South of the Border Politics

kbd512 · 2020-04-05 02:13:59

SpaceNut,

With so many Americans out of work, we don't need anyone from outside of our country to get that food to market.

SpaceNut · 2020-04-05 06:05:36

The Americans not working are in a temporary furlough due to not being essential and all the business that are minimum wage essential are hiring in large numbers accross the country keeping in mind the social distancing thing for the 6 foot rule....
While the food crops are in need people it is the wage that is the issue as its in the agricultural scale or farmers wage.

Terraformer · 2020-04-05 09:26:59

SpaceNut,

6 million Americans recently applied for unemployment benefit. Not everyone is in a temporary furlough.

Allowing immigration whilst your country is heading into a deep recession is utter madness.

SpaceNut · 2020-04-05 09:39:36

The meaning of layoffs is also a furlough with a possibility for a return to work at the same company and not a firing that means you are never coming back.
The madness is thinking that food does not rot and spoil on the vine forcing more imports at higher prices....prices most americans can not afford to buy increasing starvation, increasing health issues, more homelessness....if people in the areas are not jumping for the work then you know why....as the pay is less than there unemployment of which they lose if they do work.

Farm Labor

Salary for Crop Farmworkers and Laborers

These are the calculated salary rates
Hourly Rate for Industry: Crop Harvesting for inside a building is $13.28
Average Farm Worker Hourly Pay $11.74

https://www.federalpay.org/employees/fa … ice-agency

GW Johnson · 2020-04-05 10:50:27

It's now 10 million out of work.

GW

SpaceNut · 2020-04-05 14:19:52

The hype is that the fear of which is the sizeable number all fear not being able to return to where they once worked and that will only be true for the companies that close their doors for good. The acts which have been passed are to bridge that for the companies which might close to take advantage of. Of course for some it was the right time to close permanently before losing everything.
It could take 4 to 5 years for many Americans to recover wages lost to coronavirus

With the high death rates there are going to be lots of job openings and not so many to fill them since we have so many more that did not die. It appears that for every 3 that land in the ICU for respirators that only 1 does not come out....

kbd512 · 2020-04-05 15:11:45

GW,

Yeah, so your whole spiel about valuing lives over money, I guess if those people don't have money to eat they're going to do what, exactly? Start bartering for food? When the foreign countries we get our manufactured goods from, since the Democrats decided to write legislation that permitted corporations to offshore all of those jobs (NAFTA), decide to quit accepting American dollars for their products, what's your proposed solution? Do their lives matter to you at all, or are you more concerned with saving your own skin?

Money never matters until you don't have any. Just ask the communists in Venezuela how that worked out for them.

kbd512 · 2020-04-05 15:15:06

SpaceNut,

Those "high death rates" will amount to around 100,000 at most, so about 2 flu seasons, and most of the people who are dying, by age group, weren't employed to begin with. Meanwhile, shutting down the country destroyed the economy and all those people who are now unemployed can't exchange rainbows and smiles for food. When President Trump said the cure shouldn't be worse than the disease, that's what he was talking about.

SpaceNut · 2020-04-05 17:20:33

Growing there own food comes to mind and yes bartering or a trading things of value if it comes to it will also be done along with doing work for the one that has the food, begging and more.

Its a misconception that once you hit 60 that you have stopped working let alone 65 these days.

New data shows that the percentages are 80% for that 65 years are the ones which are dieing and that is changing. Heck my own stepdad worked until he was 75 and he is 96 now....

80% of US coronavirus deaths have been among people 65 and older, a new CDC report says — here's what it reveals about the US cases

one in eight of those with confirmed cases — have been hospitalized so far, and 45% of them are 65 or older.

The economy still kept right ongoing just in another part that was not shut down....with lots of gouging and hoarding....

kbd512 · 2020-04-05 17:32:56

SpaceNut,

If you don't have something that someone else wants or needs, then maybe you can understand why we all but stopped bartering and started using money instead.

