A Radical Reset
Our Republic has been converted into a democracy which is just another name for mob rule. The mob is getting what it wants, to paraphrase H.L. Mencken, good and hard. One day soon, the entire edifice is going to collapse under its own weight and what takes its place historically will be tyranny. A Radical Reset is the alternative and the system is called Antipolitism. It calls for a new republic based upon merit and not ambition. No parties, no money in politics, no careers in politics, and only serving the public good.
A Radical Reset
Why Americans Won't Pick Fruit (No Matter What You Pay)
Cutting through the noise of political rhetoric, this episode takes you deep into the realities of agricultural labor markets and immigration policy in America. Drawing from personal experiences working in California's tomato fields, I expose the fundamental misunderstandings that plague our national conversation about immigrant workers.
The widespread belief that undocumented laborers suppress wages for American workers ignores basic economic realities. Having personally experienced the brutal conditions of agricultural fieldwork—the scorching heat, physical demands, encounters with insects and wildlife—I explain why there's simply no wage high enough to attract domestic workers to these positions when other opportunities exist. This isn't about exploitation; it's about who's willing to do essential work that powers our food system.
Agricultural workers, typically paid by volume rather than hourly, often earn substantial incomes that support extended families when brought back to communities where money stretches further. These economic arrangements benefit both parties in a free market exchange. The armed enforcement approach currently targeting these workers, most of whom have committed no crime beyond crossing the border, represents a moral failure and practical absurdity.
A sensible solution exists in properly designed guest worker programs that would allow seasonal laborers to cross legally, work when needed, and return home to the communities they cherish. Such programs acknowledge the reciprocal benefits of these arrangements while eliminating the dangerous underground economy of human smuggling.
Whether you lean left or right politically, this episode challenges you to examine immigration through the lens of economic reality rather than political talking points. Share this with friends who care about honest conversation on this divisive issue, and check out my book "A Radical Reset" for more policy solutions rooted in practical experience rather than ideology.
Well, it's a happy Wednesday. How is everybody? This is Herbie, your host here at A Radical Reset. Before we get into the subject matter of today's podcast, let me share with you that you can pick up a copy of A Radical Reset, the manifesto of antipolitism, antipolitism being the solution and I hate to use the word solution, because there are no solutions, only trade-offs but a much better system than what we're using to save the republic as it's being destroyed by democracy. All democracy ends in mob rule. We are on the fast track heading there. You know people misunderstand. The reason that there's a republic is because it's the rights of the individual that we protect, not the rights of the mob. Every country defends the rights of the mob and when people get in charge, when the mob's in charge, it always ends in tyranny. So to avoid what is coming down the track like a freight train, please pick up a copy of a radical reset, the manifesto of anti-politism. You'll find the new system, which is a republic, by merit-based lottery. Don't try to read into into um, anything into that it's. It's just as creative an idea as that sounds like. Go check it out on amazon, kindle paperback or hardcover. If I do say so myself because I wrote it obviously okay. So, um, let's get into the subject matter today.
Speaker 1:Today's not going to be a really long podcast, but I want to talk about this idiotic idea that the reason that so let's turn to immigration Today's subject matter is going to be immigration. I'm going to. You know I already spoke to the Epstein thing. I'm letting it go, so let's move on to immigration. One of the arguments, if not the main argument, for you know, trump is trying to round up 20 or 30 million, however many illegals are in our country now and, as you know, I suggest a very specific form of amnesty, and I've talked about it before and you can listen to it in past podcasts. You can look at the titles, you'll see where it is and it's also in a radical reset. So when you go into the book A Radical Reset, the majority of the book really are me setting forth policy prescriptions that are just common sense. That would become the policy of the country if we had a properly functioning legislature and presidency and executive branch, which we do not.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, to make a long story short, let's talk about this immigration. So we don't know how many illegal people there are in the United States. But it turns my stomach to see masked gunmen working for ICE rounding up people, most of whom the only crime they've committed is the crime of crossing the border illegally. Now, I don't mean to downplay, but look, and I know that I'm a convicted felon and I know I'm the last one to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway Everybody breaks the law, whether you know it or not, and I'm not trying to diminish that crossing the border is a crime, but I'm saying that you probably, listening to me, have committed a crime of. You know it's a crime without a victim, unless you think that the taxpayers are a victim.
