Batman Begins

2006-03-01

2006-03-01
_Dice_
Dice Report: 83,381 job ads

2006-02-28 21:30PST (2006-03-01 00:30EST) (2006-03-01 05:30GMT)
_CNN_/_IBN_
Indian government cuts back tech subsidies
"Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has dropped enough hints that the days of low taxes and subsidies are over for the infotech sector, now that India's IT industry has emerged on top of the world order.   The Budget has imposed an 8% excise duty on packaged software sold over the counter, and a 12% excise duty on personal computers.   However, local PC manufacturers can offset the duty on components by claiming Cenvat credit.   It is the 8% excise duty on packaged software that has not gone down well with the IT sector.   The Budget has also increased service tax and broadens the net to cover some previously-excluded IT-related services, which will not only raise costs, but also act as a deterrent to out-sourcing work to SMEs"

2006-02-28 21:30PST (2006-03-01 00:30EST) (2006-03-01 05:30GMT)
Parul Malhotra _CNN_/_IBN_
20 CEOs meeting with GWBush in India
"Twenty top CEOs are getting ready for their date with President George Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.   The forum, headed by Ratan Tata and Bill Harrison of JP Morgan Chase, will submit a report outlining concrete proposals to boost trade and investment.   From GE and Motorola to Levi's and McDonalds, American companies are vying for the Indian wallet in the great Indian bazaar.   But some believe its time to focus on the Indian brain and the American wallet.   The CEOs want the cap on H-1B visas, utilised by IT professionals, engineers and scientists to go.   But Bush has been unable to convince the Congress on this one.   They will also push Bush to relax stringent US rules on imports of commodities like mangoes and shrimps and the President is expected to respond positively.   India Inc. will also push for transfer of technologies of special importance for the defence and farm sectors while their US counterparts will want to see the retail, insurance and banking sectors opened up...   President, CEO and Managing Director of Infosys Nandan Nilekani says: 'The extraordinary warmth between the Indians and US side shown by all the delegates and by the President and PM.   So it was really good warmth between two countries.'   American companies have out-sourced about a million American jobs to India."

2006-03-01
Casey Newton _Arizona Republic_
State senate committee recommended doubling expenditures on National Guard posted at the border
Arizona Daily Star
"The Appropriations Committee voted 7-4 Tuesday to recommend approval of House Bill 2701.   As passed by the House last month, the measure would appropriate $5M from the state General Fund to the Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to mobilize the Guard.   Some law-makers have lobbied for troops at the border since the governor declared a state of emergency there last year in response to increased illegal immigration."

2006-03-01
Nirmala George _AP_/_Yahoo!_
Thousands of Indians Protest GWBush Visit

2006-03-01
Alan Tonelson _American Economic Alert_
Is Reality on Trade & Jobs Finally Penetrating the Federal Reserve?
"in a recent appearance before the House Financial Services Committee, Bernanke made some comments about globalization's emerging fall-out that would have been surprising coming from most globalization critics, much less a king-pin of the global economic policy establishment.   In particular, Bernanke challenged two major myths about globalization spread energetically by its cheer-leaders generally, and by Greenspan specifically.   The first is that trade deficits are at worst harmless and at best reflections of an American economy so strong that it can attract the foreign capital needed to enable its citizens to over-consume.   The second is that the biggest problem in U.S. labor markets is a shortage of skilled workers that will increasingly ham-string national competitiveness.   To be technically accurate, Greenspan did take to calling the trade and broader current account deficits (the latter also includes certain investment-related flows) 'unsustainable'...
Bernanke also spoke with unusual precision about the costs of not reducing the deficit, acknowledging that 'over a period of time, we will be building up a foreign debt to other countries which, all else equal, lowers national wealth and lowers our ability to consume in the future.'   Now would be an opportune time for Members of Congress to ask Bernanke and Bush administration officials whether these costs aren't already being felt.   After all, the United States has run a current account deficit every year since 1983, and the gap hit 6.2% of the national economy as of the third quarter of 2005.   (Full 2005 figures will be released March 14.)
The current surge in the current account deficit began in 1991, when it stood well below 1% of gross domestic product.   Does this 22-year stretch qualify as 'a period of time'?   And if not, how long would Bernanke counsel tempting fate and waiting for a current account crisis to actually hit?...
At one point, Bernanke endorsed part of the labor shortage myth, agreeing that 'the most important factor [behind rising income inequality in America] is... the rising skill premium, the increased return to education'.   But when asked about the need for American schools to turn out many more scientists and engineers, Bernanke brought the committee back down to earth.   He suggested that many of the S&T graduates of the third world simply don't get the same quality of education as their U.S. counterparts.   He also went on to offer an insight already clear to any serious labor market analyst, but that has almost completely escaped official Washington: '[S]imply producing more scientists and engineers may not be the answer because the labor market for those workers will simply reflect lower wages and perhaps greater unemployment for those workers.   Currently, there's not an obvious shortage of scientists and engineers in terms of the labor market indicators; that is, wages for engineers are not rising more rapidly than other professionals.'   Having pointed out the painfully obvious -- that sectors with sluggish wage performances by definition can't be suffering labor shortages, the new Fed Chairman concluded with an equally rare and valuable piece of advice: Government should focus on producing 'a demand side that strengthens the market, that therefore brings in people into science and engineering because there are opportunities there, not simply creating a bigger supply which will then compete with each other and drive down the wages in that category.'...
Why has all the hype about emerging markets and all the new consumers they're supposed to be generating not produced that commensurate rise in the demand side for scientists and engineers to which Bernanke just referred?   Given that Washington clearly doesn't understand the relationship between expanding trade and commerce with these emerging market countries, OT1H, and this critical labor market, OTOH, shouldn't we re-think this trade expansion policy?   If these expanding trade relationships have not boosted demand for scientists and engineers and all the wonders they can create, isn't it true that instead Corporate America has been using these new trade arrangements to replace high-wage U.S. scientists with low-wage third world scientists?   Isn't this mainly why wages in these fields are going nowhere?"

2006-03-01 06:15PST (09:15EST) (14:15GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Inflation eats up most income gains
"U.S. personal incomes rose 0.7% in January, but higher inflation eroded most of the gains, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday.   Consumer inflation increased 0.5% in January on higher energy costs.   Core inflation, which strips out food and energy costs to give a better view of underlying inflation pressures, increased 0.2%.   Core inflation has risen 1.8% in the past 12 months, down from 1.9% in December and just below the 2% lid the Federal Reserve would like to keep on core inflation.   It's the lowest year-over-year core inflation since 2004 March.   Real disposable incomes -- after inflation and after taxes -- increased 0.1% in January, the weakest gain since August.   Real disposable incomes are up 2.2% in the past 12 months.   Real consumer spending -- adjusted for inflation -- increased 0.4% in January, the weakest growth since October."
BEA press releases

2006-03-01
_Sify_
Convergys to expand operations in India
"Convergys Corporation, the $2.5G technology and call centre services provider, is in the process of expanding both its telecom software..."

2006-03-01 07:54PST (10:54EST) (15:54GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
ISM factory index rose from 54.8% in January to 56.7% in February: First gain after 3 declines
ISM report

2006-03-01 09:37PST (12:37EST) (17:37GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
US average home prices up 13% since a year ago

2006-03-01
Edwin Meese III & Matthew Spalding _Heritage Foundation_
Permanent Principles & Temporary Workers

2006-03-01
_National Review_
The Spectre of the Specter Bill
"It starts out well, with long-over due enforcement measures...   But it goes downhill from there.   Specter's proposal would amnesty the 10M or so illegal aliens who were here before 2004 January 4, and their spouses and children -- dwarfing the 1986 amnesty that granted legal status to some 3M people.   Unlike the 1986 measure, the recipients of this amnesty would not automatically be put on a path to citizenship (i.e., would not be given green cards), but would instead remain in the United States for the rest of their lives as non-citizens -- a permanent under-class.   What's more, the Specter bill would establish a program to admit foreign workers into any occupation anywhere in the United States as long as no American was willing to take the job at the offered wage.   There is no limit on the number of workers who would be allowed to enter in this fashion, and they would get to bring their families.   The term of their visa would be a maximum of 6 years, after which they would be expected to leave the country for at least one year.   The bargain of swapping amnesty for promises of future enforcement is the same bait-and-switch as in 1986, when amnesty was traded for a first-ever ban on hiring illegal aliens.   But the ban was barely enforced, and once all the illegals were legalized it was effectively abandoned by the Clinton administration.   Today, it is still ignored.   Why should we expect things to be any different this time?   Furthermore, the amnesty and temporary-worker provisions of Specter's bill are unmanageable."
Frist's S2454
Hagel's S2612
Sensenbrenner's HR4437
Specter's S2611

2006-03-01
Tom Knudson _Sacramento Bee_
Contractors rip rivals for treatment of pineros
"On the eve of a Senate hearing about the abuse of Latino forest workers on U.S. Forest Service land, some of the strongest calls for reform are coming from those who know the business best: the forest contractors themselves.   These contractors -- who hire workers and compete for forest maintenance jobs from Georgia to Alaska -- blame problems in their industry on a few bad actors empowered by bureaucratic neglect and a low-bid government contracting system.   'Unsafe working practices.   Undocumented workers.   Atrocious living conditions.', said Eric Helpenstell, director of operations for Pacific Wildfire, an Idaho firm.   'It's hard to compete with that.'...   Contracting out forest work on the cheap 'promotes the abuse of this kind of labor', said Mike Wheelock, owner of Grayback Forestry, a veteran forest contractor in Oregon.   Companies 'charge (workers) for food and housing.   They pay under the table.   They manipulate the hours.'   even those 10K or so pineros who labor legally in the U.S. as so-called guest workers are vulnerable.   Over the past decade, they have been shorted hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages, federal records show.   Many violations also go unreported because workers won't speak up.   For them, making less than the legal wage of about $15 an hour for forest labor on government contracts 'is better than making $8 a day in their homeland', said Wills, the California contractor.   'That's the problem; that's the exploitation.'   Contractors say there is a solution: Require that pay-rolls be inspected and certified as accurate."

