[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > 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.
I saw some figures recently that suggested that the labour cost involved in crop picking was somewhat less than 1/10th of the retail price at the most. You could double the wages and the retail price would only go up marginally. Most cost is added by the middlemen who do nothing but move the stuff around. > > 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
