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Termyn8or -> RE: them lazy immigrants (5/12/2008 12:50:35 PM)
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LE, as strange as it may sound this might be a good thing. I mean think about it, the market is adjusting itself. I wish it would happen here.
This is a market adjustment that was not planned and manipulated by those who sold our countries out with their free trade agreements. Now that the "strawberry index" is up the pound will fall more.
I find it hard to believe that nobody is unemployed there. These farmers had no notion whatsoever of going to an unemployment office or a public assistance office and finding some workers. Notice the lack of a question mark at the end of the sentence.
I guess even a strawberry farmer could have the hubris to think he can influence the market. If I needed workers I could find them. Shit, I would go to the schools if nothing else and offer after school and weekends jobs. There are plenty of people out there who want to work but are unemployed or underemployed.
But something that in my circle has been termed "the almighty buck", you might use quid, but it still applies. They will take a loss of the whole crop rather than a bit less profit. I know all about this type of people.
But is the strawberry farmer wrong ? The fact is most likely that the government made it very attractive to use foreign labo(u)r.
I am starting to think that governments are not the whole problem. People generally support more protection for workers, environmental, economic and otherwise. As such, in the US there is a growing contingent of the population that is working for temp services.
Perhaps the British government is as bad, I would not know but I can tell you this. A friend of mine was down and took the first damn job he could get. It was through a temp service. Dirty work in a factory, a foundry in fact. IMO any job in that environment should pay $15 per hour, but he made eight. You can't live on that.
But get this and get your math cap on. The company was paying the temp service over $18 per hour for him. We have a situation where the guy who does the work makes less than those who don't. When you have built a company and have it running, that might be OK, but these are strictly outsiders who have probably never even seen the plant.
But the thing is, the policies and practices that drive a business to do this are formulated by the government in any country. In the UK you want that free health care, so naturally you expect some taxation. In the US an employer is so suable it is not funny. Almost anything can be called negligence.
So here it is to the point where someone canbe sitting in an office counting the money, even somewhere else, and make more than the person doing the actual work. Alla temp service does is collect the money, rake their piece of it off and write a paycheck with the taxes taken out. One person in the company could do that, saving all that overhead. Why don't they ?
The math don't lie. They are paying $18 an hour for this guy, he is getting $8. If it is that costly to take on another employee in this country, THAT is what needs to be changed. Really, you can get someone for $10 an hour to come in, even part time, to calculate the deductions and write the checks.
And this foundry had perhaps ten or more people from this agency, that is $100 per hour for doing almost nothing. What's more there was a scandal almost that I mentioned a while back. Of the people who worked through this agency, a few of them were having child support taken out of their checks. My buddy was raked for $95 every week.
Well the agency was not sending the money in, just hanging onto it. A bunch of guys couldn't have driver's licenses, and were in danger of being arrested. I called myu certain ethnic lawyer about this, toldhim seems tro me with allthis maybe something can be made of it. I called him because I respect his opinion. What he told me then cleared it all up.
He basically said that a massive lawsuit would just prompt the agency to go out of business and they probably not all that collectable even now. It would be better to use the weight of the government to force compliance. That is what happened and they had to write some big checks (cheques).
But what force is it that makes it more desirable for a company to pay over double a worker's wage ? On the surfaceit makes no sense, but if you really think about it, there must be something. My sister could do payroll at home and bring the chacks every Friday, even at $20 an hour, they would be saving alot of money, you would think.
You would think.
Something causes overseas outsourcing, and that is people. People who have the demand. The source prospers, but everythingthey can do to make sure that the execs and other suits get most of the money is done every day.
You are allowed to make money as a business owner, or at least I thought so. But you must make payroll and the bills when things are not so good. You have a contract with the employees, they are paid a fixed rate and can count on a certain amount of money each week. You deal with fluctuations and all that, but they can count on their job and make their house payments and so forth.
That I see as a constructive and mutually beneficial agreement between employer and employee. However it has been said that loyalty defies the law of gravity in that in it's case, what goes up does not come down.
In the old days people harvested their apples and got themselves an apple cart. If your horse needs shoes, take a couple of bucks over to this guy. Eggs ? go on up the road, they got milk too. That is that the customer was directly involved with the supplier. This has changed.
The people at the top are far removed from those at the bottom. This constructs a barrier. And this barrier widens every year. There are almost no new real jobs created in this country. Service sector, wait a minute, how many happy meals do you have to give them for a plasma TV ?
Something is not right.
Remember the constant that it is easier to get a dollar each out of a million people than it is to get a million dollars from one. Well all the mass manufacturing has been taken over by China, Taiwan, Japan, Malasia and on and on. Places with cheap labor.
Well let's say there are no rich people, your new plasma TV would be about a hundred bucks. If made in the US maybe two hundred bucks. But it's two thousand.
Who gets the rest of that money ?
T
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