If that's all the "middle men" did you'd be right. They do a hell of a lot more than that. The view you express was discredited 150 years ago.
mike wilson wrote: > [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. >> >> > > > -- Entropy Seminar: The results of a five yeer studee ntu the sekend lw uf thurmodynamiks aand itz inevibl fxt hon shewb rt nslpn raq liot. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
