So in Part 1 I told about my background, and how I was raised to avoid debt "at any cost". And digressed a bit to the great grandparents and grandparents who helped to raise me, and their skepticism of charity. 

So I was a bit shocked, in 1980, at the tuition and board cost at Carleton (and you can't really live off campus, so "and board" is priced into tuition). So I signed up for work to offset cost and was assigned, like most Carleton College freshman, to food service. I signed up for the food kiosk in Sayles-Hill.

When I showed up on time the first week of school, there was a sign that said the food service was on strike - Saga Food Service was the campus contractor, and their employees were on strike. The College had closed 3/4 food joints and everyone had to dine at Burton Hall.  So I went to Burton to start work.

It was a bit of chaos that day as all of the 2000+ students were dining in 1/4 cafeterias, but I elbowed my way in to ask about work.

Brian - I don't remember his last name - was the Saga Manager (the company the strike was upon).  As I recall he was six foot three and very fat - maybe 350 lbs.  Big guy. Intimidating. I asked him, in the chaos of fourfold feeding in a onefold cafeteria, where I'd be working.

Brian said sorry kid, all the positions are full. Come back next week.

This. Was. Not. An. Option. For. Me.

I was overwhelmed already by the tuition cost at Carleton, and my grandparents stories about jobs and wages and desperate tiimes in the Depression and "Dust Bowl" all lighted up within me.

Brian had turned around. I circled and pushed my chest right up to him and said I NEEDED THIS JOB.

Brian said listen kid, there are a lot of rich kids here who quit the first few weeks and I should just relax and come back in a week or two, there would be openings.

He turned away again. I got up into his chest again. I said with all my heart, PLEASE, I need to work, I can't afford this place. PLEASE.  LET ME WORK.

Brian looked down and made eye contact. He said that while he had no positons open ,that my insistance was something new. Something he didn't see often. And he said "hypotentically" that he needed another student manager. But that he had NEVER hired a student manager from a first week freshman.

I SHOUTED I WOULD BE HIS BEST STUDENT MANAGER.

I was hired with no experience as a student manager, working directly for Saga Food Service, which was a dollar more per hour but more importantly, not restricted by the student work office to 7 hours per week.  I frequently worked 20 hours, and stayed in that job 4 years.

Rich and Poor, Effort and Inequality

John Oliver's new show is doing well.

Robin Ingenthron I agree. But I also observe that many of the poorest are descending down - with no one else to blame - just as hard as the 1% is striving up. I know this by the number of poor who excel (moderately gaining, or treading water). Grouping poor A to poor B without acknowledging effort (blaming the rich) is an obvious fallacy. If richest 1% C in a decade balloons in weath, leaving Poor A and Poor B in relative dust, that should not negate the essential difference in effort between poor A and B. What distinguishes Poor B from Poor A (effort, desire, ingenuity) also distinguishes Rich Persons C and D (the rich eroding and falling, vs. gaining).1 min · Like

First hand experience:  Some poor people truly suck.  Some poor people, especially through the lens of our underdog-nurture evolution, are heroic.  In the same way poor are numerous, they are diverse... much more so than the 1%.  My kids in the Cameroon classroom were all equally negated by John Oilver's assessment, but they were not equal.  Some were smarter and better and harder working students, and measuring them all next to Donald Trump unfairly negates their merit.

My concern with rich people attacking rich people (BAN vs. OECD, John Oliver vs. USA's 1%) is that they attribute more attention to themselves than they do to the relative merits (efforts, study, ingenuity) which the working class all enjoy or suffer.  Oops.

Mexico is Family Visa Policy

My Insights into USA's Immigration and Guest Worker Policy with Mexico

American Retroworks Inc. has a sister company in Mexico, retroworks de mexico, nicknamed "Las Chicas Bravas".  It has been profiled on NPR Marketplace, Living On Earth, Associated Press, Sacramento Bee, and many other media.  My wife and children come with me to visit the ladies at the TV maquila in northern Mexico.  While our attorney was shot and killed, we never see any drugs or violence in the rural town of Fronteras, a few dozen kilometers from the mines and smelter of Nacozari.

We regularly cross-train workers from Mexico, like Mariano, Dolores, Vicki, Lydia, Panchito, Dominita, Don Chuco, etc. at our plant in Middlebury, and they cross-train our staff during regular visits to Arizona.  We recently sent Nate Hutnak, our collection partner in Rhode Island, to Arizona to help establish collections. My business partner and his wife visit us, and host us, and my kids are close with their godson Oscar, who spent a year with us in Vermont and Arizona.

Mexico is our Family

Mariano from Mexico tests and inspects and sells fully functional TVs, and occasionally brokers them to buyers in Peru, Venezuela, or Guatemala.  He cross trains Vermont staff, some of whom were born in El Salvador or Honduras or Guatemala.  In short, our fair trade company has partners in many countries, from Burkina Faso to Indonesia to Egypt and Senegal - but Mexico is family.

Our key policy is that manual disassembly creates more value in parts, and more jobs, than automated recycling.  We do manual disassembly in Vermont... but if you are going to create low wage demanufacturing jobs for Mexicans, it's wiser to make those jobs in Mexico.  Our competitors try to chop TVs up with machines, but believe me, running electronics and e-waste through hammermills and shredders is literally not all it is cracked up to be.

Having established my personal bias and credentials, what can I say about national USA policy on border enforcement, illegals, green cards, work visas, and immigration?  Here goes...