"I can do better than that..." Unfortunately the attitude of too many young people. We're sorry but there are no Bank President jobs open currently, please check back with us later.

When I as a kid we started working early. Shovelling snow, raking leaves, or anything we could make a buck at from 10 years old on. Then when we turned 16 we grabbed a supermarket job or worked at Brigham's etc. Kids these days are not that ambitious plus they have tons of extracurricular activities that basically prevent them from working. They have become spoiled and we spoiled them. When we were kids you had a bike, a football, a baseball glove and a lot of creativity. When you went home there was one TV (made in the USA) and if you were really lucky it was in color. Nobody was poor but we lived very frugally. By todays standards we were dirt poor. If these businesses state they need foreign students to fill vacancies...I believe them.

have we raised a generation of spoiled brats? would our kids work harder in a foreign country? what travel destination could we send them to to find out? arkhangelsk? reykjavik? thule? when i was a teen, i'd have given my eye teeth to get a summer job on the cape. instead it was tobacco fields and steam laundry for me. i could not have done better. it didn't stop me from getting graduate degrees, and i learned to be part of (and appreciate) a larger community. these jobs are where our kids learn to be productive americans.

it's not the illegal aliens who do the damage - it's the entrepreneurs who hire them knowing they're illegal. place the blame where it belongs - on the creative opportunistic greedy ambitious legal citizens of the good old usa. whenever you hand over money for something, do you ask if they hire illegal aliens? which law-breaking citizens are you supporting?

This is SO WRONG. This line says it all: "Students from around the world pay several thousand dollars apiece to private organizations — authorized by the State Department — that help them find temporary US jobs." So lets see. These private orgaizations make millions off of a fees paid by these foreign students to take jobs at sub-minimum wages to the benefit of employers who bypass paying their share in taxes. Sure maybe the worker pool is limited in Maine or the Cape. But there are plenty of unemployed students and adults who could travel from within the US to do these jobs.

The Student work and travel program provides much more than just "cheap labor." It serves as a hugely beneficial cultural exchange for both sides. The foreign College students take away a positive perspective of the Untied States. Cape Cod becomes a more cosmopolitan place known the world over. Also, the young intelligent labor force helps local business prosper by incorporating fresh ideas. http://www.facebook.com/CapeCodSummerCitizens

It wouldn't be so hard to find Maine kids, nor even Maine adults, to do the work if they were offering more than $8 per hour. This doesn't mean Americans aren't lazy or spoiled, but it does mean this isn't about a shortage, it is about keeping wages down, same as the H1-B visa is about keeping the wages down for STEM workers (and keeping Americans out of those fields, so the employers can go back and say "See, Americans won't work in these fields, so we need even more foreigners [to depress the wages even further]" -- unlike summer work, it takes a particular aptitude and a few years of training to become an engineer or scientist.)

I see your point, Chesler, but I don't agree with it. I've been working since I was a kid. I had a bit of trouble in my late teens and ended up homeless--AND I STILL WORKED. Yes, I was making a crappy wage telemarketing for NEWPRO Windows, but it was a paycheck. From there I was able to save my money while I worked (sleeping at a homeless shelter at night, after my shift), and I saved enough to get into a rooming house, from there, I started working behind a register at a coffee shop...got an apartment....now I own my own home! To someone who isn't working, $8/hour isn't 'subpar' wages, it is a lifeline.

Plenty of people aren't working -- why aren't they fighting for these lifelines?

i disagree with the premise that wage suppression is the problem. wages need to be suppressed to some extent, because wage inflation has been an ingredient in driving up housing prices (mortgages and ability to pay) and costs of production. we're suffering, as we must, through the return to normalcy in wages and expectations and to some degree of parity with the rest of the world. it's important to keep economic activity moving rather than price it into the stratosphere. at the same time, we have to focus on those opportunists who do it just to keep extraordinary profits. spread the wealth.