Except that your cost assumes they would otherwise hire American citizens to do this work, and they would not. They would otherwise hire Mexicans at a small fraction of that cost.
Who they'd pay less than minimum wage?
What makes you think that the American legal minimum wage applies in Mexico?
Wow, you guys are really good at this. In High School I did competitive public policy debate, and I never got completely annihilated like this in just a few rounds.
I don't know if we're that good, but it certainly helps to have the superior position. In debate teams, they try to teach you that a really good debater can win no matter which side of an argument he takes. But in reality, a debate is like a battle: it really helps to have the terrain advantage. It may be possible to win without it, but only by trickery (which basically means "lying" in a debate) or opponent incompetence.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Darth Wong wrote:
What makes you think that the American legal minimum wage applies in Mexico?
Oh, I thought you meant hire illegal Mexican immigrants and underpay them. But your point stands either way.
I don't know if we're that good, but it certainly helps to have the superior position. In debate teams, they try to teach you that a really good debater can win no matter which side of an argument he takes. But in reality, a debate is like a battle: it really helps to have the terrain advantage. It may be possible to win without it, but only by trickery (which basically means "lying" in a debate) or opponent incompetence.
Honestly, once I punched out the numbers and saw that prison labor only gave the average American $100, I realized that my position was in all likelihood wrong. I can't imagine someone building a competitive case off of that $100 figure, it just doesn't work out.
I realized that my position was in all likelihood wrong
How the hell did you come to think prison labour is profitable at all instead of a net loss on society that the prison complex really is?
Lì ci sono chiese, macerie, moschee e questure, lì frontiere, prezzi inaccessibile e freddure
Lì paludi, minacce, cecchini coi fucili, documenti, file notturne e clandestini
Qui incontri, lotte, passi sincronizzati, colori, capannelli non autorizzati,
Uccelli migratori, reti, informazioni, piazze di Tutti i like pazze di passioni...
...La tranquillità è importante ma la libertà è tutto!
I realized that my position was in all likelihood wrong
How the hell did you come to think prison labour is profitable at all instead of a net loss on society that the prison complex really is?
I never argued that it was a profit for society, I argued that it was a significantly smaller net loss, and therefore allowed the prison system to grow without having the serious impact on the taxpayer that it normally would have had.
But when I realized that the average savings were only $100 (and, with Darth Wong's notion that they'd otherwise outsource overseas, $30 or less), it became clear that the average taxpayer's savings from prison labor were quite insignificant.
I was actually really surprised when I did the numbers. I was expecting prison labor to generate a lot more.
