In a message dated 3/12/2007 7:47:54 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Er, no. The crops would be slightly more expensive but would still be there.
============ Citizens, on the whole, won't pick crops. In California, the biggest pool of housecleaners, caregivers, gardeners, and casual day laborers (mainly construction), is also illegals. No one else will do the work. In my immediate area there are a lot of Tongans filling those posts. Not all CA illegals are Latino. Any country that has a depressed economy will have some illegals in California. The average stay for an illegal is two years. They make their money and go home.(I saw the results of study once, though admittedly a study was probably hard to do.) I used to live in an area with a check cashing place that I used. That area also had a lot of illegals -- they used the check cashing place to send money home each week. It also had a phone where they could call home if they paid enough. Besides we have to compete with places like Mexico that grow crops where the pickers are paid squat. (Not to mention that small CA farmers, as in not agribusiness, operate on small margins). And other foreign countries were the pay is terrible. Competing with third world countries is just a fact of life now. If decent wages had to be paid for all crop picking, decent enough for no illegals being hired, most of CA's remaining agricultural would crash (despite agribusiness and some crops that don't have to be picked by hand. There are many hand picked crops here.). In fact, several small economies in CA would crash. What is and what "should be" are two different things. Marnie aka Doe <BR><BR><BR>**************************************<BR> AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at http://www.aol.com. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
