A nation-state was supposedly an organized group of people, citizens, by birth or naturalized who as a group stood up for their common interests.
That entire concept seems to be lost. I keep wondering about loyalty. It runs very deep in America, people love their country...so while they go off to war, almost blinded and stick by the U.S.....powers that be sell her off to the highest bidder.
We, The People, need to work a lot harder at being good citizens. We are responsible for the mess we are in because we have focused on material wealth and immediate gratification rather than grasping the fact that we are stewards of our childrens future. We have "chosen poorly," and the bill is due.
Wisdom is our only hope. Wisdom is the freedom and ability to make the kinds of decisions that move our life forward and benefit the planet."
Read Already Wise: Our Inborn Ability to Make the Best CHoices" available as a e-book at Smashwords.com
In WWII, Germans, Italians, and Bulgarians raped Greece. Germans destroyed the Corinth Canal and port facilities (rebuilt with Marshall Plan funds). Now the Germans are dictating terms to the Greeks -- when the Greeks should be demanding reparations for the outrages of WWII -- the Germans can damn well afford them. But the power elites in Greece -- good Eurocrats with fat salaries and allowances -- are betraying the Greek people. Maybe they will find a way to sell the sunshine to the Germans and charge the Greeks user fees for swimming in the Aegean. Then their elites can retire to St. Moritz.
For about a half-century now, I have known something of the market-making insiders and the way Treasury paper is unleashed on the world. I am pretty sure that most people have no idea of those mechanisms, although they are not secret.
But the mechanisms of currency manipulation? That seems to me like some very murky stuff. I just know that the everyday numbers are awesomely huge, fortunes can be made or lost in microseconds.
I recall that case in Singapore (a British bank) where some poor soul lost everything, and maybe was even imprisoned, when betting that some currency would always have go up overnight, they couldn't all fall at the same time. Seemed like a reasonable assumption.
The way things are today, it's all computer trading. Arbitrage must be constant and never-ending, but no one understands it, do they? My understanding is that professional mathematicians are paid to devise models, test them out and then use them on the fastest computers with the fastest connections.
BTW: I did not see this story on HuffPo -- it's just my thinking based on my reading of EP and NumbersUSA but nothing from HuffPo on this issue. I did not reference HuffPo and have never read the HuffPo story on Obama's declining to comment on earlier threat to veto E-Verify (if it does not include some amnesty provision), although I don't doubt you that there was such a story.
Sometimes I see something worthwhile at HuffPo. What I pay attention to is the author, whether at HuffPo or TruthOut or wherever.
I have hopes that we may see a true populist rise out of the money-muck of the GOP.
I like NumbersUSA and appreciate that you are generally satisfied with the accuracy of their numbers. NumbersUSA is also good for following the twisted course of legislation in the congress and how members of congress are voting or tending on immigration issues. If every lobbying organization was as good as NumbersUSA, we could have a better country.
NumbersUSA for the most part is a lobbying organization, but I'm fairly certain they have used credible numbers on anything that impacts professionals, tech workers.
Please do look at your titles because it reads like you're saying Obama and this never ending inane special interest, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, India NASSCOM, BPO indrusty agenda is aok.
Not that GOP leadership won't pull the same thing because they are both owned by their corporate puppet masters.
Ever since HuffPo sold out to AOL, I see these "plants" of corporate lobbyists agenda items, this being one, presented as "articles" on their site.
So, I think this site leans left but on this issue, well, that's not left to labor arbitrage, displace U.S. professionals.
I thought it was a hot day even before I looked at your post!
On the other hand, taking a positive view, I have gotten far more out of your brief reply than you possibly can have gotten from my lengthier one.
In any case, I have not said, nor has Roy Beck said, that Obama is NOT out to destroy professional careers of citizens of the USA!
I need to pay more attention to how I title my posts. Probably I should have put a question mark at the end of the title of my reply, since we don't know for sure that Obama will not veto a clean E-Verify bill, only that he is no longer threatening to do so.
Your statement that Obama is out to destroy professional careers seems passionate but not unreasonable to me, even though I have presented an analysis of the ideology that Obama asserts in defense of policies that work toward such economic destruction. My personal spin, clearly stated in posts above, is that Obama remains true to his 'multiculturalism' and that such an 'ism' is pernicious when applied to economic policy.
(Generally, multiculturalism makes no sense as a policy guide. If applied as an anti-systemic ideology, multiculturalism would mean that there should be no national character or culture to any country, which would make the world less ... well ... multicultural.)
I am not sure if you are saying that Roy Beck is inaccurate in stating that "We’re talking a real dent in the unemployment numbers"? Is that the lobbyist spin and economic fiction that you refer to? Is Mr. Beck's analysis inaccurate?
Beck also says that Obama is "going to try like crazy to attach an amnesty bill, but if it gets to his desk clean, he’s going to sign it." I am thinking that the bill will get to his desk clean of any amendments, if it gets enacted at all.
Maybe I am placing too much confidence in NumbersUSA.
