patrick.net

Dan8267 says

farm owners would have to pay workers $30/hour to harvest the crops.

Bullshit.

zzyzzx says

Dan8267 says

farm owners would have to pay workers $30/hour to harvest the crops.

Bullshit.

Wow, with that sophisticated analysis, how could I possibly argue with you?

He wasn't an illegal driver.

He was an undocumented driver.

The problem is it is exactly the crushing of wages by illegals and legal unskilled workers in vast quantities that is making the American Dream unobtainable for a huge section of the public.

I read that about half of all working Americans make within a dollar or so of the minimum wage.

The moment there is any growth in jobs or upward wage pressure, the faucet turns on full blast with unskilled immigrants of all legalities.

Americans have always picked lettuce in the past, and not in ancient history, either. Plus we have a legit guest worker program. The real harm of illegals isn't picking grapes, it's the roofing and drywall installation jobs they take away, as well as frozen pea packing and chicken plucking jobs, which they were key in deunionizing.

Dan8267 says

zzyzzx says

Dan8267 says

farm owners would have to pay workers $30/hour to harvest the crops.

Bullshit.

Wow, with that sophisticated analysis, how could I possibly argue with you?

I don't see you coming up with how you got a $30/hr figure for a minimum wage job.

zzyzzx says

I don't see you coming up with how you got a $30/hr figure for a minimum wage job.

Just because you don't know something, doesn't make it wrong.

There's no way Americans are doing hard manual labor for under $30/hr when there are plenty of easier jobs that pay $60k/yr and require no manual labor. A typical air-conditioned office job pays $60k/yr or more and you spend half your day on PatNet.

Would you pick strawberries for less than $30/hr? Say yes so I can call bullshit on you.

Just to put things into perspective, you can make $40/hr to $80/hr snuggling people. Yeah, you can't make this shit up.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/professional-cuddlers-embrace-more-clients-1420759074

Kimberly Kilbride is a professional cuddler.

For $80 an hour, or up to $400 for an overnight gig, the 33-year-old mother of three dons flannel pajama bottoms, puts away her family pictures and two pit bull mix dogs and invites clients into her bedroom in Highland, N.Y., to snuggle. Once the spooning begins, she insists that it stay strictly platonic.

http://thesnugglebuddies.com/hiring/

Of course, it's better to be the owner and get the lion's share of the revenue without having to do any of the work.

Still think that Americans are going to do hard labor for less than $30/hr?

Oh, and for Call It Crazy...

http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/01/quit-your-job-and-snuggle-baby-goats-instead.html

Just remember, CIC, it's purely platonic.

Dan8267 says

Would you pick strawberries for less than $30/hr? Say yes so I can call bullshit on you.

John McCain: "You know I've heard that statement before. Now, my friends, I'll offer anybody here fifty dollars an hour if you'll go pick lettuce in Yuma this season and pick for the whole season. So, ok, sign up! Ok, when you sign up, you sign up, and you'll be there for the whole season, the whole season, ok, not just one day. Because you can't do it, my friend."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/22/572803/-

There's a shitton of people, like always in history, mostly young people, who would not only pick strawberries at $30/hr, they'd do it for $15/hr. Lots of unemployed rural whites and blacks who would jump to make $15/hr.

And so would many other Native-born Americans who are making $11 per hour as Temps at Amazon Warehouses.
http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/life-and-death-amazon-temp/
http://www.businessinsider.com/brutal-conditions-in-amazons-warehouses-2013-8

Many farm laborers make less than minimum wage because federal regulations allow it in many cases. There's also no overtime in many cases, either.

thunderlips11 says

Lots of unemployed rural whites and blacks who would jump to make $15/hr.

At McDonald's, not in the fields. This experiment has been tried.

www.youtube.com/embed/J7TGWaHaUeU

Without dirt foreign cheap labor, American farms could not compete with foreign farms and we'd import all our food instead of growing it domestically. That might not be a bad thing, but farm owners sure as hell wouldn't want that.

The bottom line is that if you want to get rid of all the Mexican immigrants you either have to pay a lot more for farm labor, which is a dead-end career, or you have to give up American agriculture and import all our food.