SpaceNut · 2020-04-05 18:54:52

Before money and lazyness set in we all bartered....I have live on less than unemployment for a period of 2 years plus as no jobs were available to be had other than odd jobs and still fed my family of 6, kept the lights on, water ect.... As I am not lazy and walked rather than spend it on gas which was high at the time and all of the vehicle issues getting it all each day for that 4mi round trip up hill carrying it. I did that all without trading anything away that I owned to do this and so can others.
Planning not for today but for days ahead is how its done. Sticking to managing ones funds wisely.

kbd512 · 2020-04-05 18:59:01

SpaceNut,

Money "set in" about 7,000 years ago and coinage "set in" about 2,700 years ago. I sincerely doubt that everyone who lived for past several millennia was simply being lazy when they started using money as a medium of exchange.

SpaceNut · 2020-04-07 18:34:35

'No farms, no food, no Walmart.' Idaho agriculture industry grapples with coronavirus

Coronavirus travel restrictions and U.S. consulate closures in countries like Mexico has also thrown the fate of a portion of Idaho’s agricultural workforce into limbo. Thousands of Mexican nationals come to Idaho every year to work on Idaho farms through the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Visa Program, which allows American companies to hire foreign nationals to fill temporary agricultural jobs.
U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican, was one of many across the country who pushed for the H-2A program to be part of the “essential critical infrastructure workforce,” allowing buses of workers to cross the U.S.-Mexican border. Many go to eastern Idaho, but Canyon County can get more than 1,000 H-2A workers a season — and usually should start arriving now.
“Idaho is an ag state, and we always have been and always will be,” Risch told the Idaho Statesman in March. “The H-2A workers are really important to the Idaho ag industry. We’re not the only state in that boat, but we are certainly near the top of the list.” But the status of the H-2A program has changed nearly every day over the last few weeks. Workers with scheduled interviews were turned away from closed American consulates in Mexico, while other visa applications were in limbo. Joel Anderson, the executive director of the Snake River Farmers Association, helps more than 630 farmers in 15 different states navigate the H-2A program and find foreign workers. He said one-third of their farmers process applications and make arrangements to hire foreign workers during March and April.
“The timing of this couldn’t have been more dire,” Anderson said. “If you had asked me if there was a perfect time to mess everything up, throw a wrench into the ag sector, this would be it.” Anderson said it wasn’t clear yet if Idaho farmers would be able to get all the H-2A workers they need during the planting and irrigating season. If they do come, farmers will have to grapple with different counties’ requirements for quarantining recent travelers.

Terraformer · 2020-04-08 02:36:46

Are there no American states they can bus workers in from, or do the Mexicans add something special?

tahanson43206 · 2020-04-08 06:38:50

For Terraformer re #439

Try changing your wording .... "There are no American states they can bus workers in from"

In answer to your question: Yes, Mexicans add something special! They are willing to do very hard work under unpleasant circumstances for below human wages. More to the point, the Mexicans I have watched working as teams are highly disciplined, highly motivated by internal culture, and maintain a positive spirit despite working in a place where they are not wanted.

There have been experiments to try to bring Americans into the lowest tiers of agricultural employment, but the reports I have read indicate that the workers are unreliable, poorly motivated and simply not worth the bother.

There was a time when American farm workers were as hard working, reliable and of good spirits as any in the world. That was about 100 years ago.

There still ARE such workers, but there are VERY few of them, and NONE work for the wages paid to temporary workers.

Agricultural work should be done by robots or as a temporary step, by telerobots, and the current crisis may (should) accelerate the pace of automation of the industry.

Edit#1: The report at the link below shows what I expected. The people of Britain do not want to work on farms any more than Americans do.

Brexit may accelerate the introduction of robots and telerobots to British agriculture.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u … orkers.pdf

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-04-08 07:07:07)

Terraformer · 2020-04-08 07:31:54

The could always try paying them more. Americans have options other than farm work, and if the pay is the same, they'll go for the easier job. Imported Mexican labourers don't.