2006-03-01
Ed Feulner _Chicago Sun-Times_
USA Needs a Better Policy on Immigration
"In the past, new Americans were welcomed with a solemn ceremony that matched the commitment they were making to their adopted homeland.   But today's new citizens have no such uplifting experience...   they're not required to show much knowledge of English...   too many people don't even go that far.   Millions of foreigners are living here today with no expectation of ever becoming citizens.   They're illegal immigrants.   It's impossible to know exactly how many people are here illegally.   But the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based research group, estimates the United States hosted 10.3M illegal immigrants in 2004, up from an estimated 8.4M four years earlier.   [Other reasonable estimates reach as high as 24M.]   That's an awful lot of people doing all they can to avoid the American melting pot...   Employers are already required to collect Social Security numbers from everyone they hire and to withhold state and federal taxes from everyone's wages.   The federal government could start addressing the problem by cracking down on employers who hire illegals."

2006-03-01
_WLTX_
Suspected Gang Members, Illegal Aliens Detained
"Seven suspected gang members are in custody and face deportation after they were arrested in Orangeburg this week.   Law enforcement officials in Orangeburg say the 7 are associated with one of the most violent gangs in this country - Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)."

2006-03-01
_KWTX_
Senate Committee Holding Hearings on Border Violence
CNN
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Washington Times
Senate Judiciary Committee
"A South Texas rancher and a sheriff were among the witnesses who testified Wednesday during a U.S. Senate committee hearing on violence along the Mexican border.   The hearing before the Senate Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee, chaired by senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, focused on the increasing crime and violence along the border, assaults on federal agents and the efficacy of physical barriers in providing border security...   'When [over] a million illegal aliens can come across our border each year, it's no wonder criminals and drug traffickers believe they are above the law.   Unless and until Congress addresses the immigration problem across the board, we will continue to experience an unacceptable level of violence along the border.'"

2006-03-01 11:18PST (14:18EST) (19:18GMT)
Mark LaPedus _EE Times_/_CMP_
4 Hynix executives face prison & fines for DRAM price fixing

2006-03-01 13:39PST (16:39EST) (21:39GMT)
Michael Paige _MarketWatch_
Body shop BEA Systems bought Fuego for its "business process" software products

2006-03-01

DJIA	11,053.53
S&P 500	1,291.24
NASDAQ	2,314.64
10-year US T-Bond	4.59%
crude oil	61.97

I usually get this info from MarketWatch ("Futures Movers").
 
 

2006-03-02

2006-03-01 18:34PST (2006-03-01 20:34EST) (2006-03-02 00:34GMT)
Peter Svensson _AP_/_Yahoo!_
Advance in Privacy Protection Technology Facilitates Calling Line Identification Spoofing, but AP and the feral government would apparently prefer to smear privacy advocates than respect it
"The calls, which the Pennsylvania Republican estimated in the thousands, were apparently placed with fake Caller ID.   That has been possible for a long time, but it generally required special hardware and technical savvy.   In the last few years, [Calling Line Identification] spoofing has become much easier.   Millions of people have Internet telephone equipment that can be set to make any number appear on a [Calling Line Identification privacy violating] system.   And several Web sites have sprung up to provide [Calling Line Identification] spoofing services, eliminating the need for any special hardware.   For instance, Spoofcard.com sells a virtual "calling card" for $10 that provides 60 minutes of talk time.   The user dials a toll-free number, then keys in the destination number and the [Calling Line Identification] number to display...   Telephone companies can trace calls to their origin regardless of the [Calling Line Identification] information they carry, but the process is laborious, especially since a call may be carried by several companies before reaching its destination.   The fragmented nature of the telephone network also makes it technically difficult for the carriers to prevent spoofing."
Privacy links

2006-03-02 04:54PST (07:54EST) (12:54GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Globe & Mail
Reuters
Composite: "Planned lay-offs by U.S. corporations dropped 15.5% in February to 87,437, compared with 103,466 in January, the lowest level since October, according to a monthly tally compiled by out-placement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas released Thursday.   Planned job cuts were down 19% from a year ago.   Overall in 2006, U.S. employers have announced 190,903 job cuts, 4.9% lower than the 200,738 cuts in the first 2 months of 2005.   Lay-offs had increased in each of the 4 final months of 2005 before falling in January and February...   In February, the food industries announced 18,060 job reductions, while governments and non-profits said they'd cut 15,100 positions.   Employers in the government and automotive sectors, which saw the heaviest job cutting in 2005, have continued to eliminate workers at a high rate in 2006, Challenger said in a statement.   The 68,990 job cuts announced by these 2 sectors alone this year account for 36% of all down-sizing in 2006.   In the most recent government data, 1.55M lay-offs and discharges were reported in December."

2006-03-02 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 271,543 in the week ending Feb. 25, an increase of 1,661 from the previous week.   There were 290,776 initial claims in the comparable week in 2005.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.3% during the week ending Feb. 18, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,916,492, a decrease of 101,373 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 2.4% and the volume was 3,096,036."

Date	Initial Claims		Continued Claims		Insured Unemployment Rate		Covered Employment
		Seasonally Adjusted		Seasonally Adjusted		Seasonally Adjusted
1998-02-21	313,367	327,000	2,722,595	2,208,000	2.3	1.9	117,629,445
1998-02-28	313,480	317,000	2,721,428	2,209,000	2.3	1.9	117,629,445
1999-02-20	286,130	302,000	2,764,594	2,237,000	2.3	1.9	120,868,620
1999-02-27	297,918	301,000	2,724,709	2,219,000	2.3	1.8	120,868,620
2000-02-19	281,256	281,000	2,520,055	2,130,000	2.0	1.7	123,830,071
2000-02-26	258,962	279,000	2,629,550	2,157,000	2.1	1.7	123,830,071
2001-02-17	345,841	356,000	3,003,753	2,511,000	2.4	2.0	126,843,537
2001-02-24	357,591	382,000	3,016,843	2,506,000	2.4	2.0	126,843,537
2002-02-16	376,573	393,000	4,270,421	3,568,000	3.3	2.8	128,673,493
2002-02-23	367,504	392,000	4,234,460	3,543,000	3.3	2.8	128,673,493
2003-02-15	398,291	418,000	4,089,902	3,423,000	3.2	2.7	126,949,730
2003-02-22	387,536	414,000	4,192,955	3,515,000	3.3	2.8	126,949,730
2004-02-21	328,171	351,000	3,738,056	3,118,000	3.0	2.5	126,250,343
2004-02-28	342,140	348,000	3,674,294	3,062,000	2.9	2.4	126,250,343
2005-02-19	303,814	309,000	3,096,036	2,667,000	2.4	2.1	126,641,867
2005-02-26	290,776	316,000	3,226,999	2,696,000	2.5	2.1	126,641,867

graphs

2006-03-02
George W. Bush _White House_
I think we should destroy employment prospects for US citizens in the fields of science and engineering by worsening the already disastrous flood of cheap foreign labor
Yahoo!
"I think we ought to expand H1B visas for Indian scientists and engineers and physicists and people in our country."

2006-03-02 09:03PST (12:03EST) (17:03GMT)
Jennifer Waters _MarketWatch_
February same-store retail sales up about 3%
"The country's largest chain stores turned in a cumulative 3.2% rise in same-store sales, a key industry measure of receipts rung up at stores open longer than a year, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.   At Thomson First Call, the total results came in 3% higher."

2006-03-02
Laurie Kellman _San Jose Mercury News_
Senate has amended UnPatriotic Act, clearing way for renewal
Boston Globe
USA Today
"The House is expected to pass the legislation Tuesday...   The White House and GOP leaders finally broke the stalemate by crafting a second measure -- in effect an amendment to the first -- that would somewhat limit the government's power to compel information from people targeted in terror probes.   That second measure passed overwhelmingly earlier in the day, 95-4.   Voting 'no' with Feingold were senators Jim Jeffords, I-VT, Tom Harkin, D-IA, and Robert C. Byrd, D-WV.   The second measure added new protections to the 2001 anti-terror law in 3 areas.   It would: Give recipients of court-approved subpoenas for information in terrorism investigations the right to challenge a requirement that they refrain from telling anyone.   Eliminate a requirement that an individual provide the FBI with the name of a lawyer consulted about a National Security Letter, which is a demand for records issued by investigators.   Clarify that most libraries are not subject to demands in those letters for information about terrorism suspects.   Feingold and his allies complained that the restrictions on government power would be virtually meaningless in practice..."

2006-03-02 10:17PST (13:17EST) (18:17GMT)
Indrajit Basu _UPI_
Indian IT executives divided over changes in government subsidies
"A day after the local IT hardware industry uncorked the bubbly for receiving unprecedented sops from the Indian 2006 Budget that gave local manufacturing a fillip, it appears that it would have the spend the next few months fighting none other than its own brethren and peers -- the local software industry and the foreign hardware makers.   The Indian budget it appears has vertically split the country's IT industry by bringing in a rift between not only its hardware and the software sectors, but also between the local and foreign hardware makers.   And more importantly it has brought its two main industry lobbies, the National Association of Software Services Companies (NASSCOM) and the Manufacturing Associations of Information technology (MAIT or the hardware lobby) at loggerheads.   Bowing to pressure from local hardware manufacturers, India's finance minister brought back the 12% excise duty that was removed in earlier years, while allowing input tax credit to local manufacturers to enable them to face competition from imports.   The budget also removed a 16% excise duty on components like DVD drives, flash drives and combo drives to 'bring down the prices of these entertainment and storage devices'.   Earlier, while fully built computers were exempted from the excise duty, a 16% excise duty was levied on the input components, as a result of which the manufacturers were unable to offset the taxes on their input components.   This discouraged local sourcing from the up-stream industry...   But while the budget provided these sops to the hardware industry for the first time ever, it also dealt a blow to the software industry by imposing 8% excise duty on packaged software and bringing the so far exempted IT-enabled services, or the back office out-sourcing services sector under the services taxes fold thereby imposing a 10.2% services tax on the sector...   Meanwhile, there seems to be at least one area where all in the Indian IT industry is united at the moment.   Reportedly, the industry is planning to take advantage of the 3-day visit of George Bush that started Thursday to raise a few issues like the cap on H-1B visas and social security tax imposed on Indian companies and professionals in the U.S. for a resolution in Indian IT's favor."

