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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Peter Dierks who wrote (128293)7/29/2005 2:14:31 PM
From: neolib  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 793928
 
It appears we agree that while the immigrants are drawing the welfare and social services, that the farmers are the beneficiaries. On the other hand, I too am, because I pay less for my produce than a free market would demand.

Yes, that is about it.

If the safety net were dismantled, is it possible the land would be used differently? Is possible that society would benefit from a more efficient resource allocation?

I think it is more like counties attracting large manufactures with tax incentives or major investment packages. If US ag didn't benefit from labor which is a substantial social sink, it would not be competitive against many importers. So if minimum wage were to rise to the point that the average Hispanic farm worker family actually paid their own keep, most ag would go out of business (mechanized commodities being a different issue BTW). It is just one of the many ways our free market society provides subsides to a crucial industry while maintaining an illusion of not doing so. If we were to stop this, Safeway would look more like WalMart as far as country of origin for most the produce.