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Fewer hands in the fields
La Times ^ | June 18th 2011 | Richard Fausset

Posted on 06/18/2011 7:18:07 PM PDT by Cardhu

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To: cripplecreek
Nope. We have multiple generations of welfare recipients now. Why work when you can get everything for free? That's what mom did, and that's what her mom did, and that's probably what her mom did as well. I teach with people who have been in the system for 35 years and are now teaching grandchildren of former students. Do the math on that. To solve this field hand problem we need to delete Welfare, SSI for those who have never contributed a penny, WIC, and Medicare and Medicaid for those who have never contributed a penny. Of course, I am a total racist for insisting that these people go work in a field, donchaknow.
21 posted on 06/18/2011 7:44:43 PM PDT by goodwithagun (My gun has killed fewer people than Ted Kennedy's car.)
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To: Cardhu
Pedro Guerrero, 54, the smiling, soft-spoken man in black cowboy boots whom everyone calls Don Pedro, was barreling down two-lane roads in a compact Chevy on a hunt for his own people.

These LAT MSM have honed this Don Pedro 'narrative' to absolute perfection. There is a Pulitzer in the offing here. I thought real liberals hated scape-goats and slave labor.!!

22 posted on 06/18/2011 7:46:09 PM PDT by Calusa (The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles. Quoth Bob Dylan.)
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To: count-your-change

That’s what I was thinking. Work-release programs for non-violent offenders with an opportunity to learn farming.

Next, get the American family farm back, and stop the conglomerates feeding off of the cheap illegal labor.


23 posted on 06/18/2011 7:47:28 PM PDT by Salvavida (The restoration of the U.S.A. starts with filling the pews at every Bible-believing church.)
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To: cripplecreek
Two things need to happen. The farmers need to pay a bit more and America’s lazy ass youth need to get out there.

No - one thing needs to happen and happen now! Stop the gravy train. Cut welfare, subsidized housing, section 8, WIC, food stamps, free telephones and free cars.

If the recipients can't get out and go to work then let them lose some weight.

24 posted on 06/18/2011 7:47:54 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: cripplecreek

The white kid had a job. —— Official ice cream taster for Blue Bunny Ice Cream. The Hispanic guy was doing what any hard working guy should be doing on his weekend off —— cutting his grass on Saturday morning.


25 posted on 06/18/2011 7:48:28 PM PDT by TaMoDee (GO PACK GO to Super Bowl XLVI)
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To: cripplecreek

Exactly. Both my grandmothers would work on tobacco farms in Connecticut. Supply and demand.

Today I pick blackberry’s in the SC sun for free. Of course, I then eat them for free. That’s also supply and demand.


26 posted on 06/18/2011 7:51:20 PM PDT by MontaniSemperLiberi (Moutaineers are Always Free)
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To: Cardhu

I started with maters and graduated to 2 pennies a bale. What is their bitch again........


27 posted on 06/18/2011 7:51:24 PM PDT by eyedigress ((Old storm chaser from the west)?)
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To: Cardhu
The large boxes hold 96 ounces of berries, and the fastest pickers fill five boxes an hour, earning $22.50 an hour before taxes.

I don't know, that seems like a decent "living wage" to me ($900 for a 40 hour week).

28 posted on 06/18/2011 7:53:58 PM PDT by Brandonmark (2012: OUR HOPE IS CHANGE!)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

As I understand your comment here’s my solution:
1. Send illegals home.
2. Pay US citizens wages according to the skill required for the job. (Not all jobs demand a living wage for each worker. A married couple can make a very comfortable living with their wages combined. Done it for the first 5 years of marriage.)


29 posted on 06/18/2011 7:58:38 PM PDT by TaMoDee (GO PACK GO to Super Bowl XLVI)
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To: ngat; cripplecreek

Mechanical crop sorting - harvesting machines will be the answer. Regular preventative maintenance not free medical care, free education and scholarships to college, social security or open borders.


