Posted on 04/02/2020 4:31:30 AM PDT by Bratch
What question is that? Is it better to hang a Free Traitor™ or shoot them?
It’s a dumb question. Just pay Americans the going market rate to pick them.
“It’s a dumb question.”
There you go itsahoot, now there are two of us who think the question you raised way upthread was dumb.
I was just a whole lot more polite and patient with you than central_va has been.
And by the way, read my actual answer, your lack of reading comprehension it shows your posts to be from an ass.
I wonder if the unemployed could be bused to work on the farms?
I agree with you, but wonder — are we sitting in our ivory towers? What if we were say waiters at restaurants with spouses who are, say shop assistants and with one kid and low debts?
You lose your job in say NYC. Would you or me pack up, leave the tiny apartment with school nearby and then move on a temporary, daily paid job to pick cabbages in the mid-west? And this is a job we’d not know anything about and we’d not be physically fit enough for it (after years waiting tables or standing behind a counter).
Yes, folks did this in the 1800s and earlier, but I ask you - would you do that?
As for me it’s so far outside my situation I can give you a theoretical “if I were in that situation I’d ...” - but that’s theory.
They won’t do it BECAUSE they are making more than they were paid on unemployment so why work??
If farms did what you say, the prices of food would go up. Not that that’s not a bad thing, but I’m just pointing out that most people would not want to see the price of their food items double or triple (depending on the item)
I remember the same picture from back in the 1960s. My first job as a yout was picking weeds out of a cabbage patch.
Central - we don’t know if Sancho isn’t a “white boy” too.
It’s not only “the pittance” - the work is back-breakingly hard.
If the farmers are told - no more illegals. And let’s assume this is policed hard.
And people are told - no welfare, go to work at the farms.
You then have:
1. A big bunch of out of shape people who have to go to the farms
2. a sense of entitlement
So farmers will need to police the people more and spend more time and money on that policing. At the same time the people will get tired quickly and faint (think of all the fatties)
This is going to balloon up the costs.
Plus do the farmers have to pay if people get injured?
It’s all doable, but will people do it? And will the cost of your food double or triple?
Let me ask you the same question - tomorrow you lose your job, your spouse loses his job and you have the opportunity to work for 2 months picking cabbages in some field in the Mid-West.
Would you
1. Do it?
2. Be physically able to work in the sun for 12 hours a day?
3. Do it for a certain number of cabbages picked per hour? — and at the beginning you’d be slower, so will earn less than any minimum wage.
4. Be willing to shift you and your family to a no-frills accommodation near this farm or on this farm?
Would you?
Then you, sir, have an advantage over the younger generations - you are used to hard physical work.
I’m sure it was back-breaking work and long hours.
Doesn’t work that way. The H2-A contractors are wholesalers. They contract with the farmer for the field at a price per pound then harvest,warehouse,sort the melons and sell them to supermarkets. This is seasonal work,4-5 months at most. They must furnish transportation and housing too.
yes, it’s seasonal work, hard work and one where you get paid per picking.
Me, I’m a desk jockey - reasonably fit and not overweight, but I know that for me it would be hard and tiring. I’d get it after some time, but for some time I’d be earning less than optimum because I’d be picking lesser volumes.
You say the contractors must furnish transportation and housing too - but I suppose they don’t need to provide “policing” of the workers to ensure that don’t sabotage or hurt others.=, right?
Won’t there be millions of college kids sitting around starting early May?
The US and the UK and Italy will all have the same manpower issues - and getting college kids to do this would be a great idea. Especially since the parents of the kids should say “Covid hit my income - you need to go and earn some money”
In what little interaction I had with them,they seemed like country folks and had little tolerance for idiots. My cousin was a LEO for the county and he had very little problem with them. The fact that it was a dry county might also have been a factor.
Food prices would not have to double or triple.
hmmm... here’s why I say they would double at least.
Picking vegetables and fruits, in general, is still by hand - too delicate for machines (not that it can’t be done, but it hasn’t been done yet)
Getting people who have never done this - or any real physical labour before, will hit the number of fruit/vegetables picked per day.
So the farmer will need to hire more people to do the same job for this season.
The farmer will also need to pay people more.
Americans being litigious will file a law case or two, jacking up the costs.
Insurance costs for the farmer will rise.
This will reflect in the price they sell the produce.
Not that raising the prices by 100% or 200% isn’t a good thing in exchange for more Americans working. But that’s going to happen.
The cost of food will not double or triple. The cost of picking the fruit is about 2-3% of the retail price typically. Even if you double the cost( pay for stoop labor ) it is no big deal to the consumer. Where did you learn economics? From a comic book?
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