OK, Am I The Only One Here Who Thinks China Needs More Prisons?

[jberryhill]

The standard of living in China has been rising for a while, which is actually making it tougher to find cheap Chinese labor.

They've only got so many prisoners to go around.

So I'm thinking the Chinese should put more people in prison, to increase the size of the free labor pool.

That way, consumers here benefit from low prices, and it will stimulate retail sales and the economy generally.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I think that's a cool idea. And America should follow, no doubt.

More prisons means more jobs for guards, and the potential rise of a domestic slave labor force. If we can get the cost of things like food down a little--make them grow their own turnips and feed them nothing but that--I bet we could get competitive on the world market.

[jberryhill]

3. Just as long as the guards are non-union ones /nt

[SwampG8r]

5. look around

you already live in a prison industrial system
our police have gone from peace officers to prison fillers in my lifetime alone
time to bring back andy of mayberry

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Yes, I see it all the time.

I spent 13 years as a Corrections chief psychologist, and the last 3 doing psych work mostly related to criminal defense. I have done something like 2,000 psych evals of people caught up in the CJ system. I watched it grow, and I'm fighting to bring it down.

[SwampG8r]

9. good luck and godspeed

if we didnt try to criminalize morality your job would be easier

[rug]

2. Free markets do need a good pool of labor.

[skooooo]

16. Since everyone thinks slavery is such a bad thing..

....this would seem to be the only answer!

[SwampG8r]

4. can we sell them our gitmo guys?

kill 2 birds with one stone so to speak

[Hippo_Tron]

6. Why bother? There's no rule of law there so they can just take people out back and shoot them

Much cheaper than building prisons.

[Frank Booth]

8. Yeah, but then who will put assemble the cheap crap we need to consume?

How about we put these prisoners to work assembling the robots to assemble the cheap crap, then we shoot 'em.

[Hippo_Tron]

11. China has a lot of people in the countryside that would gladly make our crap

Sad as it is the people who work in the sweatshops are better off than most of the people who live outside of the cities.

[Frank Booth]

12. True. The people from the countryside have it very tough.

I remember a little girl picking up plastic bottles by the train tracks in Guangxi. I offered her a couple hard-boiled eggs that I'd bought on the train. She took them immediately. Her face didn't show any happiness or thanks, just desperation. Two hard-boiled eggs weren't going to tide her over very long, and wouldn't do a thing for her family.

That was over ten years ago but I still think about it all the time. So sad.

[WinkyDink]

10. Isn't there a Bush brother or nephew who can secure these contracts?

[GTO_fan]

13. LOL

China needs less human rights abuses.

[Quantess]

14. Pure cynicism, I hope.

[jberryhill]

15. You might find a similarly-titled thread around here somewhere...

Hint.