Speaker 1:But if the illegals come here, most states, you know. You got to get rid of a lot of the hyperbole. Illegal aliens are not eligible for welfare benefits Now, there are a lot of states that give it to them anyway, and you know you got to get rid of a lot of the hyperbole. Illegal aliens are not eligible for welfare benefits Now, there are a lot of states that give it to them anyway, and you know. But that's a state problem. If a state is stupid enough to funnel them benefits and the state's taxpayers want to put up with it, like the taxpayers of California. Well then, power to them, but federally at least, they're not entitled to it.
Speaker 1:Now, I know there's a lot of manipulation, and I know this by doing what I'm saying a carefully planned amnesty, the way I laid it out, and again it's in a past podcast. I'm not going to go through that detail today. It would work, however, and so and it does. This is America. We don't send out jackbooted troops and I know I'm being hyperbolic when I say that Our guys don't wear jackboots but we don't send out troops with masks on and guns, like you see pictures of the Mexican military rounding up cartels to go collect these. We're doing it, but I find it repugnant. I think that that is a valid line of attack on the Trump administration, while, at the same time, democrats say stupid things, and there's a lot of stupidity going around and there's a lot of economic illiteracy going around. So we're going to do a little economics course here today.
Speaker 1:The argument that's made by the Trump people is that we have to get these people out of the country because they drive down wages that would otherwise go to Americans for jobs that you know people. That, though, there are people that say they're taking jobs that Americans would never take. That's not true. If we paid Americans enough, they would take the job. Therefore, if we drive these people out of the country, it will make wages go up and then there will be workers to go out and pick strawberries or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1:You all get my drift on this and I'm talking agriculture, and you know there are figures, lie and liars, figure. There are a lot of statistics tossed around like 28% of agricultural workers are illegal. Yeah, but that's the 28% that are in the fields. You know agriculture is a lot more than just picking the fruit. You know the fruit has to go on the back of a truck. The truck is driven to a big warehouse. In the big warehouse there's machinery, depending on what kind of fruit we're dealing with. I personally firsthand dealt with tomatoes, which is a fruit, my friends, whether you realize it or not, and very soft and is handpicked. To make a long story short, they come to the warehouse, they dump that into a big vat to clean it, to get all the schmutz off of it, and then it goes up on a. They go up in sorting lines and they're sorted and all the ugly ones are taken out, because Americans won't buy ugly ones and then they're boxed and packaged and then they're stored and then they're shipped and then they're driven by a truck and usually in a reefer or refrigerated truck, to where they're going, somewhere in the United States. And then they get there and then they're unloaded and then they're brought into the grocery store and then the groceries and all of those are agricultural workers. This is how figures lie and liars figure Okay, and there's lots of Americans doing those jobs at very high pay.
Speaker 1:The only jobs we're talking about let's get real are the ones that are out there in the fields picking and unique among spokesmen. I have been out in those fields picking Way back, way back when I was in high school in Fresno, california, working for Nat Fennison. I'm being very specific so I can be verified. I worked both in the warehouse and just to see what it was like, I went out into the fields and pick. I was not a full-time picker. A couple of days of that was enough to last me a lifetime. So I was happy to be what was called a box boy. So when the tomatoes would come in from the fields at Nat Finnan Center I don't know if they're still in business, but the San Joaquin Valley of the United States and California is the largest and most productive growing area in the world, and, whether you realize it or not, I know California is an amazing state.
Speaker 1:If it wasn't so, the process I just described to you is the process that goes on a tomato packing house and there's a conveyor belt with holes in it. The holes are the size of the tomatoes in various sizes, and they're brought down into lanes where little ladies again illegal immigrants hand-pack them into boxes and they're not paid by the hour, they're paid by the piece. Each box is considered a piece. So as they complete each box, I in those days as the box boy and they probably have this more automated now but I had a hole puncher on my belt and I would take the box off of their rack. They had this like tilted table, imagine like an artist table, but where someone loads tomatoes into boxes. I would take the full box, put it on the conveyor belt down to where it would go, to the room to be gassed.
Speaker 1:They gas tomatoes with ethylene gas, which is the natural gas given off by tomatoes, to stop the ripening process until they get to where they're going. Then they gas them again, which starts the ripening process, which is why everyone's not getting rotten tomatoes, but anyway. So I was the kid putting that, but and then I put up another empty box, as the lady was working on the current box and I would punch her whole cards so she would get credit for the piece and they made a lot of money. They made a lot more than the minimum wage. I just want to say that when you pay people by the piece and the workers in the fields weren't paid by the hour either they were paid by the truckload of tomatoes that they picked and there was a system they used to share each truckload, but these guys were making a lot more than minimum wage.
