Thread: The Fact is Clear; Labor Shortage is a Reality

I hadn't thought of asylums. I'm assuming you are talking about mental health institutions?

That reminds me of one here in Texas that the inmates once did very fine needlework and had sales a couple of times a year. I found this out when I was involved with liquidating an estate. The lady whose stuff it was had labelled so many thing as to their history. There was a box of beautiful hand decorated napkins, gorgeous drawn work, etc. and there was a note telling of going to the hospital twice a year to purchase their table linens.

Not too many of us use that sort of thing, but why couldn't they make clothing or something else?

Just out of curiosity...What happend to the "Illegal Farmworkers" that picked the crops for these SUBSIDIZED Farmers last year?
Think maybe they decided the pay was better as a Drywaller? Maybe Highway Construction? Or Bricklayer...
THE ONLY SHORTAGE IN THIS COUNTRY...IS COMMON SENSE!

I think I'm correct or nearly correct in saying that we now have the highest rate of immigration this country has ever seen, we take more immigrants than any other country in the world, we have more foreign born residents than ever before (and adding in offspring of foreign born the number would be even more dramatic), and we have multiple millions of illegal immigrants all combining to create an exponentially growing population; yet in spite of all that, apparently we have the greatest labor shortage ever in agriculture. So, it would seem that immigration is not the solution to this person's dilemma -- at least not the sole answer. Isn't the definition of insanity something along the lines of doing the same thing over and over again that doesn't work and then expecting it to work?

If the economy shrinks, jobs that may seem stable and totally unrelated to the immigration issue will be lost. We need to stop thinking about this solely in terms of immigration. The issue is a legal, reliable and adequate labor supply. We do not have the native-born population to meet our needs now or in the future. Even conceding all the challenges of immigration, on balance, a proper system will create jobs – not displace them.

First the writer wails about there being too many jobs for the number of workers and that we need more workers; and then his concern is in creating more jobs for the workers we already have. Does that make sense?

I think the tragic flaw in this economic obsessive thinking is that these people are relying on a model that over time must result in an infinite economy with an infinite number of jobs with an infinite population. As we live in a finite space with finite resources their plan is doomed to absolute failure eventually. If the true price we are paying to have cheap farm workers now is to have no farms in the future because we've diverted all the irrigation water to the ever expanding cities and put housing developments and shopping malls on top of the farm land then that is a asinine solution. I would rather pay more for food today and have a few less other trinkets than be a trinket glutton today at the expense of starving tomorrow. Economic obsessives leave such things as environmental and resource limitations as well as human nature and needs out of the equation. Humans are just cogs in the economic engine to them that don't get into gangs and wars and things like that.

If rapidly growing populations were key ingredients in happiness and prosperity, wouldn't the immigrant sending countries be the place to be rather than the place to get away from? Apparently, there are flaws in his theory. He doesn't want facts to catch up with emotion because he relies on manipulating emotion; and he certainly doesn't want facts to catch up with his greed. The Farm Bureau is so afraid of facts that it provides no place to submit them (that I could find) on the website. The real and sustainable solution would be to innovate as much as possible and then divert the idle, unemployed, and superfluously employed workers to where they are needed even if it costs a little more for the product. Maybe some smaller farms rather than the government subsidized mega-farms would be better too.

Originally Posted by BlueHills

I think I'm correct or nearly correct in saying that we now have the highest rate of immigration this country has ever seen, we take more immigrants than any other country in the world, we have more foreign born residents than ever before (and adding in offspring of foreign born the number would be even more dramatic), and we have multiple millions of illegal immigrants all combining to create an exponentially growing population; yet in spite of all that, apparently we have the greatest labor shortage ever in agriculture. So, it would seem that immigration is not the solution to this person's dilemma -- at least not the sole answer. Isn't the definition of insanity something along the lines of doing the same thing over and over again that doesn't work and then expecting it to work?

If the economy shrinks, jobs that may seem stable and totally unrelated to the immigration issue will be lost. We need to stop thinking about this solely in terms of immigration. The issue is a legal, reliable and adequate labor supply. We do not have the native-born population to meet our needs now or in the future. Even conceding all the challenges of immigration, on balance, a proper system will create jobs – not displace them.