2006-03-02
Jacques Billeaud _San Diego Union-Tribune_/_AP_
Arizona governor Napolitano ready to spend state money to put National Guard on border
Salt Lake Tribune
News Max
Santa Fe Free New Mexican
Arizona Daily Star
"Under pressure from state law-makers, governor Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that she is now willing to consider spending state tax dollars to expand the presence of the National Guard along the border...   Arizona is the nation's busiest illegal entry point, and the state feels the federal government is not doing enough to stop it.   Napolitano has proposed expanding the National Guard's border presence from its current role in helping in anti-drug efforts to performing other duties to give federal agents more time to catch illegal border-crossers.   Proponents say the National Guard's assistance in federal immigration efforts could help reduce border-related crime and make it more difficult for the tens of thousands of people who try to cross into Arizona illegally each year...   Even though immigrants provide the economy with cheap labor, Arizona and other border states shoulder huge health care and education costs for illegal immigrants and their families...   Arizona already has about 170 National Guard troops at the border assisting federal and state officers with communications, fence construction and anti-drug efforts.   Napolitano now wants an unspecified number of additional troops to work at crossing points, assist with cargo inspection and operate cameras and mobile observation points so they can report suspicious activity...   Law-makers are considering a proposal to require Napolitano to send troops to the border and provide $10M state money for the effort.   Napolitano said the proposal, which has already cleared half of the Legislature, would intrude on her authority to command the Arizona National Guard.   Republican senator Ron Gould of Lake Havasu City said the governor is trying to paper over her weak record on immigration."

2006-03-02
Frosty Wooldridge _American Daily_
'Massachusetts militia stopped the British invasion...
"...but it sold out to an invasion of illegal aliens.', said Joe Rizoli of Concerned Friends & Citizens of Illegal Immigration Law Enforcement.   If you think illegal aliens stay in the Southwest, think again.   If you think Phoenix with 57K cars stolen annually by illegal aliens is an isolated problem, think again.   If you think the 7K illegal aliens housed in Colorado prisons are that state's problem, think again.   If you think the rapes, killings, drunks, over-run schools and anchor babies don't happen in your state, think again.   'My town of Framingham has a population of 67K.', Rizoli said.   'The most recent official count is that there are 20,329 Brazilians living in Framingham; most are illegal.   Many take advantage of local social services and their children over-burden our schools and other public institutions, all of which seem to be more than happy to serve their needs.   This creates a heavy tax burden on the average home-owner forcing them to sell their homes and move out of town..."

2006-03-02
Joe Korpics _Allentown Morning Call_
Take a closer look at impact of illegal aliens
"The reason some politicians don't want to secure our borders and want to keep illegal aliens here is to lower the wages of middle-class working people.   To compete against illegal aliens, we'll have no choice, and that's what some politicians want! The $10 to $20 middle class jobs will be gone forever.   Politicians say that illegal aliens are here to do the jobs that American people do not want.   Well, let's look into that.   Many companies undermine American workers by hiring cheap labor in the form of illegal aliens, and this is going on right now.   In Dallas, a school wants to hire illegal aliens because of what they say is a teacher shortage.   Soon illegal aliens will be postal workers; school, state, city and federal grounds-keepers; janitorial workers; security guards; truck and bus drivers.   You know, all the jobs that American workers don't want to do!   I feel sorry for all of the legal immigrants who went through all the proper channels to become citizens.   I want all illegal aliens deported and no amnesty."

2006-03-02
Bob Kemper _Oxford Press_
Illegal Immigration Disagreements Numerous
"There is little consensus in this election year about what action Congress may take.   But the pressure to do something is growing among constituents in the nation's politically influential suburbs and exurbs -- particularly in the Southeast...   Now, the issue is becoming a national one.   Some Georgia congressmen represent suburban counties that have seen the Hispanic populations -- including a large contingent of illegal immigrants -- surge 200% to 300% since 1990.   They say they are regularly inundated with complaints about the pressures illegal immigrants are placing on local schools, jails, hospital emergency rooms and public services...   About 40 governors in Washington this week for a National Governors Association meeting called on Congress and the White House to act on illegal immigration...   Deborah Meyers of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington said that the dispersion of illegal immigrants to areas unused to dealing with them is driving up voter anxiety that gives Congress a potent incentive to act.   'There's a perception -- a legitimate perception -- that the system is out of control.', she said.   'And it is out of control.'...   The House, with the unanimous support of Georgia's Republican delegation as well as Democrats Jim Marshall and John Barrow, passed a bill in December focused on increasing border security, including building walls along the border and requiring employers to verify the residency status of all employees.   Representative Charlie Norwood, a Georgia Republican, is calling for 36K to 48K U.S. troops or National Guard members to be dispatched immediately to secure the border.   Bush's immigration plans and many of the reform plans being weighed in Congress would take up to four years to fully implement, allowing 1M illegal immigrants a year to enter the United States, he said.   'We are by default agreeing to allow an additional 4M illegal aliens into our country, the equivalent of the entire population of South Carolina.', Norwood said.   'Think about that.   We're being asked to add a 51st state, populated entirely by low-income illegal aliens.'   Representative Nathan Deal, a Georgia Republican, tried unsuccessfully to include in the House bill a provision that would prevent U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants from automatically becoming U.S. citizens.   In the Senate, Isakson and senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), among many others, have called for tighter border controls.   However, Chambliss, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, also wants to establish [yet another] guest-worker program that would ensure that American farms have access to [vast numbers of] seasonal migrant workers."

2006-03-02
Barbara Anderson _New Media Journal_
Illegal Immigration: When ID Doesn't Necessarily Mean Identification
"In many parts of the United States the Mexican Consulate Offices have set up traveling posts to distribute the Matricula Consular 'ID' cards.   At least 47 of the consulate offices exist in the U.S.A. and have issued several million of the cards.   A Mexican birth certificate (not legally recognized as ID here) and thirty dollars is all it takes to get a card.   Since there are an estimated 12M to 20M (Bear Stearns last estimate) illegal aliens in the U.S.A., it would seem to be a lucrative income producing endeavor for the consulates.   However, the Mexican government is not the only one making money from them.   The cards are easy to get.   Fake ID is often used to get them.   D.A. King, activist in Georgia, says he has 3 of them himself, though he is not Hispanic and does not even look Hispanic.   There are millions using them to get drivers' licenses, welfare benefits, sign up to vote, do banking, and transmit $20G dollars a year back to Mexico to support that economy instead of our own.   Companies such as Wells Fargo and Western Union have been counting these millions of customers with satisfaction, seeming to care only about their bottom lines.   Some of the lending institutions, sensing a large market, have arranged for loans for the illegal aliens, even using our government backed institutions.   The only people needing these IDs are those who are here illegally..."

2006-03-02
Jim Gilchrist _Renew America_
Cardinal Roger Mahoney's statements on illegal immigration were irresponsible
"As a Catholic, it troubles me to have to say that Cardinal Mahony is just flat wrong.   First of all, he seems to not understand the difference between legal immigration and illegal immigration.   It is illegal immigration that is costing us $10G a year -- not legal immigration...   It discredits the church and brings shame to parishioners to say we are not going to follow the laws of the United States -- the most accepting nation on earth.   What would happen if every church decided to only follow the laws with which they agreed?   Those hit hardest by illegal immigration are the poor who are squeezed from the job market.   Meanwhile, the middle class see their tax burden skyrocket to pay for education and healthcare for illegal immigrants.   It is the church's flock that has to foot the bill and they are unlikely to be receptive to paying higher taxes to satisfy Cardinal Mahony's political agenda...   It is emphatically not 'hysterical' to want to stop the flow of drugs streaming across our borders, not to mention ending the murders and rapes which are a regular occurrence -- and it is irresponsible to suggest it is...   The Catholic Church is a worldwide institution.   If this were only about helping the needy as the Cardinal claims, that could just as easily be done in any of the other of the dozens of nations illegal aliens come to America from."

2006-03-02
Nick Mayfield _Jackson Clarion Ledger_
Illegal immigration threatening tax-victims' wallets and security
"State Auditor Phil Bryant's report on the economic impact of illegal immigrants was on the front page of The Clarion-Ledger ('Illegal aliens cost state $25M', 2006 Feb. 25).   Illegal immigrants are costing us [tax-victims] approximately $25M annually for health care, education and prison costs.   The gross amount is actually low, given the estimate by the auditor of 49K immigrants currently in our state; the number is actually much higher in all likelihood."

2006-03-02 14:22PST (17:22EST) (22:22GMT)
Laurie Kellman _AP_/_Yahoo!_
Full US Senate approved modified UnPatriotic Act extension
"The Senate on Thursday gave its blessing to the renewal of the USA Patriot Act after adding new privacy protections designed to strike a better balance between civil liberties and the government's power to root out terrorists.   The 89-10 vote...   The House was expected to approve the 2-bill package next week and send it to the president, who would sign it before 16 provisions expire March 10...   Critics held their ground...   modest new curbs on the government's power to probe library, bank and other records.   Feingold insisted those new protections are cosmetic.   'Americans want to defeat terrorism and they want the basic character of this country to survive and prosper.', he said.   'They want both security and liberty, and unless we give them both -- and we can if we try -- we have failed.'   Some law-makers who voted for the package acknowledged deep reservations about the power it would grant to any president...   After prolonged negotiations produced a House-Senate compromise, Specter urged his colleagues to pass it even as he promised to introduce a new measure and hold hearings on how to fix it."
Frist's S2454
Hagel's S2612
Sensenbrenner's HR4437
Specter's S2611

2006-03-02
Bryanna Bevens _V Dare_
Guest-Worker Amnesty Pushes GOP To the Brink
"Reports reaching California from the Imperial Capital on the Potomac indicate that the Senate finally began work today (March 2) on an immigration bill to answer the flawed but fairly tough border security bill that the House passed last year [HR4437]...   [California is now] a state where it was recently reported that one-fifth of high school seniors don't speak English well enough to graduate -- and don't see why they should...   Rosemary Jenks, the Director of Government Relations for Numbers USA, strikes me as one of the few people in Washington with a finger on the real pulse of the electorate.   She thinks a guest-worker bill may well pass the Senate: 'The bottom line is that House Republicans understand that the public does not want amnesty, and that they do not support the importation of more foreign workers.  The Senate, as usual, is clueless as to public feeling on this issue...   I absolutely believe that passage of a guest worker/amnesty program (and any guest worker program the Senate passes will be an amnesty because it will allow current illegal aliens to apply for work permits, whether or not they are allowed to stay permanently -- which, of course, they will do regardless of what the law says) will fire up the grass-roots and have a major impact on the November elections.'"