Speaker 1:That's the first misconception I'd like to point out In the agricultural business. The reason that they schlep up here from Mexico isn't to be poor. They come up here because they can work like dogs and they don't worry about a nine-to-five job. You've got to pick fruit when it's ripe. We were out in the fields picking tomatoes and also bell peppers at night, under lights, because when they're ripe, they're ripe, they've got to be picked. There's no telling the fruit, wait, wait, we'll pick you tomorrow when the sun comes up. But they're paid by the piece and they make a lot of money, frankly, and then again I could tell you the numbers they were making. But this was like back in the 70s, so this is going to be completely irrelevant by number, but the systems remain the same. And then they would go back down to Mexico because in those days we had a guest worker program and they would, you know, they would hang out. And when I say Mexico and anything south of the border, el Salvador, wherever they were coming from, the ones I knew were all Mexican, but they didn't want to be Americans, they wanted to be Mexicans. They just came up here to work and do a hard job that Americans won't do. So let's get to the second point.
Speaker 1:Now that I've shared the entire story of how I know this and why I have firsthand knowledge that other people don't have, let me also point out that the free markets don't work. The way these idiots talk about it on TV and the way the Trump people talk about it is especially idiotic. When they talk about well, these are really greedy tomato growers or whatever. They're accusing of underpaying these foreign staff and the only reason they want a limited amnesty, like the administration is concerning for agricultural workers is because they want to keep these cheap wages up, and this is just part of it. And if they were paying the fair wage, then Americans would go out and do these jobs and therefore we've got to get these people out of the country, which they're. Let me explain what would really happen. No American's going to do this job for any amount of money as Americans.
Speaker 1:What is forgotten in this argument is agriculture is not the only business in America. For an unskilled laborer Okay, so, assuming that it's unskilled labor that does fruit picking and, by the way, it is a skill. Once you learn it, I mean there is skill to it. But I digress For that level. For manual labor, there's plenty of other manual labor jobs, like working in warehouses or loading trucks or driving trucks, you know, depending on what level, or whether or not you need a CDL, or construction labor or gardening and landscaping. There's all kinds of choices. And it's a big country. You don't have to work down in the desert southwest, at 108 degrees picking.
Speaker 1:Verkakta is a Yiddish word. I was going to go right to the F word, then I was going to go to fudge and somehow it ended up as verkakta. Sorry, but anyway, you guys get the drift. The point is Americans won't do that job unless that's the only manual labor job there is. I don't care what you're paying, it's a miserable, disgusting job.
Speaker 1:And I'm leaving out the insects and snakes because, as you have your hands down into the ground and, by the way, I'm a snake lover, I love snakes. I'm not afraid of snakes, but I'm the odd man out when you stick your hand down into the ground, the pick whether it's a tomato or a strawberry, and there's even a garter snake. A garter snake for those of you who are unfamiliar is not a poisonous snake. I think it's the most common snake in the United States. I could be wrong, but I think it is. It has stripes down the back. It's a fast-moving thing. It'll bite you if you grab it, but it's not a poisonous bite. You'll bleed a little because they have teeny-weeny little teeth for grabbing insects and stuff. But they're not. You know you're not going to die or anything like that. But people freak out. You know, and I understand, snakes don't have arms or legs. It's weird, you know.
Speaker 1:It's the same reason why, digressing slightly, I used to own a chain of retail pet stores in Northern Colorado and Loveland, fort Collins and Greeley, and anyway, people would come in to buy hamsters for their kids, those little hamster thingies, you know the little rodents, and I would always try to encourage them to buy the kid a rat if they're going to buy a small rodent pet, because rats are 100 times nicer. Hamsters are nasty little sons of guns and they used to like bite you they were really. It took a long time to tame a hamster where rats and I'm not talking about New York City rats coming up out of the sewers, I'm talking about lab rats cute little rats that are, you know, like two-tone white, black, white and gray, brown and gray and white pretty Little, cute little eyes and noses. Here's the thing about rats they're super intelligent and you can even litter box train them and they're very, very sweet and I've never known one to bite and they're great. The problem is they have rat tails and there's no hair on them and there's something about fur. It's like imagine what your dog or cat would look like with no fur on them and that's why the rat tail is so gross to people. There's something about fur that we find cute. That must be in our DNA and makeup.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I don't know why I went down this road. I completely lost. I have lost my mind. Anyway, this road, I completely lost, I have lost my mind. Anyway, back to the story at hand. If there were no other jobs to be had, then that might be a valid argument on a part of the Trump people saying that you know if we only raise the wage. But let's consider something else the relatively small amount of farm workers there are relative to the 340 million people in the United States that would have to pay more for their tomatoes and their strawberries and their cherries and their you know, you name the fruit. Let's go down the list. All right, everything would become instantly more expensive and permanently more expensive and continue to get more expensive, because we would be to even think well, you couldn't get any, there's just no amount of money to get anyone out there.
