[hippich]

One thing that stopped me from seeking the vanity plate - I learned that at least in Texas all plates are made by minimally paid prisoners. So any desire to finance that system beyond what's absolute possible minimum (i.e. regular plates) evaporated.

[rsstack]

In New York it's the same, they make the license plates and also school furniture, and maybe other things too. I was scared for a moment when I was told by USPS Informed Delivery that I have incoming mail from Auburn Correctional Facility - but it was a license plate.

[alexfoo]

> One thing that stopped me from seeking the vanity plate

I'm sure it differs between countries but in the UK vanity plates have become reasonably contentious.

As a gross generalisation they're fine if the car is worth hundreds of thousands or the plate itself is worth hundreds of thousands.

The UK plate "F1" last sold for just under £1m (about US$1.3m) over 10 years ago and it's rumoured that there are offers for ten times that from someone who wants to buy it now.

It comes down to a classic British issue of "class", which is inherently difficult to explain.

If you have the money to have, say, a Ferrari 250 GTO then you can do what the hell you like with it, including getting a vanity plate for it. You are rich enough that you don't care what anyone else thinks about you. Anyone seeing you and that car will know you are rich.

If you have the money to spend close to £1m on a plate like "X1" and decide to put it on beat up 15 year old 1.2 litre Ford Focus then, again, it shows you have stupid amounts of money and some delicious irony in putting it on an old beater of a car.

But if don't have a supercar and you get a relatively cheap vanity plate like "RMZ 1327" and stick it on a Range Rover Evoque that's only a couple of years old then it just shows that you're trying too hard and just aspire to be seen as rich. You don't have enough money for a really nice car, or a really exclusive vanity plate.

I guess the other way of looking at it is that people who don't have the money to get a vanity plate aspire to being able to do so as it would mean they have more money than they have now. Once they get to having that amount of money most realise that the money is best spent elsewhere (or not spent at all). Once they have so much money that having a vanity plate is inconsequential to their finances they may as well do it. So it's natural that some people want to pretend they've reached the "rich" state by buying a vanity plate preemptively - the problem is that this is so easy to spot it just looks gauche.

All of this obviously doesn't apply to countries where vanity plates aren't traded for stupid amounts like famous pieces of art.

[mtrovo]

Loved your description of the class system. There's a general theme of old money wealthy people not caring about vanity purchases because they don't know how much stuff costs nor if that is a too much money or not.

It's interesting to see how luxury brands have different segments of clothes that range from no logos at all to a huge alligator the size of your chest, depending on whether you need to announce to the world that you made it or if you just want to have access to good quality clothes.

[OptionOfT]

In CA and AZ vanity plates are first come, first served. You cannot sell them either. You either keep them on a car, or you can keep on paying to keep it out of circulation forever. But once you give it up it goes back to the pool, and someone can get it.

Also, my vanity plate is $0 more than a normal plate. Why wouldn't I?

[TiredOfLife]

> It comes down to a classic British issue of "class", which is inherently difficult to explain.

The Frost Report sketch explains it quite well:

https://youtu.be/9XmB59Ax4cE

[embedding-shape]

> I learned that at least in Texas all plates are made by minimally paid prisoners

Lol, wasn't slavery outlawed in the US, or were some states still allowed to keep it? That's absolutely bananas if true.

[Aurornis]

To be clear, the prisoners aren’t literally forced to do this work. It’s a job they can choose to apply for and do while in prison. (EDIT: In my state, it might be different in other states)

The contention is about how much they’re paid per hour.

[SirSavary]

> The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...

[paulddraper]

No, Thirteenth Amendment permits it as punishment for a crime.

This a good reminder to all Americans to read the Constitution. The amount of bizarre understandings (not necessarily this one) that I see is very high.

[grimgrin]

Since you didn't know about for-profit prisons, here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison

[dogleash]

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

[htx80nerd]

they shouldnt be paid at all. they're in prison for a reason. they have a debt to society. a great many of those people didnt do 'one bad thing' then got caught. it was just the last bad thing they were caught for. any many of them did 'the bad thing', then continued doing other bad things up until the point they were put in prison.

[macintux]

> they're in prison for a reason.

Often that reason is "too poor to afford proper representation" or "looked vaguely like the actual criminal" or "took a plea bargain because the justice system was threatening them with an immorally-long wait for a trial and a likely worse outcome".

[pavel_lishin]

I don't agree with your "slave labor is ok if the slave committed a crime" position, and find it morally indefensible.

[aacid]

Punishment is only one reason of inprisonment, another is correction. Majority of prisoners do not serve lifetime sentence, at some point they wikl return to society and ideally you don't want them to get right back to what they have been doing before because they have no other options or they don't know nothing better.

[7bit]

Ah yes. American Prisons prioritizing punishment over resocialising is the reason why criminals so often continue to hurt society after they have been released.

Then we have people who demand to double down on the punishment and wonder why these people never stop breaking the law.

Americans are a marvelous bunch. Thanks Dog I live in a first world country.

[jollyllama]

In many cases, their earnings are confiscated as part of restitution.

[BurningFrog]

Imprisoning people for years seems like a much worse thing to do to people than underpaying them for work they do while locked up.

Is it that the latter can be called "slavery" that makes people upset?

[retrodaredevil]

There are a lot of incentives to lock people up. Cheap labor is one of them. We should support incentives such as "keeping society safe", but incentives such as "profits and cheap labor" are incentives that may actually incentivize locking up innocent people.

So it's not about which one is worse, it's about not supporting something that could lead to corruption or an unfair system.

[paulddraper]

“The morally correct thing is to pay them even less.”