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US Virtual Border Fence Doesn't Work
lelitsch writes "The Washington Post reports that the initial pilot of the Virtual Border Fence planned by the DHS and subcontracted to Boeing has been a miserable failure. A lot of the points in the report have the hallmark of death-march software development projects. Some choice quotes include 'did not work as planned or meet the needs of the U.S. Border Patrol,' 'DHS officials do not yet know the type of terrain where the fencing is to be constructed,' and 'the design will not be used as the basis for future... development.' The article notes that Boeing was forced to deliver 'something' early as President Bush pushed for immigration reform in Congress in 2006. That reform effort died last year in the Senate."
And the Bush administration once again puts politics above effective governance and management.
read-it-on-the-register-two-days-ago
...while Germany abuses it's turkish guest workers, who pick up their trash, but whose children born in Germany aren't German citizens.
my Mexican alien fence hopping overlords!!!
0x7279727972797279
But how will we stop all those virtual Mexicans now?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
are going to push IDs on all of us. IDs with RFIDs. Well, I am fine with that, as long as they include the star of david and the tatoo. Lets call it for what it is.
Outsourcing the software development to Mexico was a terrible idea.
If we just annexed Mexico we'd only have to build half as much fence to keep the Guatamalans and Hondurans out. Plus, they have margaritas.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
The Six Million Peso Man
Someone needs to do all those shitty jobs that your average Second Life citizen thinks they're too good for.
Relevant quote: If you're so woefully underinformed, just keep from commenting, ok?
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
When the hell has building a giant wall ever helped anything? Jesus...At least they could have outsourced the work to China...Their wall didn't work, but at least it got finished.
But, I suppose anything is better than coming up with a sensible immigration policy. Gotta keep those high-paying fruit picking, chicken boning, and christmas tree cutting jobs local.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
It amazes me that the Mexican president encourages illegal immigration into this country and calls those of us who want immigration laws to be followed racist or anti-Latino. All the while, they have stringent immigration laws for those coming to Mexico and are trying to build a fence with Guatemala.
The chutzpah is unbelievable.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
There's only one link that can be legitimately used with the phrase miserable failure.
I am officially gone from
They are slowly annexing us by moving here.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...a wide area surveillance group, I would like to suggest a few reasons why this occurred, especially given what we know of Boeing's attempt to provide a solution.
;). There's a vast amount of 'learning through pain' which (of course) teaches you how to avoid stumbling blocks in the future. WAS is a fusion of architectural planning, mechanical engineering, network engineering, environmental engineering, and software engineering. It is also one of the more difficult management projects due to the fact that very few companies (almost none) have the in-house departments/divisions to handle all aspects of it; ergo, most companies do the more natural 'I am the lead contractor, you all can sub-contract to me for utilities, HVAC, network topology, integration software, camera systems, electromagnetic fences', et cetera.
;)
Wide Area Surveillance is, like any real world 'enterprise' solution, complex. That is not to say it is not achievable, it is just not something you decide to do on a whim
This means that during the bidding process for these jobs, as with any $$$LARGE$$$ government contract, much of the sub-contracting can be political and very rarely results in a proffered solution that is 'best in breed' in all (or even most) areas.
This is all very normal. The real difficulty is in identifying which aspects of a WAS solution will kill your project. For example, the article claims that using off the shelf commercial software for dispatchers was a serious issue. I can tell you from experience, there's no way that this derailed the project. There are several companies (the one I used to work at is one for example) that specialize in integrating their 'command & control' (for lack of a more encompassing term) suites with 3rd party streaming video, network systems, hardware devices, et cetera. The relative cost of these systems varies from very low (with a fair amount of services work being entailed) to moderate (where you get far more C&C stuff than you plan to use but it's there if you need it in the future - but they fully integrate the things you do need off the bat.)
Usually the biggest problems are from poor planning at the start or 'mid course correction' by people who didn't make careful consideration of their options up front regarding the physical infrastructure required. A good example of this is 'pole placement.' One of the easiest, conceptually, methods of watching swathe of territory where there isn't supposed to be much activity is to use a high quality camera mounted (usually mounted on a Pan/Tilt/Zoom gimbal) on a tall pole. How tall? THAT is the question my friends. From a cost point of view you want to put them up as high as is feasible given the terrain and what the local survey should be. This means less poles, less cameras, and less overall costs to cover a wider area; HOWEVER, the higher you put that camera the more difficult the installation of the pole because I assure you that putting a camera 60 feet off the ground results in shaking, deflection, twisting, and all kinds of other frame stabilization nightmares. Usually what happens is that the project denotes the max camera heights, assigns what types of poles/towers will support the cameras, how they will be built in order to overcome problems like these and then 6 months later they change the camera heights (usually because they want to cut out a few poles and the neighboring cameras must take up the slack), bingo you're well thought out and budgeted pole no longer serves your needs.