I have not thought of NumbersUSA as lobbying for Obama or for anything but effective immigration reform, in particular, for E-Verify (with no amendments added).
Here's NumbersUSA's spin, if that's what it is:
[WHAT WAS]
During his time in the White House, Pres. Obama has maintained that we would veto any immigration enforcement legislation that did not provide an amnesty to illegal aliens.
[WHAT IS NOTED AS A CHANGE by NumbersUSA]
During a press conference on Wednesday, Pres. Obama declined to comment on a question asking if we would veto a clean E-Verify bill.
[SPIN by NumbersUSA, including Roy Beck]
In declining to comment, Pres. Obama recognizes the unique situation a mandatory E-Verify bill presents to him. On the one hand, it's an enforcement-only bill, but on the other hand, it's a bill that would help put millions of unemployed Americans back to work.
"Seven million jobs could be opened up by this bill," NumbersUSA President Roy Beck said. "We’re talking a real dent in the unemployment numbers. … I think the president knows that when this bill comes to his desk, that’s the way it’s going to be phrased. 'Are you going to veto this bill and refuse to give these jobs to unemployed Americans?' He’s going to try like crazy to attach an amnesty bill, but if it gets to his desk clean, he’s going to sign it."
Roy Beck and NumbersUSA were severely criticized once before in the past for making statements intended to recognize movement by Obama toward controlling immigration, but Mr. Beck has responded that they are not selling out their anti-immigration position, only seeking to support change in a positive direction.
I try to post from a neutral point of view, although sometimes opinionated while acknowledging my bias. My opinion now is that E-Verify would be a positive step toward reduction in unemployment, and my bias probably influences my view that E-Verify has a chance in the current congress, and, that the chance for enactment of E-Verify is increased by the statement of NumbersUSA and of President Roy Beck.
I gather from your comment that you find the lobby for the H-1B 'industry' (especially in India) to be more powerful than I estimated before reading your first paragraph. That's useful information, although I hope that the strength of that lobby is or will become less important than public pressure on Congress.
_____
It seems that you are taking my post as pro-Obama or as pro-DREAM. That would be a misrepresentation of my intent and of my statements. I am saying that on H-1Bs, Obama appeared to move toward pragmatic compromise back in 2010 when fees were increased substantially. On DREAM, I have said that "a politician could be persuaded of the virtue of this legislation after talking to some of the individuals who stand to benefit by it." And I have opined that Obama's dream is the DREAM Act, but he must know that the chances that it will not be enacted by the current congress are slim to none. Generally, all I have said is that Obama is a politician and he appears to be adjusting pragmatically to political realities. I did not think that was pro-Obama or even particularly controversial.
I have been thinking that the Obama presidency is likely to survive 2012, but reading your post, I am now tending to doubt that.
In electoral politics, (not that it matters), I support third party and less emphasis on the presidential circus, more on congressional seats. I have used NumbersUSA to check on the votes and expressed views, on E-Verify and other bills supported by NumbersUSA, of the representative from the congressional district where I live and vote.
To me, that's a useful service provided by NumbersUSA at their 'Congress' tab
I've written numerous posts on how Obama is pushing for turning our education system into an instant ATM, giving outsourcers more H-1B, L-1 Visas and literally lying, pushing corporate lobbyists' agenda fictional lies to the public.
this topic is near and dear to our hearts because many of us have a STEM background and know very well, Obama is out to destroy even more professional careers.
Please do not post fiction on these topics, it's rule #1, no economic fiction and esp. no lobbyist spin.
There is no better place for spin than this agenda because the BPO industry is a good 7% of India's GDP alone, huge money all to labor arbitrage STEM professionals.
It looks like President Obama is accommodating political realities to move away from a hard ideological policy position on immigration. (The ideology involved is multiculturalism.) NumbersUSA appears to be convinced that if the E-Verify bill (with no elements of DREAM) gets to the President's desk, he will sign it.
Along with E-Verify, it's noteworthy that the administration raised H-1B visa fees by an order of magnitude about a year ago (2010). This action brought cries of outrage from the professional pro-immigration lobby, and thus indicates that there was some appreciation in the White House that H-1B visas were a potential weakness for the Democrats looking ahead to November (2010). Currently, the E-Verify (only) bill looks like the only immigration-related legislation with a chance of passing this year. This bill, like raising the H-1B visa fees, has substantial opposition only from the professional pro-immigration lobby, and they are outraged by the very thought of it! The question is whether that lobby is strong enough to block legislation, particularly in the Senate where it doesn't take much.
It appears that, while continuing a likely faith in cultural globalism (multiculturalism), the President is coming around to a more pragmatic understanding of hard economic, especially employment-related, issues.
In the long run, unrealistic policy declarations along with pragmatic compromise by Obama perhaps can leave the Democrats gaining from identity-politics realignment of voting power along changing demographic lines, while in the short run accomplishing two objectives: (a) containing erosion of the Democrats' natural political base of working class, especially Black American, voters, and (b) providing cover for whatever is wanted (in the way of continuing the corporate globalist agenda) by big contributors to campaign funds and allied interests in corporate media.
