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How to build your damn border wall

C

CriticalThought

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I think a border wall is a terrible idea but since it is most likely to be done, I am going to offer my suggestions on how to do it cheaply and quickly.

To build a nearly 2,000 mile wall will be a huge undertaking and realistic cost projections put it at about $25 billion but I think it could be done for little to no cost. The biggest expenditures are materials and labor.

For material use sand bricks.

New CO2 Sand Bricks are 2.5 Times Stronger than Concrete | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building

Researchers make bricks from waste, desert sand - SciDev.Net

Cheap, easy to make, better than concrete, and not resource intensive. You could even require industries to coordinate to ship their waste materials.

For labor use the incarcerated. Offer a deal for voluntary labor. One day working on the wall equals an additional day off their sentence. Use only those with 6 year or less sentences and they can serve their entire sentence in less than 3 years. The additional savings of reducing the incarcerated population by offering them hard labor could be in the billions.

Those two options could make such a project relatively affordable.
 
Or put unemployed people to work.
 
KevinKohler said:
Or put unemployed people to work.
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That wouldn't save any money. The reason inmate labor is cheaper is because you don't have to pay them minimum wage, but with the unemployed that wouldn't be the case.
 
Henrin said:
That wouldn't save any money. The reason inmate labor is cheaper is because you don't have to pay them minimum wage, but with the unemployed that wouldn't be the case.
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Unemployed people dont need to be watched by guards who make 30+ dollars per hour. Plus, Id rather the wall cost more if it meant helping people who need and want work.
 
KevinKohler said:
Unemployed people dont need to be watched by guards who make 30+ dollars per hour. Plus, Id rather the wall cost more if it meant helping people who need and want work.
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The guards would be getting paid 30+ an hour regardless, so unless they hire more guards for the job the overall cost doesn't change.
 
I'm not sure why you think it's "most likely to be done". It hasn't been done for decades of talking about it.
 
CriticalThought said:
I think a border wall is a terrible idea but since it is most likely to be done, I am going to offer my suggestions on how to do it cheaply and quickly.

To build a nearly 2,000 mile wall will be a huge undertaking and realistic cost projections put it at about $25 billion but I think it could be done for little to no cost. The biggest expenditures are materials and labor.

For material use sand bricks.

New CO2 Sand Bricks are 2.5 Times Stronger than Concrete | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building

Researchers make bricks from waste, desert sand - SciDev.Net

Cheap, easy to make, better than concrete, and not resource intensive. You could even require industries to coordinate to ship their waste materials.

For labor use the incarcerated. Offer a deal for voluntary labor. One day working on the wall equals an additional day off their sentence. Use only those with 6 year or less sentences and they can serve their entire sentence in less than 3 years. The additional savings of reducing the incarcerated population by offering them hard labor could be in the billions.

Those two options could make such a project relatively affordable.
Click to expand...

Can we just build a wall around the Republicans?
 
How to build your damn border wall
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i hear that they can make bricks out of bull**** and straw. i'd argue that those are entirely appropriate materials for building the Great Wall of Derp.
 
CriticalThought said:
I think a border wall is a terrible idea but since it is most likely to be done, I am going to offer my suggestions on how to do it cheaply and quickly.

To build a nearly 2,000 mile wall will be a huge undertaking and realistic cost projections put it at about $25 billion but I think it could be done for little to no cost. The biggest expenditures are materials and labor.

For material use sand bricks.

New CO2 Sand Bricks are 2.5 Times Stronger than Concrete | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building

Researchers make bricks from waste, desert sand - SciDev.Net

Cheap, easy to make, better than concrete, and not resource intensive. You could even require industries to coordinate to ship their waste materials.

For labor use the incarcerated. Offer a deal for voluntary labor. One day working on the wall equals an additional day off their sentence. Use only those with 6 year or less sentences and they can serve their entire sentence in less than 3 years. The additional savings of reducing the incarcerated population by offering them hard labor could be in the billions.

Those two options could make such a project relatively affordable.
Click to expand...
interesting thought, but walls can be tunneled under, blown up, scaled.....unless you are willing to budget quite a bit of money for guard towers, patrols, incarceration of those caught attempting to get through, it would be a waste of time and effort.
 
CriticalThought said:
I think a border wall is a terrible idea but since it is most likely to be done, I am going to offer my suggestions on how to do it cheaply and quickly.

To build a nearly 2,000 mile wall will be a huge undertaking and realistic cost projections put it at about $25 billion but I think it could be done for little to no cost. The biggest expenditures are materials and labor.

For material use sand bricks.

New CO2 Sand Bricks are 2.5 Times Stronger than Concrete | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building

Researchers make bricks from waste, desert sand - SciDev.Net

Cheap, easy to make, better than concrete, and not resource intensive. You could even require industries to coordinate to ship their waste materials.