It is at this point that the reader will think 'ok, then we need to redesign the poles right? No big deal...' Sadly this does not usually happen. The change request costs associated outweight the money saved on the pole changes but that doesn't mean they won't still use the wrong poles and save a hundred thousand on camera costs, they'll just try to hack some solution like putting a frame stabilizer black box on the back of the camera, because that should work, right?
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How do large companies get away with selling then delivering crap? I always have to make my stuff work before I get paid.
The fence is nothing more than our govt saying hey look we are doing something. I would
much rather see all this money spent on something that "will" work like enforcement. If
you heavily fine, jail, imprison anyone employing and or providing services such as housing
etc to a illegal the problem will correct itself. In my opinion these employers, landlords
etc are harboring fugitives and should be punished just as any other criminal guilty of
the same thing.
Pump all this money into employment enforcement including bounties on information leading to arrest
of employers and or fugitives.
NASA, the FBI, etc. all seem to follow the same pattern. They get the idea in their head for something big (usually as the result of politicians putting it there or the need to make it look like they're doing something about some big problem). Then they contract the technical stuff out to some contractor who feeds them a line of bullshit (instead of hiring their own people to do it, the way NASA did it in the 60's). Then they hold a big press conference, in which they make grandiose promises about how great this new thing will be (the best ones are accompanied by CGI animation of said great thing). Then they give some contractor a shitload of money. Then the contractor ends up in delays and overruns, forcing government agency to give them even MORE money. Then the contractor either doesn't deliver anything usable at all, delivers a shoddy piece of shit that doesn't even come close to the original promise, or simply delays it until the administration changes or the project gets canceled. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
the fence jumps you
Just build the Great Walmart of America. One side is the employee entrance, the other side for customer.
Life is not for the lazy.
a virtual fence would only keep out virtual illegal border crossers...
-welcome to the real world-
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Let them come over, employ them to build a great wall, then push them back the other side.
some relevant quotes
"Boeing has already been paid $20.6 million for the pilot project, and in December, the DHS gave the firm another $65 million to replace the software with military-style, battle management software. "
"Boeing has said that the initial effort, while flawed, still has helped Homeland Security apprehend 2,000 illegal immigrants since September"
A quick division $85 600 000 / 2 000 gives $42 800 per illegal immigrant. And this is the cost to the taxpayer without personnel salaries and other expenses, just what was payed to Boeing. I strongly doubt that each illegal immigrant, if not apprehended, will cost the US tax payers $42 800.
Shakespeare poems - infinite monkeys with infinite time.Computer tech support - a few trained ones working from 9 to 5.
The word might have been invented to describe this project!
I work for DHS and a friend of mine runs a small program that's been managing sensors on the border for 25 years.
Boeing was hired as the project's integrator and instead of subcontracting or working with the existing systems tried to do everything themselves. Why? To keep as much money for themselves, of course. They ignored, at first, all the existing systems and tried to replace them with proprietary technology that would anchor them into govermnent contracts in perpetuity.
They failed. Now they have to rely on refined data from a government-developed system to produce any results at all. This is a pattern I've seen in 26 years of working for the government: we hire an outside vendor who comes in and has to rely on our knowledge to make anything work. In a lot of cases they get us to do much of their work for them. The vendor's employees get huge bonuses and we get downsized. Granted there are times where if you don't bring in someone from the outside nothing will change, but the number of times internal staff saves the vendor's ass has been, in my experience, much higher than the other way around.
Sometimes it's better to spend your money on what your own staff can do instead of just assuming that an outside vendor will automatically develop something better. For some reason, too many executives undervalue the abilities of their own people and hire big names like Boeing for many times what it would have cost to develop better systems in house. The Secure Border Initiative is apparently one of them.
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
You mean something forced through in a short period of time using Homeland Security money failed?? I've never heard of such a thing. This never happens. The HS Dept is flawless in all of its executions and, as far as I know, has never wasted so much as a few dollars on something bogus. Just look at all the nice trailers they bought for those poor people in New Orleans! What about the millions of dollars of anti-terrorism "kits" and emergency response stuff sent to Wyoming? I just refuse to accept this article as truth!
If you don't choose wisely, it comes back to bite you....
I'm not a human, but I play one on T.V.
You want to be like him but you can't be like him.
It was set up to fail from the very beginning. Its no secret that every power in the American government wants more illegals. The republicans want more cheap labor. The democrats want more poor voters. This fence was never more than distraction. Just a way for government to pretend they are doing something, while actually doing nothing.
It can be go tiem now plees?
