the random musings not worthy of new thread thread

[shorebird]

How is it you think you know what is being saved by cheap labor is being passed on to the consumer? Get real man. What is happening is that the owners are just pocketing more profits. And "the real problem" is that our borders are not secure.

[Diomedes]

I think it has less to do with borders and more to do with selfish idiot Americans expecting everything to come to them cheap, no matter what it takes

[shorebird]

I think it has everything to do with our borders not being secure, and also, a whole lot to do with greedy self serving American business owners that will do anything to secure more profits for themselves at the expense of anyone or anything.

conspiracy to harbor undocumented immigrants for financial gain

I don't think it has anything at all to do with you or I going to the grocery store and looking for the best bargin.

Man, I knew I should never have bought that kosher sausage that was on sale. It was a great Sunday football BBQ, but I guartantee you that there were some illegal immagrants being taken advantage of somewere!!

[Diomedes]

Let me come at my argument by a different angle.

In order to produce chicken at a price the consumer will pay, and still make a profit (or for that matter break even), companies have to hire obscenely cheap labor.  Labor cost so low that citizens cannot afford to live on the wages.  Unless they want to all shack up 20 to an apartment and live like refugees.

So the company hires illegals.  Keeps the plant running and the cost low enough so the company can still sell their product and make a profit. 

Consumer doesn't care because he's getting his chicken at $1.79/.lb  Your point that a consumer doesn't work through the chain of supply deliberatly thinking "I don't care if illegals work at the plant," is well taken.  But ignorance is no excuse.  The fact is that it's not possible to legally, cleanly, ethically produce chicken at such a low price, and if people don't know that, it's because they don't want to.

Similarly, everyone understands that Wal*Mart products are so cheap that someone somewhere has to be getting farged, and since that person is in China, working for pennies a day at the plastic factory or whatever it is, they just don't care.  Given the choice between paying 1.39 for the mop bucket made in china and 6.99 for the same bucket made in the U.S.A., almost every American will choose the former. 

And who can blame them, to a degree.  Most people don't make enough money, hard as they work, not to take the lower price every time, regardless what it means for everyone else in the world.  For them, they need their money for necessities.  Like food.  And cable TV.

Why can't they afford to pay a fair price for goods?  Because worker's wages have not grown, in fact have decreased, over the past two decades (or whatever it is, I don't have the numbers at hand), even as corporate profits and wages for corporate leaders have sky rocketed. 

If you're not an executive, or a giant corporation, if you're a normal working consumer, a normal small business, you have no way out of this cycle.  You gotta eat.  You gotta keep the chicken plant running.

My point is that the whole system is rigged.  You cannot place blame solely on the illegal, or on the company that hires them.  You gotta see the whole picture.

It's like the painting and landscaping companies I know who use 100% latino labor.  They couldn't work if they paid legal wages.  The other companies that hire illegals will roll them under.  And if you got rid of all of the illegals, none of them would work because the middle class clients who make up the bulk of their business could not afford to pay for services at honest rates.  They know damn well the guys aren't legal, but they don't have the time to do the work themselves and don't have the money to pay a living wage to someone to do it, so they overlook the fact that their patronage is part of the problem.

The illegal bears some blame.  The company that hires him some blame, the customers who patronize that company, and the people who employ the customer some as well.  Meanwhile, the government does jack shtein to help this system, because they are the same people who are profiting from it all at the top.  The executives win no matter what, and they are the government.  There are no poor --or even middle class--people in elected office, especially not at the higher levels.


It's a clusterfarg.

[Wingspan]

Seriously...two people arguing about meat at 7am? You need to get a room.

[BigEd76]

4 hours into the work day and I've done about 15 minutes of actual work.  But tomorrow is Phillies Day at the office again.  T-shirts, jeans and sneakers ftw

[Geowhizzer]

4 hours into the work day and I've done about 15 minutes of actual work.  But tomorrow is Phillies Day at the office again.  T-shirts, jeans and sneakers ftw

You've done that much?  You must not have an intern.

[BigEd76]

I have a window.  I can't be greedy.

[Rome]

I sat around for about six hours this morning and then got some work to do this afternoon.  It might be the longest nine hours I've ever spent at work, though.

Yeesh.

[shorebird]

It's a clusterfarg.

Yes.

I agree with the rest of what Dio said also, by the way.

[PhillyPhreak54]

I printed out pictures of Lidge's celebration and plastered them all over the office. Normally I don't go in to the office but today I did, just so I could do that

[Magical_Retard]

German hottie teacher strips for her 15 yr old students:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1874459.ece?stripteasegoodness

man how come awesome stuff like this never happened to me in school?

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Europeans > Americans

"I was forced to give the German teacher a warning, but I will not dismiss her because she is a valuable teacher for our institution," said head Sandor Rozman.

He claimed she had shown no more flesh "than you would see on a beach."

[Diomedes]

I've heard about Eurpoean beaches.  Schwiing!

[General_Failure]

http://www.movember.com/ Grow a mustache for charity.