2006-03-02
_Free Market News Network_
Harry Browne died at home Wednesday night from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease)
National Review
Lew Rockwell
PR News Wire
Hammer of Truth
Reason
Yahoo!
Ludwig von Mises Institute
"How sad to hear the news that Harry Browne (b: 1933-06-17), author and long-time spokesman for libertarian causes, died yesterday, 2006-03-01."

2006-03-02

DJIA	11,025.11
S&P 500	1,289.14
NASDAQ	2,311.11
10-year US T-Bond	4.64%
crude oil	63.36

I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
 
 

2006-03-03

2006-03-03 07:17PST (10:17EST) (15:17GMT)<
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
ISM services index up from 56.8 in January to 60.1 in February
ISM report

2006-03-03
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
Meet the Senate Judiciary Committee -- Your Fate Is In Its Hands Right Now

2006-03-03
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
Data Show America's Economic Growth Has Benefitted Immigrants and Out-Sourcers
printer-friendly version
"If the job growth of the past half-decade is a guide, the forecast of 19M new jobs is optimistic, to say the least.   According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics pay-roll jobs data, from 2001 January to 2006 January the US economy created 1.054M net new private sector jobs and 1.039M net new government jobs for a total 5-year figure of 2.093M.   How does the US Department of Labor get from 2M jobs in 5 years to 19M in 10 years?...
there is abundant evidence of the lost American jobs.   Information technology workers and computer software engineers have been especially heavily hit by off-shore jobs out-sourcing.   During the past 5 years (2001 January to 2006 January), the information sector of the US economy lost 645K jobs or 17.4% of its work force.   Computer systems design and related lost 116K jobs or 8.7% of its work force.   Clearly, jobs out-sourcing is not creating jobs in computer engineering and information technology.
Indeed, jobs out-sourcing is not even creating jobs in related fields.   For the past 5 years US job growth was limited to these 4 areas: education and health services, state and local government, leisure and hospitality, financial services.   There was no US job growth outside these 4 areas of domestic non-tradable services...   Oracle, for example, which has been handing out thousands of pink slips, has recently announced 2K more jobs being moved to India.   How is Oracle's move of US jobs to India creating jobs in the US for waitresses and bartenders, hospital orderlies, state and local government and credit agencies, the only areas of job growth?
Engineering jobs in general are in decline, because the manufacturing sectors that employ engineers are in decline.   During the last 5 years, the US work force lost 1.2M jobs in the manufacture of machinery, computers, electronics, semiconductors, communication equipment, electrical equipment, motor vehicles and transportation equipment.   The BLS pay-roll job numbers show a total of 70K jobs created in all fields of architecture and engineering, including clerical personal, over the past 5 years.   That comes to a mere 14K jobs per year (including clerical workers).   What is the annual graduating class in engineering and architecture?   How is there a shortage of engineers when more graduate than can be employed?   Of course, many new graduates take jobs opened by retirements.   We would have to know the retirement rates to get a solid handle on the fate of new graduates.   But it cannot be very pleasant, with declining employment in the manufacturing sectors that employ engineers and a minimum of 65K H-1B visas annually for foreigners plus an indeterminate number of L-1 visas...   H-1B visas.   The visas are nothing but a subsidy to US companies at the expense of US citizens...
All of the occupations with the largest projected employment growth (in terms of the number of jobs) over the next decade are in non-tradable domestic services.   The top 10 sources of the most jobs in 'super-power' America are: retail sales-persons, registered nurses, post-secondary teachers, customer service representatives, janitors and cleaners, waiters and waitresses, food preparation (includes fast food), home health aides, nursing aides, orderlies and attendants, general and operations managers.   Note than none of this projected employment growth will contribute one nickel toward producing goods and services that could be exported to help close the massive US trade deficit.   Note, also, that few of these jobs classifications require a college education.
Among the fastest growing occupations (in terms of rate of growth), 7 of the 10 are in health care and social assistance.   The 3 remaining fields are: network systems and data analysis with 126K jobs projected or 12,600 per year; computer software engineering applications with 222K jobs projected or 22,200 per year, and computer software engineering systems software with 146K jobs projected or 14,600 per year.   Assuming these projections are realized, how many of the computer engineering and network systems jobs will go to Americans?   Not many, considering the 65K [make that 100K] H-1B visas each year (650K [1M] over the decade) and the loss during the past 5 years of 761K jobs in the information sector and computer systems design and related...
If off-shore jobs out-sourcing is good for US employment, why won't the US Department of Commerce release the 200-page, $335K study of the impact of the off-shoring of US high-tech jobs?   Republican political appointees reduced the 200-page report to 12 pages of public relations hype and refuse to allow the Technology Administration experts who wrote the report to testify before Congress.   Democrats on the House Science Committee are unable to pry the study out of the hands of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.   Obviously, the facts don't fit the Bush regime's globalization hype...
turning to the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics.   We will look at 'computer and mathematical employment' and 'architecture and engineering employment'.   Computer and mathematical employment includes such fields as 'software engineers applications', 'software engineers systems software', 'computer programmers', 'network systems and data communications', and 'mathematicians'.   Has this occupation been a source of job growth?   In November of 2000 this occupation employed 2,932,810 people.   In November of 2004 (the latest data available), this occupation employed 2,932,790, or 20 people fewer.   Employment in this field has been stagnant for the past 4 years.   During these 4 years, there have been employment shifts within the various fields of this occupation.   For example, employment of computer programmers declined by 134,630, while employment of software engineers applications rose by 65,080, and employment of software engineers systems software rose by 59,600.   (These shifts might merely reflect change in job or occupation title from programmer to software engineer.)   These figures do not tell us whether any gain in software engineering jobs went to Americans.
According to Professor Norm Matloff, in 2002 there were 463K computer-related H-1B visa holders in the US.   Similarly, the 134,630 lost computer programming jobs (if not merely a job title change) may have been out-sourced off-shore to foreign affiliates.
Architecture and engineering employment includes all the architecture and engineering fields except software engineering.   The total employment of architects and engineers in the US declined by 120,700 between 1999 November and 2004 November.   Employment declined by 189,940 between 2000 November and 2004 November, and by 103,390 between 2001 November and 2004 November.   There are variations among fields.   Between 2000 November and 2004 November, for example, US employment of electrical engineers fell by 15,280.   Employment of computer hardware engineers rose by 15,990 (possibly these are job title reclassifications).   Overall, however, over 100K engineering jobs were lost.   We do not know how many of the lost jobs were out-sourced off-shore to foreign affiliates or how many of any increase in computer hardware jobs went to foreign holders of H-1B or L-1 visas.   Clearly, engineering and computer-related employment in the US has not been growing, whether measured by industry or by occupation."

2006-03-03 07:33PST (10:33EST) (15:33GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index crept up from 87.4 in early February to 86.7 in late February (but down from 91.2 in January)

2006-03-03 08:40PST (11:40EST) (16:40GMT)
Carla Mozee _MarketWatch_
Another vehicle parts maker, Dana, files for reorganization

2006-03-03
Bruce A. Hake _Immigration Daily_
Moderate bill could criminalize all non-emergency aid to illegal aliens

2006-03-03
Patricia Zapor _Tidings_
business owner whines about reasonable requirements for hiring immigrants & non-immigrants
"As the owner of AQUAS (Automated Quality Applications and Systems), a small [tech body shop] in Chevy Chase, MD, Larsen assumed that the costs and paper-work necessary to hire skilled workers from outside the United States would be far more trouble than it was worth...   Having attended American schools abroad, she said, she never really thought of herself as anything but an American.   'I was an American long before I got here.', she said.   She graduated from Georgetown University in 1973 and became a U.S. citizen not long after marrying an American when she was in her early 20s.   Then, a Russian who had been an unpaid intern for AQUAS asked Larsen to sponsor his application for a visa that would allow him to return to work there.   He had been an asset as an intern and Larsen was pleased at the prospect of getting him back.   He even offered to take care of the paper-work himself and to delay his own salary to offset the extra expense to the company of paying immigration processing fees, she said.   'As it turned out, I really didn't have to do much.', she explained, and the Russian man became a valued employee.   Since then Larsen has continued to hire immigrants for her staff of about 24.   She has learned a lot about what employers and immigrants go through to meet the requirements for working legally in the United States.   To start with, paper-work and related fees to obtain an H1B visa, the category for skilled workers, each cost her company between $3,600 and $4K, she said [a small fraction of what it would cost to do a thorough background check if the federal government were serious about its 'war on terror']...   Employers of people with H1B visas are required to pay them at least the rate set by the U.S. Labor Department, no matter what the prevailing wage is for that job.   'That tends to be much higher than we would ever pay someone in the current market.', Larsen said.   [So, she is in the habit of uner-paying her American employees and interns.]   The foreign-citizen spouses and children of workers with H1B visas are allowed to join them in the United States, but they are not allowed to hold jobs here [unless they obtain a work visa]."