Forcing someone to deliver a proof-of-concept or sample product for an arbitrary date is just common business practice. In this case, if Boeing wanted to continue the contract with the US Government they needed to prove they were up to the challenge. The arbitrary date was set by Bush because of his agenda. Just last week our company had to build a demo sandbox for a potential customer to play around in. We had a restrictive timeline in which to build it because the customer sponsor had a deadline to receive funding. We had to deliver something mostly untested and with deprecated hardware. The only difference is we had done it before so was able to deliver quickly. In my mind it's just finger-pointing if a vendor agrees to a certain date and then can't deliver. Just like our company should be willing to accept the consequences if our potential customer comes back with complaints that the system we gave them is too slow or buggy and "doesn't work."
Let American 'sportsmen' hunt the illegals, a starlight scope and a bounty
on illegals. The problem would disappear overnight.
Illegal Male 100 bucks
Illegal pregnant Female 300 bucks
Illegal child 400 bucks (smaller target)
I'd wager border incursions would fall off within two weeks of the practise
starting. Plus the 'sportsmen' would become better shots. A win-win situation.
Yeah, I do have too much time on my hands. My Grandparents stood in line to
get in legally. Why cannot others do the same? They are CRIMINALS, that is why.
First thing that came to mind when I read the headline was, they ran a simulation. Every time they ran it, the mexicans broke through the virtual fence like some an angry horde of mongols a la south park. This really is disappointing to me. I'm going to seriously consider whether I want to board an aircraft made by the company who couldn't engineer a fence within hours. It's a fence. I can engineer a fence that will stop mexicans. My mom could engineer a fence that will stop mexicans. The issue isn't really a fence though. Since we saw that Anderson Cooper special where he went into a tunnel built by drug mules, we know a fence won't stop them entirely.
They're using their grammar skills there.
The reason Mexicans come to the US in droves is because their country is broken. Most of the police and half the military are on the take. Even the honest folks have decided to steer clear of the disaster.
Nothing America erects on that border is going to change the fact that Mexicans can make a decent and safe living in Mexico.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
No need to push!!!
Just project manage them over...
"Ok people, last item on the checklist...paint the south side!"
Why don't they just build a real wall? I know its old school but damn, at least we could see REAL progress.
I had the opportunity to see the cameras in action and work within a mile or two of the boarder for a year. The command center with the cameras was manned by 3-4 people(national guard) while the BP agents were in the field. On a couple occasions we would be in the middle of the desert heading towards the border and not have a single vehicle, house or person visible to us except the camera towers, but within 2-3 minutes, there would be a BP agent in a truck flying down a dirt road towards us. Talking to the BP agents there, they said just putting the towers up without the cameras even working, greatly reduced the amount of drug dealers and illegals trying to cross.
What I thought was really neat was that they said the best time to cross isn't at night, but rather during the day because a person's heat signature stands out so well at night on camera. We gave a presentation to some agents for the night shift and had the chance to see this in action again and you could easily pick up rabbits, coyotes and illegals.
I was quite impressed and almost felt bad for those people trying to cross. Some had no idea they were spotted and the BP just watched them until they were close to a road before sending an agent to pick them up. I haven't even talked about the magnetic and seismic sensors that pick up vehicles and people in places that are not covered by camera.
Only the middle class and poor want to keep illegal aliens out. The rich want the cheap labor. So they make mouth noises like they're upset over illegal immigration while hiring illegal immigrants themselves, because they're cheap.
Catch an illegal and send him back, and that's all. If they really wanted to make the illegal aliens stay away, all they'd have to do would be to make illegal entry in this country a felony with a mandatory five year prison sentense for a first offense, fifteen years for a second offense and thirty for a third offense.
Don't hold your breath. The people who run things want to import cheap labor and they're not about to let anyone stop their gravy train.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
The south west was taken from Mexico. How did we do it? Not by the alamo and defeating Sanata Ana, but by moving large amounts of Americans into the area. The interesting thing is that many Mexicans fought against that because they felt that once the Americans outnumbered the mexicans, that they would annex it back into America. And we did.
I am doubtful that the reverse will happen here, but the main reason why they come here is simple; MONEY. W's building a fence is a total joke. Whether physical or virtual, it will never succeed. The ONLY way to stop this is to remove the low end jobs from American AND/OR create jobs in Mexico. Considering that Mexico allows the peso to trade free against both Canadian and American dollars, it is in our best interest to allow jobs to flow to Mexico, and put the cabash on jobs going to China. In addition, we need to automate our agriculture AND construction jobs that we have here. Once we do that, the fence will be immaterial. Interestingly, once the tide nearly stops, then a virtual fence really does make sense.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Everything the government touches turns to shit
It's called the Maginot Line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_line folks! That was brilliantly engineered (unlike this) yet incomplete (LIKE this), and it still didn't work. Another few hundred million of our hard-earned tax $ that could have gone towards schools, roads or a really good party pissed away. Is it 2009 yet?
Instead of picking on those poor Mexicans, this forum should be concerned about the LEGAL immigration scam that is the H1B program. "Indentured worker", the new slavery. Shame in the USA.
