Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
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Roofing is the summer job I had in College. We were not bonded or anything. We roofed houses for people who could not afford to have then done for $5000 or more. Alot of Houses we did were quoted at like $5000 but by the time we got done the home owner spent like $1,500-$2,000. I would work a 16 hour day and get it done in 2 days or 2 1/2. Maybe make still an average of $10-15 an hour. I enjoyed it.

And you are right. The median wage would be a better rate to go at. But for college purpose it only had to be 10 pages so that is what I went with. It still makes you think about it. The state was Indiana. It had the best info for me.

Yes prices will raise if we get paid more. If we get paid more we can afford more. Min wage went up and then beer prices raised too. It is a never ending cycle. If Food was cheaper and Housing was cheaper I wouldn't mind working for way way less. Then i could afford to make less. But things are expensive so i have to make more and need to. Just a never ending cycle. Something does need to be done with our American economy and none of us on this board are near the smart people to go about doing it at the federal Government level.

---------------------------------------------------------
Monks take a vow of poverty and so do local racers.
Does that make them Holy?

MSN messenger:  Racing_for_you@hotmail.com

I still think that if you are a business owner and you hire an illegal you should be held accountable for their crimes. Like if The courts can prove tat you knew without a doubt that person you hired was/is an illegal alien. Then that illegal goes out and rapes or kills someone while here, then you too are held for the crime too. You held aid and embed an illegal alien so that they wuld at some point be able to even commit that offense on American soil. So in return for you knowing they were illegal you go to jail too for the crime. It is like driving the get away car.

That is just my Criminal Justice degree coming out in me though.

---------------------------------------------------------
Monks take a vow of poverty and so do local racers.
Does that make them Holy?

MSN messenger:  Racing_for_you@hotmail.com

So what about employers that hire convicted criminals? They are just as apt to commit crimes against society as well. Should folks arrested for DUI be included in this survey?

Are you saying that all persons that come through the border illegally are looking to commit crimes. Of the 6 or 7 million that are here illegally how many (%) commit crimes above a misdemeaner? What percent of ex-convicts commit crimes?

Employers hire "illegals" for a reason. Try finding someone else to do the job for the same money. You can not. Not any more than you can use your anology that if you were paid more you could afford more.

While using legal, benefitted, and better paid Americans for unskilled labor is a nice ideal, the reality is that the pay increase for labor stops there. The price of what they produce goes up but what your dollar will purchase goes down. And don't hold out hope that the middle class will get a pay raise as well to afford the higher price product. The middle class wage (or lack of in this case) is where the profit margin is for the upper class. If they pay the skilled labor more to make up for what the unskilled labor is now paid the profit margins shrink and the company is forced to option A above or they lose their shareholders.

"and none of us on this board are near the smart people to go about doing it at the federal Government level."

Neither are any of the people in the Federal Government!

There is something you are leaving out of your equation there. That is the COST to the taxpayers for the illegals. Most middle class people wouldn't need a wage increase to pay for any rise in prices, IF, and granted this is a BIG IF, they got to keep more of what they already make. I personally would rather pay $3 for a can of green beans if it means I am NOT paying for some illegal to go to college, or get health care, or whatever, while trying to figure out how I am going to give those same things to my own daughter.

Missed point #2, as soon as those illegals are no longer 'illegal', by whatever means the gov't comes up with, your cheap labor force is gone. What you will be left with is 15 million more unskilled workers who won't want to work for the minimum and below wages they are working for now. Guess what? Your green beans just went to $3 a can anyway. That is until the next wave of illegals comes in and the cycles starts again.

Personally, I am not that worried about green beans being $3 a can, I;'ll just go to Wal Mart and get 'em for $2.96.

Oh and by the way, I find it just a bit ironic that a post that started out about Toyota, a company that employs a ton of AMERICAN workers, has evolved into a debate over illegal immigration.

Just my 4 cents worth, thank God for Wal Mart and their cheap green beans.

heres a good one to keep the pot stirred

What If 20 Million Illegal

Aliens Left America?

By Frosty Wooldridge 10-29-7

Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column
titled, 'Mexican visitor's lament' -- 10/25/07.

She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while
visitingDenver last week. Hernandez said,

They (illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes...what happens
to your country's economy if 20 million people go away?'

That's a good question it deserves an answer. Over 80 percent of Americans
demand secured borders and illegal migration stopped.
But what would happen if all 20 million or more vacated America?
The answers may surprise you!

In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would
leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems,
bankrupted hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave highways cleaner,
safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English
became the dominate languag e
again.