DREAM
Since 2009, the administration has been pushing the DREAM Act. The group targeted to benefit from the DREAM Act is young people who (a) were brought into (or sometimes left in) the U.S. by their foreign-born parents, (b) have lived here for five years or more without getting into trouble and have completed high school here, and, (c) successfully completed two years in higher education or two years in the military, to stay and work legally in the U.S. on a fast track to citizenship. There is, in all this, an element of justice or of mercy, depending on your point of view. A politician could be persuaded of the virtue of this legislation after talking to some of the individuals who stand to benefit by it.
Identity politics and DREAM
It appears that the great majority of those who may benefit from DREAM are Latino or Mexican in background. Most of them probably speak Spanish as well as English, although many may speak only English. In any event, these young people are probably often well-integrated into U.S. Latino culture and communities. That's where the practicalities of identity politics merges with the lofty ideals of multiculturalism and with the mundane objectives of MNCs and global finance profiteering. Of course, this is all theorizing about generalities, and U.S. Latino communities cannot be considered a monolithic voting block.
Obama's compromise
I think the DREAM Act is what Obama really wants -- or what he has more-or-less promised to a part of his constituency. However, since he probably isn't going to get DREAM, he has decided to take what he can get, an expansion of H1Bs that can perhaps, in extremis, be used by the targeted DREAM group -- although hardly what that group wants!
Of course, all kinds of stuff that could never pass in an election year (and we seem to be in an election year already in 2011) may be enacted in a lameduck seesion in late 2012. That's when money really talks, even more than usual.
Compromises across party lines
Democratic progressives (anti-neo-imperialists) may be inclined to support DREAM, but are opposed to H-1Bs. Republicans who like to appear as popularists ('Tea Party') are opposed to H-1Bs but the Party (GOP and RNC and the greater 'Money Party') keeps a tight rein on any tendency that would be opposed by mega-contributors to campaign funds and related propaganda funding. Thus various compromises have been attempted, for example, the STAPLES Act (a kind of mini-DREAM) proposed by an Arizona Republican (Jeff Flake) and endorsed by Obama.
You never know, but what appears to be shaping up as reality in the 112th Congress is E-Verify, which has bipartisan and grass-roots support. I know of no good reason for any member of Congress to oppose the clean E-Verify bill, but it may never come to a vote. This bill bears watching for all interested in politico-economics. It even has practical consequences, good for some employers and bad for others.
NumbersUSA on E-Verify legislation
"The problem with every single one of these agendas ... is [that] the bills have so many loopholes [that they] will increase illegal flows exponentially." -- Robert Oak
A notable example of this kind of legislation, where the devil is indeed in the details, is the hilariously named "STAPLE" Act, originating with US Representative Jeff Flake (Republican - Arizona). Here's from NumbersUSA --
H.R. 1791 (Stopping Trained in America Ph.D.s from Leaving the Economy [STAPLE] Act of 2009) - would exempt aliens who earn a Ph.D degree in math, science, technology, or engineering at a United States institution from the numerical limitations on H-1B nonimmigrants. Specifically, this legislation would offer permanent residence status to doctors, teachers, and engineers, driving down wages and creating undue competition for high-skilled American workers.
This legislative initiative was, of course, endorsed by the Obama administration.
Here's the absurd justification for the policy on 'exporting' graduates:
"Foreign-born students studying in our universities have the potential to make significant contributions to our future economic growth if they could stay and work in the U.S. after they graduate. Exporting this talent to other countries is not in our economic interest." (from White House paper on immigration policy, underlining added)
The administration would do better to fall back on the ideology of multiculturalism, as such, than to attempt this inane justification by way of self-contradictory corporate globalist thinking.
Why NOT export graduates? 'Exporting' graduates who come here to buy valuable training would just mean that U.S. universities result in a PLUS for our balance of trade! Isn't that the whole point of corporate globalism? -- to accomplish a trade balance? Isn't that what the corporate globalists have always promised, since their NAFTA campaign to the present day?
The quote is from the administration's official paper on immigration, at a section titled "Immigrants are job creators" of a PDF titled "Building a 21st Century Immigration System" (at p. 11). This is available from the White House at --
With a quote like this, a Ross Perot (if we had a Ross Perot) could kick butt in a presidential debate or in a Perot-style infomercial (which Perot funded from his personal funds)! It's like this: the U.S. is currently exporting the last of our high-grade coal (the kind needed for steel production) to China, proclaiming that as a great example of the success of corporate globalism. But we should not ever think of our higher educational system as a successful export industry? Why not?
The justifications for immigration legislation that favors special money interests (basically MNCs and other global operators) seems to always be in terms of "our economic interest" or "the national interest". Explanations end there. Well, it's an official government statement on 'the national interest'! We can't question that?
I have come to hold my nose whenever I read an official statement about "our" economic or "national" interest
The White House paper, BTW, is a very good presentation of the pro-immigration multiculturalist position, if anyone wants to see that.