You are misinformed. And you are relaying falsehoods so other clueless people reading this can go regurgitate the same old lies too.
Illegals can and do vote in local elections in some areas. Go look them up.
In national elections, there has indeed been irrefutable evidence of illegals voting. (Go look up Rep. Loretta Sanchez for one example).
Your sig line defines argumentum ad logicam, and your post exemplifies it.
When has a giant wall ever worked? Ask the Palestinians. Ask the East Germans.
But not only are you employing ad logicam, but Red Herring, as well. The very reason some people give for wanting a virtual fence is that a physical barrier will not (in itself) prevent border crossing.
And asking for a "sensible" immigration policy presupposes that we agree on the goals for such a policy, and the standards by which one should be judged.
sigs, as if you care.
They should've outsourced it to Jennings & Rall, those guys get shit done.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
The U.S. for one.
/.'rs...
The NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, etc all have physically demanding jobs that pay very well, thank you.
And I know what you meant. 'physically demanding jobs' would mean 'manual labor'.
Somehow, oil rigs are a good place to find physically demanding work that pays well. The key is that the product or output is valuable...
We don't want to spend as much on our landscaping as we do on our SAP implementation, because the 'product' of our landscaper is not as valuable. That never will change. And productivity of landscapers is not the issue. The value of the product is.
So answer me this,
In Downeast Maine, blueberries used to be picked by the Mic Mac Indians from Canada and Maine. recently, however, the growers started importing migrant and illegal workers from 'wherever', and most were indeed Mexican. Other workes such as high school kids and a fair amount of regulars used to pick as well. I could make $600 a week back in the 60s, which was a darned good sumemr job save for the literally backbreaking work of raking berries out of bushes a foot high at most. bending over, carrying the boxes to the truck, etc was hard, but damn the money was good for a few weeks. But no more, the growers claimed a labor shortage. Truth is, the illegals are even cheaper than the Mic Macs, which is cheap indeed.
This is not about our 'value' of labor, so much as it is the profit to be gained by reducing cost further.
Remember Sen. John McCain, also known down here in Arizona as "Senator Lettuce"? He spouted off a couple of years ago (2006?) about how we 'couldn't' do the jobs Mexican immigrants did. In particular he made this statement:
"If I offered you a job picking lettuce in Yuma for fifty dollars an hour, you couldn't do it, my friend".
The next day, more than a handful of people showed up with resumes in hand, looking for the $50 an hour lettuce picking job. They were ready. Of course there are no jobs like that. Lettuce isn't worth that much.
One of the lies is that this is about wages. It is about profits.
Nobody has a dog in this immigraiton fight except the ordinary citizen:
- Big Business likes cheaper labor, it equals both profits and lower costs of healthcare and such.
- Federal government doesn't want to rile Business.
- Democrats see Mexican immigrants as future Democrats.
- Republicans dare not offend them, lest they become Democrats.
- Labor unions see them as future members. Sooner or later.
- State governments don't want Business to move to another state or overseas, which they will do anyways.
Don't be surprised that the 'virtual fence' doesn't work. Ineffective measures will be a key component in the federal government's war on immigration. Reagan's '86 (or was it '87?) immigration reform had three main features:
- Amnesty. This worked, mostly.
- Securing the borders. No money, no securing the borders. This worked famously.
- Deportation of undesirables and future illegals. No money. This also worked famously.
The current plans will be more of the same. Amnesty is crucial, as it bring the Democratic Party new members, aids the labor unions, and gives Business the same workers at pretty much the same pay. Failing to secure the borders ensures continuing supplies of cheaper labor. Deportation is of course pointless if the border isn't secured. In fact, deportation is a free trip home to visit family and educate others on how to 'do it' in the U.S.
We need change, alright. Arizona's employer law is a start. But I'm not hopeful. We need to vote out the scoundrels. Sadly, all of our Presidential candidates seem to be drinking the same Kool-aid on this issue.
We also need to stop rewarding moving jobs offshore. We don't need to offer incentives for keeping jobs here, just not incentives for sending them overseas...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
R0N P4U1!!!!
Haiwaiian Kona coffee costs so much because coffee can only sold under that name if its grown in a very small geographic area.
... it's a crap argument. In both cases the higher-priced item used for comparison is vastly higher-priced because it can only be obtained in/from a limited location and NOT because it was produced by higher-priced workers.
Try this analogy on for size:
"How much would the price of apartments increase if the people building them managed to get minimum wage, health benefits, safer conditions and unions? A great example of this is Manhattan apartments. It retails for $1.5Million for a two-bedroom, but is no better than the South Carolina apartmemnts that you can buy for about 1/300 the cost. Why? Because it's built in America by people who get minimum wage, health benefits, unions, etc."
See
I have this dog who used to run wild, leaving little goodies in the neighbors' flowerbeds. Now he wears a special collar. I burried a wire around the perimeter of my yard. Problem solved... I don't see why Boeing needs to be involved... I mean, it's not rocket science!
