Re: silca and Tariffs

On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 18:11:58 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

On 4/27/2025 5:43 PM, Shadow wrote:

On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 16:39:32 -0400, zen cycle
<funkmasterxx@hotmail.com> wrote:
 

On 4/27/2025 4:16 PM, AMuzi wrote:

On 4/27/2025 2:39 PM, Shadow wrote:

On Sun, 27 Apr 2025 14:06:50 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

Goes both ways.
>
Brasil is a highly efficient producer of sugar, which is
virtually impossible to import in to USA.  For the past 120
years across every administration.

>
     Brazil uses slave labour. Hard to compete with that
price-wise. The sugar cane industry has become an oligopoly. The "big
corps" rent land from farmers, sometimes refuse to pay what they
promised and when they give the land back nothing will grow on it.
Sugar cane depletes the land, rather like soy. In three years it's
sand.
>
     There's a reason why the Chinese government  will not allow
planting soy in most of China..... they plan thinking decades in the
future.
>
      I heard that Australia's fully-automated sugar-cane farms are
far more efficient than Brazil's labour-heavy methods. Machines don't
have to feed their children or invest in bettering their education.
They're cheaper than slaves....
     []'s

>
WTF?  And neither Dilma nor Lula nor anyone else interfered with or even
addressed slavery as a domestic political issue??
>

>
just guessing, but I think "slave labor" is a bit of hyperbole. Perhaps
he meant "slave wages"?

 
LOL, Brazil did away with slavery because slaves became too
expensive. If one got ill, you would have to care for him or lose your
property. With slavery gone, slaves became much cheaper. And you only
had to hire them a few months a year.
 
These people mentioned in the "slave" article are carted off
to farms with the promise of "good salaries". The owners charge more
for lunch than they pay in salaries, so the worker cannot resign. You
can't resign if you are in debt.
Those that are considered to be a problem are either killed or
work in chains so they don't run away. Most of these farms are
hundreds of kilometers from any big town.
Dunno, what do you call slave labour?  Does the worker have to
be black to qualify?
[]'s

>
>
I did not know that:
>
https://fpa.org/slavery-forced-labor-brazil/
>
Something like 150000 in a country of 215 million.
Proportionally more than USA but still, as you note,
isolated and in remote areas.'

> 90% of Brazilians live in urban areas. Of the 10% that live
in rural areas, over half are either too old, too young or too sick to
work
So 150.000 (more, see below)slaves in a population of around
10 million. That's a lot of slaves.

Good article, BTW, explains it better than I could.
Of course, it got much worse under Bolsonaro. The destruction
of the Amazon (first by cutting down the trees then by fire to form
agricultural lands) were all illegal, so those involved would not
hesitate to use slaves.
Note that many multi-national companies have been
investigated, but they all get off by saying that the work is
"outsourced".
Which is laughable. Our Constitution says that outsourced
labor is the responsibility of the corps that outsource. NOT the
companies that do the actual hiring. They are usually "ghost"
companies and use false names and disappear as soon as the contract
finishes.
But as I said, judges are practically all far-right IOW for
sale....
If someone does get convicted, it's usually for political
reasons. They backed the wrong governor. Not legal ones.
[]'s

PS I live in a coffee region. The crime rates spike at the end
of the season when the "gatos" don't pay the workers and they don't
have enough money to go home. Break-ins are common, but they are not
professional criminals. When they get enough money to buy the bus
ticket they go back to Maranhao, or wherever.... Murders or injuries
are rare. Some counties actually pay the bus trip. Tax money paying to
cover up the slave industry....
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