SpaceNut · 2020-04-08 08:27:29

As pointed out its a mindset of how you work to complete the task.

I remember working the blueberry fields raking low bush as a teen filling a half bussel basket for 50 cents. They would make rows with string to help guide the team of other teens as they worked in the hot sun. There were a few adults to help manage the children through the day to watch over them, make sure that they took breaks and got plenty of water. As you got older you would then be part of the team that would winow the berries and package them into quarts to be ship or into flats from what I remember.

The mountain top was a 2 mile hike up the 4 wheel drive road of which you were small you might ride up or down at the end of the day. We were bussed in from my town to the fields some 25 minutes away.

I did not do any of the apple orchards but they did exist growing up and are now pretty much both are gone now.

SpaceNut · 2020-05-18 17:57:49

California is now offering support to undocumented immigrants, in the first relief fund of its kind

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the $125 million coronavirus disaster relief fund last month to support undocumented immigrants who were ineligible for federal stimulus checks and unemployment benefits due to their immigration status. It's the first state funding effort directed at helping undocumented immigrants as the coronavirus pandemic causes financial hardships and spurs unemployment across the nation. "Every Californian, including our undocumented neighbors and friends, should know that California is here to support them during this crisis," Newsom said in a statement in April. "We are all in this together."

SpaceNut · 2020-05-19 17:17:28

Do not tell Trump as you will be fired … DHS watchdog to investigate COVID-19 cases in ICE detention facilities

The US is not doing any better with its regular prisons either....

We are to keep these people safe while there not give then what amounts to a death sentence if they come down with the virus.

kbd512 · 2020-05-19 17:56:27

SpaceNut,

The purpose behind confinement is punishment, not protecting those who are being punished. The only people being protected by putting people in prisons are the rest of the members of society who didn't choose to break the law. Convicted drug dealers, rapists, and murderers don't receive the same privileges and protections as the rest of society and they never have. Furthermore, contracting COVID-19 is not a death sentence, nor anything close to it. Stop wildly exaggerating the risks to push your political narrative.

SpaceNut · 2020-06-09 19:04:57

That massive fence erected around Lafayette Park has become a do-it-yourself gallery of protest art. Messages, posters and portraits,
We can leave them up until he is out of office..

SpaceNut · 2020-06-12 17:06:18

Silly to think that American's that do not want to do this work will go to where these jobs are let alone work for less as Trump Immigration Order May Halt Work Visa Entries Until Fall

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ … &ocid=iehp

Trump tweeted shortly after a divided Supreme Court blocked his administration from ending a program that allows nearly 650,000 young, undocumented immigrants – known as "Dreamers" – to live and work in the United States without fear of deportation.

SpaceNut · 2020-06-22 16:22:53

Trying to revive the US economy while shutting out those with skills all the while hoping the us people will move to those jobs...visa restrictions would free up more than half a million jobs for workers already in the country.

The newest executive order....exceptions. For example, immigrants applying for visas to provide labor "essential to the United States food supply chain" are exempt, as are individuals "whose entry would be in the national interests" as determined by the federal government.

The order applies to H-1B visas, H-2B visas, H-4 visas, L-1 visas and certain J-1 visas. It is the latest effort by the Trump administration to satisfy immigration hawks and groups that argue American workers should be prioritized, especially amid the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
H-1B visas are used for skilled workers and are used widely in the tech industry. H-2B visas apply to seasonal workers. H-4 visas are given to spouses of H-1B visa holders.
J-1 visas are given to researchers and scholars, while L-1 visas are used for executives transferring to the United States from positions abroad with the same employer.

SpaceNut · 2020-06-26 15:54:16

Change the language and try, then change the judges and try and keep trying until no one believes in law at all…

Trump broke the law by using military money for border wall, appeals court rules

SpaceNut · 2020-07-05 16:10:41

Tis time the blockades are coming from Mexican town residents block road to US border

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