Congratulations!
Squirrel!
...secure the entire 2,000-mile southern border...I'm so old I can actually remember when the US had borders with Mexico and Canada. Now it's just the "south" and "north". Generic foreign places. Apparently there are only two places in the world, the US, and everywhere else.
And of course, the US needs to be defended from everywhere else. And of course, only Boeing and General Dynamics can do that. And of course, no cost is too high.
Who knows, Eskimo terrorists could be preparing a stealth dog sled yellow snowball assault on Minneapolis as we speak.
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
Like it or not, we don't have the workforce to fill out those sorts of jobs anymore, and frankly it doesn't make any economic sense to force a decently educated worker into a job that could be filled for much less cost by someone who has no education at all.
I don't disagree with your point of assigning overqualified workers to menial jobs. I'd like to point out, though, that our native resources for uneducated, impoverished labor do exist. Unfortunately, these potential grape pickers are disillusioned by the cheaper immigrant labor and diminished wages, so they largely end up pursuing more lucrative, illegal wages. So we end up maintaining our own ideal grape pickers in prison (1 in 100 Americans are in prison) or on welfare.
People will say, "Oh, they don't want to pick grapes." Actually, they don't want to pick grapes for what illegal immigrants will accept as compensation. Many of them would probably pick grapes for what taxpayers are paying to incarcerate them.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
They ignored, at first, all the existing systems and tried to replace them with proprietary technology that would anchor them into govermnent contracts in perpetuity.
They failed.
So what? If they can deliver they can do it however they want to. If they don't deliver they need to refund the money. If they didn't think they could deliver they shouldn't have taken the job, unless specifically under a research contract.
That's how my business works, and I have many fewer reserve resources to risk. Why should Boeing get better terms?
I mean, aside from the whole corrupt-government thing.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
and frankly it doesn't make any economic sense to force a decently educated worker into a job that could be filled for much less cost by someone who has no education at all
How about we treat those people as 'just not yet schooled' instead of consigning them to work menial labor until they die or retire and build machines to dismember chickens instead? Sure, it may be a non-trivial task but we're trading in billions of man-hours here.
Hey, given one round of opportunity, those people could be the ones designing the chicken-o-matics.
This isn't a zero-sum game, it's one of those rising-tides-float-all-boats things.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
USA should do as it did when it tried to go to the moon. Use some Germans! There was plenty of experience of wall-building in East Germany, so why not import some experts from there?
As a bonus, the wall will work just as well when the flow of people is starting to go in the other direction from the non-free USA to the freedom outside of it...
Generally the Berlin wall and the other border protections around East Germany is actually the only wall that somewhat worked. All other great walls have been mostly a waste of money compared to what they achieved. A mobile defense is the way to go, which in this case would be to make people in USA to follow the laws (or change them or a combination).
Think of the Great Wall of China,think of Berlin, Guantanamo Bay Naval Station,farmer Brown's electrified barbed wire pasture even.
Virtual fences keep theoretical entities at bay statistically speaking. Real fences and walls made dangerous to cross by armed guards,high voltage,booby traps may not keep all illegals from plundering our resources but I'll bet it cuts it down by an acceptable percentage.
I won't quibble about philosophy or politics,I merely present you with the best possible solution.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Someone's been ideating, ala IBM's commercials!
DHS: So what is it?
Boeing: It's a virtual border fence!
DHS: What does it do?
Boeing: Keeps out illegal immigrants, virtually.
DHS: As in virtual immigrants or virtual border control?
Boeing: Yes!
DHS: Does it control actual borders and illegal immigrants?
Boeing: Uh no.
DHS: Fsck it, let's give it a try!
They are trying to reinvent the wheel and develop software for a faulty project. All they needed to do was install a few hundred motion detecting cameras and coordinate that with a dispatch center. Instead, they try to incorporate radar, spy cameras, new software and untested software at that. No wonder it failed. Why didn't they just talk to the British? They've been spying on their citizens locally for years...we could have just borrowed their technology and saved a few million dollars.
"No one will really be free until nerd persecution ends."
Okay...this is my opinion...not my employer's...so take it for what it's worth:
I have been writing software and building systems for the Federal government for the better part of 20 years...and frankly, these clients set the stage for failure consistently...and the situation is only getting worse.
Government agencies (yes folks, the Fed is not monolithic) normally send out an RFP for a system that contains a range of requirements that are both vague and contradictory...at times with excessive implementation detail about select areas, but normally with very little detail for what is actually required for the majority of the system. The desire for omniscience and omnipotence as well as infinite flexibility for the future is normally in there somehow...which obviates the need for them to do much groundwork to establish what they really want. Contractors are then stuck trying to scramble to determine what the client actually wants (and/or needs) in the middle of their design cycles...and the government does not acknowledge this reality in their dictated delivery schedules.