For labor use the incarcerated. Offer a deal for voluntary labor. One day working on the wall equals an additional day off their sentence. Use only those with 6 year or less sentences and they can serve their entire sentence in less than 3 years. The additional savings of reducing the incarcerated population by offering them hard labor could be in the billions.

Those two options could make such a project relatively affordable.
Click to expand...

I don't think the wall will ever get built, but in the event it does, we could do the enforcement job with illegals with mandatory 1 year at hard labor as the sentence.

There's no need for a wall. Dry up the reasons for coming here and the problem goes away.
 
CriticalThought said:
I think a border wall is a terrible idea but since it is most likely to be done, I am going to offer my suggestions on how to do it cheaply and quickly.

To build a nearly 2,000 mile wall will be a huge undertaking and realistic cost projections put it at about $25 billion but I think it could be done for little to no cost. The biggest expenditures are materials and labor.

For material use sand bricks.

New CO2 Sand Bricks are 2.5 Times Stronger than Concrete | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building

Researchers make bricks from waste, desert sand - SciDev.Net

Cheap, easy to make, better than concrete, and not resource intensive. You could even require industries to coordinate to ship their waste materials.

For labor use the incarcerated. Offer a deal for voluntary labor. One day working on the wall equals an additional day off their sentence. Use only those with 6 year or less sentences and they can serve their entire sentence in less than 3 years. The additional savings of reducing the incarcerated population by offering them hard labor could be in the billions.

Those two options could make such a project relatively affordable.
Click to expand...
The bolded essentially amounts to forced labor, and I'm against it.
 
Chomsky said:
The bolded essentially amounts to forced labor, and I'm against it.
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not sure i see it that way...if it is an "option" to work, and the "pay" is time off your sentence....
 
Color me uneducated on the topic, but wouldn't building a 20 ft tall concrete wall require a bit of know how? I'm not sure unemployed cashiers or ex-drug dealers really have the required skills. I'll be interested to see if mexican laborers who build most of our other things will be willing to labor on this project.
 
CriticalThought said:
I think a border wall is a terrible idea but since it is most likely to be done, I am going to offer my suggestions on how to do it cheaply and quickly.

To build a nearly 2,000 mile wall will be a huge undertaking and realistic cost projections put it at about $25 billion but I think it could be done for little to no cost. The biggest expenditures are materials and labor.

For material use sand bricks.

New CO2 Sand Bricks are 2.5 Times Stronger than Concrete | Inhabitat - Green Design, Innovation, Architecture, Green Building

Researchers make bricks from waste, desert sand - SciDev.Net

Cheap, easy to make, better than concrete, and not resource intensive. You could even require industries to coordinate to ship their waste materials.

For labor use the incarcerated. Offer a deal for voluntary labor. One day working on the wall equals an additional day off their sentence. Use only those with 6 year or less sentences and they can serve their entire sentence in less than 3 years. The additional savings of reducing the incarcerated population by offering them hard labor could be in the billions.

Those two options could make such a project relatively affordable.
Click to expand...

It would be cheaper, if we give laborers from Haiti a short work permit and pay them double the wages in Haiti on this job.
 
Chomsky said:
The bolded essentially amounts to forced labor, and I'm against it.
Click to expand...

Better use Haitians on double the wages on the island.
 
KevinKohler said:
Unemployed people dont need to be watched by guards who make 30+ dollars per hour. Plus, Id rather the wall cost more if it meant helping people who need and want work.
Click to expand...

What are you, a Communist?
 
vash1012 said:
Color me uneducated on the topic, but wouldn't building a 20 ft tall concrete wall require a bit of know how? I'm not sure unemployed cashiers or ex-drug dealers really have the required skills. I'll be interested to see if mexican laborers who build most of our other things will be willing to labor on this project.
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They could supervise.
 
randel said:
interesting thought, but walls can be tunneled under, blown up, scaled.....unless you are willing to budget quite a bit of money for guard towers, patrols, incarceration of those caught attempting to get through, it would be a waste of time and effort.
Click to expand...

Of course the wall isn't going to do any good, so let's build it as cheaply as possible. Let's use illegal labor from Mexico and build it of adobes.
 
Chomsky said:
The bolded essentially amounts to forced labor, and I'm against it.
Click to expand...

It is completely optional to the inmates. They don't like the work, they can return to the prison to complete their sentence.
 
You could have Mexicans build it and pay them with room and board, with the final result being granting citizenship. Would save lots of money and would be a small gesture to say, "See? I don't mind Latinos coming into the country so long as they earn it and do it right."
 
I think we should make it out of tire bales. They are roughly 5'x5'x2-1/2' high, and weigh about a ton each. Trump can then proudly claim how environmental he is!
bale_and_truck_redux.jpg
 
Fishking said:
You could have Mexicans build it and pay them with room and board, with the final result being granting citizenship. Would save lots of money and would be a small gesture to say, "See? I don't mind Latinos coming into the country so long as they earn it and do it right."
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I am pretty sure the average Trump supporter would consider that amnesty.
 
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