I am curious about something: can anyone point to just one national political figure who stands for popular election anywhere in the world, other than Barack Obama, who is an avowed pro-immigration multiculturalist? I doubt it.
These problems are national but also global. The basic phenomena are continued high global population growth rates and related population flows, unregulated capital flows and casino capitalism, institutionalized cyclic industrial relocation, resource depletion, endemic socio-economic instability, apparent failure in human terms of the corporate globalist world system, and, political corruption associated with lack of confidence in democratic processes and institutions.
It sure sounds like they will be fire sales. Watch the video where it goes round and round about Greek Bureaucracy being the "big woe" in terms of "private investors"...
but then, look at that beach. World famous, astounding beaches in Greece, and if they end up being private beaches, that says everything.
Wouldn't surprise me, but we'll see.
As it stands the report shows they get jack for the price and it will cost Greek citizens much more in the long run, just like the Indiana toll road in the U.S.
Naked Capitalism picked up on this post and found even more fire sale items, link to NC's post.
Folks, remember we have this going on in the U.S. The most infamous is the Indiana toll road, getting less, costing more, all per the demands of corporations, this selling off of public works taxpayers already paid for.
Kind of like you build it, they profit from it and you pay for it every time.
Here are some questions to consider as this unfolds.
Are the assets sold at a big discount?
Who buys what and who is behind those buying?
Will a connection unfold between the purchasers of Greek public assets and those who contributed to the crisis?
This is what happhappened in Egypt in the decade prior to the peoples rebellion - privatization, massive unemployment, suppression of the people by police.
The Money Party has it's game plan down. They won't given an inch and they're out to crush everyone (as irrational as that seems). They are the new nihilists.
Here are some questions to consider as this unfolds.
Are the assets sold at a big discount?
Who buys what and who is behind those buying?
Will a connection unfold between the purchasers of Greek public assets and those who contributed to the crisis?
This is what happened in Egypt in the decade prior to the peoples rebellion - privatization, massive unemployment, suppression of the people by police.
The Money Party has it's game plan down. They won't given an inch and they're out to crush everyone (as irrational as that seems). They are the new nihilists.
We'll be sure to feature the next segments in the Economic funnies round up. I put this together almost every week and you had me rolling on the floor, as well as being reasonably accurate.
When we get into things like LBOs, fractional lending, derivatives, it's easy to get it wrong out there.
Wonderful stuff, we LOVE IT!
Folks, they have a youtube channel. Next one in the series I'll link to their channel.
First actual paycheck I ever got. I was 15 years old, and rich beyond anything I had ever imagined at something like 50¢/hour. Great Iowa kids to work with!
Detassling corn was hot, but it didn't seem like hard work to me. Later, in California, I worked short hoe with a Californio Chicano crew. Now, THAT was hard work! Great guys to work with there too! (Short hoe was later outlawed in California and probably elsewhere.)
Teenagers and even college students working in agriculture? Yes! It was once and it could be again. Nothing wrong with it!
THIS WAS JUST PART 1 of an 8-PART SERIES.
UPCOMING SEGMENTS in the comedic documentary "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Bank?: An Uncensored Investigation of the U.S. Federal Reserve" --with Bait and Switch TV's Expert Interviews & Comedian Correspondents:
o History of the Federal Reserve & Fractional Lending
o The Fed, Shadow Banking & Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs)
o Federal Reserve, BIS, IMF & Global Investment Banks
o Government Sachs, Futures, Front-Running & the Fed
o The Fed, Discounts, Derivatives & Re-emerging Cap&Trade
o End the Fed? Meh! It's Never Gonna Happen
o WHAT TO DO: TAKING BACK THE MONETARY SYSTEM -- The Fed VERSUS State-Owned Public Banks
The problem with every single one of these agendas, which I might note, they push over doing anything for the U.S. middle class, if one pays attention...
is they put it all with examples of people who really should be legalized, given a green card and then hide the fact the bills have so many loopholes it will increase illegal flows exponentially.
the real agenda is to have unlimited migration, purely for the purposes of repressing wages, labor.
While everytime any of these reduced immigration groups are referenced, immediately one will hear how they are a bunch of racist xenophobes, yada yada, but CIS, well, their research techniques sure seem more solid than AEI or the Hertitage foundation, which is some serious spin often.
So, I take each report, paper whatever individually on these things but I have to agree, NumbersUSA is probably the most labor reality focused on the lot.
I just thought this article was so amusing because we have tons of "top 10 places to live", "10 top employers" and all of these things going so it's almost a parody of other economic reports.
But the info contained within the article is accurate. California is so out of bounds with their massive budget crisis, I think that's where the economic realities of no immigration enforcement really hits home.
Right now we have all sorts of articles claiming Georgia and Alabama cannot find farm workers to pick the harvests. OMG they might have to offer those as summer jobs to teenagers! OMG!