2006-03-03
Sara A. Carter _Inland Valley Daily Bulletin_
Capitol border debate is hot: All agree that immigration should be reformed. The disagreement is how
"While a Senate Judiciary Committee began drafting an immigration reform bill Thursday, 2 House sub-committees got an earful from Texas law enforcement officials fed up with dangerously lax border security...   Specter's measure includes the guest-worker program proposed by President Bush last year.   It would allow illegal immigrants to apply for a work visa for up to 6 years before having to return to their home countries, he said.   Other committee members suggested the program should give migrants the opportunity to apply for permanent residency in the United States.   The bill calls for the creation of a 'virtual fence' along the border that will operate with new monitoring technologies.   It also requires all employers to electronically verify whether their workers are legal, and it 'stream-lines the deportation process and reduces frivolous litigation'.   'For example, aliens who have been ordered deported, and then slip back into the country illegally, are not entitled to a full judiciary proceeding again.', said senator John Cornyn, R-Texas, who offered several amendments to the bill...   More than 1.2M illegal immigrants were apprehended in 2004, according to Salvador Zamora of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.   [In the past, Border Patrollers have estimated that only one third or fewer illegal immigrants are apprehended, but some are apprehended repeatedly.]   Senate leaders said at Wednesday's hearing that Border Patrol officials have caught more than 400K people in the first 2 months of this year -- about double from last year..."
Frist's S2454
Hagel's S2612
Sensenbrenner's HR4437
Specter's S2611

2006-03-03
Warren Mass _New American_
Guest-Worker plans are anti-minority
"Liberal politicians such as Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy have long portrayed themselves as champions of minority Americans.   But the guest-worker legislation cosponsored by Kennedy and Arizona Senator John McCain is actually feared by many black workers -- and with good reason...   All political grandstanding aside, however, an article in the February 20 Los Angeles Times addressed another side of the guest worker coin -- a side that sheds light on a very illiberal aspect of it.   The article, by Times staff writer Teresa Watanabe, publicized the plight of black workers in the L.A. area, where the unemployment rate for blacks is now 14%.   A key figure in the story was a man named Drexell Johnson, who leads an organization called Young Black Contractors of South Central Inc.   As Watanabe notes: 'The news that President Bush and some members of Congress are pushing to bring more blue-collar guest workers into the country — perhaps 400K annually -- leaves the contractors indignant.   ''Hell, no, don't bring no one in from nowhere.'', said Johnson, a 47-year-old Mississippi native who founded his consortium of 35 minority contractors a decade ago.   ''Train the people here.   Give the people here the same opportunity you're willing to give someone out of this country.'''   And it is not just black workers who are concerned about the flood of cheap labor that guest worker proposals would bring.   The article cited a Pew Hispanic Center poll last August that reported that 34% of American-born Hispanics surveyed believed that illegal immigrants hurt the economy by driving down wages and 32% opposed a temporary-worker program."

2006-03-03
Barbara Anderson _American Chronicle_
Illegal Aliens are Cleaning Up in Boston

2006-03-03
_CNN_
Hamas refused to be civil
"Mashaal in turn struck an uncompromising stance, saying the Jewish state must first withdraw from territories occupied in 1967 [after defeating their attackers] and allow the return of Palestinian refugees among other conditions if it wants peace.   That statement -- while sticking to Hamas' tradition of ambiguity -- could be significant, because Hamas in the past has called for Israel's elimination altogether...   He also ruled out any negotiations with the current Israeli government."

2006-03-03
_Fox_
GWBush confessed that off-shore out-sourcing does harm Americans
abc
"You lost your job.   It's probably one of the most dreaded things you'll ever hear from your boss.   Then you find out that your white-collar position moved to the other side of the globe -- to India.   President Bush says he feels your pain and that education -- not trade protectionism -- is the answer to deal with the increasing globalized world in which we live and work...   'It's painful for those who lose jobs.', Bush said.   'But the fundamental question is, how does a government or society react to that.   And it's basically one of 2 ways.   One is to say, losing jobs is painful, therefore, let's throw up protectionist walls.   And the other is to say, losing jobs is painful, so let's make sure people are educated so they can find -- fill the jobs of the 21st century.', he said [ignoring the fact that many of the millions of un-employed and under-employed Americans are among the brightest, most highly educated in the world]...   Last year, 11,375 U.S. workers were laid off because their jobs were moved over-seas, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.   In many of those cases, Mexico and [Red China] were cited as the place where the jobs were going, a bureau official said.   In 2004, 16,197 workers were laid off because their job was moved over-seas.   The figures don't capture all lay-offs -- only the bigger ones, the official said [nor does it count the tens of thousands whose displacement has been less than blatant]."

2006-03-03
_India Business Standard_
GWBush asks India to open up further
"US president backs out-sourcing, says America is against protectionism. President George W. Bush today asked India to open up further for US business interests, even as he sent out strong signals in support of out-sourcing by American companies to low-cost destinations like India."

2006-03-03
_MarketWatch_
Week's News Summary

2006-03-03
_Cincinnati Enquirer_
Enquirer 80 stock index down 0.08%
"The Enquirer 80 Index of local interest stocks rose .25 points, or 0.08%, to 295.00.   27 issues were up, 50 were down and 3 were unchanged.   Leading gainers were AK Steel, up $2.19 to $13.53; Dillard's Inc., up $1.08 to $25.38; LCA Vision Inc., up 71 cents to $43.18; Federated Department Stores, up 60 cents to $71.10; and Humana Inc., up 55 cents to $51.49.   Biggest losers were Toyota Motor Co., down $1.359 to $105.47; Midland Co., down 66 cents to $33.72; Gannett Co. Inc., down 51 cents to $62.24; Boston Beer Co., down 40 cents to $26.35; and Standard Register Co., down 37 cents to $16.81."

2006-03-03

DJIA	11,046.82
S&P 500	1,289.67
NASDAQ	2,306.17
10-year US T-Bond	4.68%
crude oil	63.67

I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
 
 

2006-03-04

2006-03-03 17:03PST (2006-03-03 20:03EST) (2006-03-04 01:03GMT)
Alistair Barr _MarketWatch_
Share-holders gain concessions as proxy season draws near
"Determined to avoid embarrassing and potentially damaging votes at annual share-holder meetings, more companies are bowing to pressure from activist investors.   Corporate governance experts say the trend highlights a major shift in the balance of power toward share-holders and away from corporate executives and directors...   And the growth in settlements could shrink the volume of votes being held.   In each of the past 3 years, more than 1,000 share-holder proposals were put forward at the start of proxy season, but this year will likely fall well short of that, according to Patrick McGurn of Institutional Share-holder Services, another proxy advisory firm.   That's not because investors have stopped making demands.   It's because more companies are cutting deals to kill off ballot proposals deemed unacceptable before they go before the broader body of voting share-holders, McGurn said...   The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which claims its member organizations own at least 3% of the largest U.S. companies, has been filing share-holder proposals and pressuring firms to change for years.   But 2006 is already turning into a banner year for the group, which counts pension giants CalPers and the New York State Common Retirement Fund among its members, according to Director of Pension and Benefit Policy Richard Ferlauto.   'Settlements with companies are up significantly on last year.', he said...   One of the biggest concessions companies are making this year is a move to majority voting for directors."

2006-03-04 11:17PST (14:17EST) (19:17GMT)
Mark Cotton _MarketWatch_
Warren Buffett blasts excessive executive pay: Trade deficit & rising money-management fees are also causes to worry
"'Too often executive compensation in the U.S.A. is ridiculously out of line with performance.', said Buffett in his 2005 letter.   Buffett said the problem lies in the way executive compensation is decided.   'Huge severance payments, lavish perks and out-sized payments for ho-hum performance often occur because comp committees have become slaves to comparative data.'   Buffett said compensation committee members are bombarded with pay statistics and told about new perks that other managers are receiving.   'In this manner, outlandish goodies are showered upon CEOs...'"
Buffett's "letter" (pdf)
"Rather than address the situation head on, however, I wasted several years while we attempted to sell the operation.   That was a doomed endeavor because no realistic solution could have extricated us from the maze of liabilities that was going to exist for decades.   Our obligations were particularly worrisome because their potential to explode could not be measured.   Moreover, if severe trouble occurred, we knew it was likely to correlate with problems elsewhere in financial markets.   So I failed in my attempt to exit painlessly, and in the meantime more trades were put on the books.   Fault me for dithering.   (Charlie calls it thumb-sucking.)   When a problem exists, whether in personnel or in business operations, the time to act is now.   The second reason I regularly describe our problems in this area lies in the hope that our experiences may prove instructive for managers, auditors and regulators.   In a sense, we are a canary in this business coal mine and should sing a song of warning as we expire.   The number and value of derivative contracts outstanding in the world continues to mushroom and is now a multiple of what existed in 1998, the last time that financial chaos erupted.   Our experience should be particularly sobering because we were a better-than-average candidate to exit gracefully.   Gen Re was a relatively minor operator in the derivatives field.   It has had the good fortune to unwind its supposedly liquid positions in a benign market, all the while free of financial or other pressures that might have forced it to conduct the liquidation in a less-than-efficient manner.   Our accounting in the past was conventional and actually thought to be conservative.   Additionally, we know of no bad behavior by anyone involved.   It could be a different story for others in the future.   Imagine, if you will, one or more firms (troubles often spread) with positions that are many multiples of ours attempting to liquidate in chaotic markets and under extreme, and well-publicized, pressures.   This is a scenario to which much attention should be given now rather than after the fact...   For his accomplishments, Jim was paid very well -- but he earned every penny.   (This is no academic evaluation: As a 9.7% owner of Gillette, Berkshire in effect paid that proportion of his compensation.)   Indeed, it's difficult to over-pay the truly extraordinary CEO of a giant enterprise.   But this specie is rare.   Too often, executive compensation in the U.S.A. is ridiculously out of line with performance.   That won't change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO's pay.   The up-shot is that a mediocre-or-worse CEO -- aided by his hand-picked VP of human relations and a consultant from the ever-accommodating firm of Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo -- all too often receives gobs of money from an ill-designed compensation arrangement.   Take, for instance, 10 year, fixed-price options (and who wouldn't?).   If Fred Futile, CEO of Stagnant, Inc., receives a bundle of these -- let's say enough to give him an option on 1% of the company -- his self-interest is clear: He should skip dividends entirely and instead use all of the company's earnings to repurchase stock.   Let's assume that under Fred's leadership Stagnant lives up to its name.   In each of the 10 years after the option grant, it earns $1G on $10G of net worth, which initially comes to $10 per share on the 100M shares then outstanding.   Fred eschews dividends and regularly uses all earnings to repurchase shares.   If the stock constantly sells at 10 times earnings per share, it will have appreciated 158% by the end of the option period.   That's because repurchases would reduce the number of shares to 38.7M by that time, and earnings per share would thereby increase to $25.80.   Simply by withholding earnings from owners, Fred gets very rich, making a cool $158M, despite the business itself improving not at all.   Astonishingly, Fred could have made more than $100M if Stagnant's earnings had declined by 20% during the 10-year period.   Fred can also get a splendid result for himself by paying no dividends and deploying the earnings he withholds from share-holders into a variety of disappointing projects and acquisitions.   Even if these initiatives deliver a paltry 5% return, Fred will still make a bundle.   Specifically -- with Stagnant's p/e ratio remaining unchanged at 10 -- Fred's option will deliver him $63M.   Meanwhile, his share-holders will wonder what happened to the 'alignment of interests' that was supposed to occur when Fred was issued options.   A 'normal' dividend policy, of course -- one-third of earnings paid out, for example -- produces less extreme results but still can provide lush rewards for managers who achieve nothing.   CEOs understand this math and know that every dime paid out in dividends reduces the value of all outstanding options.   I've never, however, seen this manager-owner conflict referenced in proxy materials that request approval of a fixed-priced option plan.   Though CEOs invariably preach internally that capital comes at a cost, they somehow forget to tell share-holders that fixed-price options give them capital that is free.   It doesn't have to be this way: It's child's play for a board to design options that give effect to the automatic build-up in value that occurs when earnings are retained.   But -- surprise, surprise -- options of that kind are almost never issued.   Indeed, the very thought of options with strike prices that are adjusted for retained earnings seems foreign to compensation 'experts', who are nevertheless encyclopedic about every management-friendly plan that exists.   ('Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.')   Getting fired can produce a particularly bountiful pay-day for a CEO.   Indeed, he can 'earn' more in that single day, while cleaning out his desk, than an American worker earns in a life-time of cleaning toilets.   Forget the old maxim about nothing succeeding like success: Today, in the executive suite, the all too-prevalent rule is that nothing succeeds like failure.   Huge severance payments, lavish perks and outsized payments for ho-hum performance often occur because comp committees have become slaves to comparative data.   The drill is simple: Three or so directors -- not chosen by chance -- are bombarded for a few hours before a board meeting with pay statistics that perpetually ratchet upwards.   Additionally, the committee is told about new perks that other managers are receiving.   In this manner, outlandish 'goodies' are showered upon CEOs simply because of a corporate version of the argument we all used when children: 'But, Mom, all the other kids have one.'.   When comp committees follow this 'logic', yesterday's most egregious excess becomes today's base-line.   Comp committees should adopt the attitude of Hank Greenberg, the Detroit slugger and a boyhood hero of mine.   Hank's son, Steve, at one time was a player's agent.   Representing an out-fielder in negotiations with a major league club, Steve sounded out his dad about the size of the signing bonus he should ask for.   Hank, a true pay-for-performance guy, got straight to the point, 'What did he hit last year?'   When Steve answered '.246' [for all of the non-mutant fans that's not very good, Hank's comeback was immediate: 'Ask for a uniform.'.   (Let me pause for a brief confession: In criticizing comp committee behavior, I don't speak as a true insider.   Though I have served as a director of 20 public companies, only 1 CEO has put me on his comp committee. Hmmmm...)..."

