I’m willing to bet that it is true, as long as you take enough liberty in what constitues a ‘family’. It is similiar to statements about a few companies (or people) controlling everything in the US; which is often based on share holding, and does not require controlling shares.
After you remove that boulder from your eye, do you mind answering the question? You claim to be rather well informed on the situation, so do you know what percent of manufacturing done by US companies outside the US is done by Mexico? And do you think that represents an opportunity for Mexico to substantially increase that percent? If so, what do you think they should they do?
Why would you be willing to bet it is true? Do you have any knowledge of land tenure in Mexico or is it an idea that fits into a preconceived opinion about Mexico? I’m not trying to be rude or offensive only asking on how you formed that opinion.
Using a liberal definition of family, and the lack of immigration booms (like the US and Canada had in the 1870’s to 1930’s); much of Mexico can trace their heritage back to a smaller number of people (who were then intermarried). Go back far enough and we are ALL the same ‘family’. Some countries (those with few large form immigration, such as Ireland and Colombia and yes Mexico); are able to trace this back fairly quickly. Giving to the rise of the ‘a few families own everything’. I’m not sure HOW far back you would have to go to make the 90% of commerical agriculture rule hold, but i’m sure it is possible. I’m also sure that you could tie most of the ‘poor’ to those same families if you go back far enough.
I’m writing from memory based on a source I’ve already cited. While the speicific passage I mentioned is somewhat provocative, overall I found the book to be quite sober and scholarly, with every statement backed up by cited facts and figures. If you have some evidence that I should not regard that particular book as factual or truthful (based on something other the distate for non-fiction that an Oprah episode about someone’s “memoirs” has engendered in you), you go ahead and provide it.
My personal experience working directly with the dudes down in Watsonville & Salinas (Government project, I interviewed hundreds of them about income and how much they sent home and such. I did NOT attempt to ask if they were “legal” or not, that was a pre-condition. But from what information was volunteered, there was little difference between Greencarded braceros and “illegals” other than fear of “la migra”). Now, I do admit that the *book * was set in “a Salvadoran enclave on Long Island.” where conditions may be far different than braceros in Watsonville. Buit even if so, the book can’t be used to show the conditions of all “illegals” and braceros. I wouldn’t change places with a bracero in Watsonville, but they wouldn’t change places with someone living in the TJ “shanty-town” either.
Here’s a good article on conditions for Strawberry workers in that area. Note that Strawberry workers are just about the bottom of the wage scale and working condition toten-pole, and things need to be imporoved. Never the less:
http://usinfo.state.gov/eap/Archive_Index/In_the_Strawberry_Fields.html
". Wages are higher in Watsonville and Salinas than in Southern California, because of the greater distance from Mexico. Growers producing top-quality berries for the fresh market may pay as much as $8 or $10 an hour. At the height of the season, when berries are plentiful and growers pay a piece-rate of $1.25 a box, the fastest workers can earn more than $150 a day. But wages at that level only last for a month or so, and even during that period most workers can’t attain them. When a crew of thirty picks at a piece-rate, three or four will earn $10 an hour, five or six will earn at or below the state minimum wage, $6.75 an hour, and the rest will earn somewhere in between. "
Note that these are some of the lowest wages paid for any crop, and the worst working conditions. But still- a good worker can earn $150+ a day, and work 6 days a week. That’s $900/week. Very little is withheld from the wages, and usually lunch is provided. The wages aren’t that bad- it’s the working conditions- which are terrible for strawberry pickers. But as I said- if you’re one of the few dudes who doesn’t have a family, that’s not bad money.
"The few remaining labor camps for single men are grim places. I toured one that was a group of whitewashed buildings surrounded by chain-link fences and barbed wire. Desolate except for a rosebush in front of the manager’s office, it looked like a holding pen or an old minimum-security prison. A nearby camp was reputed to be one of the best of its kind. Inside the barracks, the walls were freshly painted and the concrete floor was clean. A typical room was roughly twelve feet by ten feet, unheated, and occupied by four men. Sheets of plywood separated the steel cots. For $80 a week, a price far too high for most migrants, you got a bed and two meals a day. I’ve seen nicer horse barns.
Nevertheless, the labor camps are often preferable to the alternatives. When migrants stay in residential neighborhoods, they must pool their resources. In Watsonville three to four families will share a small house, seven or eight people to a room. Migrants routinely pay $100 to $200 a month to sleep in a garage with anywhere from four to ten other people. "
Which is as I said. But the camp I saw wasn’t unheated- they provided a potable heater during the colder months- but strawberries aren’t picked during winter, and weather is pretty nice in Wasonville. Spartan? Certainly. But WAY WAY better than the shanty-towns these men escaped from. I’d say that’d would be about right- you’d pay around $200 a month to splt a room. But if you earned $900 a week- that’d be over $3000 a month to send home. And boy- they do send a lot home.
