President Obama says Americans want to go to work. Unemployed Americans don’t want a handout he says, each time he proposes extending unemployment benefits. Republican Senate leaders, he said, “are advancing a misguided notion that emergency relief somehow discourages people from looking for a job should talk to these folks.”
“That attitude, I think, reflects a lack of faith in the American people,” says Mr. Obama. “Because the Americans I hear from, in letters and town hall meetings, Americans like Leslie and Jim and Denise — they’re not looking for a handout. They desperately want to work. It’s just, right now, they can’t find a job.”
Out-of-work aesthetician Leslie Macko, former body-parts manager Jim Chukalas, and unemployed maintenance supervisor Denise Gibson joined the president as props for a photo op and speech fodder last summer. “These are honest, decent, hardworking folks who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own and who have nowhere else to turn except unemployment benefits and who need emergency relief to help them weather this economic storm,” said the President.
Depending upon which government unemployment figure you follow, nearly one in five Americans is unemployed. Yet at harvest time farmers are finding that the only willing labor has to come from a nearby penitentiary.
In Idaho, farm labor is so scarce, convicts from the minimum-security St. Anthony Work Camp are picking, sorting and packing spuds for $7.50 an hour and happy to have work outside the prison walls. “The best part is you have the influence of the real world, which eventually we’re all going back to,” said Thomas Alworth, a 36-year-old convicted of grand theft by possession.
Convict labor in Arizona is up 30 percent this year, with Arizona’s tough immigration law a primary reason. “The crackdown on immigrants just makes it so hard” to find workers, said Richard Selapack, vice president for labor contracts at the Arizona Department of Corrections.
Frank van Straalen, COO of Eurofresh Farms in Wilcox, Arizona, says very few native-born Americans apply for jobs in his greenhouses and those that do typically quit.
Jerry Spencer had the same experience at his tomato farm north of Birmingham. After his Hispanic workers left with the passage of Alabama’s new immigration law, he thought he’d recruit unemployed U.S. citizens to pick the tomatoes. However, “jobless resident Americans lack the physical stamina and the mental toughness to see the job through,” Spencer told the Associated Press.
Tomato farmer Helen Jenkins says, “It’s just not working,” referring to the new law. “You can’t get the (American) workers out here to do the work that the Hispanics were doing. They’re just not capable.”
Lana Boatwright, another tomato farmer, told the AP that many of the people she has tried to hire were concerned about losing their government disability payments if they went to work for her.
Mr. van Straalem, a third of whose workers are prisoners, told the Wall Street Journal, “We’re fortunate, we’re near a prison here.”
Restaurateurs and farmers in Georgia are having trouble finding help since the passage of HB 87 in April. The labor shortage left crops rotting fields this spring and summer at a cost of $74.9 million to Georgia farmers. The farmers said they lacked 40 percent of the total work force they needed.
Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released producer price index (PPI) data for September. In the release’s Stage-of-Processing Analysis section was this,
Finished foods: Prices for finished consumer foods climbed 0.6 percent in September, the fourth consecutive monthly increase. Accounting for over eighty percent of the September advance, prices for fresh and dry vegetables increased 10.0 percent.
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I’d harangue americans for not having the fortitude to pick tomatoes, but I don’t think I’d do that work myself either. Then again, I haven’t been alive long enough to end up unemployed yet.
I don’t think the point is to harangue Americans for not picking tomatoes. It’s to harangue them for not picking tomatoes but nonetheless expecting others to support them. It’s the last bit that’s critical.
Perfectly said.
Thanks for your perspicacious cherry picking. I’m in Washington State. I can get a job 150 miles from my home at $150/day picking apples. I have worked virtually every day for just short of 50 years and I have made several employers rich with my labor. I’d pick apples for something to do, but a decent place to stay and food to eat means $150/day looks more like $50 at the end of the day and that to be away from family and local volunteering I do. I actually feel bad for the apple farmers because they are a long way from population centers that might supply their labor. Taking that equation and turning it into “(white) Americans don’t want to work hard is the vilest of canards. You and all your ilk should be ashamed.
