The red area = North Mexico…
Some south westerners took it on the chin [ll] when Absolut vodka ran a spunky ad in Mexico that said California, Arizona and Texas would still be Mexican territories in a perfect world.
When will someone have the guts to admit that Mexicans are better Americans than most Americans?
Mexxos understand farming. With everyone trying to “go green” like it is some fucking red ribbon that you pin to your lapel people need to recognize the Mexxo for already being green. From picking all the fruits and vegertables we consume.
Mexxos drink those little cans of Budweiser, and then pass out on the sidewalk. This just seems like a better method of conserving energy. I have never seen a Mexxo hurl his beer.
Americans want the luxury of buying a three dollar all-cotton t-shirt from Wal-Mart without the notion that maybe our greed and our comfort is why we are out of a job.
Such problems will be worked out on their own once the Amero is rolled out
Exactly…lets all get ready to welcome in the North American Union..
Shit is real in da battlefield yall…DNT SLEEP
Wu Tang ARRHH ARRHH!!!
most of my friends are latino/a of mexican heritage, and most of them and their families do the hard work here in california. it isn’t a matter of “taking” something back or “giving” something back as it is paying people their worth wethher it comes to being able to work freely and earn a decent wage, and whether or not they can attain legal representation if they are fucked (big problem in california). the big argument i hear against migrant work is that it is illegal, and mind you this is always argued from the inane perspective of ellis island 4th gens, so my argument is, why aren’t we making it easier to allow the much-needed work-force, which must,a. adhere to our laws, b. pay taxes, and c. work to attain citizenship. but oh no, its always about the illegals taking our fucking jobs. shit motherfuckers, you go prune the grapevines 12 hours a day and talk to me later. ya know?
The “taking our jobs” argument always annoys me since its people that usually haven’t ever worked a day of manual labor. Migrant workers do the jobs here that we don’t EVEN consider.
When I hear that I always picture mexican dudes standing outside of building waiting for people to come out so they can slide in and sit at their desk. “Your job took punk!!!”
@Thoreally & Dallas,
The “no Americans available or want to do a job” argument is BS.
Americans, especially in this 2000s decade crappy job market when the only job growth is in healthcare & government sectors, WILL do any job/occupation if the pay, benefits, & adherence to labor laws is good relative to other occupations.
If the manual labor jobs paid a “living wage” of something like $13+/hr, were unionized, & had decent benefits like health care coverage, many Americans would be signing up for these jobs, especially in focked up labor markets like Flint, MI, inner-city focked up neighborhoods, Appalachia, New Orleans, etc.
Economist Dr. Dean Baker explains the true reality of labor markets in his excellent free ebook “The Conservative Nanny State”
http://www.conservativenannystate.org/
Think of this thought experiment to show how the “no Americans will do the job” concept is BS
1. Pharmacists in low wage (such as Peru, Botswana, India) or even medium wage (Mexico) countries have very weak earnings (5X or even 10X less) than median 95K salary of US pharmacists, referred to here as “poorly paid foreign pharmacists” (PFP)
2 The US changed its labor laws to allow unlimited immigration of professionals who pass the same rigorous licensing professional exam that US pros must pass to be licensed
3 In additon to #2, foreign pros must pass a rigorous written & verbal English-language skills exam.
4 Suppose that 10% (very conservative low-ball estimate, might be much higher) of PFP the ability/work ethic/intellectual capacity/talent to meet #2 & #3
5 CVS would start mass-hiring of PFPs in its US stores for $30K salary, 3X less than the existing US $95K salary
6 CVS would cry “hey no American pharmacists are willing to do the job, we have no choice but to hire PFPs”
7 Many US pharmacists would react by lobbying to US Government for protectionism.
8 If #7 fails, many of the US pharmacists would react to #5 & #6 by abandoning the occupation, retraining for another US occupation that provides a better mix of pay/benefits/job security.
Simlar scenario that I would love for this scenario to occur, so much so that I’d prolly bust a nut [||]:
1 A NYT TI decides they need to cut costs, decide to do it by cutting labor costs
2 TI sees corporate whore “free-trade” douche-bag “journalist” Tom Friedman as an obvious low-hanging fruit for offshore outsourcing
3 An excellent 28 yo young journalist in Monterrey Mexico, Tomas Puto De Negocio (TP), has a masters in journalism from the premier university in Mexico, plus scores in the 99% percentile on the TOEFL exam, making his English-language writing skills equivalent or better to those of Tom Friedman. TP, regardless of his own true personal economic/political beliefs, is willing to be a corporate whore Friedman-like “journalist” to help his career & his family’s financial future.
4 NYT hires TP for $30K, to telecommute from his home office in Monterrey, to work on the tasks previously handled by Friedman.
5 NYT simultaneously lays off Friedman
6 Friedman, now that his own “world is flat” & having free time due to his new unemployed status, does a 180 “flip-flop” on his prior “free trade is great for the average American” nonsense. Friedman cries like a baby on all Larry King-type shows that will have him about his “change of heart”
so, EGP, i am writing about the reality of the situation and not the economic statistical analysis; two different things. one is an action and the other an idea or a potential reality.
“Americans, especially in this 2000s decade crappy job market when the only job growth is in healthcare & government sectors, WILL do any job/occupation if the pay, benefits, & adherence to labor laws is good relative to other occupations.”
this quote, in my so-called reality, is simply untrue in the agriculture industry, from ventura to salinas, fresno to sactown. i do not need statistics to see what is happening around me. i simply argue that it is more difficult to attain citizenship and they deserve it so that they can have all the rights and penalties that we have. Ah, the land of the free….
@thoreally, the current “reality” is a result of government policy, not some “natural order” of things.
The rights of undocumented workers is a separate issue. I would hope that if all 2008 undocumented workers were naturalized as US citizens, that in the future all US occupations (even agricultural workers) would be protected from FUTURE undocumented workers.
I’m sure that the economic “reality” of at least some CA areas, such as South LA, are so focked up, that at least some of those areas’ unemployed US citizens, whether white, black, latino, or purple, would jump at the chance at those agricultural jobs if they were unionized, had a $13/hr pay, & had health insurance.
The current Gov policy forces extreme global labor market arbitrage that hurts certain US occupations (such as agricultural workers) and offers conservative nanny state protectionism for other US occupations (such as pharmacist or Friedman-like corporate whore “journalists”).
Maybe it makes sense to have certain occupations should have protections, and others not. But we as a democratic society should debate this publically. Instead of pretending that the current mix of protectionism for some, extreme global labor market arbitrage for others, is “the natural order of things”.
One could even argue that the protectionism is fluid and revocable. It has been generations since journalists were jailed here in the U.S. G Dubbz and his wrong-headed, rightwing admin have the press shook like that Mobb Deep track track. The MSM is scared to speak, scared to look.
In other words, labor economics ain’t physics. Force = mass * acceleration in physics, that’s “natural law”. But it ain’t natural law that some like US ag workers get focked, & others US pharmacists get protectionism. The economy can be “designed” to a certain extent to meet certain objectives.
I would hope that these objectives would include opportunities and security for citizens of all income levels. Supposedly that’s how it was like in the 1970s, where a factory job could support a family with house mortgage & 2 kids! Not exactly the case in 2008, where 2 college grad workers husband/wife are prolly in the same spot that the 1970s factory worker was. Per Dean Baker, the Admins since Reagan in 1980 mostly don’t give a fock about about anyone but the upper few percent of the income scale.