BoatBanter.com - A Penny a Pound...

"Harryk" wrote in message ...

On 1/21/11 1:15 AM, Califbill wrote:
"Harryk" wrote in message
m...

On 1/20/11 3:20 PM, wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 11:08:00 -0800, wrote:

Minimum wage kills jobs. Was never the final wage anybody earned. We
used
to have ushers in movie theaters. When the minimum wage was raised
in the
late 50's no more ushers as not enough profit to keep them. If high
minimum
wage is good, lets make it $100 an hour. Then look at what happens to
prices and jobs and inflation.

Nonsense. This isn't India. People need to have a living wage and they
need health insurance.

If we raise the cost of produce here too much, it will all be
imported.
The Mexicans come here to pick tomatoes because they make 10 times
what they make picking tomatoes in Mexico. We still get most from
there anyway.
You really have to be careful reading the boxes tomatoes come in. If
they say something like "packed in Naples Florida" that may be the
only thing that happened here. I used to have one of the big Naples
tomato packers as a customer. I have seen them taking tomatoes out of
big crates with spanish writing on them and putting them in the boxes
you see at the grocery store. They said "packed in Naples Fl"
The real answer still comes back to the consumer. If you demanded that
tomatoes be US produced and that these pickers make a living wage
before you would buy them it would happen but few people are willing
to pay the price this would cost.
We still look at the price first.

So, you think the penny a pound more the pickers will get will force
farmers out of the produce business, eh? :)

Reply:

Maybe? Maybe they go to a different crop. Go to mechanized picking. Lets
raise it a buck a pound. No much more than a penny. Where is the cut off
point? Where is the point where it is cheaper to grow and ship from out
of the country?

You are on very thin ice here, objecting to giving the pickers a penny
more a pound for their brutally hard labor.

Reply:
Nope! Where is the cut off point? And there is a lot of labor a lot more
brutal than picking tomatoes.