In Colorado, 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and
grand-kids would move back 'home,' mostly to Mexico. That would save
Coloradans an estimated $2 billion (other experts say $7 BIL) annually in
taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incar ceration
costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.

Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror
that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens.

Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have
suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegals. Denver
Public Schools would not suffer a 67 percent drop out/flunk out rate via
thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages. At
least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our gridlocked cities in
Colorado. Denver's four percent unemployment rate would vanish as our
working poor would gain jobs at a living wage.

In Florida, 1.5 million illegals would return the Sunshine State back
toAmerica, the rule of law and English.

In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegals would free up hospitals, schools,
prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free experience.

If 20 million illegal aliens returned 'home,' the U.S. economy would return
to the rule of law. Employers would hire legal American citizens at a
living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they
wouldn't be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401
billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for
local state and city coffers.

No more push '1' for Spanish or '2' for English. No more confusion in
American schools that now must contend with over 100 languages that degrade
the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would
lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL
and free breakfasts and lunches.

We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than
$1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who
distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country. In
cities like L.A., 20,000 members of the '18th Street Gang' would vanish from
our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No
more foreign rapists and child molesters!

Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded highways and
gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths by
illegal aliens!

Over $80 billion annually wouldn't return to their home countries by cash
transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further
drains America's economy which currently suffers an $8.7 trillion debt.

At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us
$109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in California,Georgia
and Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupted out of
existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act. Americans
wouldn't suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our
country-brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders.

Our cities would see 20 million less people driving, polluting and grid
locking our cities. It would also put the 'progressives' on the horns of a
dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11 percent of our
greenhouse gases.

Over one million of Mexico's poorest citizens now live inside and along our
border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California in what the New
York Times called, 'colonias' or new neighborhoods. Trouble is, those living
areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases,
drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean
water, streets, electricity, roads or any kind of sanitation. The New York
Times reported them to be America's new 'Third World' inside our own
country. Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 20
million residents of those colonias. (I've seen them personally in Texas
andArizona; it's sickening beyond anything you can imagine.) By enforcing
our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico.

We invite 20 million aliens to go home, fix their own countries and/or make
a better life in Mexico. We invite a million people into our country legally
more than all other countries combined annually. We cannot and must not
allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy within our borders and growing
lawlessness at every level in our nation.

It's time to stand up for our country, our culture, our civilization and our
way of life.

Yeah that was my fault. We got into the pay wage thing which then lead to the illegal thing.

Doesn't matter how many illegals we get anyway. Once all the jobs outsource to Mexico, China and Taiwan. Then we all will be moving. I hope I can find a good job around Cancun. There is suppose to be a movie coming out soon with Owen Wilson in it about him and Vince being outsourced to Mexico themselves to keep their jobs.

Of course what am I complaining about. Having illegals here keeps my job security. I have the benefit of having a job in almost any town over a population of 500. People move from office to office. Factory to factory. Atleast when i got my CJ degree it was in something that has job security in every town in the USA. Crime never stops. So the more we are in disarray the more money I get. I guess in a way I owe the Republicans a debt of "thanks you."

---------------------------------------------------------
Monks take a vow of poverty and so do local racers.
Does that make them Holy?

MSN messenger:  Racing_for_you@hotmail.com

If there was as much truth in that diatribe as there are half truths and all out lies it would not be nearly as impressive. But then again, that is what it was written to be. Fluff.

And 400billion in tax revenue. Not hardly. Those jobs would move outsied the country. The jobs that couldn't (construction) would become so costly that the average ameerican could not afford them. If 20 million people make just 10,000 per year and spend just 1/2 of that here in the US that generates 10billion in revenue of that nearly 1 billion in sales tax alone.

Take away those 20 million people and who is going to step up and do the job. Ask the farmers here in CA how many "Americans" show up to pick cips, plant crops or irrigate them? Be carefull what you ask for. Would you rather have your meat and vegetables raised and grown in Mexico without the FDA involvement because that is were it can be produced at a price the market will support. OR would you rather have a workforce that entrered by questionable methods producing it here in the US.

And lastly just to be clear, the gangs would go away if the illegal immigrants went. Same goes for drug dealers?

You are right in that most middle income folks won't need a wage increase to keep up with the rise in prices. They will just have less disposable income to spend on things like entertainment. And while I disagree with removing the illegals from this country I wholeheartedly support giving them less benefits than they are currently afforded - including healthcare and education. Removing the illegal immigrants, if it is to be done is something that must occur over generations. Afterall it occured over generations. Anything else would be economic suicide for our country.