(anyone detassle corn as a teenager, hard as hell, hot, nasty, tough, but it paid usually 3x what you could get working at McDonalds to teenagers).
A nation-state was supposedly an organized group of people, citizens, by birth or naturalized who as a group stood up for their common interests.
That entire concept seems to be lost. I keep wondering about loyalty. It runs very deep in America, people love their country...so while they go off to war, almost blinded and stick by the U.S.....powers that be sell her off to the highest bidder.
We, The People, need to work a lot harder at being good citizens. We are responsible for the mess we are in because we have focused on material wealth and immediate gratification rather than grasping the fact that we are stewards of our childrens future. We have "chosen poorly," and the bill is due.
Wisdom is our only hope. Wisdom is the freedom and ability to make the kinds of decisions that move our life forward and benefit the planet."
Read Already Wise: Our Inborn Ability to Make the Best CHoices" available as a e-book at Smashwords.com
In WWII, Germans, Italians, and Bulgarians raped Greece. Germans destroyed the Corinth Canal and port facilities (rebuilt with Marshall Plan funds). Now the Germans are dictating terms to the Greeks -- when the Greeks should be demanding reparations for the outrages of WWII -- the Germans can damn well afford them. But the power elites in Greece -- good Eurocrats with fat salaries and allowances -- are betraying the Greek people. Maybe they will find a way to sell the sunshine to the Germans and charge the Greeks user fees for swimming in the Aegean. Then their elites can retire to St. Moritz.
For about a half-century now, I have known something of the market-making insiders and the way Treasury paper is unleashed on the world. I am pretty sure that most people have no idea of those mechanisms, although they are not secret.
But the mechanisms of currency manipulation? That seems to me like some very murky stuff. I just know that the everyday numbers are awesomely huge, fortunes can be made or lost in microseconds.
I recall that case in Singapore (a British bank) where some poor soul lost everything, and maybe was even imprisoned, when betting that some currency would always have go up overnight, they couldn't all fall at the same time. Seemed like a reasonable assumption.
The way things are today, it's all computer trading. Arbitrage must be constant and never-ending, but no one understands it, do they? My understanding is that professional mathematicians are paid to devise models, test them out and then use them on the fastest computers with the fastest connections.
Okay. Bad choice of title.
BTW: I did not see this story on HuffPo -- it's just my thinking based on my reading of EP and NumbersUSA but nothing from HuffPo on this issue. I did not reference HuffPo and have never read the HuffPo story on Obama's declining to comment on earlier threat to veto E-Verify (if it does not include some amnesty provision), although I don't doubt you that there was such a story.
Sometimes I see something worthwhile at HuffPo. What I pay attention to is the author, whether at HuffPo or TruthOut or wherever.
I have hopes that we may see a true populist rise out of the money-muck of the GOP.
I like NumbersUSA and appreciate that you are generally satisfied with the accuracy of their numbers. NumbersUSA is also good for following the twisted course of legislation in the congress and how members of congress are voting or tending on immigration issues. If every lobbying organization was as good as NumbersUSA, we could have a better country.
NumbersUSA for the most part is a lobbying organization, but I'm fairly certain they have used credible numbers on anything that impacts professionals, tech workers.
Please do look at your titles because it reads like you're saying Obama and this never ending inane special interest, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, India NASSCOM, BPO indrusty agenda is aok.
Not that GOP leadership won't pull the same thing because they are both owned by their corporate puppet masters.
Ever since HuffPo sold out to AOL, I see these "plants" of corporate lobbyists agenda items, this being one, presented as "articles" on their site.
So, I think this site leans left but on this issue, well, that's not left to labor arbitrage, displace U.S. professionals.
I thought it was a hot day even before I looked at your post!
On the other hand, taking a positive view, I have gotten far more out of your brief reply than you possibly can have gotten from my lengthier one.
In any case, I have not said, nor has Roy Beck said, that Obama is NOT out to destroy professional careers of citizens of the USA!
I need to pay more attention to how I title my posts. Probably I should have put a question mark at the end of the title of my reply, since we don't know for sure that Obama will not veto a clean E-Verify bill, only that he is no longer threatening to do so.
Your statement that Obama is out to destroy professional careers seems passionate but not unreasonable to me, even though I have presented an analysis of the ideology that Obama asserts in defense of policies that work toward such economic destruction. My personal spin, clearly stated in posts above, is that Obama remains true to his 'multiculturalism' and that such an 'ism' is pernicious when applied to economic policy.
(Generally, multiculturalism makes no sense as a policy guide. If applied as an anti-systemic ideology, multiculturalism would mean that there should be no national character or culture to any country, which would make the world less ... well ... multicultural.)
I am not sure if you are saying that Roy Beck is inaccurate in stating that "We’re talking a real dent in the unemployment numbers"? Is that the lobbyist spin and economic fiction that you refer to? Is Mr. Beck's analysis inaccurate?
Beck also says that Obama is "going to try like crazy to attach an amnesty bill, but if it gets to his desk clean, he’s going to sign it." I am thinking that the bill will get to his desk clean of any amendments, if it gets enacted at all.