30 posted on 06/18/2011 8:00:49 PM PDT by B4Ranch (Allowing Islam into America is akin to injecting yourself with AIDS to prove how tolerant you are...)
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To: Cardhu
The Paulks have been talking about moving to less labor-intensive crops, or using a federal guest-worker program, a move they say will cut into their profits. For now, they need pickers.

We find that buried pretty far down in the article. There is a lot of garbage in this article. One major point is that no one with a lick of common sense has ever said that the seasonal, migrant work could always be done by US citizens. It does make sense to have a guest worker program for migrant, seasonal agricultural work.

But I've read many times that US farm employers avoid using the programs for various reasons. These programs should be improved and made less cumbersome, but they should also implement reasonable means of keeping track of guest workers to ensure that they leave after a period of time.

I'd bet that, like most aspects of immigration law, that there are mountains of BS erected by those who don't want to follow the law because it's easier just to hire a bunch of illegal aliens. The government should develop workable programs and costly punishments for those who refuse to use them.

31 posted on 06/18/2011 8:00:59 PM PDT by Will88
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To: B4Ranch

Necessity is the mother of invention.


32 posted on 06/18/2011 8:02:18 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: Will88
It does make sense to have a guest worker program for migrant, seasonal agricultural work.

We've had those since I was a kid nearly 50 years ago.
33 posted on 06/18/2011 8:03:39 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: count-your-change
The prisons are full of people who can pick berries. People that have nothing else to do and could defray some of the cost of their imprisonment.

At least one Georgia lawmaker was proposing that a couple of weeks ago. Haven't heard if it was taken seriously by others.

34 posted on 06/18/2011 8:04:45 PM PDT by Will88
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To: cripplecreek
We've had those since I was a kid nearly 50 years ago.

You took one sentence out of context and ignored many others. If there are real problems with those programs they should be improved. If employers are simple ignoring them because they're a hassle, and it's always been easier to just hire illegals, then those employers should be dealt with under the law.

But like everything in immigration enforcement, the guest worker programs have been ignored because those laws aren't enforced either. People just hire illegals and get away with it.

The government could change that, just as it could enforce the border and many other things related to illegal immigration it chooses to ignore.

35 posted on 06/18/2011 8:09:40 PM PDT by Will88
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To: Cardhu

A labor shortage will spur adoption of ATM machines to tend the fields and pick the crops.

Seriously, we are just a few years away from the first generation of farmerhand microbots that use DARPA-level swarming technology in hunter-killer missions against crop-destroying insects. This would be as major an advance in agriculture as the invention of the tractor or insecticides.

Rational economics (as opposed to Keynesian “economics”) will quickly tell us there is no such thing as a labor shortage. There is only a shortage of people willing to work for the wages being offered. There is a wage level that will bring enough workers into the field, but the farmer may not find it acceptable. He soon may find it costs less over time to buy a few hundred farmhand-microbots instead.


36 posted on 06/18/2011 8:10:27 PM PDT by theBuckwheat
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To: cripplecreek

Two things need to happen. The farmers need to pay a bit more and America’s lazy ass youth need to get out there
Not the welfare folk that take it for granted that they can avail of all this wonderful food via food stamp programs . . . ?
37 posted on 06/18/2011 8:10:48 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: 1_Inch_Group; 2sheep; 2Trievers; 3AngelaD; 3pools; 3rdcanyon; 4Freedom; 4ourprogeny; 7.62 x 51mm; ..

Ping!


38 posted on 06/18/2011 8:21:32 PM PDT by HiJinx (Old Cold Warrior)
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To: Will88

I’m sure the prisons of Georgia could grow most of the food they eat or hire the inmates out so they could make restitution for the cost of their crimes or care for their families.

Think of what could be done in a place like Detroit that can’t afford to tear down its condemned houses. There’s lots of valuable material in those houses if the labor was cheap, like inmates, that is being left to rot like the berries going to rot for lack of workers.

But....I don’t see it happening any time soon.


39 posted on 06/18/2011 8:37:23 PM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: Cardhu
Don Pedro, was barreling down two-lane roads in a compact Chevy on a hunt for his own people slaves.

There, fixed it.

40 posted on 06/18/2011 8:41:00 PM PDT by glorgau
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