You apparently missed the point of the post. The point is that there is something called the division of labor, and that free trade, of both goods and resources makes us better off. In fact, the desire to see free trade and removal of restrictions of labor traveling freely across borders is the exact opposite of natvism. Immigration laws like those mentioned only serve to impoverish us.
Now, I’ll agree that immigrant use and abuse of social services is quite widespread especially in my state of California. And of course many come here for the benefits and all that. So eliminate all that, for citizen and non-citizen alike. Free trade but no hand outs. The real criticism is about those unwilling to work in such jobs, not those willing. In reality, what more and more want is a high paying job that requires little effort, that’s not regulated by market forces. In fact, that is seen as some sort of entitlement.
And yes, all those benefits DO lessen the incentive to work. And see here’s the thing: the capital structure has been terribly skewed by years of intervention. Is the president asking that we subsidize these jobs so that Bill and Mary and Ted and Susie can keep on doing whatever it is they want to do because it is their birth right to be paid well for work that the market no longer deems necessary? Or should I not even bother asking that question!!
Now maybe picking apples is not a viable option for you since the opportunity cost is too high. The $150 is probably $50 when you figure all the taxation. And honestly, is it fair to others for you to say “I’m out of work but I want you to pay for me so I can stay here. I refuse to move.” That is the problem. For those that do make the journey and work, maybe they can serve as a model. At least they’re producing something of value to someone.
And in point of fact, all work, which is simply an exchange of labor resource for compensation (in a free society), is volunteer. How you get rewarded is the only difference.
There is no comparative advantage to a higher IQ nation that makes more refined goods in importing a lower IQ labor force to make less refined goods. People with high time preference and poor impulse control impose many social costs, as California is finding out. Among the costs are rising house prices and lengthy commutes (and roads for the lengthy commutes), as higher IQ individuals flee to “better” (i.e. white and Asian) school districts.
‘ “I’m out of work but I want you to pay for me so I can stay here. I refuse to move.” That is the problem.’
Yup.
ha. You think you are a typical example?
Do you think that a person that grew up on sesame street and had a 4 year liberal arts college degree is going to go out and pull tomatoes? These people don’t know what they are capable of and they don’t want to know.
The proof is in the pudding:
A shitload of agricultural jobs that pay well in addition to a significant amount of population living unemployed. How do these people afford to pay for their housing with no wages.. how do these people afford food? The idea that unemployment payments do not encourage people to sit at home is patently absurd.
Do you have any other explanation for this phenomena other then they are getting paid by the government so they don’t have to work?
When given a choice to sit at home and make 5 dollars a hour versus working your ass off in a field, when you never ever had to do any manual labor in your entire life, for 10 dollars an hour… the vast majority of Americans are going to be happy to sit at home and wait around for a better paying gig.
The difference from their perspective is a life of sweat and toil so they can afford to grill steak at home versus sitting in a air conditioned basement eating macaroni and cheese while watching movies, Opera, and reality court TV.
They are humans. It doesn’t have jack shit with their race.. it has to do with the culture and upbringing. It takes a relatively special person with a stubborn will, decent pride, and a strong enough backbone to go out and work their ass off for a living when they can sit around being lazy.
Most people in our culture was never given a opportunity to grow those parts on their own… they are taught from birth that all they have to do is obey and conform. They are told that if simply want something hard enough and long enough.. and that is all that is needed to achieve their dreams. It’s a false Walt Disney reality sold to them by people that only want their compliant obedience and cable TV subscriptions.
People living in a non-urban environment have a much better chance at understanding the value of hard work. But in large cities and suburban environments the regimentation is so intense and the environment so tightly controlled that it’s increasingly surreal. People are detached from reality.
Sorry, Richard, but I’m an apple grower in your neck of the woods and I can confirm that the labor situation is very much as described in this article.
I’ve offered jobs to quite a few young people that were collecting unemployment benefits and not a single one of them ever took me up. Most laugh and scoff at me and quip that they’re much too busy golfing to actually work.