Speaker 1:And I went on and on about the snakes. Oh, that's how I got onto rats, the snakes. But let's talk about the insects Also, in my pet stores back to that same silly digression we sold tarantulas, tarantulas sorry, tarantulas. Tarantulas are actually quite lovely. At first they grossed me out too, but as I learned to handle them, they're okay. But most people are not okay with handling spiders. It's a certain subset of people, so the because you know they have eight legs, it's like gross. So to most human beings. I think there's a built in but and I don't want to what? The snakes are in there, the spiders are in there or they're all hunting insects living among all the plants. You can spray all the insecticide you want. Plenty of bugs still love it. And anyway, those snakes and those spiders are good because they control the harmful insect population in the fields and the rodent populations.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, is there any amount of money? Let me ask you this is there any amount of money that would get you to sit right now in Arizona and they're picking out Yuma right now as I'm talking to you? I don't know what they're picking, but they're picking, they're always picking something out there. That's a huge growing area with the Colorado River and anyway, the daytime temperatures Today is an exceptionally nice day. In Phoenix it's only going to be 98 degrees because our monsoon rain is coming in today, but typically it would be 105 to 110. And you would be out in just miserable sweltering heat all day long. And we're not talking from nine to five, we're talking from when it's dark in the morning till it's dark at night, and then on, you know, stooping, or on your hands and knees with the insects and bugs picking fruit. Now is there any amount of money that anyone could pay you? So cut the crap, okay.
Speaker 1:That is a fallacious argument made by people who have never worked really hard a day in their lives. You know, going to college and getting a law degree is not the same as getting into the fields and working with the people firsthand. I just I, I have to say I think I'm a richer person for having done it and know this firsthand. So but the point is it's a win-win. The other thing is the growers. They're not out to screw anybody. They pay what the market rate demands and when there's a limited amount of workers, as there are, they have to pay what the workers want, and if they don't, then the workers will go grow it what the workers want, and if they don't, then the workers will go grow. It's not a monopoly. You know, when I was working in the tomato fields at Nat Finenson, there was a lot more than just Nat Finenson. We were just a smallish produce operation among many produce operations in the largest growing area in the world, and if we weren't paying the right rate to our guys in the fields, someone else would to get better crews, because it's not just about picking, it's about getting a good crew, since they're paid by the piece. There's a lot of ways to cheat that, like throwing rocks and vines in with your picking, believe me, and a good crew is worth its weight in gold and it gets paid.
Speaker 1:It is a fallacious argument to think that the only reason that illegals are doing jobs not only because they'll do it at a fair wage that they are free to walk away from in a voluntary labor market, but they're also willing to do the job, the hard job, because they're coming from poverty and so they're willing to do something that the average American I don't care who they are won't do. Can you even imagine taking the average welfare recipient out of an inner city, okay, and saying you know what? We'll pay you $30 an hour to go pick at 108 degrees. They'll tell you to go have sex with yourself. They'd rather collect less on welfare, which I don't even know if they collect less than $30 an hour when you figure in all their benefits. I read the other day that in Massachusetts the average welfare, a single mother with two children can count on about $100,000 a year in various benefits, which is, if that's true, that just makes me vomit. But anyway, you're not going to get her or her baby, daddy or whatever you want to call him or anyone else to go out in those fields for any amount of money. And because that would require hard work, and not just hard work like sitting over your desk working hard on ledgers or hard in front of your computer working on technology solutions. No, no, no, we're talking hard like snakes, spiders, rocks and rats, you know, I mean, we're talking real hard work. We're talking actual, honest, to God.
Speaker 1:So please let me sum up this podcast and bring it to a conclusion. This is idiotic. The Trump administration has their heads up their tuchuses okay on this issue when they start going on. This is about greedy owners who want cheap labor, and this is the secret that nobody's talking about. That's no secret. This is a free market and Trump is as bad as that guy Mandani in New York when he starts wanting to manipulate labor markets or tell lies about them. Okay, this is socialist nonsense. Okay, in a free labor market, which it most certainly is.
