An interesting concept

[TerrawoRx]

I guess this puts a whole new meaning to justice....

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/10/ala-weighs-using-inmates-as-farm-workers-to-replace-fleeing-hispanics/1

[Turboguy]

That is a very interesting story and can evoke a lot of different thoughts.

They spent a fortune trying to build a fence that didn't work.  It looks like those laws at least drove them to different states. 

9% unemployment (and many suspect the number is actually quite higher) and they can't hire workers to do the job.  That sort of goes along with my experience this spring when we needed to add one welder and one assembly person, ran an ad in the newspaper for three days including Sunday and got hardly any applicants (perhaps 4), We didn't even get people calling to see what the job paid.

I will agree with what the article said.  It is harder to find good people who are willing to work.  In our case perhaps there just were not enough qulaified people whose unemployment was about to run out.

[TerrawoRx]

I like the fact that it would get the lazy criminals out and teach them some work ethic. It could potentially have a profound positive impact for those who keep rotating through the system and get them to visualize through hands on education that there may be an alternate path for them versus criminal activity.

What Ive notice is that people have forgotten how to initiate themselves... which I believe stems from the loss of the family farm and the like where those values were cultivated. So to implement a program like this I find it might trigger some realities that may not have been attainable in ones mind and may change their cycle of destructive behavior.

In addition, I am tired of my tax dollars going to people incarcerated whom do nothing productive all day... It shouldnt be a vacation of sorts... it should be hard living and work.

Glad you read it Ray...

[Turboguy]

I think one of the problems with using convict labor for things is that it often competes with private industry where there would be an advantage in labor costs with convict labor or it would take jobs that might go to others.

Personally I think there should be a lot more convict labor and they should find things where the USA is not competitive because of labor costs and use convict labor to compete.   As you mentioned it would teach a lot of lazy people to have a better work ethic and help defray the very high costs of keeping people incarcerated. 

[TerrawoRx]

I have to admit I dont think there really would be that big of an issue pertaining to the competition thing. The entities that actually use the illegal labor from the south arent paying them anywhere near minimum wage nor are paying taxes on that labor so switching over to this sort of labor doesnt seem like it would be that big of an issue. There is a lot of farmland that could use hands on versus production lines so I am all for getting people back to the earth this way.

[Whysod]

As most everyone knows, there's been a fair amount of controversy over Arizona's immigration laws.  An interesting side effect is it has become a lot easier to communicate with people behind the counter at fast food places.  The bad economy might have a lot to do with it, but those places don't seem to be having too much trouble finding English speaking young people and retirees to fill those jobs.

When I was in high school, a lot of kids (including me) got our first jobs at fast food places.  As a landscape contractor in the late 1970's, it started to be difficult to compete with companies who were not hiring American workers.  It got so bad in the 1980's you didn't hear the English language very much on jobsites.  Also, in the 1980's, those entry level jobs were not available to my kids.

As more States start requiring companies to use e-verify and crack down on the kind of identity theft that program is supposed to help prevent, I'm sure there will be an adjustment period where a lot of new things will be tried.

Personally, I believe those changes, along with the momentum 'Buy American' seems to be having will result in a lot of unemployed Americans finding it easier to get back to work.  (Even if we find ourselves paying a little more for American goods and services.)

[Turboguy]

A lot of people believe if we didn't have the illegal aliens there would be no one to take the jobs such as ditch diggers at $ 8.00 an hour.   The reality is that if we didn't have the illegals there are lots of unemployed and someone will dig the ditch.  Perhaps not for 8 bucks an hour but if they need the ditch dug they will have to pay a fair wage to get it done.  That is good for the economy and good for America.  Someone having to pay a fair wage to get the ditch dug isn't the worst thing in the world. 

I am not sure how many Illegal immigrants are in the country and working but I do believe if they were not here and people had to pay real US citizens to do the job it would cut unemployment a lot.

The other thing that is really bad is all the regulations the Government keeps imposing.  Personally I think Congress should work one week a month and have three weeks to help the local citizens.  They have too much time on their hands sitting in Congress and to kill the time keep finding new things to regulate and new ways to make doing business more difficult.

