She hoped Trump would revive her farm. Now she worries his policies could bankrupt it.
She hoped Trump would revive her farm. Now she worries his policies could bankrupt it.
Rebecca Carlson planned to use a USDA grant to hire overseas workers for her cherry harvest. A funding freeze has left her in debt and unsure whether she can hire the workers.
Farmer relies on government grants and immigrant workers.
Farmer votes for candidate who vows to block government grants and immigrant workers.
Farmer is surprised when government grants and immigrant workers are blocked.
“I’ll admit to you, I bleed Republican. However, this has left a sour taste in my mouth,” Carlson said.
Keep bleeding, then.
"The sour taste in your mouth is blood. Because of the festering sores in your mouth. Which you contracted by suckling the micropeen of a cheating, raping misogynist who ran on a promise of ruining your life. But hey, at least your grandkids disowned you and your social security is about to not exist."
Waiting for them to all bleed out.
It's a religion to these people. It doesn't matter what the policies are or what the impacts are. They need to be part of that local in-group.
The farm has been in her family for generations but has struggled over the past several years amid the rising cost of fuel, fertilizer and other operating expenses. [...] Since taking over the family farm in 2019 [...]
While I fully admit running a farm is a massive endeavor, the fact that the farm started having persistent issues shortly after she took over indicates to me that at least part of the problem is poor management.
“The American worker doesn’t like labor, they don’t like to do laborious jobs,” Carlson said. “They don’t want to do the hard labor, and that’s what’s frustrating, because we would love to hire U.S. workers, but we can’t get them to show up. We can’t get them to follow through. We can’t get them to finish the season.”
The American worker is perfectly happy to perform laborious jobs - just not at the rate you're willing to pay them. It's called "acting your wage".
Americans, even if they're paid well, will not go stand in the sun for 12 hours a day. Sometimes it's not about money. Sometimes it's about the job being shit and you need to change the job.
But also money.
Negative. Tons of trade jobs make bank and those guys work 12+ hours during peak seasons.
back breaking work, will wear out the body so fast, like around 40ish. thats why trades is not liked by everyone but men, and only specific demographics too.
The pay does do it for some jobs. I was up on a rooftop in -10F wind at 1AM for several hours a month ago fixing a furnace. But I was being paid $50 per hour (in a very low COL area) to do it so I was happy to do it and would be hapy to do it again. I regualrly have to crawl around in the nastiest places in places like meat cutting plants, work in -20F freezers, or on rooftops in scorching heat, but I get paid well to do it and my employer treats me well so I can say I actually love my job. People will not only put up with some miserable conditions if you pay them enough and treat them well but they will often even enjoy it.
The problem is farm work is miserable while still paying like shit and, to top it all off, usually the ones in charge are entitled assholes like the one in the article.
Isn't that just the free market in action? Can't find workers, raise the wages until you do. Supply and demand right there. You demand workers and they demand you supply an acceptable wage.
No, not like that. These entitled workers should be falling over to thank their employer for the jerbs they created and kiss the ring for paying them what they are legally required to. Duh! (big /s on that one)
What do they want to pay? Minimum wage for 60 hours per week with no overtime.
When your business requires the exploition of cheap labor, you deserve to go bankrupt.
In defense of farms, they're squeezed from both ends. She's not entirely wrong that it's getting harder and harder to be an independent farmer and as things get worse, the small farms are bought up by the mega corporations.
What she's wrong about is that a carpetbagger from manhattan would ever do anything for her. One of the big things that would help small farmers get labor would be for this country to get a real single payer healthcare option. Many, many people would tolerate a lower wage if their healthcare was covered. We could also start getting rid of the subsidies that only the major farms get and are using it to undercut smaller farms. Two things the republicans would never do.
i dont they will still tolerate farm work, even with universial healthcare, with healthcare they can quit other brutal jobs and work part time in a low-intensive job.
the first part is probably from COVID increasing the cost everything else, and trying to low-ball immigrant pays. some people on reddit on the very same post, why doesnt the family work on the farm.