Alternatively, we could just a land-swap with Mexico, giving Mexico our farm land in exchange for their coastal land. Let Mexico do all the agriculture, and let America do STEM and finance. And Mexico could run the farms such that the profits are shared by the farm workers, not owners, in accordance to the products processed by each worker. It would be better for the farm workers and it would eliminate all immigration from Mexico as those farms in Kansas would be part of Mexico, not the U.S. Plus we would get some nice beachfront real estate in exchange. Of course, that would also give us a fiscal motive to prevent sea-level rises.

www.youtube.com/embed/aXP9c99S0sc

Rew says

What's Trump's policy on illegal immigration? How is he going to solve it? If you can tell me that, you should write Trump. He doesn't even know where he stands on the issue. Flows like water.

Wednesday Trump will try and clear it up for us. :)

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/428681f59b0c40e9af1f973dd30bc1ca/trump-says-immigration-speech-coming-wednesday-arizona

Can't wait for some sad-panda-realizations from the hardliners. "Wait, what? Where is my deportation force?" Honestly, I'm not holding my breath he clears anything up. I think he will say "Build wall first. Mexico pays. We drink margaritas. Then we will decide what to do with illegals. Muslims, are extreme vetted, which is just like current vetting only EXTREMEEEEeeee!"

What type of wall? Who will build it? Just a wall? How is Mexico paying? : all will go unanswered. Trump cannot and will not talk specifics.

Day 1 trump says he will focus on removing the executive orders that Obama passed on gun control and immigration. I'm sure that sounds great to the Trumpets. The orders are increased background checks, overwhelmingly supported by the public, and deportation relief for lawful permanent residents, parents, and children. Never mind that for the past 50+ years every president has issued deportation relief and urged illegals to come forward and be counted: it's all Obama's fault, gosh darn Kenyan muslim!

Trump on his great wall ...
www.youtube.com/embed/khD3gJGLvQo

The preeminent border control specialists in the world :: Ladders, ropes, jumping they say? Wait, what? Physical barriers aren't good at stopping economic migrants? Wait, what? Other tools and policies? Limitations? Electronics you say?
www.youtube.com/embed/X9fe4m0UAg4

Oh, but electronics are hackable, we are going courier. I forgot.

anonymous says

zzyzzx says

Had the government only kept this illegal alien out, the accident would not have happened.

Had the government actually enforced the rules against hiring illegals and making an example out of a few business owners/CEOs, this may not have happened.

One person on the entire thread who has a clue.

Dan8267 says

There's no way Americans are doing hard manual labor for under $30/hr when there are plenty of easier jobs that pay $60k/yr and require no manual labor. A typical air-conditioned office job pays $60k/yr or more and you spend half your day on PatNet.

So according to you, there are NO Americans working for under 60K/year?
BULLSHIT!

You are so fucking stupid that it probably hurts.

Sorry Libs, I have to agree with the Right on this one. I'm not sure how you can support illegals coming and staying in our country. It doesn't make any sense except for the agenda to hope they'll vote Democrat...doesn't look good.

zzyzzx says

Dan8267 says

There's no way Americans are doing hard manual labor for under $30/hr when there are plenty of easier jobs that pay $60k/yr and require no manual labor. A typical air-conditioned office job pays $60k/yr or more and you spend half your day on PatNet.

So according to you, there are NO Americans working for under 60K/year?

BULLSHIT!

You are so fucking stupid that it probably hurts.

You seriously need to take a look in the mirror, or at least learn how to read English. No person with literacy at the level of a fourth grader would have interpreted the above quote as "there are NO Americans working under 60K/year". This is a ridiculous misinterpretation of my statement, so much so that it implies either severe illiteracy or deliberate misinterpretation to construct a straw man argument.

However, being a generous man, I am going to give you a chance to save face by correcting yourself and explaining what I actually said. If you fail to do this, then it is right that you look the fool. This is not a hard challenge.

