Trust me, with aldo respect, you do NOT understand the labor force as it is today.

You really think the American worker of today is comparable to the worker of 1940-1975????????? Say you don't believe that, you can have a "re-do" on that point. Before I made a payroll, I once thought as you do now. Reality set in. I hire. I hire blacks, I hire whites, I hire Mexicans (legal, by the way), I have hired a scant few Asians. Hired women, hired men, seasonal, full time, part time. I know which stereotypes are dead on correct, I also know the stereotypes that are completely false. Workers today are generally mediocre. Generally speaking. I'm not impressed with the American worker, roky. In fact, I will go a step further and say out loud that if I were to be handed a massive, low interest SBA or major bank loan on a silver platter and my primary labor force consisted of lower-skilled white males or black men (the labor pool we're talking about in this discussion)...I would turn down the loan and walk away. That's how low my expectations of their individual work ethic and production levels are in the year 2008. I've been disappointed far too many times. My wife has been a major institutional manager with the responsibility of hiring $100K on up workers as her main workforce. That's $100,000/yr on up! She has been disappointed in the quality of American worker to choose from. There's both levels of worker for you, roky, both the high and the low. Thank American public schools, thank American parents, thank American television and media, thank American Universiteis, thank liberals. This is the workforce I am forced to deal with...and you want me to pay a premium for this???

If you've ever met a payroll in your life, you know full well that there is a certain level of wage you can afford to pay. I'm not made of endless amounts of cash that can be wasted on unskilled labor as opposed to skilled labor that demands greater wage. Hopefully you understand that more educated, more talented people demand more money to show up every day. You throw out the cavalier notion that guys like me should OVERPAY and OVERBENEFIT all workers based purely on the fact that they're American. Worked for GM, didn't it? That's what $5400 of every car sold goes to pay benefits. Overpaid and over-benefited to the hilt. Genetically-Modified is on life support. Ford is on life support. Michigan is on life support. You use that as a model for future business success? Good thing I'm running my businesses and not you or I'd be digging ditches for a living...lol. Geez, it's no wonder most Americans are in debt, can't keep their home finances in order, carry a car payment their whole lifetime, can't pay cash for the kid's college, never really get on top of their personal financial statement. They want too much, produce too few. I'm reading your thoughts and very little of it makes sense. You want a dream. I so wish this were 1958 and people wanted and respected a job for what it was, not what it wasn't. You want me to pay $20/hr for guys to cut grass and then add complete benefit packages making the real wage top out at about $29.75/hr for entry-level, unskilled! Nobody could do that, friend, not Donald Trump or Lee Iacocoa, or Steve Jobs...nobody can last in the game overpaying and over-benefiting their workforce. Pure Business 101.

I'm so against immigration it's not funny. But I can tell you one thing...American business is addicted to the worker who shows up, does what the job description states, and doesn't want for more. Mexicans fulfill that need. They want the job and they want to keep it! That's why they work harder than any SOB alive today on any crew in the field I've ever witnessed! They put their pride on the shelf and their family's financial welfare at the forefront. I can't say that about the typical American laborer! Just because I tell you what you don't want to hear doesn't make me the bad guy. It makes me honest and believable.