Illegal immigrants keep food cost down

Has it occurred to anybody what would happen if we didn't have cheap, untaxed labor picking our fruits and vegetable. Forcing employers to take taxes out of illegals wages would drive fruit and vegetable prices so high we wouldn't be able to afford them. Does the government want this to happen, so that they can more effectively control food production, slowly eliminating natural foods in our diets, keeping us sick?

Farmers already produced too much food. The government pays farmers to destroy a large number of crops. There is a massive surplus here.

It is no sure thing that if Mexicans are gone, that prices would jump much.

Do you have a source on the government paying farmers to destroy crops. This would be interesting for me to read. Seems to me, if the supply is excessive, produce should be much cheaper than what they are.

Article that is more of a political attack on Bush, but touches on the issue a bit:

More than 90% of farm subsidies go to the growers of such politically favored staples as wheat, corn, cotton, soybeans and rice. Because payments increase as a farmer plants more, these handouts encourage farmers to grow surplus crops. Other farmers are paid not to grow crops as a way to conserve the soil.

www.usatoday.com...

Also:
www.npr.org...

America is a net-exporter of food.

Its preposterous to say that the prices would be so high that no one could afford them.

Also, by using illegal labour, we create an underclass that is horribly abused by its employers. In florida, the people that pick the groves of fruits and vegetables are kept as modern slaves, forced, through threats and acts of violence, to work the rows. Anyone supporting illegal immigration is, de facto, a supporter of slavery. Produce is cheap today because of slave labour, just like cotton and tobaccoo were cheap inthe past because of slave labour. That hardly justifies it.

Perhaps one of the reasons our farmers are doing what they are doing is . . . because big interest groups with ties to foreign trade need to keep making money with goods coming into the country from foreign nations.

Funny how making money and profits harm our own people in our own country.

Yes I read about how farmers are pay not to farm in the US.

Doesn't anybody see the irony behind all this?

All in the name of profits, but no for you or me.

[edit on 2-4-2006 by marg6043]

Will those cheap vegetables keep our hospitals and schools open???? Mexicans are over running the hospitals and schools so bad they over 100 hospitals have gone bankrupt in California alone because they have to dole out free medical care. You ever wonder why your insurance premiums have gone up 300% in the last five years, it's all those *people* you want here to pick your vegetables!!!

Anyone who condones these illegal dirtbags is by the very definition a traitor!!!!

BTW, guess why the flu and other diseases have doubled in the last two years, it's the illegals bringing it up with them across the border, the proof is from the CDC.

People who want these people are sick in the head and should go live with them and get the hell out of the United States...

Mod Edit: Removed Social Slur.

[edit on 2-4-2006 by Benevolent Heretic]

Originally posted by GrndLkNatv

Anyone who condones these illegal dirtbags is by the very definition a traitor!!!!

Just curious...are they "dirtbags" (your descriptor) because they are illegal, or because they are Mexican?

People who want these people are sick in the head and should go live with them and get the hell out of the United States...

Why? Because your o-so-brilliant and insightful analysis says so?

I work with many Mexicans in the construction trades. The ones I know have taxes, such as SSI, taken out of their pay by their employers...benefits they will never be able to collect on, by the way.

Sure, poor/uninsured people do provide a heavy drain on social services...but you don't have to be an illegal to do that.

If you want to make a real difference in America's financial problems, try going after the "underground economy", that most red-blooded of American "institutions" which drain billions of dollars from the tax base every year. And that means, primarily, going after employers...cash under the table doesn't only go to illegals. It is the common way of doing things in many of the non-union trades, whether the employee is "legal" or not.

I've seen so much ripping off of the system by employers in 30 years in the trades, that I have a very hard time classifying illegal workers as "dirtbags"...they are simply filling a need provided by our own homegrown "Capitalists".

[edit on 4/2/2006 by apocalypticon]

Poor people in general are a drain on the system. Which, frankly, raises the question as to whether or not we should be letting poor people flood into this country illegally. They won't be paying taxes, but they will be using a number of public services.

They also have lots of babies. This actually illustrates the solution. Feed them their own babies, that way, there is no usage of public taxes to feed them, it takes care of the overpopulation, and it keeps them healthy enough to keep working.

Disturbed Deliverer,

I actually agree that uncontrolled immigration is detrimental to our country; and, as Nygdan pointed out, usually leads to exploitation of workers at many levels ( I am one of those who does not buy into the argument that illegals only take jobs "Americans won't do"; they take jobs which unskilled Americans would do, just not at the wage-scale immigrants are willing to work for).

Back in the day, when illegal immigration was a small portion of the workforce, I learned my trade from American citizens, at a time when the trade could provide a decent income for people who were not highly educated, or simply liked to work with their hands. This is no longer the case, with one reason (and certainly not the only one) being that immigrants, legal or not, are often simply willing to work for less. It has been that way throughout the history of our country since the massive expansion of industrialism in the post-Civil War era.

But it is my opinion that the real source of the problem lies with the good ol' American employers who are willing to overlook the best interests of the country in order to increase profits.

I'm not going to condemn a class of people as "dirtbags" for trying to take advantage of opportunities which don't exist in their own country, even if, in the name of common sense, we need to enforce controls on immigration.

I objected to GrndLkNatv's use of "dirtbag", "traitors", "get the hell out of the United States" kind of language because it smacks more of right-wing populist nativism than anything else.