Dan8267 says

You seriously need to take a look in the mirror,

You need to look at the real world where there are plenty of unemployed Americans who WILL take whatever job they can get. They don't need 60K, that's rich. Get out of your ivory tower.

I personally know several people who have been looking for work for YEARS.

just any guy says

I'm not sure how you can support illegals coming and staying in our country.

It's the agricultural industry most responsible for illegal immigration. However, it is not the illegality of the immigration that you or I or anyone else opposes.

If you were fine with "legal" immigration but only oppose "illegal" immigration, you would be satisfied by a law that transformed all illegal immigrants into legal one. It is mere fiat that makes the immigration illegal. It would be trivial to declare all illegal immigration legal. A mere stroke of the pen could do that, and then there would be zero illegal immigration. Yet, clearly this would not satisfy you or any opponent of immigration, including myself.

It would also be a trifling matter to fully document, fingerprint, and create identification for all immigrants. There are no hoops for legal immigration that cannot be done in seconds in the Information Age except the hoops deliberately designed for the sole purpose of slowing the immigration process. Databases are connected to the Internet making querying data trivial. IDs can be produced in seconds. Fingerprints added to databases across the nation in seconds. Documentation created and distributed in seconds.

So, I ask you, honestly, is it the illegality of the immigration that really upsets you or is it the number of immigrants, or the nationality of the immigrants, or the culture or language of the immigrants, or the job skills of the immigrants that really matters to you?

As long as the red herring exists that it's the illegality of the immigration that's the problem, we cannot acknowledge the real problems of immigration. And the first step of solving a problem, any problem, is acknowledging the existence of the problem. The straw man argument that the problem is with immigrants not using proper channels and legal procedures prevents us from dealing with the very real and important cultural, fiscal, economic, and population problems of immigration.

By the way, the entire illegal immigration problem was created by capitalism in its attempt to keep labor as cheap as possible in order to maximize personal profits from owning the means of agricultural production and siphoning off worker wealth creation. The agricultural industry in America has a terrible and embarrassing history of using slavery, then child labor, and now powerless immigrant workers by promoting the use of illegal immigrants because their illegal status makes them powerless to demand better wages, working conditions, job stability, or the right to vote.

I'll leave you with one example of why the current system is really bad. An open, free society cannot exist when a large contingent of the population effectively has no rights and cannot vote or improve their economic outlook. It would be better if this population was not here and the domestic agricultural industry collapsed then to allow a large portion of the American population to be non-citizens with no say in our government. Whenever one population is oppressed politically and economically, problems are generated that spread to other areas because everything is ultimately connected. Unfortunately, we cannot even have this conversation until the anti-immigrant crowd -- and that's really what the position is -- stops with the nonsensical straw man argument that "if only the immigrants were willing to follow the legal process". That's a bullshit argument and it doesn't help reducing immigration as the immigration levels are currently determined only by economic factors such as agricultural production.

So if you really want to reduce or eliminate net immigration to the U.S., stop BSing and take a real stand and defend the position you really want. Otherwise, the immigration will continue at the same or increasing rates while you scapegoat to no avail.

Dan8267 says

I am going to give you a chance to save face by correcting yourself and explaining what I actually said. If you fail to do this, then it is right that you look the fool.

zzyzzx says

You need to look at the real world where there are plenty of unemployed Americans who WILL take whatever job they can get. They don't need 60K, that's rich. Get out of your ivory tower.

I personally know several people who have been looking for work for YEARS.

Honey, that's a fail. You are doubling down on your stupid straw man argument rather than correcting yourself. You now look doubly bad.

Here's a final chance to save face. Tell me what my argument really is and get it right. I could get a ten-year-old to explain my argument correctly. Are you really less literate than a ten-year-old, or are you faking stupidity because you lack the emotional maturity to admit that you made a straw man argument and got called on it? The best thing you can do right now is to admit that you made the straw man, correct yourself, and then address the real argument I made. Failing to do that, you simply lose and look the fool.

And yes, I'm goating you into doing the right thing, and it's for your own good. As embarrassing as it might be to admit the truth, it would be far more embarrassing to continue with this obvious charade. Don't be that stupid.

