with a child-like view of economics. In a market economy, the wage mechanism provides the right labor, with the right skills, at the right location. Between 1925 and 1965 we had 40 years with virtually no immigration, legal or illegal. Do you think we didn't have strawberries? We didn't get our lawns mowed?

 

[cnelsen]

There is no subject on which more people are stupider than on economics.

This farmer cannot find Americans to work for a price he can afford to pay and stay in business.​

So if farmers had to hire Americans and the price of milk went from $3.40 to $3.89 per gallon to cover the increase in wages, the farmers would go out of business? All the dairies would shut down and America would be a country without milk for our cereal? Is that what you think?

​

​

You keep harping on milk, one of the least labor intensive agricultural products. Why not make this same calculations for lettuce or strawberries or grapes.

For lettuce, the field labor represents about a nickel per head. We could pay field hands $40 per hour and the price would rise on a head in the store by 20 cents. I've never calculated strawberries, but there is no reason to believe it would be any different, and if it were, then we would do like Japan does. Build machines to pick strawberries. Do you think it is impossible to get a strawberry in Japan?

 

[cnelsen]

There is no subject on which more people are stupider than on economics.

This farmer cannot find Americans to work for a price he can afford to pay and stay in business.​

So if farmers had to hire Americans and the price of milk went from $3.40 to $3.89 per gallon to cover the increase in wages, the farmers would go out of business? All the dairies would shut down and America would be a country without milk for our cereal? Is that what you think?

​

​

You keep harping on milk, one of the least labor intensive agricultural products. Why not make this same calculations for lettuce or strawberries or grapes.

Good point. I never really thought the immigrants were hired to milk cows.

Around here, there are a lot of Jamaican migrant workers pickin' apples.

Dumb point. Japan has almost no immigration and exports delicious apples. Maybe it's magic? Damn people are fucking stupid when it comes to economics.

 

[leftwinger]

I remember watching a show months ago where they were talking about immigration and when the apple season comes in Oregon, Mexicans come from Mexico, go up there and pick apples for something like $15-$18 a hour. They hustle, they work hard, they send some money home then I guess they go back after it is all over.

Long way up from Mexico? Expensive round trip? Do they all pile in an un-insured Pontiac? Where do they live? Eat? Shower? Who pays their medical? 60 hours = $1000/week. 5 week job? $2K round trip? Maybe they never go back? Food stamps, sect8