2006-03-04
Llewellyn H. Rockwell
The State and Its 5 Rationales
 

2006-03-05

2006-03-05 12:19PST (15:19EST) (20:19GMT)
Jonathan Burton _MarketWatch_
AT&T to re-absorb BellSouth for $67G
"would give it sole control over the biggest U.S. wireless operator, Cingular Wireless, and dramatically expand the reach of the nation's largest telecommunications company."

2006-03-05
_Tallahassee Demagogue_
Governor prepares his final to-do list
"Where Bush claims success in lowering unemployment, his political opponents point to the growing ranks of the under-employed and uninsured..."
 

2006-03-06

2006-03-06 03:38PST (06:38EST) (11:38GMT)
_MarketWatch_
AT&T merger a flash-point for concerns about market concentration
"'This merger becomes a critical flash point in this growing concern about the future of the Internet in the United States.', Jeff Chester, executive director for the Center for Digital Democracy, a Washington, DC-based non-profit, told MarketWatch.   'This deal is based on the ability of AT&T to control a huge sector of the broad-band market-place...   We see it as anti-competitive and undemocratic...   If we permit more take-overs, such as AT&T and BellSouth, we will soon witness a further shrinking of the number of conglomerates dominating our local and national media...   But [the companies] are sadly mistaken if they believe there won't be intense opposition to this deal.'   The consumer groups and activists blame the 1996 Telecommunications Act for a wave of mergers and consolidation in broadcast, communications and media markets that they say has brought higher prices and fewer options for customers."

2006-03-06 06:59PST (09:59EST) (14:59GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
2005 Q4 productivity fell 0.5%
"Unit labor costs... increased 3.3% annualized, revised down from 3.5% earlier.   It was the biggest increase in [total compensation] in a year...   In all of 2005 compared to 2004, productivity increased 2.9%, the slowest rate of growth since 2001.   Unit labor costs rose [a mere] 2.6% last year, the fastest gain since 2000 [but still lagging inflation]...   The United States has enjoyed a once-in-a-generation boom in [statistical] productivity in the past 4 years, averaging 3.5% rather than the 2.2% long-term trend.   It takes 85 workers today to produce what 100 could produce in 2001 [if various statistical lags and productivity shifting are ignored]...   the fourth quarter, output in the nonfarm business sector increased 1.5%, the smallest increase in 3 years.   Hours worked rose 2%, revised up from 1.5% earlier.   Unit labor costs, which track the cost of the labor used to make one "unit" of output, increased 3.3%, a stiff warning that inflationary pressures could be rising.   However, real hourly compensation (adjusted for inflation) fell 0.4% in the quarter and is up just 0.1% in the past four quarters, matching the slowest growth in nearly nine years.   Unit labor costs are up 1.3% year-on-year, the slowest growth in 6 quarters.   'The four-quarter increase in unit labor costs remains fairly modest and this is likely to provide comfort to some members of the FOMC.', Ryding said.   In the manufacturing sector, productivity increased 4.7% in the fourth quarter, with unit labor costs falling 2.8%.   Output in manufacturing rose 9.3%, the most in 8 years."
bls data

2006-03-06
Robert Kilborn _Christian Science Monitor_
A Week's Worth: Lay-off announcements were down 15.5% from January to 87,437
Lexington Herald-Leader
New Ratings
Los Angeles Times
Business Wire
2006-03-06 07:08PST (10:08EST) (15:08GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
US factory orders fell 4.5% in January
census bureau report

2006-03-06
Paul McDougall _Information Week_
Legislation to help displaced workers is slightly off the mark: Legislation would give people hurt by off-shore out-sourcing longer unemployment benefits, access to training, and other assistance.
"Some Michigan law-makers want to help IT professionals and other workers whose jobs have been out-sourced over-seas.   Senator Liz Brater and several other Democrats in the Michigan Senate are backing a bill that would give out-sourced workers benefits such as emergency assistance with car and mortgage payments, longer-term unemployment insurance, fast-track admission into state community colleges, and job placement assistance...   Companies rarely advertise out-sourcing initiatives, and in many cases it's difficult to make a direct connection between a job lost in the United States and one created off-shore.   Michigan lost 38K jobs in 2005 to out-sourcing and other factors, according to the Mackinac Center For Public Policy.   As many as 6M U.S. jobs may go off-shore over the next decade, Goldman Sachs says.   [Some academic estimates reach as high as 16M.]...   Ford is evaluating a plan to move IT help-desk positions to Romania.   GM recently included Indian out-sourcer Wipro Technologies in a group of vendors to which it will hand $15G in IT work over the next five years.   Bosch, Electrolux, and Johnson Controls also are among the Michigan companies that have recently out-sourced work."

2006-03-06
Frosty Wooldridge _American Daily_
How stupid or ignorant is this president... and congress?
News with Views
"Last week, Congress and President Bush invited 7K Russian Muslim immigrants, without inspection of any kind, into our country with a life-time promise of unlimited welfare.   Was this a hoax?   Was this a madcap moment?   Who got high on paint fumes wafting through the halls of Congress?   Why didn't someone protest adding 7K members of a religious sect that bomb their way into the 21st century and whose Koran espouses death to all Christians and Jews?...   Bush not only invited 7K Muslims; he signed over 22 ports to United Arab Emirates.   These people fund the deadly terrorist group Hamas which is bent on killing every Jew in the world.   The UAE served up 2 of the 9/11 terrorists that killed 3K Americans.   UAE launders terror-sponsoring money throughout the world.   At the United Nations, United Arab Emirates votes against the U.S. 70% of the time...   What about our own elected Congress and president supporting H-1B, H-2B and L-1 visas that have stolen jobs from 1M Americans?   What about the out-sourcing, in-sourcing and off-shoring of American jobs?   It's unconscionable!   Why hasn't he done something about the $700G trade deficit?   What's he waiting for?   [The US owes Red China] over $280G in trade deficit from last year alone! We've got 14M unemployed American workers and Bush hasn't created jobs for them, but he wants to legalize 20M illegal aliens to work those jobs at slave wages.   How completely stupid is that?   How much does he want to swamp this country with foreigners?   Another 10M Mexicans?   That's right; we've got 10M Mexicans and if Bush has his way, we'll have another 10M.   So when does the need for 'cheap labor' end and the rights of American citizens begin?   As our national language vanishes into a Tower of Babel, why hasn't Bush rescinded Bill Clinton's insane E.O.13166 that forces us to give all immigrants documents in their own language instead of them learning English?   It's a national nightmare we may not survive as we balkanize ourselves into city states where language separates us from ourselves.   How stupid is this president?   What about illegal Mexicans colonizing us from the south?   Bush pushes a guest worker program that will give us millions upon millions of legalized illegal aliens with a promise of more to come! He does it in spite of the fact that they are not working the 'jobs that Americans won't do' but taking jobs in all sectors that Americans have always worked -- for a living wage.   Bush forces our working poor into welfare lines while we pay food stamp and unemployment costs.   While illegals don't pay into our income tax (half work off the books), school and medical systems but use them, they send $20G back home to Mexico annually...   Does Bush have any inkling as to 'carrying capacity' and the lack of water in the West that's already screaming for water that isn't available?"