Perhaps next summer I truck my kids to your groves and have them pick apples. For a mere 25% cut of the gross, I will personally ensure their work performance and provide comfortable RV housing and breakfast and lunch. Maybe you can toss in some buttered bread and water at lunch time.
How will you “personally ensure their work performance”?Do you mean you will pick the apples if they don”t?Correct me if I’m wrong but you don”t sound to me like you’ve worked on farms.
I assure you, there are ways to ensure a child completes its chores.
And, rest assured, motivation and determination are huge parts of the equation.
Your employers paid you I assume? Correct? You should have found a way to have people make you rich, too. Or saved better. Quit yer bitchin’.
I went to college so I wouldn’t have to work. While earning more than 99% of the world, I haven’t had to work for any of it over more than 20 years unless you think sitting on your butt for 10 hours while playing with toys payed and assigned to you by someone else counts as work.
If it’s not leisure, it’s labour.
A good post applying sound principles to modern facts.
I humbly point out that, thanks to the complete nationalization of roads and education, and the criminilization of discrimination, a farmer’s apple-picker often becomes someone’s neighbor and the neighbor’s kids schoolmate, etc.
My mind and heart belong to freedom, but when the Puerto Rican bums move in next door and drink swill all day and play crappy music all night, I frankly don’t give a damn anymore about division of labor or anything else. I just want them back where they came from.
This basic fact drives the anti-immigration sentiment that, sadly, calls for more laws to undo the effect of bad laws rather than seek the repeal of the bad laws to begin with. Such is life. As HHH notes, in Libertania immigration would be a non-issue, period. My heart aches for the anti-immigration activists (really, to be accurate, it’s the anti-dysgenic degeneration activists) who hail false gods.
Change the people, change the country. Open borders and access to ballot boxes (albeit with one generation’s lag) is a recipe for civil unrest. Whites are destined to be a minority by 2050, and it’ll be interesting to see how they cope with that.
They already are a minority. So what? No-one gives a toss.
No, whites are still around 60%. The southern border leaks like a sieve, and yet there is no appetite in Washington to stem the influx, quite the contrary. Plenty care. What about I set up camp on the sidewalk outside your house?
R.S.
While whites may remain the majority in the USA for the moment, that is not the situation in most other parts of the world including around the region here or at home. It really does not matter a whit what the colour of your skin is. It just isn’t a primary attribute worth judging a man by. Hence no-one I deal with gives a toss.
While it is understandood that more and more North Americans are discovering they are indigent, and some even homeless, what has your living as a homeless person on the sidewalk got to do with anything?
Sione
Sione is without a doubt this blog’s king of the face palm.
Come to Samoa and do some counting. While you are at it, you should visit my outfit in Hong Kong. Do some more counting. In the majority of the world (including portions of much of Western Europe) you’ll notice (horrors!) white people are in a strict minority. So what? Does it matter? No. Not really.
What you really do need to understand is that your skin colour and nationality do not make you special or especially valuable or worthy of any extra respect. Those are minor attributes, not primary ones. They convey no special status upon you. On the other hand, how you act, what you do, the ideas and values you hold and live by, the decisions you make in this life, those DO matter. They are what determine what you ARE. Those are what you are ultimately evaluated by. People do give a toss about that.
Think on it.
Sione
The market gives a toss. White neighbors get more expensive every year.
House prices for white people in the US get more expensive every year…
Sure they do.
Yeah.
Right.
Sione
Having trouble with that distinction, missy?
House prices.
Prices for houses with white neighbors.
A-G
Perhaps you may not have noticed but houses throughout the US are getting cheaper and cheaper- houses with white neighbours included. They have been getting cheaper each year. They are going to get a whole lot cheaper yet.
THAT is what is going on with the market!
Sione
Here’s a nice video clip from South Park. Even the youngins’ can get started on preparing to secure the border….
Sure you noticed how much standing around and chatting and cellphone use went on when those local utility workers came through after the big storm. Those bridges in that state that need fixing? Get some Fed money, double the work force and twice as many guys will be standing around chatting and talking on the cellphone. Betcha. Gotta leave a certain number of bridges left unfixed or the subsidies might stop.
