Definitely Not A Cop said:

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Not 40% of the country though. And that's how many currently aren't even looking for work anymore.

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where is that number coming from? I just googled national unemployment rate and it said a shade over 4%. That's a long way off from 4% and frankly I do not believe that number.

docb said:

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Definitely Not A Cop said:

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Not 40% of the country though. And that's how many currently aren't even looking for work anymore.

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where is that number coming from? I just googled national unemployment rate and it said a shade over 4%. That's a long way off from 4% and frankly I do not believe that number.

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Govt espoused UE hasn't been accurate since Clinton.

It's way more than 4%.

And then, as mentioned, that's not including the people that have quit even looking for employment.

docb said:

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Definitely Not A Cop said:

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Not 40% of the country though. And that's how many currently aren't even looking for work anymore.

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where is that number coming from? I just googled national unemployment rate and it said a shade over 4%. That's a long way off from 4% and frankly I do not believe that number.

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Total US population: 340 million
Working age population: 210 million (ages 15 to 64, and that should be expanded to 70 or older)
Currently employed: 175 million

That means that 35,000,000 people are of working age, and not working. About 17%

Even discounting stay-at-home spouses, ultra-rich, and physically and mentally disabled, that's a lot of people who just flat aren't working.

BigFred said:

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DrEvazanPhD said:

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BigFred said:

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All fun and games until the food and housing shortages start to creep up. House prices will triple without Mexican immigrant framers and construction workers.

Not to mention Tariffs. Buckle up for the show!!

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Last job site i was near, most of the framers were Caucasian. And those that weren't were El Salvadorian.

Roofers, on the other hand...won't find a lot of Irish up there in the south in summer.

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Looking out my window now watching Mexican immigrants doing foundation work. Digging tunnels underneath homes in the freezing cold.

Not seen a Caucasian yet....other than occasionally showing up in a new Ford F-150 sitting,,,,,,, and sipping on coffee.

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You can tell if someone is an illegal alien just by looking at them? Seems that is quite a racist(Democratic Party leadership)statement.
ETA: CanyonAg77 already pointed out the racist nature of that statement.

docb said:

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Definitely Not A Cop said:

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Not 40% of the country though. And that's how many currently aren't even looking for work anymore.

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where is that number coming from? I just googled national unemployment rate and it said a shade over 4%. That's a long way off from 4% and frankly I do not believe that number.

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Sorry, 30%.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/193215/unadjusted-monthly-number-of-inactive-labor-force-in-the-us/

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October 2024, the inactive labor force amounted to about 100.72 million people in the United States. Labor force measures are based on the civilian non-institutional population 16 years old and over. Excluded are persons under 16 years of age, all persons confined to institutions such as nursing homes and prisons, and persons on active duty in the Armed Forces. The labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. The remainder those who have no job and are not looking for one are counted as "not in the labor force."

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Pick apart the numbers however you want, but we definitely could have a greater swath of people not sitting on the government dole and actually contributing to society.

2.9 Million Ag jobs, we will be fine. This will be a democrat talking point, but the people dont care.

Quote:

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Eliminate welfare and let's revisit that number.

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1) Eliminate welfare for anyone able bodied
2) Reopen mental institutions for the most extreme cases, and run them compassionately
3) Strict scrutiny of anyone who claims to be disabled
4) Eliminate future welfare for children born 9 months after today
5) Allow those who remain on welfare to earn a certain amount of money without losing benefits
6) Go after the assets of the "fathers" of all welfare children
7) Eliminate minimum wage
8) Strictly enforce immigration
9) End birthright citizenship, unless born to citizens or families in the process of becoming citizens
10) Overhaul the immigration system to allow easier immigration of good candidates
11) After 1-10, allow temporary workers

I feel sorry for whoever is going to hire half of those lazy *******s.

aft192021 said:

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There's never been a U.S. without "illegal" fruit pickers. Ever.

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Of course, there has. It's more about transitioning away from the reliance on illegal fruit picking. When a lot of low wage consumer product jobs cost more, so do those products, aka inflation.

docb said:

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I feel sorry for whoever is going to hire half of those lazy *******s.

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Starvation is a great motivation to work hard.

I find those who are working to eat tend to be a lot less lazy. I find that rewarding the lazy only incentivizes more people to be lazy.

CanyonAg77 said:

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flyrancher said:

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Yep, picking fruit during the day and stealing and killing at night. Obviously not all of them, but a high enough percentage to be a real problem for our citizens.

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If you're picking fruit all day, not a lot of energy left to go stealing at night. And it's not like fruit orchards are in Beverly Hills

Easier to steal during the day, anyway. Nobody home, no headlights and flashlights for the neighbors to see.

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And last I checked, that scale didn't care who you were when you weighed out your oranges and grapefruit. It all pays the same whether you were bussed across the bridge in the morning or took dad's pickup to the orchard after school.