2006-03-06
Peter G. Gosselin _Los Angeles Times_
Good Education Is Not Enough: American workers at all levels are vulnerable to out-sourcing, experts say, posing a challenge to the assumption that more education is the answer.
"President Bush met with a group of business school students in the Indian city of Hyderabad last week [when he should have been meeting with groups of science, engineering and computer programming students across the USA]... readiness to work for a fraction of U.S. wages were tugging jobs over-seas, away from even well-educated Americans.   Bush used the occasion to offer some pointed advice to workers back home: Get more training.   'Let's make sure people are educated so they can fill the jobs of the 21st century.', he said [but most of the jobs created in the USA in the 21st century have not been for the well-educated].   But the president's assertion that the answer to foreign out-sourcing is education, a mantra embraced by Democrats as well as Republicans, is being challenged by a growing body of research and analysis from economists and other scholars.   Education -- at least as delivered by most of the nation's colleges, universities and technical schools -- is no longer quite the economic cure-all it once was, nor the guarantee of financial security Americans have come to expect from college and graduate degrees.   'More education has been the right answer for the past few decades', said Princeton University economist and former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alan S. Blinder, 'but I'm not so convinced that it's the right course' for coping with the upheavals of globalization.   Not that Blinder or other experts think workers would be better off not going to school.   Rather, they point to emerging evidence that education may not offer as much protection against the effects of globalization as Bush and others claim...   Starting in 1975, the earnings difference between high school- and college-educated workers steadily widened for 25 years.   But since 2000, the trend appears to have stalled.   Census figures show that average, after-inflation earnings of college graduates fell by more than 5% between 2000 and 2004, whereas the earnings of those with only high school degrees rose slightly...   Blinder offered a rough estimate that suggested that as many as 42M jobs, or nearly one-third of the nation's total, were susceptible to off-shoring...   Bush previously has defended the off-shoring of jobs as an economic reality [a fait accompli] and a trend that ultimately would work in America's favor.   But he was exceptionally candid about its down-side during his exchange with the Indian students."

2006-03-06
_Human Events_
Stop Arlen Specter's Illegal Immigrant Amnesty
"'It's going to be an extraordinary debate filled with fear and guilt and racism and xenophobia.', said a former U.S. senator, as he attempted a blanket assassination of the characters of all those who simply want to secure our borders, enforce our immigration laws and do so without granting amnesty to immigration law-breakers...   They were attributed in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week to former senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming, whose most memorable act as a law-maker was to sponsor the first illegal immigration amnesty, which passed Congress in 1986 amid promises from its supporters, including many conservatives, that it would once-and-for-all solve the problem of illegal immigration.   Last week, Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) introduced a 21st Century version of Simpson's amnesty plan...   The key element in Specter's 305-page bill is that it would convert illegal aliens already in the United States into legal 'temporary' workers...   There are many objections to a guest-worker/amnesty plan, and they have nothing to do with racism and xenophobia.   For starters, a plan that converts illegal aliens into legal temporary workers rewards law-breakers with a prize of great value: the right to legally live and work in the world's greatest nation.   Not only is it wrong to reward an immigration law-breaker this way, it is unjust to aliens who are trying to immigrate to the U.S. and have chosen to respect and abide by our law.   Secondly, a guest-worker/amnesty program is also unjust to U.S. citizens on the bottom rungs of the earnings ladder because it forces them to compete for jobs and wages with foreign nationals who will be allowed to come here only if they agree to work for lower wages than an American.   Thirdly, a guest-worker/amnesty program is double-barreled corporate welfare.   It lets corporations import foreign laborers into the U.S. and pay them wages they could not hire an American worker for, while forcing American taxpayers to pick up the tab for the public services these low-wage foreign workers will consume.   [Tax-victims] will not only subsidize the cost of guest-worker health care, but also pay the cost of educating guest-worker children.   Indeed, these could end up being very expensive 'guests' from [tax-victims'] perspective.   Most importantly, a guest worker/amnesty program would exacerbate our greatest immigration problem, which is really a national security problem.   In the midst of a war against terrorists, our government has failed to stem the massive, unmonitored flow of unknown persons crossing our borders.   When foreign nationals now pondering illegally entering the U.S. learn that illegal aliens who went before them were granted legal status by an all-Republican government that prides itself on upholding the rule of law and putting national security above all other federal duties, it will provide a powerful new incentive for those aliens to come..."
Frist's S2454
Hagel's S2612
Sensenbrenner's HR4437
Specter's S2611

2006-03-06

DJIA	10,958,59
S&P 500	1,278.26
NASDAQ	2,286.03
10-year US T-Bond	4.74%
crude oil	62.41

I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
 
 

2006-03-07

2006-03-06 19:20PST (2006-03-06 22:20EST) (2006-03-07 03:20GMT)
Sinead Carew _Reuters_
AT&T plans 10K job cuts after BellSouth acquisition

2006-03-07 10:18PST (13:18EST) (18:19GMT)
_The Street_
GM shifts pension costs to employees
Monsters & Critics
Bloomberg
MarketWatch
Detroit Free Press
abc
USA Today
"The world's biggest auto-maker will freeze accrued pension benefits for salaried employees starting 2007-01-01, shifting toward a reliance on 'defined contribution' plans, such as 401(k)s.   Salaried employees hired after 2001-01-01, will move solely to the defined contribution plans, receiving a contribution from GM to their 401(k) program of 4% of their annual base salary.   Employees hired before 2001 will remain under a type of pension plan, but will receive a reduced retirement benefit for future accruals.   The move won't affect current retirees or the vested benefits of former employes, GM said.   GN expects the changes to lower its pre-tax pension expense by $420M in 2007.   The additional 401(k) contributions are expected to increase expenses by $15M. The company also plans to record a pre-tax charge of $120M related to the move."

2006-03-07
Eric Krol _Chicago Daily Herald_
Candidates open up on health care, reform, war in Iraq
"The primary race for the 6th Congressional District involves Democrats Lindy Scott, Tammy Duckworth and Christine Cegelis.   The winner will face Republican state senator Peter Roskam in the November election...   I strongly support campaign finance and lobbying reform.   An immediate contribution I would make would be to either sponsor or co-sponsor a reform package that would end the pay-to-play system so prevalent in the top levels of our government.   Leaders in our House need to step forward with legislation that proposes solutions to the health care crisis facing our nation.   I support and would be a strong advocate for universal single-payer health care as a means to provide coverage to millions of uninsured Americans and reduce the heavy financial burden for those businesses bearing the brunt of escalating costs.   Other immediate priorities would be legislation mandating the reduction of the H-1B Visa program that is currently allowing corporations to train foreign employees here in the U.S. and then ship the jobs over-seas.   As a member of Congress, I will fight to preserve jobs and create new opportunity."

2006-03-07
Lynne Brakeman _Landscape Management_
Senate hearings begin this week on comprehensive immigration changes (with links to related stories)
"On March 7, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced comprehensive immigration reform legislation for hearings.   According to media reports, the committee plans to send the legislation to the Senate floor by March 27.   Last December, the House of Representatives passed an immigration reform bill (HR4437) that was supported by the Bush administration, but denounced by advocates for immigrant workers.   Under that plan, qualified workers (including undocumented workers) could stay in the country 6 years, but then would have to return home.   Specter's proposed legislation reportedly aims for a compromise.   Among the initial proposals: a 'gold card' program for undocumented workers already in the country and a guest-worker program to bring in more foreign laborers.   Workers who qualify for the gold card would get a background check by the Department of Homeland Security.   After that, they would be eligible for 2-year work visas that could be renewed indefinitely.   'What do you do with the undocumented, that's the most controversial piece of this debate.', said Craig Regelbrugge, senior director of government relations for the American Nursery and Landscape Association (ANLA) in a phone interview.   'Senator Specter's starting point for this conversation is a non-immigrant visa that would allow qualified workers who stay employed to remain indefinitely.', he added.   'This would be good for our industry.   At some landscape and nursery companies, workers have presented documents that turn out to be not valid.   Many times, they are skilled workers, supervisors or equipment operators.   If they have to leave after 3 years or 6 years, that will have an impact on that business.'   Regelbrugge says the ANLA and other small business advocacy groups are closely monitoring the progress of the Senate bill.   He says the H-2B program for seasonal workers is still an important part of the legislation under consideration.   'In our view, any temporary worker visa program would be in addition to the H-2B program.   We're going to want to see a seasonal program and a year-round program.   This whole issue is very important to our industry.', he said."
Frist's S2454
Hagel's S2612
Sensenbrenner's HR4437
Specter's S2611

2006-03-07
_Winston-Salem Journal_
NC congress-critters say they want to lower costs to farmers and drive down compensation for workers
NBC 17
abc
Lakeland Ledger
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that energy is costing farmers $5.2G more now compared to a year ago, said representative Brad Miller, D-NC...   Etheridge said he wants to examine how farmers can provide alternative sources of fuel and help draw up trade agreements to benefit farmers.   Miller added that comprehensive reform is needed to provide a dependable, affordable work force.   Tobacco growers, for example, have said labor is their greatest cost, nearly twice as costly as machinery or fuel for curing the leaf.   Many of them employ immigrant laborers, and the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina's top resolutions include asking Congress to revise the guest worker program so that temporary visas for laborers are easier and cheaper to get.   The fee to process visas and transport workers is nearly doubling to $900 for each worker, and the hourly wage is kicking up 30 cents to $8.58, tobacco farmers have said.   Some believe they should be paying closer to $6.50 an hour."
2006-03-07
_WBUR_
Enrique's Journey
"This month, politicians are once again fighting it out over what to do about illegal immigration.   Proposals range from a guest worker program that would grant citizenship to illegal immigrants to a 700 mile wall along [a small fraction of] the southern border of the U.S.A.   And while politicians debate, every day in countless poor villages across Central America and Mexico, young boys and girls leave their homes for the United States in a desperate journey to find the mothers who left them behind.   Nazario discovered that 48K children a year make the trip from Central America and Mexico to the United States."

2006-03-07
Terrence Dopp _Bridgeton News_
Driver licenses not supported
"During a State House demonstration Monday, Guzman, 43, of Glassboro, and others touted a petition with 1,000 signatures -- some legal immigrants, some not, they said -- calling for New Jersey to issue so-called driver privilege cards... it was panned by both Democrats and Republicans [and Libertarians who realize that driving -- an exercise of liberty -- and privacy are fundamental human rights]."