THIS IS UTTERLY SCIENTIFIC and you are wrong if you do not believe it.
One could always buy Italian tomatoes picked by African illegal immigrants happy to work for a pittance. No Puerto Ricans next door for HL, and cheap salsa for Mr. French. We outsource the social problem to Naples.
Hooray. Perhaps we can start a highway to China in Tijuana?
If it meant that the Washington agenda for dissolving the old America were in any way thwarted, your highway project ain’t going anywhere. Cheap work force is just an ancillary benefit, a bone to throw to the agribusiness lobby. Social re-engineering is the big pay-off. A fractious, Balkanized population is much easier to control.
You must forgive the President. He isn’t so much the Chief Executive Officer of the most powerful nation on earth, he’s more of a fabricated, zombie spokespuppet without any discernible qualifications, least of all an independent intelligence. Most of the time, on most issues, he’s going to sound like someone reading bland, hackneyed clichés off a teleprompter. If he was the kind of person possessing commonsense and capable of independent thought then frankly he never would been considered for the position.
Probably the battles over Clinton’s Whitewater and womanizing, and Bush’s National Guard Service, drinking, drugs, etc. taught the rulers of the country that it’s far better to install a zombie with a blank resumé and an empty head than any kind of real person with real experience and real ideas. It makes running the country so much easier.
Teleprompters are in high demand
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/obamas-totus-has-been-stolen
Disincentives to working, and how the government helped kill Americans’ work-ethic.
I picked (apple) “drops” one autumn on the mainland when I was a kid. Lots of my friends did it. The Mexican and Jamaican migrant workers were usually harder working than most of the American bohemians, hippies, and kids like us. Still we all earned a wage, that we were willing to work for.
The Great Society welfare programs had been on the books for 15 years or so. And even back then, you could see the multi-generational “entitlement” set it. But it was nothing like today…
The medicaid, low income/section 8 housing, two years of unemployment benefits, food stamps, utilities assistance programs have made it uneconomical for Americans to work.
A family of four can collect $956/mo. just in food stamps, have their rent and much/or all of their power paid for, have health care free on medicaid, and other enabling welfare programs pay for them to sit around entertaining themselves or working under-the-table to provide additional comforts in their entitled life.
The worst thing that the government has done, through child labor laws and anti-lemonade stand over-regulation, is to kill the work ethic of kids who want to work for pay.
I can’t get any slaves to pick my cotton! I went to the Charleston Market to go buy myself some, and they tell me slavery is outlawed! Now how am I supposed to grow cotton without cheap labor?
They told me there was some sort of magical cotton picking machine that could be purchased. Of course, says I, I’ll just get in my magical mechanical device that speeds me over land at speeds exceeding 25 mph and go over the rainbow to find it. Balderdash!
I even overheard some young cracker muttering about old throwbacks wanting to lower investment per worker to Third World levels. Young man, I told him, it is clear you are not cut out for the landed class, for if a successful planter were to invest in capital goods rather than much cheaper fungible labor, he would quickly lose his shirt! And the broader society would face economic ruin! What society has ever automated its way to prosperity, I wanted to ask, but then I was asked to leave.
Please leave?
Ha ha! I write in jest, my friend. You see, I have actually adapted to the times and was able to retain 100% of my holdings despite the 13th Amendment so there is no need for me to leave this fine industry. My great-great-granddaddy would be proud.
I just switched to a lighter colored employee and now I pay them what it used to cost to house them! And when they get old or sick or have kids who need educating, that’s somebody else’s problem–I’ve already pocketed my return on their labor!
“And when they get old or sick or have kids who need educating”
It’s their responsibility (and their friends’ and families’) to take care of it.
” We’re fortunate, we’re near a prison here.”
A sad comment on the state of the American work ethic and thus unavoidably a sad comment on the state of American ethics in general. A people without a “work ethic” is a people who believe that they should be supported by the work of others. Who are the anti-social ones here, those in prison or those outside of it?
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