Problem solved

I was riding my bike the yesterday when an epiphany with rather strong political policy implications hit me. Much of the fresh produce you eat may come from the valley where we live. Huge amounts of strawberries, broccoli, lettuce, and other things are grown here. It requires a ton of back-breaking human labor to plant, irrigate and harvest this produce. As I was riding yesterday I passed large groups of laborers doing tasks that looked pretty boring: cutting broccoli stalks, nailing crates closed, stacking crates on trucks, planting starts, and a host of other tasks I couldn't discern. The laborers looked like they all had Latin American roots and I suspect most of them were Mexican. I have no idea how many of these workers are legal. I suspect many of them are illegal, but I may be wrong.

Whether or not the ones I saw are illegal or not, as I pedaled home on California Route 1 from Grover Beach, it occurred to me that the solution to our nation's illegal immigration problem should be market-based. The cap and trade option is a good example of a market based solution that has worked rather well for industrial polluters. What follows is my market-based solution to illegal immigration in the US. You might want to sit down because you're going to be blown away. (As if anyone reading this is standing up.)

The heart of my proposal is reducing the demand for inexpensive labor. To do this we mechanize the tasks I mentioned earlier. Don't tell me it can't be done. How many auto workers did we replace with robots? Film projectionists at movie theaters hardly exist, and when was the last time you spoke to a telephone operator? Once the demand for cheap labor is reduced the flow across the Rio Grande is reduced. It's as simple as supply and demand. How do I propose bringing the labor saving technology to market? Well it's rather obvious I won't be inventing it since I was a geography major, so I propose another market based solution like the X-Prize. We round up a bunch of venture capitalists and Uncle Sam to fund a big reward to the enterprise that comes up with the most feasible technology to reduce labor. Now I realize that illegals work in more sectors than just agriculture, but there are other sectors out there clamoring for automation as well, construction and landscaping jump immediately to mind. Anyway, I better start looking for a tux since I'll be in Stockholm in early December to claim my Nobel Prize.

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When I titled this post "Problem solved" I was thinking about illegal immigration but remember that hyper-dangerous government spy satellite that was headed toward earth a while back and threatened to send us homo sapiens the way of the dinosaurs? (Okay so it wasn't quite that bad.) Speaking of problems solved though, here's a link to an article in the Santa Barbara News Press about our role at work in the whole deal. I thought it was helpful because it wasn't written in spacenerdese. Don't read it while driving or operating heavy equipment, as it may cause drowsiness.