Dwight Stewart wrote:


Family farms don't hire that many outside workers. Instead, the
practice is seen most often on the large, corporate owned, farms - the farms
owned by industries generating billions of dollars in profits each year. And
nobody is going to convince me these corporations cannot afford to pay
higher wages. If my grandmother can do it and still make good profits, these
much more wealthy corporations can certainly do so.


I'm a city boy, so I don't know much about farming, except for a vague
idea that farmers
grow stuff that gets converted to food sold at supermarkets. And that
there are massive
government subsidies for farmers. To make for cheap food in the USA.
Or something
like that........

"Kim W5TIT" wrote:

I don't know about you, but I sure don't want to be
paying the price of your philosophy noted above.
Oh. And how dare you tell me "nonsense," Dwight.
I am relaying to you things from my own experience
and you say to me, "NONSENSE?"


The nonsense was directed at your conclusions, Kim. How can you possibly
say "no one" is willing to do the work? As I said, the main reason most
people aren't willing to (and actually cannot) do those jobs is because of
the wages are too low, not because they're not willing to work. People are
willing to work if the pay is decent.


And you'd better be ready to not be able to afford
almost anything you buy cheaply right now BECAUSE
of things as they are.


I've already given several ways wages can be increased without
significantly increasing the costs of consumer goods.


Uh, I don't know what home you're talking about, but
my kids were not spoiled rotten. (snip)


Your kid was used as a metaphor for all kids in general. That should have
been obvious since it is clear I don't know your specific kid.


Didn't say you aren't willing to work. (snip)


Actually, you did pretty much say that, Kim. About me and all other
non-immigrant Americans. Your exact words were "no one is willing to do the
work a lot of our immigrant population are willing to do." Of course, that
simply isn't true (not even close).


(snip) And you're comments above about how tough
those jobs are for very little pay and how you wouldn't
do them...just highlights exactly what I was saying.


I said nothing about how tough those jobs are. Those jobs are the venue of
younger people without the aches and pains of older age. I did those jobs
when I was younger, but have since moved on to more substantial work over
the years to the point of owning my own businesses today. However, there are
plenty of young people today more than willing to work. But, as I said,
they're not going to be thrilled about working in jobs with wages so low
they cannot feed their families and have to live twenty to a hotel room or
apartment to help keep living costs down (like so many poor illegal
immigrants do today). If this overall trend continues, Americans in the not
so distant future, perhaps your grandchildren, are going to be living just
like people do in third-world countries. That's the real future we're
leaving future generations.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

"N2EY" wrote:

That would be farm work, but not migrant farm labor,
Dwight. Migrant farm labor travels around the country,
following the harvest and the crops, and has to support
themselves on whatever they get paid.


There is no difference in the actual work done on the farm, Jim.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

"Bill Sohl" wrote in message hlink.net...
But those that are unwilling to work when they are able to,
shouldn't expect the handout (IMHO).

Cheers,
Bill K2UNK

This, I gotta frame!

73 de Bert
WA2SI

"Dwight Stewart" wrote in message
link.net...
"Dan/W4NTI" wrote:

No, you don't get it, Dan. There is nothing in my comment about the
federal government or state governments taking anything. Throughout this
discussion, I've only talked about government policies to stimulate fair
wages and reasonable business practices.

OH, I see! - You're talking about the government being intelligent enough
to keep it's hands off of the economy so that it can mature and grow! I
couldn't agree with you more. - And you have history on your side, in this
arguement. Every recorded instance of governmental meddling with the
parameters of the economy has resulted in fiasco, a net loss.

Keep swinging, Dwight! Let people out there know that trying to legislate
prosperity is nothing short of gross stupidity, right up there on par with
trying to legislate morality. Tell them that they might as well try to wrap
up a gallon of water with a sheet of aluminum foil.

Charles Brabham, N5PVL

In article .net, "Dwight
Stewart" writes:

"N2EY" wrote:

That would be farm work, but not migrant farm labor,
Dwight. Migrant farm labor travels around the country,
following the harvest and the crops, and has to support
themselves on whatever they get paid.


There is no difference in the actual work done on the farm, Jim.