Dan8267 says

Honey, that's a fail. You are doubling down on your stupid straw man argument rather than correcting yourself. You now look doubly bad.

Here's a final chance to save face. Tell me what my argument really is and get it right. I could get a ten-year-old to explain my argument correctly. Are you really less literate than a ten-year-old, or are you faking stupidity because you lack the emotional maturity to admit that you made a straw man argument and got called on it? The best thing you can do right now is to admit that you made the straw man, correct yourself, and then address the real argument I made. Failing to do that, you simply lose and look the fool.

And yes, I'm goating you into doing the right thing, and it's for your own good. As embarrassing as it might be to admit the truth, it would be far more embarrassing to continue with this obvious charade. Don't be that stupid.

You are the one that's too stupid to understand that there are NO jobs that Americans' won't do. I keep finding atricles about how there was an immigration raid and the next day unemployed Americans show up to try to get a job.

An illegal alien was piloting a charter bus that he wasn't licensed to drive when it crashed Sunday morning in Louisiana, killing two people and injuring dozens, police said.

---------------

The company hired someone without a license, to drive their bus. They should be on the hook for everything here, including our outrage, right?

errc says

The company hired someone without a license, to drive their bus. They should be on the hook for everything here, including our outrage, right?

I wonder what their insurance policy says about hiring unlicensed drivers, assuming they actually have insurance.

zzyzzx says

You are the one that's too stupid to understand that there are NO jobs that Americans' won't do

I never said that. If you think I did, it's because you are an idiot who can't read.

So you have failed the challenge to rebuke your straw man and address my actual argument. How pathetic. That's why your side always looks bad. You would have looked much better and have made a better case against immigration if you were honest about why you oppose immigration. Too bad. Because of you, the immigration problem will persist and grow.

If you want Americans to harvest crops, a dead end job with no future, then you'll have to pay those Americans way the hell more than what the immigrant workers are making and you'd have to give them generous benefits including health care. The cost of doing so would make the American agricultural industry unable to compete with cheaper agriculture in other North, Central, and South American nations. The profits of the domestic American agriculture industry would collapse.

Anyone who thinks that there are enough Americans willing to do hard labor for slave conditions that barely keep them alive are fools. That experiment has been conducted and it failed miserably.

But hey, if there is some moral obligation for Americans to submit themselves to do these lousy jobs for lousy pay, then let people like zzyzzx do these jobs. I doubt he'll be willing to do that work for even $15/hr, way more than the migrant workers make. Hell, he wouldn't even do it for the $30/hr.

As for me, I'd take a $40/hr job as a professional snuggler before I picked crops in the hot sun.

Most white Americans wouldn't even consider a piecework ag job because they can't bring their families to the work site state and they can't go home at the end of the work day. Then they'd have to move to another farm/field/town to do it all over again. That, more than the grunt of it, makes it beneath them: they're not migrants goddammit they're landed. As to the grunt aspect, likely only the white redneck southerners have the grit to do the work but they aren't going leave the south.

zzyzzx says

I keep finding atricles about how there was an immigration raid and the next day unemployed Americans show up to try to get a job.

Anecdote isn't data, and besides you sorta ended up with egg on your face the last time you tried to trot out that shit. Unlimited immigration affects the value of labor in America, no doubt about it. You think it only goes one way. It doesn't.

anonymous says

zzyzzx says

Had the government only kept this illegal alien out, the accident would not have happened.

Had the government actually enforced the rules against hiring illegals and making an example out of a few business owners/CEOs, this may not have happened.

These things are not mutually exclusive.

Rew says

Muslims, are extreme vetted, which is just like current vetting only EXTREMEEEEeeee!"

Muslims are held to the same standards as h1-b workers? Interesting

Still waiting for an answer as to why Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar can't take in any refugees

Dan8267 says

never said that. If you think I did, it's because you are an idiot who can't read.

So you have failed the challenge to rebuke your straw man and address my actual argument. How pathetic.

You are pathetic if you think American’s won't get off their lazy ass for less than 60K per year and Air conditioning.

