On Fri, 21 Feb 2020 15:06:44 -0800, sms
wrote:

On 2/20/2020 4:55 PM, John B. wrote:

snip

Or perhaps the "Prison Farm" solution as was used in Mississippi,
among other states. That could, if managed properly, turn out to be a
profit making establishment.

Or is working now deemed to be a cruel and unusual punishment?

A lot of the high cost is in medical care, personnel, and food. Highly
unlikely that enough money would be generated to offset those costs.
Plus it would take jobs away from non-criminals.

The Mississippi State Penitentiary farm used 600,000 man-hours in
fiscal 2012, planting over 5,700 acres in vegetables, rice, corn,
wheat, and soybeans and producing over two tons of vegetables worth
more than $1.3 million and almost half a million eggs.

Oklahoma's highly organized prison farm system, Agri-Services,
produces or processes some 723,000 pounds of beef, 115,000 pounds of
pork, 1,445,000 pounds of processed meat, and 568,000 gallons of milk,
along with 7,500 tons of hay and 4,500 tons of livestock feed, in a
typical year.

In the late 1990s the Georgia Department of Corrections enjoyed a
per-inmate food cost that was 30 percent below the national average
thanks to its 10,000-acre farm system and food processing and
distribution network.

Traditionally, in the East,prisons have manufactured things like auto
number plates and mail bags.


The root cause will be unlikely to be addressed. Used to be a lot of
living wage union jobs in auto manufacturing, large appliance
manufacturing, ship building, etc.. Those jobs have been shipped to
China, Mexico, etc.. California's been especially hard hit in that
regard, the only automobile factory left is Tesla. Used to have multiple
Ford and GM plants, as well as the shared GM/Toyota factory that Tesla
took over.

Well, yes. You inflate your living and salary costs and are amazed
that developing countries can "make it cheaper".

But this shouldn't come as a surprise, after all this is exactly what
Japan was did after WW II. Lots of people out of work, created
businesses that used this cheap labor, sold stuff to the U.S. cheaper
than the U.S. could make it.

But then, as they old saying goes, "those who ignore history are
doomed to repeat it".


Manufacturing continues to be hard hit under Trump, partly because of
tariffs. In just the four months following Trump’s swearing-in nearly
12,000 American jobs were moved abroad. On top of GM’s layoffs, Ford
recently announced that about 24,000 out of 202,000 workers, may lose
their jobs.

It probably goes a bit deeper than just Trump, not that I want to
extol his virtues, as the Chevrolet plant here in Thailand has been
closed and sold. Said to be because the poor sales for Chevy pickups
in Asia.
--
cheers,

John B.