Their ancestors came to America presumably for a better life, too. They just did it a few thousand years earlier.
While my source mostly observed conditions outside of Long Island, the author also offered information form other areas, such as the area just west of Downtown LA which had at that point become a crime-ridden haven for illegals (and still is, ten years later, btw).
It did focus on illegal immigrants in urban areas, as opposed to migrant farm workers, so we may both have valid points.
You realize that no matter what the price of labor will go down right? Increase in supply of labor for in any given sector leads to a decrease in the price of that labor. It doesn’t matter if there is expanding demand or not…goods will be cheaper because the labor it takes to make them will be cheaper. This is simple economics.
Yay for confusing correlation with causation! Such a basic fallacy, but many economists fall victim to it every day.
Two things: first, if minimum wage is increasing slower than inflation, then in fact the minimum wage is decreasing, which would lead to employment increases.
Secondly, and most importantly…just because the minimum wage causes unemployment. That doesn’t mean that the unemployment statistics are going to mirror minimum wage levels, because there are a number of factors that contribute to unemployment statistics. But the minimum wage makes it so workers who create less value than the minimum wage they are required to be paid are unemployed rather than employed.
The same theory behind price floors applies to the minimum wage. Just as price floors lead to the sale of goods being reduced, so does the minimum wage cause unemployment. The minimum wage’s effect might be obscured by other factors in the unemployment statistics, but that doesn’t refute this basic economic logic.
A drop in the “price of labor” translates to lower average income for consumers, which depresses the market for . . . just about everything. That is also simple economics. Henry Ford understood it very well. That’s why he paid his workers more than practically any other manufacturer. He wanted them to be able to afford to buy Model T’s, among other things.
Well, in Florida in 2004, we passed a ballot initiative to raise the MW to $6.40, with later increases to be indexed to inflation. It went into effect this January. The long-term results will test that principle.
Mmm-hmm. Well, logic is one thing, and proof’s another. (The real world is so messy, there always seem to be so many factors in play that for some reason were left out of your predictive equations . . .) Has any reputable* economist clearly demonstrated the existence of the causal connection you are describing?
*And I’ll take it a lot more seriously if your economist has no connection with the Cato Institute, Heritage Foundation, or any similar economic-conservative think-tank.
Concerning the claim BrainGlutton heard on the radio that 19 families own 90% of the agricultural land in México:
“México cuenta con un territorio que se extiende sobre 486 millones de acres, de los cuales el 51.2 por ciento pertenece a ejidos y comunidades, que son una forma de propiedad social o colectiva. El 37.4 por ciento del territorio pertenece al regimen de propiedad privada. Y el 10 por ciento restante comprende terrenos nacionales y otras formas de tenencia de la tierra.”
A quick translation:
Mexico total territory consists of 486 million acres of which ejidos and communal lands make up 51.2%. Private ownership holds 37.4% and 10% is made up of government land or other forms.
Not necessarily. If the price level drops further than the income level, then the purchasing power of workers has increased, and the everyone is better off than they would have been otherwise.
Mmm-hmm. Well, logic is one thing, and proof’s another. (The real world is so messy, there always seem to be so many factors in play that for some reason were left out of your predictive equations . . .)
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You’ll notice that I didn’t use a predictive equation, as many economists would have. Economics is not an empirical science in the manner of the natural sciences, where by observing and testing real-world phenomena you can come to conclusions. Economics has far too many variables, as you note, for that. As such, economic “proofs,” if you will, cannot come from graphs or studies or tests. Economics is an axiomatic-deductive science, and the proofs come from logic.
So when you say “logic is one thing, and proof’s another,” you are quite wrong. In economics they are one and the same. If you can’t refute the premises/axioms, and you can’t refute the logic that links the axioms to the conclusions, then what do you have except proof?
I’ll take you a lot more seriously if you don’t dismiss him as disreputable and actually attempt to refute his arguments.
Oh, he should. I’m just saying the fact that he hasn’t shouldn’t stop us fully liberalizing immigration ourselves. It would be in our economic best interests…not to mention the fact that it is most definitely the most moral and ethical position.
Watsonville is also kinda a unique world in the world of real estate, its not by any stretch of the imagination cheap to live there, land and rent nearly double other ag heavy areas like the modesto, fresno, and bakersfeild areas. I grew up in Watsonville and still have lots of family there. Its weird in it being a pretty small city, with big city real estate prices despite its ag centered economy. IF you were to wander over to the central valley you would find alot more feild workers with homes or sharing a 2 bedroom apartment with 1-2 others just because you can get an apartment for $600 a month here still and cheap aprtments are springing up like weeds in all the small farming towns like Selma, Kerman, McFarland, Sanger, Reedley, Fowler, etc. Even here in town 3 story apartment complexes are becoming common where you never used to see them before.
I have my doubts about that assertion, so I’ve started a new thread on it: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=364132
BTW, the effect of a minimum wage on unemployment was debated in this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=295733