Im calling bull****.

The argument people use that "Americans are lazy and arent going to work construction jobs or farming jobs for a lot less than a "typical born American"

I believe there is a misunderstanding with how people perceive farming. So let’s assume, all ‘cheap’ labor decided to stop working. Immediately there would be a massive demand with no supply, wages would rise to draw people out to the fields to work once it got high enough. Next prices for food would rise to absorb the cost of the new wages. Since people have to eat, this would occur. Stating that Americans are ‘above’ working the fields proves a lack of survival comprehension. So yea, calling bull****.

This is a gross oversimplification of the issue, and it has already been made a mess by the political argument that is often devoid of economic reasoning.

SmokethatGreen said:

The argument people use that "Americans are lazy and arent going to work construction jobs or farming jobs for a lot less than a "typical born American"

I believe there is a misunderstanding with how people perceive farming. So let’s assume, all ‘cheap’ labor decided to stop working. Immediately there would be a massive demand with no supply, wages would rise to draw people out to the fields to work once it got high enough. Next prices for food would rise to absorb the cost of the new wages. Since people have to eat, this would occur. Stating that Americans are ‘above’ working the fields proves a lack of survival comprehension. So yea, calling bull****.

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You really think a small or medium size farm could pay wages and benefits to attract quality workers that also want to live a slow paced lifestyle in a small town?

More like the farm would go bankrupt and the farmer ends up committing suicide. Taking away their workers and trying to act like people are magically going to appear to do that kind of work is wishful thinking at best.

SmokethatGreen said:

The argument people use that "Americans are lazy and arent going to work construction jobs or farming jobs for a lot less than a "typical born American"

I believe there is a misunderstanding with how people perceive farming. So let’s assume, all ‘cheap’ labor decided to stop working. Immediately there would be a massive demand with no supply, wages would rise to draw people out to the fields to work once it got high enough. Next prices for food would rise to absorb the cost of the new wages. Since people have to eat, this would occur. Stating that Americans are ‘above’ working the fields proves a lack of survival comprehension. So yea, calling bull****.

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You only need to at look the failing American public education system, and the choices some Americans are making today, to know that working in the fields is soon going to be a mainstay for many.

Donald Trump: 'I love the poorly educated' — and they love him

SmokethatGreen said:

The argument people use that "Americans are lazy and arent going to work construction jobs or farming jobs for a lot less than a "typical born American"

I believe there is a misunderstanding with how people perceive farming. So let’s assume, all ‘cheap’ labor decided to stop working. Immediately there would be a massive demand with no supply, wages would rise to draw people out to the fields to work once it got high enough. Next prices for food would rise to absorb the cost of the new wages. Since people have to eat, this would occur. Stating that Americans are ‘above’ working the fields proves a lack of survival comprehension. So yea, calling bull****.

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That assumes the lack of other employment opportunities and/or the ability of many to supplement lower or equally paid (i.e. easier) jobs with "safety net" assistance.

Why those doing "cheap labor" jobs would (suddenly?) decide to stop working was never addressed. The situation for many foreign nationals is that US "cheap labor" pays many times that of doing the same work in their homelands. Many know that they will be paid as much for one day's work in the US as they could make doing that same work for an entire week their homelands - thus they come (legally or not) to the US to do just that.

SmokethatGreen said:

The argument people use that "Americans are lazy and arent going to work construction jobs or farming jobs for a lot less than a "typical born American"

I believe there is a misunderstanding with how people perceive farming. So let’s assume, all ‘cheap’ labor decided to stop working. Immediately there would be a massive demand with no supply, wages would rise to draw people out to the fields to work once it got high enough. Next prices for food would rise to absorb the cost of the new wages. Since people have to eat, this would occur. Stating that Americans are ‘above’ working the fields proves a lack of survival comprehension. So yea, calling bull****.

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What nonsense! First of all, agricultural sector only accounts for about 1% of the overall workforce. Construction has about 10 million jobs across the whole industry, but the low paying jobs account for only a portion of that total.

Now why would this cheap labor stop working? Your nonsense really is all about inhumanely deporting 20 million people in rapid fashion (which is impossible and the expenses would outweigh any short term economic benefit).

We are also at full employment, where are these millions of idle workers with the requisite skills going to come from?

Want to fix the economy, immigration reform is not the biggest problem, and neither is automation. The main reason why the average American worker has suffered is due to a decreasing share of corporate profits going towards regulations thanks to the most pro-Corporate environment in history. This was released last week from Bridgewater Associates who released a report on the economy over the past couple decades. This is the real problem.

Your system would require huge investments in inhumane programs of mass deportation, that would harm our economy along with the countries of origins of undocumented immigrants. Better to secure our country with 21st reforms for the border and immigration, and focus on overall economic reform.

americanwoman said:

You really think a small or medium size farm could pay wages and benefits to attract quality workers that also want to live a slow paced lifestyle in a small town?

More like the farm would go bankrupt and the farmer ends up committing suicide. Taking away their workers and trying to act like people are magically going to appear to do that kind of work is wishful thinking at best.

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Hey. I'd install perennial landscape, follow the "do almost nothing" philosophy of agricultural development and take good care of the place after he goes mad. And no one would be underpaid. Then I'd use the money saved by not hiring labor to buy a unicorn.

And they say good help is hard to find.

ecofarm said:

Hey. I'd install perennial landscape, follow the "do almost nothing" philosophy of agricultural development and take good care of the place after he goes mad. And no one would be underpaid. Then I'd use the money saved by not hiring labor to buy a unicorn.

And they say good help is hard to find.

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Then you can turn it into a unicorn farm!

americanwoman said:

Then you can turn it into a unicorn farm!

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Migrant workers don't think big like that. They just work all day. Damn farm owners don't know what they're doing.

americanwoman said:

Then you can turn it into a unicorn farm!

