The reason for the partial boycott is profiling. It is insulting to many citizens who are Latino.
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Gee, I wonder why they’d want to do something like that? Other than perhaps, they can see potential for police abuses. Stopping every trucker who remotely resembles Desi Arnaz or George Lopez, and they’d rather avoid getting needlessly hassled.
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This is where simplistic dumb stuff bought into leads to mismanagement of the economy for bigotry, misogyny and just plain being dumb enough to utter things about “woke”.
It takes someone who has a really slow mentality to worry about woke.
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The US Latino economy was quoted earlier this year as the fifth largest economy in the world. I guess insulting and harassing Latinos will cost the seniors in Florida.
Uttering woke as if it is a problem is an incredible way to come off as an ejit.
It isn’t about “woke”. It’s about Fascism.
** Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from one another, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a Volksgemeinschaft (German: “people’s community”), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation**
Tell me that does not fit Trump, De Santis, and the Trump movement to the T. ( had to use Trump because the M word is not allowed)
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Same thing but woke is the stepping stone drug for an ejit to support fascism.
The economic results are idiotic.
But wait till we get into June then you are going to see the dunce level of idiotic.
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Meanwhile, the Gov is leveraging Islamophobia in his latest claim about Disney.
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He is looking for his wall moment where suddenly the dumbest among us fall in love.
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Something in the new law that a lot of people here have been calling for:
"Requires private employers with 25 or more employees and all public agencies to use the federal E-Verify system to verify a new employee’s employment eligibility, starting on July 1.
“Requires employers to fire an employee if they discover them to be a “foreign national” who is not authorized to work in the U.S. and makes it illegal for any person to knowingly employ, hire, recruit or even refer, either for herself or himself or on behalf of another, for private or public employment within the state, such a person.”
DB2
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Sure, but those people are also calling for a comprehensive overhaul of our immigration issue. Just kicking out illegal immigrants creates a freaking mess. It is estimated that in Florida, there are about 300,000 illegal farm workers, or about 60% of FL farm workers, employed.
Good luck explaining to your citizens why their food prices just quadrupled and you put a bunch of farms out of business.
This is what happens when you elect people that are just looking for headlines, but haven’t got a clue about the real world. You know, politicians proving that you can’t fix stupid.
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Not likely to happen. Florida doesn’t have an especially big agricultural sector to begin with, and it won’t materially affect our food prices. About half of our ag sector is ornamentals (flowers and landscaping plants), and we don’t really produce staple food goods. Tomatoes and strawberries might see some price increases, and of course citrus - but little else. Ag contributes less than a percent of state GDP, so the broader economy won’t likely feel it either:
More pain would probably be felt in hospitality and construction - two sectors where undocumented workers also make up a large section of the labor force, but which are far more integral to the Florida economy. But the former isn’t going to translate into all that much pain to the Legislature or the governor, and the latter is a sector where they probably feel pretty good making the case that those are decent jobs that they believe should be filled by people with the legal right to work here.
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Which is something I would agree on, but I have been seeing reports on the wire that ag companies are going bonkers at the prospect of their supply of desperate people willing to do the worst jobs, for a pittance, and willing to be cheated, lest they be reported to INS and shipped back to Guatemala, will be cut off. Yes, I saw albaby’s post that hospitality will probably make a greater impact on the state’s economy than ag, but the fact remains, the business sector would have the rules changed in a non-helpful way.
Of course, if you view the enforcement of immigration law, in context with the push to let children work more hours at more jobs, and the push in the debt limit talks to force people to work more hours to get their government assistance, seems the plan is to replace willing immigrant labor with less willing USian people.
Steve
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Albaby,
As usual, you make some solid points.
However, I think the problem would be larger than the 300k farm workers. First, many farm businesses would be seriously hurt, even if they paid a minimum wage. Not many Americans are willing to do farm labor. Second, it would have a cascading effect on other businesses as even illegal immigrants need to buy food, gas, shelter, etc.
And given the general labor shortage, I wonder how quickly even well paying construction jobs could be filled, having the same ripple effects as above.
Other businesses, such as hospitality (something near and dear to FL), would probably be impacted, too.
I can’t imagine getting rid of hundreds of thousands of jobs, even low paying ones, would be beneficial to any state. And, it has a reverberating impact.
IMNSHO, it’s not a well thought out solution.
A more comprehensive solution is needed, which I admit is much easier to say than it is to do.
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The issue here is out of state truckers on the roads will be stopped and their paperwork required. Most of the Latino population is legal. Many have families going back here much longer the rest of us. The law does not care nor notice.
It is aimed at Latinos and everyone knows a European illegal would get a no never mind.
The trucking industry is key to price inflation in any state. Truckers boycotting prices will rise.
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I think this is great DB2 as long as they actually enforce the laws. But this is going to cause the GDP of Florida tank because who, exactly, are they going to do the work in the fields?
Now maybe we can actually create some laws around immigration, after Florida tanks though. I have never seen a Governor so focused on destroying the economy of his state.
Andy
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So far, though, he remains quite popular there.
“With 56% approval and 41% disapproval, he also was popular among Hispanic voters.”
DB2
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Sure but what he has done hasn’t gone through their economy yet. Wait 4 years. Can you imagine what is going to happen to the agricultural sector in his state.
Andy
It’s unlikely to get rid of hundreds of thousands of jobs, though. Despite what the law provides, enforcement’s never going to be that good. Almost everything the new law prohibits is already illegal anyway - the only really creative nasty bit is the “human trafficking” provision, and since that only applies to newcomers it will mostly bite over time.
I agree with your other points. As I mentioned upthread, hospitality and construction are the sectors that will be hit harder, IMHO. But the hospitality sector is concentrated in the bluer areas of the state, and the direct economic consequences will be felt most directly by tourists (which is why Florida looooooooves its bed taxes rather than income taxes). Construction might end up being a bigger problem…but it’s nothing some selective enforcement and a few blind eyes can’t adjust to.
I think it’s pretty well-thought out, at least to be good politics if not good policy. Down to the minor details of vesting the licensing penalty with the state Department of Economic Opportunity (which issues all the licenses for hotels and restaurants) and not the Department of Agriculture (which issues all the licenses for, well, you know). It’s going to hit harder those communities that are unlikely to support the Gub’nah, while pressing more lightly on the ones that lean GOP. And by emphasizing the work aspect of immigration, it’s going to be a nice wedge issue that divides Democrats while being enormously appealing to Republicans.
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Al,
That does not answer if out of state truckers who are Latino will not cost the state with this boycott.
Adding you said there would not be a problem for farmers but sort of thought that meant no food inflation. Your food is trucked in mostly. You documented that the other way around by saying Florida does not produce its own food.
You will have food inflation.
As I noted upthread, agriculture is a very tiny part of our economy. Barely 0.6% of state GDP directly, still less than 1% even if you include indirect and supporting jobs. And since the “death penalty” provision of losing state licenses doesn’t apply to Department of Agriculture licenses, this probably won’t be targeted towards rural field workers, but rather at coastal city hospitality workers.
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