Maybe I am placing too much confidence in NumbersUSA.
I have not thought of NumbersUSA as lobbying for Obama or for anything but effective immigration reform, in particular, for E-Verify (with no amendments added).
Here's NumbersUSA's spin, if that's what it is:
Roy Beck and NumbersUSA were severely criticized once before in the past for making statements intended to recognize movement by Obama toward controlling immigration, but Mr. Beck has responded that they are not selling out their anti-immigration position, only seeking to support change in a positive direction.
See, Article by Roy Beck (September, 2009)
I try to post from a neutral point of view, although sometimes opinionated while acknowledging my bias. My opinion now is that E-Verify would be a positive step toward reduction in unemployment, and my bias probably influences my view that E-Verify has a chance in the current congress, and, that the chance for enactment of E-Verify is increased by the statement of NumbersUSA and of President Roy Beck.
I gather from your comment that you find the lobby for the H-1B 'industry' (especially in India) to be more powerful than I estimated before reading your first paragraph. That's useful information, although I hope that the strength of that lobby is or will become less important than public pressure on Congress.
_____
It seems that you are taking my post as pro-Obama or as pro-DREAM. That would be a misrepresentation of my intent and of my statements. I am saying that on H-1Bs, Obama appeared to move toward pragmatic compromise back in 2010 when fees were increased substantially. On DREAM, I have said that "a politician could be persuaded of the virtue of this legislation after talking to some of the individuals who stand to benefit by it." And I have opined that Obama's dream is the DREAM Act, but he must know that the chances that it will not be enacted by the current congress are slim to none. Generally, all I have said is that Obama is a politician and he appears to be adjusting pragmatically to political realities. I did not think that was pro-Obama or even particularly controversial.
I have been thinking that the Obama presidency is likely to survive 2012, but reading your post, I am now tending to doubt that.
In electoral politics, (not that it matters), I support third party and less emphasis on the presidential circus, more on congressional seats. I have used NumbersUSA to check on the votes and expressed views, on E-Verify and other bills supported by NumbersUSA, of the representative from the congressional district where I live and vote.
To me, that's a useful service provided by NumbersUSA at their 'Congress' tab
NumbersUSA Congress tab (report cards, votes, etc.)
I've written numerous posts on how Obama is pushing for turning our education system into an instant ATM, giving outsourcers more H-1B, L-1 Visas and literally lying, pushing corporate lobbyists' agenda fictional lies to the public.
this topic is near and dear to our hearts because many of us have a STEM background and know very well, Obama is out to destroy even more professional careers.
Please do not post fiction on these topics, it's rule #1, no economic fiction and esp. no lobbyist spin.
There is no better place for spin than this agenda because the BPO industry is a good 7% of India's GDP alone, huge money all to labor arbitrage STEM professionals.
It looks like President Obama is accommodating political realities to move away from a hard ideological policy position on immigration. (The ideology involved is multiculturalism.) NumbersUSA appears to be convinced that if the E-Verify bill (with no elements of DREAM) gets to the President's desk, he will sign it.
NumbersUSA on E-Verify legislation
H-1B visa fees
Along with E-Verify, it's noteworthy that the administration raised H-1B visa fees by an order of magnitude about a year ago (2010). This action brought cries of outrage from the professional pro-immigration lobby, and thus indicates that there was some appreciation in the White House that H-1B visas were a potential weakness for the Democrats looking ahead to November (2010). Currently, the E-Verify (only) bill looks like the only immigration-related legislation with a chance of passing this year. This bill, like raising the H-1B visa fees, has substantial opposition only from the professional pro-immigration lobby, and they are outraged by the very thought of it! The question is whether that lobby is strong enough to block legislation, particularly in the Senate where it doesn't take much.
It appears that, while continuing a likely faith in cultural globalism (multiculturalism), the President is coming around to a more pragmatic understanding of hard economic, especially employment-related, issues.
In the long run, unrealistic policy declarations along with pragmatic compromise by Obama perhaps can leave the Democrats gaining from identity-politics realignment of voting power along changing demographic lines, while in the short run accomplishing two objectives: (a) containing erosion of the Democrats' natural political base of working class, especially Black American, voters, and (b) providing cover for whatever is wanted (in the way of continuing the corporate globalist agenda) by big contributors to campaign funds and allied interests in corporate media.
DREAM
Since 2009, the administration has been pushing the DREAM Act. The group targeted to benefit from the DREAM Act is young people who (a) were brought into (or sometimes left in) the U.S. by their foreign-born parents, (b) have lived here for five years or more without getting into trouble and have completed high school here, and, (c) successfully completed two years in higher education or two years in the military, to stay and work legally in the U.S. on a fast track to citizenship. There is, in all this, an element of justice or of mercy, depending on your point of view. A politician could be persuaded of the virtue of this legislation after talking to some of the individuals who stand to benefit by it.