Agreed! But there's a difference between doing it for a summer at a relative's
place, and doing it all year long at various locations all over the country or
all over a region. And there's a difference between doing it for a relative and
doing it for one's living.

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article .net, "Dwight
Stewart" writes:

"Kim" wrote:

I don't know about you, but I sure don't want to be
paying the price of your philosophy noted above.
Oh. And how dare you tell me "nonsense," Dwight.
I am relaying to you things from my own experience
and you say to me, "NONSENSE?"


The nonsense was directed at your conclusions, Kim. How can you possibly
say "no one" is willing to do the work?

Dwight,

I think that when Kim writes "no one" in a context like that, she really means
"almost no one" or "hardly anyone" rather than the literal standard meaning
"not a single person" or "nobody at all".

Of course there's the economic concept, derived from supply-and-demand, that if
you have something nobody seems to want, you have to make it more attractive.
With a product, that can me a lower price; with a job, that can mean higher
wages/better benefits.

Just MHO

73 de Jim, N2EY

73 de Jim, N2EY

"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
. ..
Dee D. Flint wrote:


I would like to add that very few companies make astronomical profits.
Most
make just enough to manage to stay in business.

You would think they would pay their CEO's a tad less then!

- Mike KB3EIA -


You would think so but then again, the CEO's salary is only a drop in the
bucket as a percentage of their operating expenses.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article . net,
"Dan/W4NTI"
w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com writes:

In the beginning........there was Philadelphia.

It's still here.

It was decided to have a loooooose confederation of states brought
together
under a weak Federal government. The purpose of which was to provide
such
things as; common roads, common monies, common rules and regulations
pertaining to INTERSTATE commerce. And if needed to provide for the
defense
of one, or all of the states.

Yep - Articles of Confederation.

What the hell happened?

Simple - the founders discovered that the Articles simply didn't work.
Without
a strong central (federal) government, there was no way to force any of
the
states to work for the common good if they didn't want to.

Common roads, common monies, common rules and regulations
pertaining to interstate commerce and defense of one, or all of the states
all
require a certain amount of central authority and funding. If New York's
legislature decided they didn't want to honor money from South Carolina at
face
value, who was there to make them? Or if a ship from Maryland didn't want
to
take orders from an admiral from Maine, what authority was there to
require
them to do so?

And when it came to taxes.....

End result was another convention here in Philadelphia in 1787, when the
Constitution was written and ratified by representatives from all of the
states. Three did not sign - they refused to do so because there was no
Bill of
Rights in the original Constitution. That was rectified by the first ten
amendments.

You may not like everyhting the Feds do - I know I sure don't! - but the
founders tried the loose confederation idea and it didn't work.

And when it was tried again (1861-1865, 11 states) it ran into the same
problems all over again.

In some ways the Feds have been moving towards a weaker central
government, by
cutting domestic spending - and letting the states take up the slack. Of
course
the Feds don't give up regulatory control, just funding....

What functions would you have the Feds turn over to the states?

73 de Jim, N2EY

There has always been quite a debate over what the federal government should
do versus what the state should do versus what should be left up to
individuals. This is due to the fact that the Constitution has words in it
to the effect that what is not explicitly allocated to the federal
government is reserved to the states and what is not allocated to the states
is reserved to the people. So there has always been a tug of war between
those who want to see the federal government run more and those who think
they should run less. Those who want the federal government to do
everything are relying on the preamble's words about providing for the
common good and interpreting that to mean carte blanche overlooking the fact
that it is just a preamble and that the federal government's actual
responsibilities, structure, etc is spelled out the clauses of the body of
the Constitution, including the amendments.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

In article , "Kim W5TIT"
writes:

No, the damned rub is in how much our products would cost if the jobs
migrant and transient workers do were paid at much higher pay
scales!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do we really know how much a head of lettuce would cost if the farm workers got
better wages? Does anyone know how much of the cost of various food items goes
to those workers - and how much goes to the retailer, wholesaler,
transportation, processing, etc.?

Might be surprising.

Not that I want to see anyone suffering...

However, I doubt you'd find the workforce needed to do the jobs even *with*
a higher payscale... Physical labor is an art these days.

Which explains a lot of modern society's problems...

73 de Jim, N2EY