I think a good example even though it is at the state level is the fertilizer law Mark posted about a few weeks ago.  Pennsylvania is considering a new law that to add fertilzer in my hydroseeding mix I will have to get an applicators liscence and learn all about herbicides, insecticides and all the other things that I have no intention of using.  I don't have a problem with a requirement for those who work with toxic chemicals to have to know what they are doing but for fertilizer?  It is really stupid. 

[TerrawoRx]

@Rick,

Now think about how many of those illegals took a large percentage of their earnings out of this country?? Mexicans earn 50 pesos a day at 12-13 pesos equaling $1. So whose benefiting the most now??

@Ray,

The estimated number thats been thrown out there by the media and government is around 12M however on the independent news avenues the number is more like 40M-60M of all illegals. That number may be dropping due to the exodus.

Dont forget Ray that those regulations are initiated by these conglomerates who purchase the politicians to impose them for the sole purpose of minimizing competition. If they can get regulations made that are challenging to get through when they know how to navigate through easily then its squashes the competition. Term Limits would help solve alot of that crap.

In the case of fertilizer I agree that it is stupid but if the government cant oversight the companies making these toxic chemicals then they go after the applicator... its all cloak and dagger smoke and mirrors crap. We need to return the power back to the states so that they can have proper oversight and create competition between the states again... that would trigger a huge economic boom....

[hydroservice]

We were doing a new state prison one year and I noticed there were alot of prisoners out picking rocks, raking, sweeping and even planting. I said to the project engineer "that pretty cool to get them working we should do that more around the state" He said with prisoners you have to supply transportation, security, and even liability and workmans comp insurance. Because we were working within the confines of the prison they didn't have to deal with any of that so it only made sense and the prisoners seemed to like it. If Maine was a larger agricultural state then maybe there would be more that could be done with prisoners but he just didn't see that much that could be done this way. In the big states that say they are hurting for laborers because all the illegals left it seems like there would be plenty for prisoners to do if no one else wants to. Bring back the chain gangs. Its to bad if its not comfortable. The Arizona sheriff  had it right when he put them in tents saying the didn't deserve ac, and tv and weight rooms etc. Except for being locked up they are living better then alot of law abiding Americans are. The Florida Representative has it right when he said bring back the firing squad. 90% of americans when asked said they hoped to die in there sleep. Lethal injection puts one to sleep. The Firing squad would give them something to really think about. People on state welfare should also be required to work at least 1 day a week for the town or state mowing lawns, raking leaves, sweeping sidewalks, painting fire hydrants something. When alls you have to do is get of your butt once a month and walk to the mailbox for your check what incentive is there to look for work. People are slowly forgetting what its like to actually work. Weather its prisoners, those on welfare and even those that have been unemployed for so long. I'm 61 and when moving my winter firewood I can outwork 2 20 year olds it spoke volumes to me. 

[muddstopper]

The Florida Representative has it right when he said bring back the firing squad. 90% of americans when asked said they hoped to die in there sleep. Lethal injection puts one to sleep. The Firing squad would give them something to really think about.

Interesting statement. I was watching TV yesterday and the show was about Pirates hijacking ships. I know everybody has probably seen a lot of this in the news. China seems to have cured this problem in their waters with one small effort. What they did was they caught the Pirates, Prosecuted them, lined them up and put a bullet in the back of their heads. They actually showed this on TV. Pirateing in and around the coast of China completely stopped. Once the Pirates found out that they would get executed if they got caught, it no longer seemed worth the risk to hijack a ship. Yep, I think capital punishment would probably stop a lot of crime in this country.

Another interesting statictic is that Guns are used in less than 2% of all violent crimes in this country, but seem to gather 90 some odd percent of the news media coverage and 90+% of all regualtions being passed to supposely take a bite out of crime. Put a gun in the hand of every law abiding citizen, teach them to use it, and you also see a drop in crime in the USA. Dead men dont tell tells and they are not repeat offenders.

[dmarshall]

Very interesting those its perception would generally rekindle different thoughts about it.

And for the greater part of it personally, I think that they should not have invested much for the fence as that obviously would not work as effectively as they probably thought.

And interestingly, there are places where there are laws that concern how you should be handling different methods and schemes with fences and their height.