Dan8267 says

I'd take a $40/hr job as a professional snuggler before I picked crops in the hot sun.

Clean houses? Maybe.... Male snuggler, you'd better be hot, in both the looks and personality department to get hired. Doubt they'd hire Tom Dick and Harry off the street just because they have a pulse.

No Mexicans needed for canned tomatoes:
www.youtube.com/embed/Rhu21aNUlxQ

zzyzzx says

you think American’s won't get off their lazy ass for less than 60K per year and Air conditioning.

Well a lot of those jobs require hard work and even my parents have a few Mexican employees after years and years of hiring local yokels, known as bricktuckians.

Of course, they can't afford to pay someone 60K unless they are working in a managerial capacity.

In any event, the only reason I can think of that Dan would say that a person won't get off their ass for less than. 60k and air conditioning is because he knows virtually no Americans who are poor enough to jump at the opportunity. Only middle-upper middle class professionals I would suspect.

Also, if farms bad to pay that kind of money to Americans to get them to show out, many fewer would be hired and the economics of further mechanization/automation would suddenly start to become more cost effective

OMG with out illegals who will work the farms, drive around LA no farms here.

zzyzzx says

You are pathetic if you think American’s won't get off their lazy ass for less than 60K per year and Air conditioning.

Like I said, your straw men arguments are transparent. Sure, Americans will work at Walmart and McDonald's for minimum wage. That does not mean they will do backbreaking farm work for minimum wage. You're either an idiot for not understanding what I said or a despicable liar for pretending that you don't.

Oh, and your tomato video offers no contradictory evidence. Here's some real evidence.

A day in the strawberry fields seems like forever

LA Times: "Americans don't want to do the fieldwork. They'll go over and make hamburgers for $8 an hour with no insurance, no nothing, when they can make more money here," Teixeira said. "I don't care if you pay $20 an hour, they'll come here one or two days, and they're gone. It's a mind-set: They think fieldwork is below them."

And what happened when Alabama experimented with getting rid of illegal immigrants? Their agricultural industry collapsed despite there being massive unemployment.
Bloomberg: Why Americans Won't Do Dirty Jobs

For years, Rhodes has had trouble finding Americans willing to grab a knife and stand 10 or more hours a day in a cold, wet room for minimum wage and skimpy benefits.

Most of his employees are Guatemalan. Or they were, until Alabama enacted an immigration law in September that requires police to question people they suspect might be in the U.S. illegally and punish businesses that hire them. The law, known as HB56, is intended to scare off undocumented workers, and in that regard it’s been a success. It’s also driven away legal immigrants who feared being harassed.

Rhodes arrived at work on Sept. 29, the day the law went into effect, to discover many of his employees missing.

His ex-employees joined an exodus of thousands of immigrant field hands, hotel housekeepers, dishwashers, chicken plant employees, and construction workers who have fled Alabama for other states. Like Rhodes, many employers who lost workers followed federal requirements—some even used the E-Verify system—and only found out their workers were illegal when they disappeared.

In their wake are thousands of vacant positions and hundreds of angry business owners staring at unpicked tomatoes, uncleaned fish, and unmade beds. “Somebody has to figure this out. The immigrants aren’t coming back to Alabama—they’re gone,” Rhodes says. “I have 158 jobs, and I need to give them to somebody.”

There’s no shortage of people he could give those jobs to. In Alabama, some 211,000 people are out of work. In rural Perry County, where Harvest Select is located, the unemployment rate is 18.2 percent, twice the national average. One of the big selling points of the immigration law was that it would free up jobs that Republican Governor Robert Bentley said immigrants had stolen from recession-battered Americans. Yet native Alabamians have not come running to fill these newly liberated positions. Many employers think the law is ludicrous and fought to stop it. Immigrants aren’t stealing anything from anyone, they say. Businesses turned to foreign labor only because they couldn’t find enough Americans to take the work they were offering.

That's some pretty hard-core empirical evidence that you are completely and utterly wrong. The experiment has been ran and the indisputable results are in. 211,000 unemployed Americans chose to remain unemployed rather than to even attempt to fill the 158 jobs in agriculture. And if you were or are unemployed, you'd make the exact same decision.