Definitely Not A Cop said:

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I find those who are working to eat tend to be a lot less lazy. I find that rewarding the lazy only incentivizes more people to be lazy.

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As an employer I find that just not hiring them period is a better option

How long until we start begging them to come back? Food prices are about to soar.

docb said:

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Definitely Not A Cop said:

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I find those who are working to eat tend to be a lot less lazy. I find that rewarding the lazy only incentivizes more people to be lazy.

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As an employer I find that just not hiring them period is a better option

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Good for you. That wasn't what we were talking about though.

DarkBrandon01 said:

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How long until we start begging them to come back? Food prices are about to soar.

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nope. They've already soared under that idiot you voted for, who let in millions of our supposed "fruit pickers."

CrackerJackAg said:

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Tom Fox said:

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I am perfectly fine with targeting employers violating the law.

But if we are going to do that, we need to remove government from the market to stop interfering with wages and worker availability.

End entitlements and the minimum wage. The fruit will get picked at whatever wage the market dictates.

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There is something wrong with you.

You want people to work for less than $8 an hour full time?

You need evaluate your entire relationship with God, Nature and Man. It's flawed across the board.

I'm ok with a minimum wage. Slavery is wrong.

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Jesus spent a LOT more time talking about caring for the poor and needy, and loving enemies and neighbors, than he did any of the other things modern "Christian" republicans focus on. He never once touted capitalism, but was very specific about what happens to the rich. Spoiler alert. According to the Bible, they burn in hell.

He also had this to say about immigrants:

Quote:

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Leviticus 19:33-34 ESV

"When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

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ETA: Damien Thorn correctly pointed out that I mis-credited Jesus with the quote above. My bad Damien. Let it be known that quote was actually from GOD HIMSELF. (to Moses)

DrEvazanPhD said:

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DarkBrandon01 said:

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How long until we start begging them to come back? Food prices are about to soar.

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nope. They've already soared under that idiot you voted for, who let in millions of our supposed "fruit pickers."

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You think, that when employers are having to pay employees more than they did when they were paying illegals, that they'll swallow that loss and not pass it on to the customer?

DarkBrandon01 said:

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How long until we start begging them to come back? Food prices are about to soar.

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Thanks for revealing you don't know squat about economics.

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U.S. farm establishments received 15.9 cents per dollar spent on domestically produced food in 2023 as compensation for farm commodity production. This amount, called the farm share, is a decrease of 0.1 cent from the 2022 share, which was revised up to 16.0 cents from 14.9 cents. The farm share covers operating expenses as well as input costs from nonfarm establishments. The remaining portion of the food dollarknown as the marketing sharecovers post-farm costs such as transporting, processing, and selling food to consumers.

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If you have problems figuring this out

Farmers get 15.9% of the money you spend for food.

Farm income $575B, profit about $50B, or 91.3% is expense.

Labor is about 12.5 % of expense,

15.9% of food dollar x 91.3% expense x 12.5% = 1.81%

So for every $100 dollars you spend on food, $1.81 goes to pay for farm labor.

So let's assume that getting rid of illegals DOUBLES the price for farm labor.

Your $100 dollars of groceries now costs you $101.81

OMG! FOOD PRICES ARE GOING TO SOAR!!!!!

This is the most racist, fascist, nazi thing I've ever seen.

riverrataggie said:

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This is the most racist, fascist, nazi thing I've ever seen.

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Which one? I post a lot of triggering stuff.

Did you just quote Jesus from Leviticus?

CanyonAg77 said:

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riverrataggie said:

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This is the most racist, fascist, nazi thing I've ever seen.

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Which one? I post a lot of triggering stuff.

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The post directly above where even Paintin' Manning would agree you obliterated him in that post. Nothing debatable about it.

The rhetoric about homebuilding, construction, dishwashing, fruit picking etc is somehow going to create economic disarray is sort of humorous and as others have pointed out, it fails to factor in many other aspects of each industry, the supply chains and how end prices correlate to labor costs.

Back in 2017 there was concern Trumps border policies would create these same issues. They didn't. And to the extent we suddenly have a deficient labor pool then you either raise wages to get people working or you incentivize properly and control migrant work programs (that already exist) effectively and efficiently.

Would be interesting for leftists and Dems to propose a workable solution that does not start with wide open border followed by handouts, citizenship and voting rights for these "migrants". I have yet to see anything resembling common sense migrant worker programs from the left since… well, never.

Those numbers are great and all, but you're failing to factor in something we've all seen and experienced first-hand post-COVID that doesn't have a nice little line in those graphs. Corporate greed and opportunism. The instant "increased labor costs" becomes plausible cover for raising prices, up and down the supply chain, they'll ALL absolutely do it, and not just in proportion to the actual rise in labor costs.

And then they'll publicly celebrate it when they announce record profits and margins in the following quarters, just like they did with inflation for the last few years.

Even with all your graphs, you're over simplifying and underestimating the ripple effects. So am I, unfortunately.