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He would probably kill the unicorn cut off the horn and commit suicide by stabbing himself with it if he’s in one of your bleak hypotheticals

SmokethatGreen said:

The argument people use that "Americans are lazy and arent going to work construction jobs or farming jobs for a lot less than a "typical born American"

I believe there is a misunderstanding with how people perceive farming. So let’s assume, all ‘cheap’ labor decided to stop working. Immediately there would be a massive demand with no supply, wages would rise to draw people out to the fields to work once it got high enough. Next prices for food would rise to absorb the cost of the new wages. Since people have to eat, this would occur. Stating that Americans are ‘above’ working the fields proves a lack of survival comprehension. So yea, calling bull****.

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The only flaw in your reasoning is … There IS NO such Thing as UNSKILLED LABOR … if ALL migrant workers stopped doing what they're doing, Agriculture, Hospitality, Construction and Maintenance would be in a BIG hurt for a long, long time.

ecofarm said:

Hey. I'd install perennial landscape, follow the "do almost nothing" philosophy of agricultural development and take good care of the place after he goes mad. And no one would be underpaid. Then I'd use the money saved by not hiring labor to buy a unicorn.

And they say good help is hard to find.

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Allow each worker one acre to live on and grow some very good weed to sell "on the side". Unicorns will surely come to visit often.

ttwtt78640 said:

Allow each worker one acre to live on and grow some very good weed to sell "on the side". Unicorns will surely come to visit often.

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If I didn't already have plans for retirement, I'd invest in weed. A massive market already exists, no speculation about market size or existence. It's just shifting from street corners to stores. Money for the taking. But I wanna buy land and not for weed.

Crovax said:

He would probably kill the unicorn cut off the horn and commit suicide by stabbing himself with it if he’s in one of your bleak hypotheticals

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My initial bleak hypothetical did not take unicorn farms into account. I assume spending time with a unicorn is the equivalent to a high dosage of valium.

SmokethatGreen said:

The argument people use that "Americans are lazy and arent going to work construction jobs or farming jobs for a lot less than a "typical born American"

I believe there is a misunderstanding with how people perceive farming. So let’s assume, all ‘cheap’ labor decided to stop working. Immediately there would be a massive demand with no supply, wages would rise to draw people out to the fields to work once it got high enough. Next prices for food would rise to absorb the cost of the new wages. Since people have to eat, this would occur. Stating that Americans are ‘above’ working the fields proves a lack of survival comprehension. So yea, calling bull****.

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Econ 101

Don't expect Chamber of Commerce shills to get it.

SmokethatGreen said:

I believe there is a misunderstanding with how people perceive farming. So let’s assume, all ‘cheap’ labor decided to stop working. Immediately there would be a massive demand with no supply, wages would rise to draw people out to the fields to work once it got high enough.

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Ahh yes. Good ol' "Economism" at its finest.

As already suggested by other posters, the real world is a tad more complicated than the first day of Econ 101. One item is that farmers don't have unlimited resources to deal with a massive labor shortage. Many small farms are already at the limit, which means that a relatively small change (like Trump's tariff wars) set off a wave of farm bankruptcies in 2019.

Another is that prices are not radically fluid; farmers and commodities markets frequently utilize futures contracts, meaning they agree in advance to sell their product at a specific price. Thus, if their costs rise, but their selling price is fixed, they have to eat the cost. Needless to say, it would cause disruptions in those futures markets as well.

A third factor is foreign competition. A massive labor crunch on US farms won't increase the cost of foreign food, just domestic. Thus, the eventual increase in prices for US agriculture will undoubtedly encourage more imports of foreign agriculture (as it will be cheaper) and discourage exports of US crops (as it's more expensive).

A fourth factor is that farming is incredibly arduous, and yes, native-born Americans generally don't want to do it. That not only means that the cost of labor will be more expensive -- very likely more than the farmer can afford to pay -- it also means productivity will fall.

A fifth factor is that while yes "everyone needs food," that does not mean that demand for agricultural commodities is uniformly inelastic. It is highly likely that if the cost of food skyrockets, then consumers will change their habits. They will purchase less food, and less expensive food -- after all, it's not like the average American's wage went up, because a handful of people are now working on farms. This will also affect supplies, future planning, labor needs, and so on. Oh, and it will certainly result in more Americans going hungry.

The list goes on. Yes, sometimes the simple mechanics of supply and demand are the dominant factors in price changes. In many cases though, there are a variety of other factors and/or unintended consequences involved. That's why simple answers to complex problems -- like Trump's attempt to use tariffs as a club against China -- so often backfire and/or fail.

We need to greatly expand guest worker programs. They work and that is one area where Trump has it wrong. Cut off the flow of illegals at the border but let those who truly want to work come in and do so. This makes sense.

americanwoman said:

You really think a small or medium size farm could pay wages and benefits to attract quality workers that also want to live a slow paced lifestyle in a small town?

More like the farm would go bankrupt and the farmer ends up committing suicide. Taking away their workers and trying to act like people are magically going to appear to do that kind of work is wishful thinking at best.

Click to expand...

Taking aking away workers causes what? A worker shortage then because there are less people to harvest said food, food prices go up because of scarcity. As for farmers, their biggest issue isn’t labor (shocked surprise) it comes from equipment costs, animals, feed, and of course land and seed and worst of all insurances!! A slowdown in production creates a greater demand for its product. If anything you make more money per product produced and pay less for additional liability’s. Also why is the farmer killing themselves? General small/medium sized farms are family driven, having come from a failed farm family I am very familiar with its pitfalls and I can say with certainty that ‘cheap labor’ is a massive liability compared to the benefits it provides. Low food costs and massive corporate farm groups hurt farmers more then cheap labor ever did.