Identity politics and DREAM
It appears that the great majority of those who may benefit from DREAM are Latino or Mexican in background. Most of them probably speak Spanish as well as English, although many may speak only English. In any event, these young people are probably often well-integrated into U.S. Latino culture and communities. That's where the practicalities of identity politics merges with the lofty ideals of multiculturalism and with the mundane objectives of MNCs and global finance profiteering. Of course, this is all theorizing about generalities, and U.S. Latino communities cannot be considered a monolithic voting block.
Obama's compromise
I think the DREAM Act is what Obama really wants -- or what he has more-or-less promised to a part of his constituency. However, since he probably isn't going to get DREAM, he has decided to take what he can get, an expansion of H1Bs that can perhaps, in extremis, be used by the targeted DREAM group -- although hardly what that group wants!
Of course, all kinds of stuff that could never pass in an election year (and we seem to be in an election year already in 2011) may be enacted in a lameduck seesion in late 2012. That's when money really talks, even more than usual.
Compromises across party lines
Democratic progressives (anti-neo-imperialists) may be inclined to support DREAM, but are opposed to H-1Bs. Republicans who like to appear as popularists ('Tea Party') are opposed to H-1Bs but the Party (GOP and RNC and the greater 'Money Party') keeps a tight rein on any tendency that would be opposed by mega-contributors to campaign funds and related propaganda funding. Thus various compromises have been attempted, for example, the STAPLES Act (a kind of mini-DREAM) proposed by an Arizona Republican (Jeff Flake) and endorsed by Obama.
NumbersUSA on legislative proposals (111th Congress)
You never know, but what appears to be shaping up as reality in the 112th Congress is E-Verify, which has bipartisan and grass-roots support. I know of no good reason for any member of Congress to oppose the clean E-Verify bill, but it may never come to a vote. This bill bears watching for all interested in politico-economics. It even has practical consequences, good for some employers and bad for others.
NumbersUSA on E-Verify legislation
"The problem with every single one of these agendas ... is [that] the bills have so many loopholes [that they] will increase illegal flows exponentially." -- Robert Oak
A notable example of this kind of legislation, where the devil is indeed in the details, is the hilariously named "STAPLE" Act, originating with US Representative Jeff Flake (Republican - Arizona). Here's from NumbersUSA --
This legislative initiative was, of course, endorsed by the Obama administration.
Here's the absurd justification for the policy on 'exporting' graduates:
"Foreign-born students studying in our universities have the potential to make significant contributions to our future economic growth if they could stay and work in the U.S. after they graduate. Exporting this talent to other countries is not in our economic interest." (from White House paper on immigration policy, underlining added)
The administration would do better to fall back on the ideology of multiculturalism, as such, than to attempt this inane justification by way of self-contradictory corporate globalist thinking.
Why NOT export graduates? 'Exporting' graduates who come here to buy valuable training would just mean that U.S. universities result in a PLUS for our balance of trade! Isn't that the whole point of corporate globalism? -- to accomplish a trade balance? Isn't that what the corporate globalists have always promised, since their NAFTA campaign to the present day?
The quote is from the administration's official paper on immigration, at a section titled "Immigrants are job creators" of a PDF titled "Building a 21st Century Immigration System" (at p. 11). This is available from the White House at --
White House webpage on immigration policy
With a quote like this, a Ross Perot (if we had a Ross Perot) could kick butt in a presidential debate or in a Perot-style infomercial (which Perot funded from his personal funds)! It's like this: the U.S. is currently exporting the last of our high-grade coal (the kind needed for steel production) to China, proclaiming that as a great example of the success of corporate globalism. But we should not ever think of our higher educational system as a successful export industry? Why not?
The justifications for immigration legislation that favors special money interests (basically MNCs and other global operators) seems to always be in terms of "our economic interest" or "the national interest". Explanations end there. Well, it's an official government statement on 'the national interest'! We can't question that?
I have come to hold my nose whenever I read an official statement about "our" economic or "national" interest
The White House paper, BTW, is a very good presentation of the pro-immigration multiculturalist position, if anyone wants to see that.
I am curious about something: can anyone point to just one national political figure who stands for popular election anywhere in the world, other than Barack Obama, who is an avowed pro-immigration multiculturalist? I doubt it.
These problems are national but also global. The basic phenomena are continued high global population growth rates and related population flows, unregulated capital flows and casino capitalism, institutionalized cyclic industrial relocation, resource depletion, endemic socio-economic instability, apparent failure in human terms of the corporate globalist world system, and, political corruption associated with lack of confidence in democratic processes and institutions.
How many times?
First the New York Central was given all kinds of goodies to assure investors of phenomenal returns.
Then they were allowed to set rates according to "what the market can bear."
Also, they were always something of a monopoly, especially at first.
Then the chief operators schemed and scammed and printed up stock certificates ... until the railroad went broke.
Then it was bailed out.
Then it went broke again.
Then it was bailed out again.
We lose count of the bail-outs.
How much will we have to pay private investors to take over the operation of Amtrak?
