John...I WAS railing at the state.  This is little more than slave labor.  The company is renting facilities from the state for ONE DOLLAR per year and the state is feeding the workers -- the prisoners -- and also picking up the tab for their medical care while Lufkin Industries was trying to stay in business while competing with the company being subsidised by the state.  There is no way for Lufkin to cut their costs enough to compete with the prices charged using inmate labor.  My point was not to attack the inmates, rather to attack the state for allowing industry to use inmate labor to undercut a private company that has fixed costs the company using inmate labor does not have.  Texas prisons were -- years ago -- self sustaining.  I believe they should return to that format.  The state owns farms and ranches on which the inmates can work and raise crops and meat.  There are state projects that inmates can co -- they used to and could again.  Here in Victoria, you often see county inmates cleaning roadsides and other projects so that tax dollars don't need to be spent on them.  This sort of thing can be done also at the state level.