Imagine telling a custom home builder that you want a cool new house that smells like grandma's, has window boxes, and a new modern floor plan...and then saying "go." Hmmm...perhaps we should have first paid an architect to help us better define our requirements, catch things that we have missed, mockup prototypes, and then create a blueprint (with cost estimate) for the final product...and THEN we could decide if we wanted to move forward...and, if so, provide that level of detail to one or more builders as input to their bid. Nah. That takes work. Why then would you bid on something like this? Well, in my area, it's because you either bid on the project or starve...because someone else will if you don't.
DHS is perhaps the amongst worst. They now issue RFPs for ill-defined projects and the RFP states that your proposal must indicate how you will have an initial system in the field within 60 days. 60 days? Hell, I need longer than that to engage with the client over a series of spiral requirements meetings, document their business processes/domain, generate use cases, and mock something up for additional comment.
You want something fast? You tell me when it is due? You also tell me how much money I have (and hence, my staffing)? Those are my independent variables and you arrived at them without significant analysis? The only significant variable that I can modify is quality.
Be careful what you ask for. You may get it.
$0.02
-
I disagree. A quick Google search shows at least two Hawaiian farms that claim that labor is their highest cost.
http://www.konaearth.com/Life/2008/080120/
http://www.jessecolinyoung.com/farm.htm
I would suggest that your premise is flawed.
"I planned within my means and got a fixed rate mortgage, so where's MY bailout?" -cafepress
And what causes that labor to be so expensive? Could it be the location? In my case I live near DC and if I moved to say PA, my pay would decrease for doing the same type of work. My salary is dependent on geography (cost of residence, services, food, etc... are higher in certain locations so salary reflects that increased cost).
Mij
Be careful with your language. I know very few people who are anti-immigration. I know tons of people who are anti-illegal immigration.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
> It was set up to fail from the very beginning. Its no secret that every power in the American government wants more illegals.
Actually, they want more legals. They're trying to make it legal for them to live here with so-called "amnesty" programs not to mention the guest worker programs that it easier to come here without breaking any laws.
> The republicans want more cheap labor.
If they were legal, they could demand higher (i.e. minimum) wage and they'd be less cheap (though they might be more willing to work at jobs the educated sneer at for good reason).
> The democrats want more poor voters.
Nah, they're bleeding hearts, actually. And you're contradicting yourself, because your average Republican WOULDN'T want more people who'd vote against them and yet they're doing it anyhow, so your attribution of motive makes no sense. Sure, lots of people claim those are the other's motives, but that doesn't make it true.
> This fence was never more than distraction.
Waste of money is more like it. It's not that it's not supposed to work, it's just a hell of a lot harder to build than anyone gave it credit for being and was massively under-funded (which might be a good thing: see also, waste of money).
> Just a way for government to pretend they are doing something, while actually doing nothing.
Well, yes, the government is doing it half-ass, I'll give you that. But that's about par for the government, really. But what the hell do I know? I only live down here with all the Mexican immigrants, the fence, etc.
As a Mexican working in IT for a US company in US territory after working for other two US companies in Mexican territory plus a Masters from a US university (paid by one of my former employers) I cannot help it but get a good laugh out of this comments. Let me add so you can laugh too.
If I where to stay beyond my visa I would be illegal, yet with more papers and background checks that any immigrant in history, except others like me in the past 10 years. I would only be illegal because others are afraid of me and want to put restrictions on migration and nothing else. (I have cousins that are American just because my aunt decided to go live in the USA about 60 years ago, and nothing was required then, and they are legal).
Yet the place I work has a huge rotation with the US citizens, but they have had 0 rotation with foreigners. In the team I work for there are about 4 "natives" (hey that word is funny, it has nothing to be with legal status or nationality or length of stay, so native Americans are not necessary indigenous people if we are strict), three of those 4 are managers or "leaders", then there is one French, about 5 Indians and me (Mexican).
Why I am still here, two things, personal challenge and lower taxes.
And by the way, the continent is America (the US is just US not America0, so I am as American as those born in the USA, but lately we don't use that designation much, many negative connotations. Those born in the USA are "Gringos", including my kids, born here because I have health insurance here (even if some people don't like it). And yes, I send most of my income back to Mexico, why? Because there is no reason to leave it here, why buy a House here when I have my own in Mexico (well with the prices and rates as they are is tempting but not). Any day a bureaucrat is going to deny my visa renewal and I will be back to Mexico without being able to live in or even visit my house. Why invest or save here, there are better interets rates and exchange rates outside. I pay the taxes on time each year and try to be a good "resident" (not the legal definition of "resident") and endure my share of racism (when people know I am Mexican, because I am white, light haired and green eyes, so people don't suspect before hand).
They started enforcing the law in oklahoma and arizon and now texas has been flooded with 400k illegal immigrants who left those states because no one would hire them.