Why, Nygdan, have you been reading Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publik"(sic)?

en.wikipedia.org...

You devil, you...

using illegal, migrant workers DOES keep food and produce costs down.
course, jewish slave labor kept german weapon production costs low during WWII.
just cause it is cheap, don't mean its moral


and yes, this is one of those posts where i rant about a problem, but offer no solution to it. sorry guys/gals.

Originally posted by Disturbed Deliverer
Poor people in general are a drain on the system. Which, frankly, raises the question as to whether or not we should be letting poor people flood into this country illegally. They won't be paying taxes, but they will be using a number of public services.

if we cut the flow of illegals, will you harvest your own produce? Didn't think so, so well, what can I say, someone is gonna have to harvest it for you aren't they? and well, according to many, if these people are paid a decent wage, well, we'll all starve to death because the cost will skyrocket so badly. and I still can't figure that one out, how many oranges can a person pick in an hour, how much of an increase in the cost involved with the taxes, increase in wages, ect....since well, many claim that that orange would then increase to some rediculous sum like $5 an orange or something because of the increase in cost. only if the worker picks 50 oranges in an hour, a dollar increase in that orange would increase the revenue from that hour of labor by $50 bucks!! I highly doubt that labor cost would raise that high!

but, well, back to the poor people of the world...what's the matter, are we finding out that it is costing way more to subsidize these people's livelihood through government handouts than it would to just pay them a halfway decent wage to begin with. well, getting rid of the poor people isn't the answer, since you will still want someone to be doing these low paying jobs!! maybe it's time to start thinking about allowing them to obtain their living in the way that it was intented.....through work....through their wages, and not through government handouts.

by the way, I would be more worried about the skyrocketing gas prices causing food prices to increase that orange to $5!! it at least has the potential to do this, since well, it has to be transports across the country (which burns alot of gas).


[edit on 3-4-2006 by dawnstar]

Paying a natural wage to grove pickers simply isn't going to destroy the produce industry in the united states and result in famines. And having cheap tomatos for taco bell to buy is a pretty poor reason to support slave labour, beatings, murder, and coercion.

And that money you save on a head of lettuce just goes for taxes to support these freeloaders.

I'd rather pay more for lettuce.

If the farmers pay a decent wage pickers will come, hate to burst your bubble there. I worked in the fishing industry, and as long as the money was even vaguely reasonable, we had absolutely no issues with finding employees, and its backbreaking work, of the sort that most vegetable farming couldn't even begin to touch. Working in below freezing weather, and up to your ankles in salt water well below 32 degrees, we still had no problem finding workers who are citizens of this country.

So to answer the question: Someone would indeed pick the oranges, the heads of lettuce, and tomatos, etc..., all's they'd ask for is a halfway decent wage.

[edit on 4-4-2006 by seagull]

Originally posted by seagull

So to answer the question: Someone would indeed pick the oranges, the heads of lettuce, and tomatos, etc..., all's they'd ask for is a halfway decent wage.

[edit on 4-4-2006 by seagull]

And that was precisely the point of my earlier post. I'm sick and tired of hearing that illegals take work citizens won't do--it's a shibboleth of big (and small) business.

The issue is something even approaching a living wage for work that is, in it's essence, fundamental to society: agriculture, construction, maintainance of infrastructure.

As for Amethyst's description of illegals as "freeloaders"...I think there are a lot of "subsidized" industries in America more deserving of that description; plus all of those o-so-red-blooded Americans who utilize the underground economy by avoiding taxes they rightfully owe. But I bet they still use the roads...and benefit from the defense of our military...both tax-based funding, last I recall. The overwhelming of our social services is only partially the fault of illegals; anyone who is unemployed, or underemployed, and without insurance, is going to use the emergency room of your local hospital as their point of primary care.

As my earlier post indicated; I am not for "open borders", but it is my opinion that blaming everything on "illegal immigration" is much closer to a traditional American "nativist" position, and does not truly address the issues at hand:

Wages

Universal Health Care

Ross Perot was right on one thing: with the institution of NAFTA we did, indeed, hear a "big sucking sound" of well paying American jobs leaving, turning us into a country which is more and more based on lower-wage service sector jobs. IMHO

[edit on 4/4/2006 by apocalypticon]

[edit on 4/4/2006 by apocalypticon]

Lets see...................

Your arguement is very weak.

Food would not become unaffordable if we stopped hiring illegals. It might jump up in price a few cents. So? Ill pay 20 cents extra a pound for tomatoes if it means using ethically sound labor practices and farming methods.

Illegals dont make food prices cheap. They simply make certain farm owners even richer by the amount of extra money they can pocket.

Originally posted by seagull
So to answer the question: Someone would indeed pick the oranges, the heads of lettuce, and tomatos, etc..., all's they'd ask for is a halfway decent wage.

If farmers were paying decent wages legal Americans will work.

But farmers are keeping their profits high, working conditions at a low level and wages under minimum because they want illegal workers.

They do not require paper work and they do not complain of the working conditions are degraded.

That is why working standards are kept low, so the ones to be attracted is the ones that would other wise will not get anything better than what farmers offer.

That is the whole point.

And many fall for their BS, "Illegal are doing the work that Americans don't want"

Well yes is true because no American citizens will work for peanuts and in degraded working conditions.

But illegals will.

Who is at fault, the American citizen or the business owners that wants profits over anything else.

And BTW we are still paying high prices for anything we buy anyway.