Damien Thorn said:

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Did you just quote Jesus from Leviticus?

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Excuse me. My bad. Congrats on the gotcha post! That quote was from God himself! (to Moses)

Depending on who you ask, many say the Holy Trinity is all one in the same, so I guess I scrape by on a technicality.

aggievaulter07 said:

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Those numbers are great and all, but you're failing to factor in something we've all seen and experienced first-hand post-COVID that doesn't have a nice little line in those graphs. Corporate greed and opportunism. The instant "increased labor costs" becomes plausible cover for raising prices, up and down the supply chain, they'll ALL absolutely do it, and not just in proportion to the actual rise in labor costs.

And then they'll publicly celebrate it when they announce record profits and margins in the following quarters, just like they did with inflation for the last few years.

Even with all your graphs, you're over simplifying and underestimating the ripple effects. So am I, unfortunately.

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Good point.

It might be time to buy stock in every meat packing company and any other company that's on the stock market that hires illegals.

No Spin Ag said:

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aggievaulter07 said:

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Those numbers are great and all, but you're failing to factor in something we've all seen and experienced first-hand post-COVID that doesn't have a nice little line in those graphs. Corporate greed and opportunism. The instant "increased labor costs" becomes plausible cover for raising prices, up and down the supply chain, they'll ALL absolutely do it, and not just in proportion to the actual rise in labor costs.

And then they'll publicly celebrate it when they announce record profits and margins in the following quarters, just like they did with inflation for the last few years.

Even with all your graphs, you're over simplifying and underestimating the ripple effects. So am I, unfortunately.

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Good point.

It might be time to buy stock in every meat packing company and any other company that's on the stock market that hires illegals.

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Wouldn't hold it against you if you do. Lemonade from lemons.

docb said:

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MAGA might need to be changed to Make America mow their own lawn again.

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I'm MAGA and that's funny stuff, right there! And I think you are on to something. Every week there is at least 1 of my neighbors getting their lawns mowed….but, come to think of it, I haven't heard a lawn mower in a week!

CanyonAg77 said:

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The post was specifically saying that food costs would soar because of limited illegal immigration to pick the crops. I simply pointed out that assertion was bullcrap

Farm labor costs are a small part of food costs

Speaking of bullcrap, let's talk about "corporate greed".

If Walmart corp wanted to gouge food prices, HEB corp would do a happy dance and then undercut Wally's prices. There's always someone willing to take a little less money

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OR, and hear me out... using your hypothetical. Let's say Walmart increases prices by 15%. HEB doesn't do a happy dance and lower their prices, or even keep them the same. They likely also raise their prices by around 15% too, depending on their strategy. Hell, they might raise them by more than 15% because they are a premium shopping experience compared to Walmart. They have a slightly different clientele. They might be able to get away with an 18% increase instead of just the 15% Walmart did. Walmart's price increase is basically a license for HEB's increase.

See how you're still oversimplifying it? And giving too much benefit of the doubt to these corporations?

This is how tariffs on imports also gives license for domestic companies to artificially raise their prices, too.

Example: Korean Clothes Dryer currently costs $1,000. Domestic Dryer currently costs $1,100. Tariff causes the Korean dryer to increase to $1,250. The domestic dryer company will inevitably also raise their price to around $1,250 because why leave free money on the table? Domestic product is now more competitive with the foreign product, but at artificially inflated prices for both.

See how this works for the end user/consumer?

Key takeaway here is, rising prices for a few things leads to rising prices for basically everything. They're all cross-justifying for each other.

CoachtobeNamed$$$ said:

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docb said:

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MAGA might need to be changed to Make America mow their own lawn again.

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I'm MAGA and that's funny stuff, right there! And I think you are on to something. Every week there is at least 1 of my neighbors getting their lawns mowed….but, come to think of it, I haven't heard a lawn mower in a week!

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Why do we care that people pay other people to mow their lawns again? In fact, why do we care what other people do with their time or their money at all?

Btw, congrats to your neighbors for making enough money to be able to buy some of their time back so they can use it on other things like family, hobbies, helping others, etc. And congrats to them for aiding in job creation. Isn't that a good thing in a capitalist society?

How am I the one preaching the Republican talking points to the MAGA people?

aggievaulter07 said:

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CoachtobeNamed$$$ said:

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docb said:

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MAGA might need to be changed to Make America mow their own lawn again.

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I'm MAGA and that's funny stuff, right there! And I think you are on to something. Every week there is at least 1 of my neighbors getting their lawns mowed….but, come to think of it, I haven't heard a lawn mower in a week!

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Why do we care that people pay other people to mow their lawns again? In fact, why do we care what other people do with their time or their money at all?

Btw, congrats to your neighbors for making enough money to be able to buy some of their time back so they can use it on other things like family, hobbies, helping others, etc.

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The point is they will have to mow their own lawns again when all the "illegals" get deported.

LOL. I am aware.