It's that simple guys.
Enforce the laws against business owners (here is your huge fine or jail time) and we go back to needing a small border force to stop a tiny amount of border crossers (vs the estimated 4 MILLION crossing in 2006 of whom 850k were caught and deported).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I believe I've read somewhere that the Great Wall was more of a way to slow invaders down on the way out, so that local troups could catch up to them. Having a large force to patrol the entire wall would be expensive. But once it it breeched, you have a good idea where they will be leaving.
I wanna know if this Bushlin Wall will be deployed on the northern US border, to stop any more US citizens from voting with their feet and escaping to Canada.
We have enough traler-trash here as it is.
I live near the 45th parallel; I thought I saw an east Germ... uh, an AMERICAN watchtower recently along the agent-orange polluted border (yes, but fortunately for the US, the ground water all flows towards Canada)...
Anyhow it was just a deer-hunter's blind. So far...
And please- nore more of this "Mr. Bush! Tear down this wall!" - I'm quite happy as it is, thanks.
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- aqk
F U
Why not just make the "illegals" US citizens? Honestly, the only problem that I have with illegal immigration is the fact that illegal immigrants do not pay taxes. If they became US citizens, they would be registered with the IRS and forced to pay taxes just like everyone else. This would solve two issues:
1. Illegal immigrants use public services without paying for them (through taxes).
2. Illegal immigrants are willing to take jobs at lower wages (as mentioned in the parent post). This is because, without paying taxes, they can afford it more easily than a US citizen who does have to pay taxes.
And this applies to anyone who wants to move to the US. I don't understand the desire to let only a small group of people into the country each year. What ever happened to "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"?
Wouldn't it just be cheaper to provide free beer and lawn chairs to some rednecks to sit at the border with their .30/30's?
The problem is that in the United States, the children born here to illegal immigrants automatically become legal citizens. Was that true in Roman times or even in modern Italy?
This creates a strain on a public K-12 school system. I heard on the radio show "Latino USA" (on National Public Radio), a Hispanic high school teacher in Texas was demanding that the school system must hire bilingual high school physics teachers -- and not just people who spoke a smattering of Spanish, but FLUENT Spanish. Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me...
In addition, the reason that illegals are desirable to employers is because those employers can pay them below minimum wage. Therefore, businesses that hire illegals can get a bigger profit and charge cheaper than their competitors who follow the law.
What happens if you give those illegals amnesty and a path to citizenship?
Those workers become citizens, and are entitled to minimum wage. Their employers will see this cut into profits, and FIRE those employees because they no longer serve a competitive edge. The employers will just resort to hiring more illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, the 24 million former illegals will become 24 million unemployed legal citizens and will be entitled to government welfare and unemployment benefits!!! This is going to break the US economy even more.
Nightline on ABC just last night (broadcast on February 28, 2008; title = "Clash on the Border", reported by Miguel Marquez; online at http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4363641) shows the current border patrol situation. It's getting extremely violent. Mexicans are routinely throwing bricks and stones at the border patrol agents; there was a picture of a smashed car where a brick had smashed through the driver's side into the agent's face (not shown), and blood was spattered everywhere inside the interior of the car. The Mexicans have also tried setting up a wire to decapitate agents patrolling on motorcycle. Looks like its time for the military to start setting up posts, just like the Mexicans do on their side of the border.
First, you obviously know nothing of economics, neither classical nor "real world." The cost of labor in agricultural products is infinitesimal, at less than 3%, if that much. Next, there is no operational "free-market capitalism" - that is rank idiocy to suggest such a thing actually exists.
I don't think recent illegal immigration is messing with wage levels here,...
Again, it doesn't matter what you think, what matters are the facts, and the facts have shown that illegal immigration has had significant impacts on the lowering of wages, has have bogus "worker visa" programs such as H-1B, H-2B, H-2C, L-1, O-1, P-1, P-2, P-3, etc.
Costs have indeed been cut when mechanization has taken place, so again you are sadly wrong. In fact, you have been wrong on every "point" you have feebly attempted to make - do you work at McKinsey, per chance???
This is also of course why the US is increasingly on the wrong side of the WTO.
"The wrong side" is being affiliated with such a trash and bous gang as the WTO. The only right side is to be outside of that group.
Put that in your virtual pipe and smoke it....
I knew a guy *cough* who stayed in the US for a year and took a job as stock/cleaning person at a small convenience store. The Syrian-born owner (who was the coolest boss one could ask for, BTW) said as much: that he was glad to have my *cough* friend doing the dirty work as he found it almost impossible to find locals who would show up and actually do work.
As for the local situation here in Bermuda, we have a history of importing labour, starting with the Portuguese in the 19th century. This is still the done thing, and over the century and a half that the 'Gees have been coming, they've the absolute pillars of our community here. Our economy wouldn't be half what it is if not for their hard work and intelligence. Of course, the first generation is pretty rough and "peasant", but they've truly become solid members of our community.