And why? Because no one wants to work these shit jobs and even the damn few that try at all leave immediately when they find out what the reality of the job is.
US Farmers Farm Owners Depend on Illegal Immigrants

With U.S. unemployment near 10 percent, many believe illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans. But when the United Farm Workers union launched a campaign offering to connect unemployed people to farm jobs, only three people accepted -- out of thousands of inquiries.

Union president Arturo Rodriguez says most balked at the difficult working conditions.

"They really don't have any idea what it is to work in agriculture today," he says. "We've just gotten so far away from that type of society that people have forgotten."

He says he's tried to hire Americans, but he simply can't find enough able and willing do the work.

"The truth is, nobody is raising their kids to be farm workers," he says.

Of course, fuck the farm owners, rather land owners or lords, who don't want to pick their own crop and just want to siphon the wealth production of the actual farmers, the migrant laborers. This is no different than the feudal system in the Dark Ages. The greedy and lazy land owners cannot and would not do the hard work, so peasants had to be beaten down into submission. When the Black Death came and killed off enough peasants that the survivors could demand decent wages, the seven hundred years of economic stagnation ended and the Renaissance began ushering in the modern world. It's amazing what stopping the impoverishment of the masses can do for an economy. Had the peasants not gained the upper hand, Europe would still be in the Dark Ages and China would have conquered the North and South American continents. And you, zzyzzx, would be a serf living a life harder than the illegal immigrants you blame for everything.

And Alabama's experience is by no means unique. The experiment has been repeated several times with the exact same result.
Alabama Illegal Immigrant Crackdown Destroys Farm Business

Alabama’s situation is not unique. Georgia passed a similar immigration law in 2011. When undocumented workers fled, farmers lost around 40% of their workers and $140 million worth of blueberries, melons, onions, and other crops due to labor shortages. This year Georgia farmers again fear they will be short on workers to pick the crops, and many have scaled back production or stopped planting altogether.

It’s not only Southern states; farmers all across America are dependent on migrant labor. For example, immigrants make up 40% of Wisconsin’s dairy industry workers and almost one in three U.S. farming and fishing workers is from Mexico.

Many farmers land owners want to hire local workers, but it is increasingly difficult to find U.S. natives with the proper skills. Few are willing or able to perform the physically taxing and low paying labor which requires them to move with the crops, even with wages of $15-$20 an hour. Georgia recently experimented with creating a program that allowed parolees to work as farm laborers, but it was unsuccessful when they wouldn’t — or couldn’t — endure the grueling days.

Pennsylvania farmers land owners say local Americans just don't want farm work

Pennsylvania farmers insist it gets harder every year to find enough workers — and low pay isn’t the problem.

For example, he says fruit pickers in Adams County, who get paid according to how much they pick, commonly earn $14-$20 an hour. But it’s very hard work, he stresses, often done under uncomfortable conditions and on all days of the week. It also takes a lot of experience and skill to pick well enough to earn those wages.

He says farmers advertise for local workers, but attract few applications.

“Americans, for the most part, are not interested in doing this type of work,” he says. “They prefer to make less money and work in a fast food restaurant or a supermarket where the conditions are more comfortable.”

Yes, that's the reality. All evidence demonstrates unequivocally that like you all other Americans would rather get paid less than do the grueling work of farming. Not even for $20/hr. So my $30/hr figure is damn conservative and almost certainly too low to fulfill all the jobs. The real figure is so high that many think it doesn't exist. Of course it does, but it's way more than the wealth production possible from farming, i.e. it would cost more to get Americans to do the labor than the labor is worth.
Alabama Immigration Law Causing Produce To Rot In The Fields

As we learned yesterday, and as Georgia farmers learned earlier this year, picking vegetables simply isn’t something that Americans are willing to do no matter what the wages might be. There’s nothing wrong with that, really. Standing outside in the hot sun, bending over, and picking tomatoes, onions, or cabbage isn’t fun to say the least and doing it for eight or nine hours a day, five or six days a week, is physically and mentally exhausting. There are people out there who are willing to do this work, though. So willing that they’re willing to take the risks of immigrating and living under the radar just for the privilege of starting a life in the United States of America. The response of states like Alabama and Georgia, though, has been to respond to the xenophobia that lies beneath most anti-immigrant rhetoric and pass laws that chase these people out of their states, leaving the farming industry high and dry during a period is rough to begin with.