B29, I like Wal Mart also. But it is the exact example of what happens when there is not enough of a profit margin for something to be manufactured in the US.

TWO...My computer chair happens to be a car seat out of a 2003 Camry, placed on the floor...works great for my WoO racing game also! My point was, how many products do we, as Americans, use on a daily basis that are made overseas, yet still bitch about foreign made products? You totally misunderstood my post...

Fenders are like vacuums... they both suck.

If you re-read it, I was actually bashing the bashers....

Fenders are like vacuums... they both suck.

Kenny

little tuna, wow, you straightened me out!

I'm going to run out to the garage and rip the "impeach Bush" stickers off my FORDS.

I'm sorry if that makes me less of an American than you in your Toyota (w/ the Ron Paul sticker)

I studied hard, worked my ass off, and I (at the age of 48) am finally able to enjoy the fruits of that "labor". I've yet to adopt an austerity program, and hope to God I never will.

How are college kids that move in/out and perform services quicker/cheaper much different from others that perform same.

Riddle me this....

My brother and I have roughly 20 acres of vineyard (varietal Reds) that we purchased for a total price of ~$400,000.00, we've spent ~$145,000.00 in development/suitability costs for a total investment of ~$545,000.00 for land/improvements ONLY.

We spend ~$65,000.00 per annum for a ranch manager, ~$4,700.00 per acre/annum in "maintenance" costs.

An acre will net ~5 tons per, and each ton should net ~700 bottles.

Each bottle will accrue production costs of ~$9.23 per bottle (harvest, crush, 4yrs of storage, bottles/cork/lables/foil, quarterly rake.....) amortization of purchase/developments notwithstanding.

If you're a wine drinker, what did you spend on your last bottle? At a meager 40% margin, I'd have to charge $15.38 a bottle, without recouping investment costs. Retail that bottle should sell for ~$30.00 plus. I doubt you spent $30.00 on your last bottle of wine.

I've yet to see a single downtrodden, "legal", jobless.....show up during our fall harvest and protest the hiring of laborers of questionable documentation. They are providing a service no one else seems willing.

Come all ye college students...hell Cal Poly SLO is a mere stone's throw from our vineyard! See you in September!

"As long as I can have a fast boat, a margarita 
machine and can light my hair on fire, I'll be just 
fine."

Jason Giambi

Riddle my ass.. So I guess you factored in the fact that you and your brother would have to hire illegals for this deal to make a profit. Now that's the American way, you should be proud.

Hey, pick me up a couple of bottle's of MAD DOG 20/20 and one of Thunderbird for Sunday. I always drink the good stuff on Sunday..

I'm impressed; Kenny

Kenny - I think you missed his point. If the questionably documented workforce does not do it, it is not going to get done. It is what I have been saying. The average "legal" will collect welfare before working for mininmum wage.

Instead of $3 a can green beans how about a $30 bottle of wine. $10 a pound grapes or $10 per box raison bran cereal?

I understand the point you were making, John, and you are very right. I worked seven years in a distribution center for a retail grocery chain here in PA. By the time I finished my bachelor's degree and left in January 2005, the entry level rate there was $11 an hour (it is probably $12 an hour to start now). Obviously, $11 isn't a lot of money but probably 90 percent of the people would come in the door with the attitude that they weren't going to bust their ass for $11. Invariably, nearly everyone that came in the door would quit a week later or a month later. Most able-bodied applicants didn't seem willing to work for $11 an hour.

Where did all those people go that came in and quit a couple weeks later? The economy is such around here (southeast PA) that almost no job pays more than $10-11 to start without an education.

I'll be putting my life on the line for people at $15-20 an hour for the rest of my life. Getting shot at, wrestling drunks, high speed car chases and crashes, Get pepper sprayed, get tazered, etc. I knew the life getting into it. I will be in one of the most under paid "Professional" and "Skilled" services in the USA. The people that teach our child make about the same too. My tuition, in double majoring, was about twice as much as my annual salary.

I worked at a church camp when I was 16-18 as a lifeguard and as a handy boy. Painting, roofing, plumbing, weed wacking, wood working, welding, lay concrete.... I made $100 a week my first summer there. $120 a week my second summer there. I got up at about 6 am and worked with a few breaks, til about 7 pm. I got room and board. And my second year I was lifeguard over the Jet Ski's. Cause I was one of the only ones turning 18 during that summer. Those summers were some of the best I have ever had. I had to miss a few races too cause of it.