But there is an odd conundrum here, similar to that of the US: The major unions and their members demand that Bermudians fill the most menial of tasks, but at the end of the day don't really want to do the work. Frustrating indeed.
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
Yes, the location does impact the cost. I would guess that the labor is so expensive because there are fewer farmers from Mexico and points south to come pick the beans cheaply in Hawaii. So it is not, as you claimed, labeling restrictions.
I also lived in DC for many years. The salaries in DC are not 3x higher than in other places, which is what we are seeing with Kona coffee prices.
"I planned within my means and got a fixed rate mortgage, so where's MY bailout?" -cafepress
"minimum wage, health benefits, safer conditions" follow from unionisation and collective action. If you want better wages and/or safer conditions at work, join or form a trade union. (I leave the "health benefits" question aside, as in the Civilised World ® they comes from being a human being, not from your employment status or political activism.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
As for the other items, READ A BOOK!
global: involving the entire earth; not limited or provincial in scope
monopoly: A situation in which a single company owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service
As for the other items, READ A BOOK! Indeed. I can recommend:Well gee. Lets take a look. 1. It's a fence. 2. The cameras suck 3. It's a fence. 4. It only goes across part of the border. 5. It's a FENCE, for geep's sake!
I believe that the following steps, taken in order, will stop illegal immigration while addressing the need for cheap immigrant labor for the shit jobs that pansy-ass modern US citizens just won't do:
1. Build a double-layered fence along both the northern and southern borders. Make it 15 feet tall, with coiled razor wire along the bottom and top, similar to that seen around maximum security prisons.
2. Enact and enforce a mandatory $250,000 fine per workday for each illegal immigrant employed in any way by a US company or individual. This includes illegals working as "contractors" on 1099 forms. That is, if you employed 4 illegals for 2 days, you are fined 2 million dollars.
3. Enact and enforce a mandatory 1 year in prison for each person who knowingly employs illegals for 365 man-days (365 for 1 day, 1 for 365 days, 5 for 73 days, etc.) - if you can show that you made a good-faith effort to determine that the employee was legal, you're off the hook for the prison time, but not for the fine. If the employer is a corporation, all the officers of that corporation get to serve the jail time. And it's cumulative - you employ illegals for a total of 7300 man-days, you get 20 years in prison. You employ illegals for a total of 36500 man-days, you go to prison for 100 years.
4. Increase the immigration "quotas" and decrease the paperwork hassle and wait time for immigrants who want to permanently move here, so they can more easily come here legally. If the TSA can take my fingerprints and determine within 60 days that I can be trusted to drive a truck loaded with 40,000 pounds of high explosives through a heavily populated area, DHS can fingerprint a prospective immigrant and determine within 60 days whether she can be trusted to live and work in the United States. One of my co-workers is a truck driver from the United Kingdom. He is here legally. He waited 16 years for his permanent resident visa. 16 weeks is a bit long, but reasonable. 16 years is absurd, regardless of what country you're coming from. Keep a reasonable set of requirements, mind you - a good starting place is "no prior convictions for any offenses which are felonies in the United States".
5. Create a viable program for temporary work visas. I'll leave the details of that one to someone more familiar with the seasonal labor needs of US agriculture.
6. Round up the border-jumpers who are still here after Points 1-5 have been enacted (there will be far fewer than we have now), and send them back to their nations of origin. If they want to come back, they go to the back of the line and must pay a fine before coming back in, plus meet all the requirements of any other prospective immigrant.
Mind you, I don't think all this adds up to a perfect solution, but I believe it will address the largest parts of the problem effectively and fairly. And it's feasible. But it won't happen, because any politician who attempts to do all this will have La Raza marching outside his office, and probably won't win reelection. Not to mention having Geraldo Rivera on national TV calling him (and me, and everyone else who thinks a sovereign nation should have borders) racist.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
The purpose of the Great Wall was not to keep the invaders out, it was to keep the loot in... It's easy for a group of pillagers to climb over carrying a few supplies and weapons, but try to climb back out with a few rugs and sacks of gold... much more difficult. The question is not whether illegal immigrants make the cost of fruit a few cents cheaper, but the cost they add to other areas such as healthcare and education. They are abusing the system everywhere. They show up at a hospital, they 'must' be treated, regardless of if they can pay. Their children attend our education system, just look at the school issues in California... We are absorbing the cost of them being here, one way or another... personally, I'd gladly pay 50 cents more for fruit and save 100$ on my healthcare... True Example Here: Ran with an ambulance company, had a call to take a mother and her son to the hospital. In speaking to them: They were not citizens, had no insurance, they admitted it was not an emergency, the son 'had a headache' and that it was cheaper for them to call an ambulance then a taxi... And yes, this kind of abuse happens all to frequently...