2020 US Election (Part One)

[Farm Boy]

I think it would be an interesting experiment to open a factory deep in some red state and see just how badly you could get away with abusing the workers. My guess is that in the final analysis China wouldn't look all that bad. You'll never escape the reality that a "living wage" is never going to be the same expense in the third world as it is in the US, but I'll bet you could get away with running the same sort of "damn the labor code, full speed ahead" operations that are being run in places that outright don't bother with a labor code.

Fantasizing about country girls again?

 

[rah]

I'm sure if you choose the right spot where people hadn't been employed in quite a while, they wouldn't care if they were abused.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Fantasizing about country girls again?

Nahhh. I have access to all the country girls I need. This would be an experiment that I would only be involved in from afar. I'm no more likely to move to a red state to operate a factory than I am to move to India to do it.

 

[metalhead]

Anyway, your argument here is essentially identical to the false conservative argument that raising the minimum wage will cause unemployment. Maybe think about that for a bit.

Not really, because the scenarios are different. Most minimum wage occupations are not replaceable, because they are in the personal services sector and those jobs are impossible to outsource. Unemployment generally doesn't rise because modest price increases are easily absorbed by the market, and we're still decades away from robots who work retail.

Farms often compete with overseas producers. They have a ceiling to their prices, above which they will be unable to sell their produce. It's not just a matter of local economies absorbing the small price increases necessary to pay the higher wages.

Maybe it's not that many jobs, and that's the answer, I don't know, though a quick Googling puts the number in the ballpark of a million and a half people working in non-livestock agriculture without documentation. Not an insubstantial amount. Certainly most of their jobs would not disappear, but even a few hundred thousand would be significant.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Nahhh. I have access to all the country girls I need. This would be an experiment that I would only be involved in from afar. I'm no more likely to move to a red state to operate a factory than I am to move to India to do it.

India, Indiana, what's the difference?

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, don't worry. I had no confusion on your interest in factory operations.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

India, Indiana, what's the difference?

That's my point.

 

[Farm Boy]

Myriad is the correct answer.

 

[Lexicus]

I think it would be an interesting experiment to open a factory deep in some red state and see just how badly you could get away with abusing the workers. My guess is that in the final analysis China wouldn't look all that bad. You'll never escape the reality that a "living wage" is never going to be the same expense in the third world as it is in the US, but I'll bet you could get away with running the same sort of "damn the labor code, full speed ahead" operations that are being run in places that outright don't bother with a labor code.

Well, the Department of Labor has actually shut down a number of animal-agriculture operations that were actually just enslaving undocumented people, and I'm guessing the number shut down is probably small compared to the number that exist, so....yeah, you're not entirely wrong.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Not really, because the scenarios are different. Most minimum wage occupations are not replaceable, because they are in the personal services sector and those jobs are impossible to outsource. Unemployment generally doesn't rise because modest price increases are easily absorbed by the market, and we're still decades away from robots who work retail.

Farms often compete with overseas producers. They have a ceiling to their prices, above which they will be unable to sell their produce. It's not just a matter of local economies absorbing the small price increases necessary to pay the higher wages.

Maybe it's not that many jobs, and that's the answer, I don't know, though a quick Googling puts the number in the ballpark of a million and a half people working in non-livestock agriculture without documentation. Not an insubstantial amount. Certainly most of their jobs would not disappear, but even a few hundred thousand would be significant.

I suspect the quick Googling produced an under-representation. That could just be a different reading of "without documentation" though. If you take it as "job given to a non-citizen who cannot document government approval to work" you will get a much different number than if you take it as "job given without collecting the documentation the government requires employers to collect." I think there are a whole lot of US citizens filling "undocumented worker" positions.

 

[Lexicus]

I think there are a whole lot of US citizens filling "undocumented worker" positions.

A lot of American citizens work under the table, no doubt about that.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Well, the Department of Labor has actually shut down a number of animal-agriculture operations that were actually just enslaving undocumented people, and I'm guessing the number shut down is probably small compared to the number that exist, so....yeah, you're not entirely wrong.

I suspect the "undocumented people" are what made them tall grass that needed mowing. If they had effectively enslaved the kind of citizens who vote for all out GOP governance of their podunk states they'd probably not have been noticed.

 

[Takhisis]

'are President' is a joke phrase implying that Trump supporters are stupid

Or maybe that there is a phonetic merger between the words ‘our’ and ‘are’, which would make it seem as if you were generically making fun of a certain social/ethnolinguistic group regardless of the political leanings of its members.

 

[Berzerker]

You just cited the best argument against the wall. Compared to the desert, as a barrier it is superfluous. That said, the difference between crossing the border near a port of entry and crossing the border out in the desert is not the quality of the barrier, it's the enforcement. Between Aqua Prieta and Antelope Wells it doesn't matter what sort of barrier you put up, I can come at it from the Mexico side with whatever equipment I need to get past it and no matter how hard that is and what equipment it takes it is a secondary cost compared to what I already need to get through the mountains to civilization on the US side. As it stands right now, I don't have to go terribly far from Antelope Wells, population two, to be able to cut through the fencing uninterrupted, but I still have the same problems.

