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You know I have always been curious as to why it is that the most ardent pro illegal immigration supporters seem to be OK with the illegals themselves being exploited? Are you that dependent on your boxed chardonnay? Cheap strawberries? Inexpensive kitchen remodel?
Frankly I find it disgusting and dehumanizing and yes, even racist to be fine with one group of people living in perpetual penury so that you can save a few bucks.
I think they are okay with illegal aliens as long as it is "their people." THey are truly a bunch of racists.
You know I have always been curious as to why it is that the most ardent pro illegal immigration supporters seem to be OK with the illegals themselves being exploited? Are you that dependent on your boxed chardonnay? Cheap strawberries? Inexpensive kitchen remodel?
Frankly I find it disgusting and dehumanizing and yes, even racist to be fine with one group of people living in perpetual penury so that you can save a few bucks.
You call that exploitation? No wonder Americans don't take those jobs. I call them decent, honest and hard work jobs. Of course it is slave work. It's intense, hard manual labor that not just anyone wants to do. I worked in the fields before when i was growing up and I don't think I can go back to it. One of my close friends is a bilingual accountant at a winery, a few others are grape pickers and winery chefs. I know for a fact that in Napa Valley they start the grape pickers at $10.75 and can go as high as $20.88. They have said that Americans will only apply for chefs, tour guides, servers but never for picking. I wonder why? I think the pay is good but maybe not good enough for the hard manual labor. They don't want to be exploited with hard manual labor. I don't blame them. I wouldn't do it either. That's why I went to school.
You call that exploitation? No wonder Americans don't take those jobs. I call them decent, honest and hard work jobs. Of course it is slave work. It's intense, hard manual labor that not just anyone wants to do. I worked in the fields before when i was growing up and I don't think I can go back to it. One of my close friends is a bilingual accountant at a winery, a few others are grape pickers and winery chefs. I know for a fact that in Napa Valley they start the grape pickers at $10.75 and can go as high as $20.88. They have said that Americans will only apply for chefs, tour guides, servers but never for picking. I wonder why? I think the pay is good but maybe not good enough for the hard manual labor. They don't want to be exploited with hard manual labor. I don't blame them. I wouldn't do it either. That's why I went to school.
I didn't say that. I did say that if the vintners paid a decent wage with health benefits then maybe illegals wouldn't need the proceeds from charity in order to get health care.
$11 an hour is not bad, but you can't support a family on that. I would call that entry level. Hard work is nothing new to Americans as a whole, however now most people want a job with a future as well as benefits. The vintners are offering neither. Perhaps Americans and legal immigrants would do this work if there were either benefits or a future for them. Since there is not, and since it is clear that the vintners would rather pay the least amount that they can get away with - in this case I would propose a return to the temporary worker visa program. The problem with that is trusting the temporary immigrants to leave when their visa expired.
Yeah, it is about time that those wineries close due to not being able to compete in a global market, uhmm... wonder how many houses we can build on that land?
The government and media shove this term down our throats so we accept it. We would never have a need to compete if not for the insanity of NAFTA etal.
Wouldn't it be awesome if U.S. charged a hefty premium tax on any "international" company who imports here...would their products be competitive then? No.
Our workers would be paid to produce for the U.S. and forget global; whatever, we can make our own things and tax the hell outta imports from so-called American corporations - who really hire slave labor in other countries. Maybe then they will stop this nonsense of "needing cheap labor to compete in a global marketplace". We don't need to; corporations want bigger and bigger profits. They have sold America out.
I call BS. I'm sure competing globally works very well for international corporations, politicians, bankers, Wall Street - that group. It leaves the rest of America very ****ed.
The government and media shove this term down our throats so we accept it. We would never have a need to compete if not for the insanity of NAFTA etal.
Wouldn't it be awesome if U.S. charged a hefty premium tax on any "international" company who imports here...would their products be competitive then? No.
Our workers would be paid to produce for the U.S. and forget global; whatever, we can make our own things and tax the hell outta imports from so-called American corporations - who really hire slave labor in other countries. Maybe then they will stop this nonsense of "needing cheap labor to compete in a global marketplace". We don't need to; corporations want bigger and bigger profits. They have sold America out.
I call BS. I'm sure competing globally works very well for international corporations, politicians, bankers, Wall Street - that group. It leaves the rest of America very ****ed.
Bingo and ITA. The reality of the situation is that if America weren't so generous in propping up foreign nations, our trade deficits would have remained low, our nation would have remained prosperous and the rest of the world and it's massive populations would still be starving. We never needed the rest of the world to prop up our economy, we invented it. Globalization has benefited the rest of the world while America and her people have become sacrificial lambs:
Quote:
AMERICA'S TRADE DEFICIT IS AGAIN ON THE RISE
Take Mexico, for example, which is the red on this chart. When NAFTA was signed back in 1993, the United States had a trade surplus with Mexico of $1.3 billion. But in 2008, our deficit with that country had surged to more than $367 billion. This year, in only 3 months, we have already seen a $9.7 billion deficit with Mexico.
Indeed, in every single year of NAFTA since 1993, more imports have come in here from Mexico than our exports there. The biggest U.S. export to Mexico has actually been our jobs. Good jobs.
In an article published in 1993 in Fortune Magazine, the self-proclaimed economic geniuses who urged NAFTA's passage, including Gary Hufbauer and economist Jeffrey Schott, said at that time that if that treaty passed, the United States would maintain, and I quote them, "an annual current account surplus with Mexico of about $10 billion throughout the 1990s." Boy, were they wrong. Could they have been more wrong? Dead wrong. Consistently wrong.
Since NAFTA was enacted, the United States has accumulated more than $1.2 trillion in trade deficits to both Mexico and Canada. The orange is the Canadian deficit. And this means lost jobs in our country and lost income to both Mexico and Canada. That $1.2 trillion of lost wealth in this country could pay for better health care. It could pay for better roads and bridges. It could pay for a better-protected soldier abroad and for police forces here at home. But instead, we shift these dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs across our borders every single year leaving our home communities devastated and costing our taxpayers ever more.
GovTrack: House Record: AMERICA'S TRADE DEFICIT IS AGAIN ON THE RISE (111-h20090512-61) (http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=111-h20090512-61&person=400211 - broken link)
Hey, in the wineries defense, they need illegal labor. I worked on a winery when I was younger, the owners only netted $11 million the year I was there and were building a new mansion.
There is no way these wineries can afford to pay a decent wage to an American, it's not in the budget. Illegal labor is the only way they can survive.
If Americans don't want to do the job, no one should. Yep, what a bunch of racists we are.
As long as the employers are paying wages that can support these families, providing them health care insurance, overtime pay and all that -- but if they would do that, they could hire American citizens and/or legal immigrants.
Really if an employer cannot bring himself to hire Americans or has working conditions so horrendous that not one American would ever work for him, and he can only employee one group of foreigners, then he should relocate his business to that country.
If I for example would come out and say that I think Americans and everyone but Swedes are too damned lazy to work for me and for many reasons I could never bring myself to hire Americans then wouldn't it be better if I relocated my business to Sweden?
Maybe where you are at, but in my area that's decent money and enough to support a family (depending on family size of course).
But then again, in this area, the average income is around $20,000 for a family of four.
20k? I'd be living in my car here.
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"Compete in a global market" phooey!