First the writer wails about there being too many jobs for the number of workers and that we need more workers; and then his concern is in creating more jobs for the workers we already have. Does that make sense?

I think the tragic flaw in this economic obsessive thinking is that these people are relying on a model that over time must result in an infinite economy with an infinite number of jobs with an infinite population. As we live in a finite space with finite resources their plan is doomed to absolute failure eventually. If the true price we are paying to have cheap farm workers now is to have no farms in the future because we've diverted all the irrigation water to the ever expanding cities and put housing developments and shopping malls on top of the farm land then that is a asinine solution. I would rather pay more for food today and have a few less other trinkets than be a trinket glutton today at the expense of starving tomorrow. Economic obsessives leave such things as environmental and resource limitations as well as human nature and needs out of the equation. Humans are just cogs in the economic engine to them that don't get into gangs and wars and things like that.

If rapidly growing populations were key ingredients in happiness and prosperity, wouldn't the immigrant sending countries be the place to be rather than the place to get away from? Apparently, there are flaws in his theory. He doesn't want facts to catch up with emotion because he relies on manipulating emotion; and he certainly doesn't want facts to catch up with his greed. The Farm Bureau is so afraid of facts that it provides no place to submit them (that I could find) on the website. The real and sustainable solution would be to innovate as much as possible and then divert the idle, unemployed, and superfluously employed workers to where they are needed even if it costs a little more for the product. Maybe some smaller farms rather than the government subsidized mega-farms would be better too.

The United States does take more immigrants than any other country but your immigration system is predominantly family based. Less than 10% of green cards issued each year is to someone who has come in on the employment based system.

If you come via the family based system as long as a relative says they will support you it does matter if you have little or no education at all. Those of us who come via employment are bound by relatively small number of green cards and have to be able to provide for ourselves and any family we have with us.

Americans and legal residents ARE AVAILABLE to DO those agri jobs, they just WON'T do the work for THIRD-World wages because such skimpy wages simply CAN'T KEEP UP with OUR country's FIRST-World PRICES and RENTS! Would ANY of those GREEDY farm bosses WANT to LIVE like THIRD-Worlders do, in CRAMMED, SQUALID, CRIME-INFESTED TARPAPER-SHACK SLUMS, with TWENTY or MORE people to a ONE-bedroom apartment, FORTY or MORE to a TWO-bedroom apartment, or SIXTY or MORE to a SINGLE-family home?! Of course NOT! Well, NEITHER do the AVERAGE American and LEGAL resident! And we're NOT GOING to LIVE LIKE THAT, either!!!

Originally Posted by lindiloo

The United States does take more immigrants than any other country but your immigration system is predominantly family based. Less than 10% of green cards issued each year is to someone who has come in on the employment based system.

If you come via the family based system as long as a relative says they will support you it does matter if you have little or no education at all. Those of us who come via employment are bound by relatively small number of green cards and have to be able to provide for ourselves and any family we have with us.

Those are good points, which I sort of overlooked, lindiloo. As you are probably aware a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives to eliminate extended family chain migration (but speed up nuclear family reunification) and I believe the last/latest CIR act also included a provision to eliminate chain migration; but with the CIR, if I remember correctly, it would have allowed and even expedited current "chaining" and it would have taken 8 years or more before those expedited chains were exhausted -- if they ever would be. I appreciate that you used the word "says" regarding support, because at one time it apparently wasn't at all uncommon for sponsors to "chain in" elderly family members saying and showing that either the sponsor or the person(s) being brought in had sufficient assets to support the newcomer(s). Once the newcomer was here, those assets would be transferred to yet another family member and then instantaneous poverty was created with the U.S. government then providing the support through Supplementary Social Security, food stamps, and whatever else the government hands out. This practice is probably still going on, but I haven't read anything about it recently. If we eliminated the family based system we could have less overall immigration and much reduced burdensome immigration with more productive/useful/needed immigration. NumbersUSA has has some good, basic, and concise info, IMO, on chain immigration:
http://www.numbersusa.com/hottopic/overall.html