I did the work cause it was suppose to be work for the lord. It was more like an Internship. I got paid nothing but I learned to Roof for my college job, I learned to lay concrete, I learned a little about plumbing, Did some tiling, put up a brick Chimney, a wood floor, etc. One of my best jobs cause I learned to do a huge amount of things I didn't know before. 66 hour weeks for $100...I did my time as a labor worker.

---------------------------------------------------------
Monks take a vow of poverty and so do local racers.
Does that make them Holy?

MSN messenger:  Racing_for_you@hotmail.com

No John, I get it and don't like it one bit..Greed and a government that bows to big corporations created this mess and of course not enforcing the laws has made it a way of life for the businessman. I'm in AZ, I go to Mexico often and have for many years, twice in the last month. I have four friends that have married Mexican national women and this is a topic that gets debated often with both my American and Mexican friends. Documentation, and a fair wage is what we needed in the past and is what is needed now, for all concerned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez finding grape pickers has never been a problem but paying a fair wage and decent working conditions has been.

We have always had migrant workers, the key word being migrant but it is way out of hand today. I work at the College up here in Prescott (Facilities) and spend about half my day working in the dorms to keep things running properly, hands on, and I and interact with the students often and the problems these young men have finding construction jobs etc is directly connected with the problem. We have been having major renovations on our campus for the past four years and the quality of work you get now days is also directly related to the problem of hiring cheap, inexperienced, undocumented workers. We have a hands on program here at the college where they actually build houses as part of the class and yes, the majority of the students are white boys.

No John, I didn't miss the point and I got our grape growers "riddle" loud and clear. Finding migrants to pick grapes has never been a problem but paying a fair wage has been. The trouble is our boy likes it this way. You and I are subsidising his little "family" vineyard. Get it?

Oh, this is why I go to Mexico and why they call me bigfish. Yes, you can drive down from here but the gas is killing me.. http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc23/grouper01/Grouper.jpg No VISA or passport required to cross into northern Mexico or return into the states in this part of Mexico. So much for a secure border..LOL http://www.puertopenascopost.com

Kenny

What do you consider a fair wage. If you think that those who grow and harvest fruit and vegatables should be paid more than minimum wage, why? Should they all have benefits also? Are you saying if the minimum wage was raised to say $15 an hour we would have legal Americans coming out of the woodwork to apply for those jobs? How would the teachers, firemen, policemen feel about making the same as an unskilled, uneducated worker?

Are you ready to start paying allot more for your goods so that they can have that fair wage? You honestly do not expect companies to reduce their profit margins do you? What would be the incentive for a company to stay in business or for people to invest in those companies?

Immigration is a problem. Kicking 20 million people out of the country at once is not the answer. Forcing companies to pay higher wages in order to produce a product that will place the cost higher than the market will bear is not the answer either. Unless of course you want to send more companies out of the country to produce their product.

I am not sure how government bowed to big corporations to get to where we are. Most of the manufacturing companies in the U.S. are unionized. I doubt very seriousely they allow undocumented workers to work there. I can agree that government has aided the problem by giving benefits to those people who are not citizens. However, that is the very party that many hope to get elected to the presidency next year.

No Kenny, you wannabe Jimmy Buffett, you don't get it!

The point is, if not them............WHO? You? Maybe your college cronies that can't find construction industry jobs as they were all snatched up by illegals?

Exactly what kind of liberal arts college student is even looking for a construction industry job? Summer or part time employment.....maybe move off, migrate even, after college to pursue greater glory?

I am married to a Mexican national from Agua Prieta, met her in Rocky Point, and right after I'm through sucking the life from the hapless souls I use/abuse to further my immense wealth, I will retire in Sonora, Mexico.

I only hire labor from a contractor covered under an Enterprise Agreement with the UFW. "Fair wages" and "decent working conditions" have been set forth vis a vis said agreement, and I challenge you to find a "family" farm that holds their migrant labor in higher esteem.

You don't know me, the likes of you/rs do NOT subsidize anything I do, and save your sanctimonious BS for your "Mexican" friends.

Nonetheless, I'll still donate 1,500 hours PLUS of billable time to Catholic Charities, and 3% of my gross income to SOS Children's Villages in Armenia. How do you give back??? Leaving a big tip at Casa del Capitan or The Point doesn't count!

If not them WHO???

"As long as I can have a fast boat, a margarita 
machine and can light my hair on fire, I'll be just 
fine."

Jason Giambi