Why do they need immigrant help? I see a shitload of kids that can work the farm. That's how my dad's family operated an apple orchard north of Detroit. Of course, they all died from cancers after years of exposure to pesticides without PPE, but that's a problem for later!
Had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
Ptffff PPE is woke
-tiny violin-
The liberal tears are from laughing too hard.
Thoughts and prayers.
These people are so fucking stupid
I really don't understand how these people think. A person reliant on government funding and immigrant workers votes for the guy who campaigned on cutting government funding and getting rid of immigrants.
Stupid I could pity. Simply stupid people are society's wards.
These people are malicious, and vote for policies sold on the basis of cruelty for cruelty's sake to people who aren't them.
Their malice Trumps their stupidity, especially because most of these people don't suffer some cognitive deficit, but have been trained to be willfully ignorant with for profit media using cruelty as the training incentive. That's the stupidity you choose.
You’re not wrong
Let's face it. We have been talking about technology eliminating the drudge work of society for decades. We used technology to automate so many tedious but not necessarily body destroying jobs. Farm work is body destroying and should be automated as much as is technologically feasible.
From the CDC:
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Deaths
- In 2022, workers in the agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting industry had one of the highest fatal injury rates (18.6 deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalents), compared to 3.7 deaths per 100,000 FTE for all U.S. industries.
- Transportation incidents were the leading cause of death for these farmers and farm workers. Other leading causes were violence by other persons or animals and contact with objects and equipment.
- In 2022, over half (56%) of deaths in the agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting industry occurred to workers 55 years of age and older.
A “science will save us” comment, handwaving in the direction of future unrealized solutions for a crisis happening today.
“Let’s face it…”, offering solutions that are years away, affordable only by Big Farm, and ignore the fact that there are simply many crops that are not harvestable by machine is a very unhelpful comment. You may be right about the dangers of farming, it has always been a dangerous occupation, but pointing out what could be accomplished a decade from now is no solution for the crops rotting in the fields this season. Wit this administration we are FAR more likely to see incarcerated and detained individuals forced into the fields than we are to any advances in farm tech - especially with the idiotic tariffs in place that will jack up the price of any imported machinery or the raw materials needed to produce said machines and will be unprofitable to attempt.
but its cheaper to have "Slave" workers, than expensive machinery, where you have to maintain it.
Machines are still cheaper. They don't need to be fed or housed every day and you get more work out of machine per hour than any living creature-- be it a horse or slave. And when you are done with a piece of equipment, you turn it off and walk away.
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Cherry farmer? Really? The first time wasn't bad enough?
Whiner.
Bootstraps.
If only there was some way she could have known. Anyway....
better get your family working on the farm then.
I truly wish these people would wake up. I know we're mostly smarter than these people so the schadenfreude it's easy to come by, but most of us aren't thriving under capitalism, and 100% of us are compromising voting for one of the two viable political parties.
I didn't vote for the guy and even I didn't even imagine the level of destruction and chaos that's come so far.
I didn’t vote for the guy and even I didn’t even imagine the level of destruction and chaos that’s come so far.
It's been pretty astonishing. I was expecting a lot of vindictive attacks on those who he though had wronged him, and an element of tearing down anything that might regulate his buddies' industries, but this is a level or 5 beyond that. It's like their trying to go as fast as possible, doing as much damage as possible before someone stops them. In fact, I suspect it's exactly that, they know that some form of opposition will eventually form, and are trying to get as much done as possible before that happens. I imagine they can't believe their luck at how long it's taking.
For what it's worth, that's exactly what they said they'd do, and for that reason, in the introduction to Project 2025.
They look like quiverfull morons
That's Young Sheldon's neighbour on the right isn't it? And why is Mum holding that kid's crotch?
Fk them. Most of them are subsidies beggars.
