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Sarah Burrows – How Prison Labor is the New American Slavery and Most of Us Unknowingly Support it

Summary:
If you buy products or services from any of the 50 companies listed below (and you likely do), you are supporting modern American slavery The American Conservative run a good article today by Doug Bandow called,  The Madness of Military Intervention in Venezuela, where he said criticism of the Venezuelan dictatorship was justified, but war wouldn't improve the situation. He says, there are many odious  regimes in the world and North Korea uses slave labor prison camps. That might be true, but I also pointed out on the American Conservative site that the U.S. has the most slave labor prison camps in the world. US prisoners are not forced to work, but most choose do because they need the money for ordinary everyday items and for food even if the wage paid is pittance. KV.  American slavery

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If you buy products or services from any of the 50 companies listed below (and you likely do), you are supporting modern American slavery

The American Conservative run a good article today by Doug Bandow called,  The Madness of Military Intervention in Venezuela, where he said criticism of the Venezuelan dictatorship was justified, but war wouldn't improve the situation. He says, there are many odious  regimes in the world and North Korea uses slave labor prison camps. That might be true, but I also pointed out on the American Conservative site that the U.S. has the most slave labor prison camps in the world. US prisoners are not forced to work, but most choose do because they need the money for ordinary everyday items and for food even if the wage paid is pittance. KV. 

American slavery was technically abolished in 1865, but a loophole in the 13th Amendment has allowed it to continue “as a punishment for crimes” well into the 21st century. Not surprisingly, corporations have lobbied for a broader and broader definition of “crime” in the last 150 years. As a result, there are more (mostly dark-skinned) people performing mandatory, essentially unpaid, hard labor in America today than there were in 1830.

With 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population, the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world. No other society in history has imprisoned more of its own citizens. There are half a million more prisoners in the U.S. than in China, which has five times our population. Approximately 1 in 100 adults in America were incarcerated in 2014.  Out of an adult population of 245 million that year, there were 2.4 million people in prison, jail or some form of detention center.
The vast majority – 86 percent – of prisoners have been locked up for non-violent, victimless crimes, many of them drug-related.
Big Business is making big bucks off of prison labor:
Sarah Burrows - How Prison Labor is the New American Slavery and Most of Us Unknowingly Support it
Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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