Tamales and lettuce.

Our park is on the border of the small towns of LaQuinta and Indio. LaQuinta is a land of gated communities, manicured lawns, fine homes filled with WASPS and Jews.

Indio, on the other hand, is predominately a working-class community filled with small homes, fast food restaurants, and Hispanics.

It's a nice diversity and satisfies whatever urge one wakes up with.

Yum Yum Tamale

This weekend the urge was for tamales. The annual Indio Tamale Festival, held just a few blocks from our place, attracts over 100,000 people. One booth alone sold over 6,000 tamales in two days. Having been raised in Southern California, I thought I knew all about tamales. My Mexican friends always had tamales for Christmas and I was often included. Boy was I mistaken... in addition to the standard chicken, pork, and beef tamales there were chocolate, strawberry, pineapple, vegetable, and many other flavors. Jill and I stuffed ourselves sampling as we wandered from booth to booth while listening to a Mariachi competition.

Lady Bliss

Funnel Cake

We topped this culinary orgasm with what Mexicans call a Funnel Cake. This is a pile of deep fried dough, about the size of a frisbee, hot from the grease, dusted with half of a box of powdered sugar!!!! It was a heart clogging afternoon but a delightful dip into diversity. The festival area was bracketed by a Mariachi stage on one end and a dance Pavilion on the other. It was interesting and blissful (until the heartburn set in).


Now for an awkward segue...

In a recent report, the children of Shanghai, the largest city in China, ranked first in the world in math, science, and reading. The United States ranked 33rd in reading, 25th in math, and 17th in science.

Makes me want to barf.

Here's an idea that might solve our educational deficit as well as the 9.6% unemployment problem.

There are estimated 14 million illegal immigrants in this country. The cost of educating, feeding, and incarcerating this group of law breakers is anywhere between 100 and 300 BILLION dollars, depending on whose figures you use. In California alone the average tax-paying family pays $1500 per year to support the illegals in that state. That's FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS!

Ahhh you say, but look at all the cheap labor. Look at the perfectly trimmed lawns, the well serviced hotel rooms, the low cost of produce. This leads me to my point... no one knows the true cost of a head of lettuce or a well manicured lawn because anytime the government gets involved in a segment of the free market economy it distorts the market to such a degree that no one can figure out what the real cost or profit is

Like you, I have heard, and indeed have bought into, the idea that the illegals in this country do the jobs Americans won't do. I agree... sort of.

The average cost of a head of lettuce (Dept. of Agriculture) is approximately 20 cents in the box in the field and roughly $1.00 at the store. The average lettuce picker makes about $8.25 per hour or roughly 6 cents per head of lettuce on the retail level. At that rate, of course, no one wants to pick lettuce. But the problem is, that's not the true cost. The true cost would incorporate the billions spent by the American taxpayer to support the cheap labor... remember, the government distorts the free market by allowing people to flood into the country illegally.

So, here's the plan... deport all of the illegals (wah, wah, wah, I hear you) and raise the wages paid to whatever level they need to be to attract labor. Let's say it takes an increase of 400%! Wow, pick lettuce for $33 an hour? If I was out of work, I'd jump at that. Let's be really careless and raise the rate by 600%... $50 per hour! Bet a lot of folks would love to earn that.

But what about the cost of lettuce? Will I ever be able to have a salad again if we pay the pickers $50 per hour? Let's see... if, at today's rate, the retail price of labor for a head of lettuce is 6 cents, the new price for labor would go up to 36 per head. So now your salad would cost $1.36.

In addition to creating millions - probably more than the 8 million - of new jobs that would bring our unemployment rate below 3%, our schools would be less crowded, the student-teacher ratio would decline, and instead of teaching English as a second language we could focus on science, reading, and math... and possibly teach a bit of Chinese.

Not only would the schools benefit, we'd have to shut down a few empty prisons and the emergency rooms in hospitals would be less crowded as would the hospitals. 80% of gang members in California are illegals, so presumably there would be considerably less violence and crime. And oh yes, the cost of healthcare would plummet because the lettuce pickers making $50 per hour could afford insurance.

Not to be over zealous, but we might even bring down the deficit by applying the 100/300 billion dollars we now pay to support criminals to our debt. In addition, we'd have a huge increase in tax revenue from 8 million well-paid lettuce pickers, drywall hangers, hotel maids, janitors, etc etc.

I realize that some bleeding hearts might be worried about the safety of the criminal deportees when they are returned to their own country. I firmly believe that most of those being deported are among the most courageous, determined, and decent citizens of their homelands who would do anything to support their families... indeed, I honor their fortitude and bravery. Nevertheless, they need to go. So I suggest that each deportee who has broken no US law (other than entering the country illegally) be given a stipend of $5,000 to help them relocate. Yes, that could be as much as 25 billion dollars but it's a one-time cost and only a fraction of what it costs to maintain them in the USA.

Finally, I suspect that the influx of hard-working, courageous people into their own corrupt countries, who have seen how a successful country works, may have a salubrious affect on the villages and towns they once fled. 

And you thought this was a simple travel blog!