A. When the media starts its annual round of credulous stories about how crops are going to rot in the fields because of not enough cheap illegal alien labor so we need a bigger Guest Peasant program to alleviate the looming shortage/crisis.
NorCal Farmers: 'We Don't Have Enough Workers'
Produce May Rot In Fields
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Farmers in and around the Bay Area are starting to feel the pinch from tighter border security and visa requirements, NBC11's Daniel Garza reported Monday. Some farmers told Garza they expect some of their fields to remain unpicked. Some said they believe their fields will end up filled with rotting produce. The Bush administration has learned of the possible loss of millions of dollars for thousands of farmers throughout the country, and is attempting to loosen visa requirements for workers.
I took a comprehensive look at this genre of annual news story exactly one year ago today in VDARE.com during the Great Pear Crisis of 2006: "Pearanoia." As you have no doubt noticed, nobody in America has eaten a pear in over a year. Larry Ellison bought the last pear in the world at a Sotheby's auction in June and keeps it on display in a crystal vault at Oracle headquarters.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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Yet another labor shortage? But this is great news! Obviously, if agribusiness can't find laborers, it means that all illegal construction workers are fully employed and unavailable for farm work. Therefore the housing recession is all just a figment of our imagination!
From what I've read and heard, there may actually be a run-up of food prices this year, but the cause will have more to do with the government's subsidization of ethanol as fuel than a lack of workers. Of course, the media and the cheap labor lobby will attribute it to a non-existent crackdown on illegal immigrants.
c23
The food supply is beside the point. The real issue: Winter is coming and chimneys across America need sweeping. Once again millions of Americans will suffer poor chimney performance and even chimney fires due to the lack of available 5-year old boys for this crucial labor sector. It is only the soft bigotry of low expectations that keeps healthy kids quarantined in kindergartens, when they could be gainfully employed and out pursuing the American dream.
Protest the hateful bigotry and discrimination of nativist anti-Chimney Sweep groups now!
I just went to Drudge and he's giving the "rot in the field" myth top billing, of course. Along with mind boggling comments by ex-prez of Mexico Vincente Fox.
Says Fox:
"The xenophobics, the racists, those who feel they are a superior race ... they are deciding the future of this nation," he said, without naming names, in an interview with The Associated Press.
And Fox's new book is called "Revolution of Hope"! Is that not the most ironic political statement of the decade?
The world could've used a Borat-type movie parody of Vincent Fox, Mexican Madman. Vincenzo is so absolutely over-the-top, so brazen in his mendacity, the effect on an intelligent audience is stunned amazement. I watched about three minutes of his interview on Larry King. Listening to Fox's condescending insults and arch hypocrisy delivered in his sh*tty English-as-a-second-language speaking style was too much. Completely sure of himself, and his grotesque distortions of reality, he pegs the BS meter and expects us to lap it up and say "hmmm....". That is the Mexican way.
Agribusiness has been ruthless towards labor for decades. See John Ford's classic 1940 "The Grapes of Wrath" which is available on DVD.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032551/
My argument is simple: if you're a farmer or any other business and proclaim how desperately you need "guest" workers, stop all the poor mouthing and open your books to inspection. How much did your business clear last year? What was your profit margin? What was your return on investment? How much did the CEO make?
Don't merely "prove" you've tried to find workers at market wages. Prove that you're actually struggling. Google and Microsoft are some of the biggest whiners about how much a struggle it is to find good workers, but both had net profit margins last year of over 30% and the founders are some of the richest people in the world.
If there were a genuine labor shortage then wages would be rising and profits falling. But business profits are at record highs. The average member of the Forbes 400 saw his net worth climb 30% last year. Where's the struggle?
Clearly, we need to get cracking on importing some new group of desperate Third World peons (Burmese? Malians? Tajiks?) to do The Jobs That Mexicans Won't Do.
hmmm... the real reason for the increase in food/fuel/etc. prices is the drop in the value of the dollar. Duh.
Pointing at the worker "shortage" is just hand-waving diversion.
>>"...those who feel they are a superior race ... they are deciding the future of this nation," he said...
Uh, isn't this *exactly* who you would want to be deciding the future of a nation? -- the guy who looks around and objectively determines that he's smarter and more productive than the rest. Or should we leave decisions about the future to society's unconfident losers?
We all know MSM is woefully behind in terms of timeliness. So assume this isn't necessarily a hot topic today, but a hot topic from one or two years ago, and they are finally getting around to it.
In fact, anecdotal evidence suggests migrant workers are returning to the fields this year en force. Where were they the last few years as the crops rotted in the fields? They were earning many times a crop-picker's hourly wage as construction workers.
Now that the construction frenzy is over, they are returning to their original occupation.
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