And how many more times will we have to pay some private interest to continue to operate it?
All subsidies are evil, but subsidies paid to private interests are okay?
It sure sounds like they will be fire sales. Watch the video where it goes round and round about Greek Bureaucracy being the "big woe" in terms of "private investors"...
but then, look at that beach. World famous, astounding beaches in Greece, and if they end up being private beaches, that says everything.
Wouldn't surprise me, but we'll see.
As it stands the report shows they get jack for the price and it will cost Greek citizens much more in the long run, just like the Indiana toll road in the U.S.
Naked Capitalism picked up on this post and found even more fire sale items, link to NC's post.
Folks, remember we have this going on in the U.S. The most infamous is the Indiana toll road, getting less, costing more, all per the demands of corporations, this selling off of public works taxpayers already paid for.
Kind of like you build it, they profit from it and you pay for it every time.
Here are some questions to consider as this unfolds.
Are the assets sold at a big discount?
Who buys what and who is behind those buying?
Will a connection unfold between the purchasers of Greek public assets and those who contributed to the crisis?
This is what happhappened in Egypt in the decade prior to the peoples rebellion - privatization, massive unemployment, suppression of the people by police.
The Money Party has it's game plan down. They won't given an inch and they're out to crush everyone (as irrational as that seems). They are the new nihilists.
Here are some questions to consider as this unfolds.
Are the assets sold at a big discount?
Who buys what and who is behind those buying?
Will a connection unfold between the purchasers of Greek public assets and those who contributed to the crisis?
This is what happened in Egypt in the decade prior to the peoples rebellion - privatization, massive unemployment, suppression of the people by police.
The Money Party has it's game plan down. They won't given an inch and they're out to crush everyone (as irrational as that seems). They are the new nihilists.
We'll be sure to feature the next segments in the Economic funnies round up. I put this together almost every week and you had me rolling on the floor, as well as being reasonably accurate.
When we get into things like LBOs, fractional lending, derivatives, it's easy to get it wrong out there.
Wonderful stuff, we LOVE IT!
Folks, they have a youtube channel. Next one in the series I'll link to their channel.
You remember detassling corn? Wow! Me too.
First actual paycheck I ever got. I was 15 years old, and rich beyond anything I had ever imagined at something like 50¢/hour. Great Iowa kids to work with!
Detassling corn was hot, but it didn't seem like hard work to me. Later, in California, I worked short hoe with a Californio Chicano crew. Now, THAT was hard work! Great guys to work with there too! (Short hoe was later outlawed in California and probably elsewhere.)
Teenagers and even college students working in agriculture? Yes! It was once and it could be again. Nothing wrong with it!
THIS WAS JUST PART 1 of an 8-PART SERIES.
UPCOMING SEGMENTS in the comedic documentary "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Bank?: An Uncensored Investigation of the U.S. Federal Reserve" --with Bait and Switch TV's Expert Interviews & Comedian Correspondents:
o History of the Federal Reserve & Fractional Lending
o The Fed, Shadow Banking & Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs)
o Federal Reserve, BIS, IMF & Global Investment Banks
o Government Sachs, Futures, Front-Running & the Fed
o The Fed, Discounts, Derivatives & Re-emerging Cap&Trade
o End the Fed? Meh! It's Never Gonna Happen
o WHAT TO DO: TAKING BACK THE MONETARY SYSTEM -- The Fed VERSUS State-Owned Public Banks
The problem with every single one of these agendas, which I might note, they push over doing anything for the U.S. middle class, if one pays attention...
is they put it all with examples of people who really should be legalized, given a green card and then hide the fact the bills have so many loopholes it will increase illegal flows exponentially.
the real agenda is to have unlimited migration, purely for the purposes of repressing wages, labor.
While everytime any of these reduced immigration groups are referenced, immediately one will hear how they are a bunch of racist xenophobes, yada yada, but CIS, well, their research techniques sure seem more solid than AEI or the Hertitage foundation, which is some serious spin often.
So, I take each report, paper whatever individually on these things but I have to agree, NumbersUSA is probably the most labor reality focused on the lot.
I just thought this article was so amusing because we have tons of "top 10 places to live", "10 top employers" and all of these things going so it's almost a parody of other economic reports.
But the info contained within the article is accurate. California is so out of bounds with their massive budget crisis, I think that's where the economic realities of no immigration enforcement really hits home.
Right now we have all sorts of articles claiming Georgia and Alabama cannot find farm workers to pick the harvests. OMG they might have to offer those as summer jobs to teenagers! OMG!
(anyone detassle corn as a teenager, hard as hell, hot, nasty, tough, but it paid usually 3x what you could get working at McDonalds to teenagers).
They have to buy up U.S. Treasuries in order to peg the Yuan. Without it they have runaway inflation due to currency manipulation. Some details here.
Then by meta tag China.
Seems we need another page which has key critical posts which goes into some of these details at the ready.
I don't think most people understand the mechanisms of currency manipulation and why China has to buy U.S. debt in order to do it.
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