Speaker 1:And if we handled this like normal people and allowed the immigration program that I suggested, which is basically a return to a guest worker program, essentially okay. It would then the people no one's holding a gun to the heads If foreign nationals from south of the border Mexicans, el Salvadorans, nicaraguans, whoever comes up to pick, south of the border, mexicans, el Salvadorans, nicaraguans, whoever comes up to pick and they pick and then they go home because they have a guest worker you know, I call it an orange card where they can go back and forth across the border and they can do it without worrying about having to hire a coyote to bring them across for $3,000 to $5,000 a pass to avoid, you know, interdiction, because they're law-abiding people and the only crime they broke was. The only law they broke was crossing the border. So now we make it so they can, they'll go home. They don't want to be Americans, they're not here to vote in our elections, they're here to work and make some money and go home, because money goes a lot farther back home, within the culture that they love.
Speaker 1:Let's bring us to the last point. Back in the day and this is the early 1970s families would come up and it was whole families. But don't think like an American and start getting all uptight about child labor. You see these things of like in the Congo children are working and they're mining I don't know what it is some mineral. It's really horrible, and I'm the first to say it. And so the American reaction is stop them from doing that, except that they would just starve to death. You're not talking to America with a welfare state, you're talking about the kids work or they die.
Speaker 1:So the whole families come up here from down in these places where the social safety net is not exactly American, and they all work together and they make tens of thousands of dollars from down in these places where the social safety net is not exactly American, and they all work together and they make tens of thousands of dollars which they save. And then they cross back down and they go down. Let me tell you, you make $20,000. And I don't know what they're making today, but back in those days they could go home with $20,000 in a growing season, real easy, and $20,000 by today's standards would be $100,000. And they go down and they go to their villages down south in Mexico and we're talking primitive villages, but villages that they understand their culture, their life, their home, their family. And, by the way, down south, because they're deeply religious people and deeply Catholic people, they tend to be very family oriented. So grandma, grandpa, uncles, aunts, kids, grandkids, great grandkids everyone gets together. The money is part of the family money and they live on it and they live well. They're wealthy by local standards. Then the next year they pile into the truck, they head up to the border. This is how it would work and we'd all get cheaper tomatoes because of it.
Speaker 1:It's a win-win and nobody is doing this just to get cheap labor because of the free labor market. Do you understand that it's a free labor market? Just because somebody speaks Spanish only doesn't make them retarded. They're not going to work if they aren't being fairly paid. There are other places to go, there are other growers, and if none of the growers will pay them right, they'll just go home because there are jobs in Mexico that they could do. If they're going to be forced to do it at slave labor rates, where the minimum wage in Mexico that used to be I don't know what it is now. It used to be like $7.50 a day. Okay so, and listen, democrats on the left, get rid of the idea of minimum wage. It shuts out manual labor and people who are learning to do things at the entry level, and that's another discussion for another day. And that's another discussion for another day.
Speaker 1:But, republicans, you have no get dismount your high horse for making this idiotic economic argument that this is all being done, that the bribe Americans, higher wages, baloney, baloney or shall I say, bullshit. It's just not true. Ok, I have made my argument for today. I hope you are all better educated as a result and can spread this knowledge among your friends, because, let me tell you, most people, I don't think, get it. This is why I think Economics 101 should be required teaching in every high school in America. So politicians couldn't make these idiotic arguments and people sit there and shake their heads like they agree. It's just not true. Idiotic arguments and people sit there and shake their heads like they agree. It's just not true. It's not true from the slightest. The minute you begin to critically think about it, you can see all the ways this cannot possibly be true. And yet our mainstream media in particular, and a lot of our non-traditional media none of them are economists and none of them took any economics. So they mouth this crap, depending on what side they come from, right or left. And this particular line I'll keep using bullshit, since I already use it this particular line of bullshit is coming from the right. You know this greedy employer. Shut out the American worker. All they want is cheap wages. That's why they want limited amnesty Bullshit. Okay, I have made my point.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to me today. Don't forget to pick up your copy of Eradical Reset. You can pick it up on Amazon In Kindle, paperback or hardcover. Don't forget to share this podcast with your friends. Thank you very, very much. My name is Herbie K, in case you didn't remember that From the beginning. What a weird thing to add at the end I do this all spontaneously. It's all what comes into my head. Anyway, have a beautiful day. I'll talk to you again on Friday. God bless you, god bless your family and God bless America.