Quoted: C'mon now it's not like those lettuce pickers are coming from the famed lettuce picker conditioning camps south of the border.  Willing to suffer yes.  Healthier or more physically capable I doubt it.   Those crappy jobs we did in our youth motivated us to get educations so we'd never have to do them again.

Agree on the motivation - it worked on me for sure!!  

But I do think without a good bit of conditioning and acclimation, the average person (except maybe military or other young and in shape) wouldn't last. You ever done field work? All day stooped over picking a crop in the heat? It's tough. REALLY tough. In America, lots of guys have heart attacks every year shovelling their sidewalks after a snow storm.

Quoted: Quoted: Hell - I agree with McCain on this one. I doubt you will find any union worker keeping pace with a mexican in a field pulling carrots and shit. This thread might have more creditability if it wasnt using the context of him taking to the AFLCIO - if the mexicans promote artificually low wages, unions promote artificially high wages, often with substandard quality and quantity. Not to say all Union workers are lazy. The ones that are lean on the ones that want to actually work as to not screw up the bell curve of expectations. The problem isn't the union workers so much as it is the union itself. Take the workers out of the union and most of them will quickly shape up.

I agree. They would have too. Hell - Im lazy 1/2 the time. The only reason i work 60+ hour weeks is I have to to put food on the table. When I had a salary job I slacked off 1/2 the time.

Everyone  misses the point....

The basic point is:

If there were not mexicans to be paid $3 an hour, they would have to pay legal workers minimum wage. Although this seems like it would make businesses go bankrupt it is BS. When more people are paid more money there is more purchasing power and it helps to grow the economy.

Paying mexicans $3 an hour and then having them send it back to mexico is called a capital outflow and it is only good if you are investing in a country with a higher real interest rate than your own. But they arent doing that. So we all get fucked.

There is also called the supply and demand of labor. If you raise the price paid for labor, your supply of labor will go up. No shit americans dont want to work for $3 an hour....

Now, if the companies paid the legal wage Im sure we could find many more americans to do these jobs.

Maybe it would pay off if some politicians were economists.

Quoted: Someone should offer McCain $50/hour to shut the fuck up.

Quoted: Quoted: Someone should offer McCain $50/hour to shut the fuck up.

I think your money would be even better spent on Hilary.