- New York Times: Herman Cain is a Candidate Writing His Own Campaign Rules
Running for president? Nah. Herman Cain has decided he'd rather go on a book tour. Much like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, Cain appears to view running for the Republican nomination as a cheap method of getting national press. - MSNBC: Secret panel can put Americans on “kill list”
Um. - New York Times: Farmers Strain to Hire American Workers in Place of Migrant Labor
It turns out that if you don't hire immigrants then Americans will not, in fact, do the work. That's the experience of one Colorado farmer, who raised his wages to $10.50/hour. Only 2/3 as many people showed up as he normally gets, and most of them quit within the day. The work is just too hard. I don't want to harvest onions. Do you?
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Wouldn’t the next step be to find out at what rate Americans would harvest onions?
Americans don’t want to harvest onions. They also don’t want to pay the (high) price that an onion would have to cost if Americans were paid enough to make it worth their precious while to harvest onions. They want to pay the (low) price that onions currently cost which is only possible because illegal migrant workers will harvest the onions for cheap. Now, Americans say they don’t want “illegals” in the U.S., but I think what they really mean is that they don’t want to SEE or come into contact with any “illegals”–not on the street, not on public transportation, not in housing, not in the schools, etc. Please be completely invisible to me, illegal migrant workers, in every way, so that I don’t have to think about you at all, but please DO continue to pick onions at incredibly low wages so I can buy my nice cheap onion at the store.
Claire, the article is about foreign migrant workers who were here legally. The farmer tried to hire American workers to supplement his work force, but couldn’t get enough people to come (and stay) at his job.
I agree that most people don’t want to “see” illegals (especially if they are using government benefits in some way), and that they don’t want to pay the higher prices hiring all Americans would entail, but that’s not really what the article is discussing.
Of course, Michael–thanks for a clarification that doesn’t (seem to) materially affect the argument I’m making in my comment. My point seems to stand that most Americans want to have their cake and eat it too.
Traditionally when labor gets too high it will be replaced by technology- taking away many people jobs.
Pecans are now harvested by a machine that shakes the tree http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbKhnp0wH0
Michael… spot-on.
They could offer the jobs to the ex-college kids occupying Wall St in NYC. ;-)
I.Pub., spot on this part of Michael’s post?
“I agree that most people don’t want to ‘see’ illegals (especially if they are using government benefits in some way), and that they don’t want to pay the higher prices hiring all Americans would entail…”