So bitch all you want, zzyzzx. That doesn't change the verifiable facts, the hard-core evidence, the empirical examples that all disprove everything you've said and confirm what I've stated all along. You can call evidence bullshit if it contradicts your position, but everyone knows it's you that's full of bullshit, not reality. The most basic scientific principle is that if reality contradicts your theory, it's your theory that's wrong, not reality.

MMR says

In any event, the only reason I can think of that Dan would say that a person won't get off their ass for less than. 60k and air conditioning is because he knows virtually no Americans who are poor enough to jump at the opportunity. Only middle-upper middle class professionals I would suspect.

That is true. The only reason you can think of is that. However, that's the result of your limited intellectual capacity and imagination. Plenty of people could imagine other reasons for my statements. However, using your imagination is not necessary as I have provided this thing called evidence as the basis of my beliefs. There is no need to conjecture about what is going on inside my mind, and the messenger is irrelevant to the message, anyway. All you have to do is look at the evidence. Evidence is all that matters.

It's really sad that most Americans personalize economics and politics instead of treating these things as a science in which the facts are verifiable and ideas are testable. This stupid cultural trait is the primary reason that America keeps repeating the mistakes of the past instead of fixing problems.

Not the case for other jobs. When I hire contractors to work on the house or yard, illegals do indeed compete with citizens. E.g., landscaping jobs. I am always surprised when what appear to be citizens show up to bid on work. Yes, American citizens are engaged in landscaping work, and they face competition from illegals. Ditto basic carpentry jobs.

US agricultural interests have always worked with the gubberment to allow farmworkers entry into the USA. That is one reason why US immigration law that banned folks from Africa, Asia and Europe did not apply to those south of the border.

Dan8267 says

So bitch all you want, zzyzzx. That doesn't change the verifiable facts, the hard-core evidence, the empirical examples that all disprove everything you've said and confirm what I've stated all along. You can call evidence bullshit if it contradicts your position, but everyone knows it's you that's full of bullshit, not reality. The most basic scientific principle is that if reality contradicts your theory, it's your theory that's wrong, not reality.

What a load of crap. All your "empirical" examples, actually they are anecdotal examples, talk about low wages. Did you read what you posted?

For years, Rhodes has had trouble finding Americans willing to grab a knife and stand 10 or more hours a day in a cold, wet room for minimum wage and skimpy benefits.

Martin says wages, benefits and labor conditions for farm workers have remained relatively poor for decades because of the steady stream of illegal immigrant labor.

Few are willing or able to perform the physically taxing and low paying labor

But some organizations, such as the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, argue the problem is farmers’ unwillingness to pay sufficient wages and provide acceptable working conditions. If they offered those things, farmers would be able to find local workers to fill their labor needs, the center has argued.

Right from your posted articles. So yea if people have a choice of $8.00 an hour at mcdonalds or $8.00 doing backbreaking work out in the sun they will choose mcd's.

bob2356 says

What a load of crap. All your "empirical" examples, actually they are anecdotal examples, talk about low wages. Did you read what you posted?

Hey Bob, you got another post that actually makes sense. But it wont be for long, just wait and see.

bob2356 says

All your "empirical" examples, actually they are anecdotal examples

I don't think you know what those words mean.

empirical: based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.

anecdotal: not necessarily true or reliable, because based on personal accounts rather than facts or research.

The examples I gave most certainly are based on facts, not personal accounts, and verifiable by observation. The evidence has been independently verified by several sources. You can't get more empirical than that.

Look, I understand that you want to dismiss evidence that contradicts your world view, but you just can't throw around terms that don't apply and magic that evidence out of existence. That's not how reality works. Facts are persistent no matter how much you dislike them.