What my somewhat tongue in cheek previous post was supposed to point out is that no matter what kind of speed bump you put out there, the only thing that would make a difference is building that thriving city, from scratch, at Antelope Wells that you would need to support the manpower to enforce the fence. Real time monitored surveillance of fifty miles of border, with personnel and equipment available that can deploy rapidly enough to at least keep your fence from being stolen is an ENORMOUS cost. If you have that, a chain link fence or even just a painted line on the ground will be fine. If you don't the ice wall from Game of Thrones isn't really going to stop anyone. Someone will just come along with a torch and take the time to melt a tunnel through it.

You can cut a hole in a fence/wall just about anywhere, we're constantly repairing them around ports of entry. The problem is cutting holes in the fence at Antelope Wells, the people making the trip have to cross a desert. If we're to keep our current system the only way to deter people from crossing the desert is to make it less attractive. That means enforcement and the people who want the wall will provide it. They're not going to build a wall and have no way to respond to breaches. More agents, satellites, drones, sensors, cameras, and all the amenities Uncle Sam can provide... and that means fewer people dying in the desert. Thats the silver lining to a wall.

 

[rah]

I don't think most of the people screaming for the wall care about reducing Mexican deaths in the desert.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't think most of the people screaming for the wall care about reducing Mexican deaths in the desert.

I hope you understand I mean no offense when I say this isn't much of a Eureka moment

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You can cut a hole in a fence/wall just about anywhere, we're constantly repairing them around ports of entry. The problem is cutting holes in the fence at Antelope Wells, the people making the trip have to cross a desert. If we're to keep our current system the only way to deter people from crossing the desert is to make it less attractive. That means enforcement and the people who want the wall will provide it. They're not going to build a wall and have no way to respond to breaches. More agents, satellites, drones, sensors, cameras, and all the amenities Uncle Sam can provide... and that means fewer people dying in the desert. Thats the silver lining to a wall.

No, they won't. IF such things are to be provided it will be the people who pay the bulk of the taxes who will be providing it, and that's the people who are opposed to the wall. The bill for building a metropolis at Antelope Wells isn't within the means of the red state welfare cases who chatter about the wall and have not clue one what it actually would cost. How about it Mr TaxesAreTheft, have you started getting uncomfortable about the costs of mounting and monitoring (and replacing them when I go harvest them) FIFTY THOUSAND cameras between Aqua Prieta and Antelope Wells?

 

[Takhisis]

Given that ‘the money is not a problem’, who would pay forthe expropriation of all that privately-owned land along the border which would be necessary to actually build the walls and barracks and surveillance equipment and checkpoints and so on?

There's so many holes in the ‘wall’ idea that it's like a colander.

 

[Berzerker]

I don't think most of the people screaming for the wall care about reducing Mexican deaths in the desert.

Their motives dont matter if the wall saves lives

No, they won't. IF such things are to be provided it will be the people who pay the bulk of the taxes who will be providing it, and that's the people who are opposed to the wall. The bill for building a metropolis at Antelope Wells isn't within the means of the red state welfare cases who chatter about the wall and have not clue one what it actually would cost. How about it Mr TaxesAreTheft, have you started getting uncomfortable about the costs of mounting and monitoring (and replacing them when I go harvest them) FIFTY THOUSAND cameras between Aqua Prieta and Antelope Wells?

I dont support the wall, but I want to remove existing walls too. If we add the wall to the current system we will save lives. If we oppose the wall more people will die. Some taxes are theft, some taxes become subsidies to corporations in return for bribes.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Given that ‘the money is not a problem’, who would pay forthe expropriation of all that privately-owned land along the border which would be necessary to actually build the walls and barracks and surveillance equipment and checkpoints and so on?

There's so many holes in the ‘wall’ idea that it's like a colander.

I'm avoiding that issue by using the stretch of border I've been talking about. I think the only serious problem with building a wall there is the logistics of access, unless you use the highway on the Mexico side of the border. But that's what clearly shows the absurdity of the idea to someone like me who understands the desert.

My family owns a piece of property in Juniper Hills that I expect will be a development windfall for maybe my grandkids or maybe their kids. In fifty years when Palmdale is equivalent to Van Nuys Juniper Hills will be equivalent to Granada Hills. But for now it's a square of desert on the lip of a ridge overlooking a desert, surrounded by desert. A friend was looking for a place to moderately short term store some equipment and asked about it, under consideration that maybe he could pay for some fencing and such, maybe pour a pad to park stuff on.

Rather than tell him he had a very bad idea we took him out there. No fencing, no closed and locked shipping container, nothing could make leaving something out there secure. Some dirt biker trekking across the desert that saw it could come back at their leisure with whatever they needed to penetrate whatever he might have contributed. The only even vaguely possible option would be a secure facility that would resist penetration for at least an hour, connected to some sort of satellite monitoring to provide an alarm, and my willingness to drop everything and truck on out there...all of which were lacking so that project died.