2006-04-07
_Financial Times_
Illegal immigration into USA grew by 500K in last year, since Bush began talking about amnesty/guest-workers
"The study, by the Pew Hispanic Center, said that the population of unauthorised migrants reached between 11.5M and 12M last year, accounting for nearly a third of the foreign-born population in the USA.   That number is up from roughly 8.4M in 2000.   [Other reasonable estimates have reached as high as 24M.]   The continued rise was driven primarily by the strong demand for low-skilled work in the USA.   'What we're seeing is a labour migration that is tied to employment opportunities.', said Jeffrey Passel, the study's author...   The Senate judiciary committee is launching a 3-week effort to produce a bill that the committee's chairman, Republican Arlen Specter, hopes will create new legal channels for foreign workers in the USA.   The proposal, outlined by committee staff on Monday, would allow those illegally in the US to apply for renewable 2-year work visas, and would create a new guest worker programme to allow new workers to come to the US legally.   That contrasts with legislation that passed the House of Representatives late last year and would toughen enforcement against illegal aliens but would not allow for new guest workers.   Differences between the House bill and the Senate version would have to be resolved later this year.   The Pew survey underscored the substantial presence of illegal workers in the US labour market.   It estimated about 4.9% of the US labour force, or 7.2M workers, was composed of unauthorised migrants.   Nearly a third of those work in service occupations, 19% in construction and 15% in production, installation and repair jobs.   Illegal workers are especially prevalent in farming, where they make up nearly a quarter of all workers, as well as cleaning, residential home construction and food processing...   The study found that the southern border remains the gateway to the US, with Mexican migrants making up 56% of the unauthorised population, and another 22% coming from the rest of Latin America, particularly Central American countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador.   The vast majority of those end up finding work in the USA.   Among adult males, 94% of illegal immigrants participated in the US labour force, compared with an 83% participation rate for native-born men."
Frist's S2454
Hagel's S2612
Sensenbrenner's HR4437
Specter's S2611

2006-03-07
Michael E. Telzrow _New American_
Latino Immigration Reformers
"Ignoring conventional wisdom, Americans of Hispanic descent are at the forefront in the battle against illegal immigration.   Lupe Moreno and Angie Morfin Vargas grew up the daughters of a bracero.   Their father was one of the 5M temporary contract guest-workers who crossed the U.S./Mexican border between 1942 and 1964 to work in America's agricultural fields.   Like many other braceros, Jesus 'Jesse' Morfin periodically returned to Mexico, but ultimately settled in the United States.   With his American-born wife and their four children, Morfin lived a dual life -- publicly a hard-working immigrant, privately a smuggler of illegal aliens.   Lupe Moreno helped her father run a safe house for illegal immigrants, in addition to attending school, running a household, and toiling in the fields.   Today she lives in the same Santa Ana, California, house she grew up in, but in an unlikely twist of fate, she and her sister Angie now devote much of their time to campaigning against illegal immigration.   As president of the 200-member Latino Americans for Immigration Reform, Lupe Moreno has emerged as one of California's most vocal Hispanic activists speaking out against the illegal immigration invasion...   Ruben Morfin, Angie Morfin Vargas' son, was just 13 years old in 1990 when he was shot in the head by Ezequiel Mariscal while walking home from a party.   The killer, Mariscal, a gang member and Mexican national, fled to Mexico, where he was eventually apprehended by Mexican authorities with assistance from San Diego's Foreign Prosecution Unit.   Mexico's fugitive-friendly laws prevented Mariscal's extradition, but he is now serving a 20-year sentence without parole in the state of Jalisco, Mexico.   For Angie Morfin Vargas, her son's death was a brutal call to action.   The former Chicana activist felt particularly wounded because Mariscal, an illegal alien, was the sort of person she might have befriended in previous times...   Once a proponent of unfettered immigration, Morfin Vargas now began to take a critical look at America's immigration policy.   Sensing a link between illegal immigration and increased gang activity, she formed Mothers Taking Action Against Gang Violence and began to lobby for an end to the nation's de facto open border policy."

2006-03-07
Peter Clark _New York News Day_
Danbury, CT panel discusses immigration reform
"The federal government 'aids and abets' employers who cheat the system by hiring [illegal alien] workers, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said here yesterday at the inaugural meeting of a coalition for immigration reform.   Levy and Danbury, CT, Mayor Mark Boughton formed Mayors and Executives for Immigration Reform to organize local leaders from across the country to pressure Congress to deal with the strain they believe illegal immigrants put on local governments.   Levy spoke of a disconnect between Congress and the American people, saying that 'everybody gets that immigration is a serious issue except those who represent us in Washington'.   He said the federal government has failed to implement effective policies and local governments have been left with the financial burden of laws that allow undocumented residents to remain in the country and use public services.   Though organizers say they hold no official stance or ideology, speakers were invited from conservative organizations the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Center for Immigration Studies.   Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies, said he favors erecting 'firewalls', which he described as 'barriers to illegal immigrants to important institutions in our society so they can't live a normal life here'.   Like many of the 60 attendees from 26 states, Krikorian spoke out against allowing [illegal alien] workers to stay in the country as guest workers, an idea that has support in the U.S. Senate and the White House.   Krikorian said re-labeling illegal immigrants wouldn't solve any problem, but that there needed to be a change in the atmosphere that would encourage illegal immigrants to leave the country.   Bill Schmidt, a councilman from Peekskill, feared the guest-worker program would create a tier of second-class citizens...   Lynn Tramonte, a senior policy-communication associate at the National Immigration Forum, said illegal immigration continues to soar despite tougher laws passed in the past 10 years."

2006-03-07 13:59PST (16:59EST) (21:59GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
US January consumer credit was up 2.2%
"U.S. consumers took on an extra $3.9G in debt in January, pushing total outstanding consumer credit up by 2.2% to $2.16T, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday."
Federal Reserve data release

2006-03-07
Michael Smith _MedPage Today_
Gene may reduce enzyme activity and increase heart attack risk among the heaviest coffee drinkers
"reported in the March 8 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association...   95% of consumed caffeine is metabolized in the liver by cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2), which varies greatly in terms of activity among individuals.   Specifically, a substitution - dubbed CYP1A2*1F -- in the CYP1A2 gene decreases its activity, and carriers of the allele, whether homo- or hetero-zygous, are called 'slow' metabolizers of caffeine.   By contrast, carriers of another variant -- CYP1A2*1A -- are called 'fast' metabolizers of the stimulant, Dr. El-Sohemy and colleagues noted.   In that context, between 1994 and 2004, he and colleagues enrolled 2,014 people in Costa Rica who had survived a first MI and matched them for age, sex, and area of residence.   They were genotyped to see which CYP1A2 allele they carried and a food frequency questionnaire was used to assess how much caffeinated coffee they drank.   A cup of coffee was defined as 250 mL.   Most of the coffee drunk in Costa Rica is filtered, rather than espresso or other varieties of the drink.   Analysis of the study population showed that 55% of cases, or 1,114, and 54% of controls, or 1,082, carried the 'slow' allele.   Using people who drank less than a cup of coffee a day as a reference group (with an odds ratio of 1.00), the researchers found:
* Overall, only drinking more than 4 cups of coffee a day increased the risk of MI -- by 40%, with a 95% confidence interval between 1.05 and 1.87.   Other levels of intake were not significantly associated with increased risk.  
* But for those carrying the 'slow' allele, drinking 2 to 3 cups a day increased the risk by 36% (OR: 1.36) and drinking 4 or more increased it by 64% (OR: 1.64).   (The 95% confidence intervals were 1.01 to 1.83 and 1.14 to 2.34, respectively.)
* Meanwhile, for those with the 'fast' allele, there was no significant increase in risk even at or above the 4-cup-a-day level, compared with those who drank less than a cup a day."

2006-03-07
Tony Dolz _California Chronicle_
Illegal Immigration & the Hisponic Vote: What does the RNHA & La Raza Have in Common?
"What a 'coincidence' that on the eve of the Senate debate on the merits of Congressman Sensenbrenner's HR4437 bill on Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control, Mr. Pedro Celis, Chairman of the National Republican Hispanic Assembly (RNHA) sent out a missive supporting Guest Worker Amnesty and the out-sourcing of American jobs.   As strange as it may seem, Pedro Celis would have us believe that Guest Worker Amnesty is something that the highly respected RNHA and racist and pro-illegal immigration organizations, such as MEChA [Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan] and La Raza (The Race) organizations have in common...   There are Hispanic organizations that identify so strongly with their original homelands, in some cases to cling to exclusivist racists ideologies, that their loyalty to the United States is secondary.   These extremist organizations find justifications for lawless behavior, such as supporting illegal immigration; aiding and abetting illegal aliens; illegally seeking or accepting work or illegally partaking of tax-paid benefits they are not legally entitled to, if it suits it's members needs and goals.   The RNHA, OTOH, stand for colorless integration into the American political and social landscape, undivided loyalty to the United States -- and a devout adherence to our Constitution and all the laws of this nation.   For patriotic Hispanics, for example, border security including the building of a border wall or deploying the military to deter the $140G border trade in illegal drugs, for the security of all Americans, is more important than advocating open-borders.   La Raza and MEChA are examples of extremist racist organizations that claim that the United States has no jurisdiction over several Southwestern states because only people that have at least marginal Amerindian descent have a right to live and rule a mythological land they call 'Aztlan'.   Ironically most members of these extremist organizations speak a language, Spanish, and profess to adhere to a religion, Catholicism, that originated in Europe.   Furthering the confusion, some extremists claim instead that these lands 'belong' to modern Mexico, not because Mexico represents Amerindian people, but because Spain ruled over those lands before modern Mexico defeated Spain in war.   Well, those claims would seem to put Spain, a European nation, as the legitimate authority over those lands, otherwise Mexico would not have a claim based on having won a war with Spain.   The Mexican occupation of California following the war with Spain lasted only 23 contested years.   During those occupation years, Mexico only managed to muster about 300 troops to travel the distance to subdue the local Californians.   This hardly represents a mandate to rule.   The most extremist racist organizations make claims over 'Aztlan' based on race alone.   As the mythology goes, Aztlan is the ancestral land of the Aztecs, so that would rule out any role for other Amerindian people as well as people of European, African and Asian descent..."

2006-03-07 10:00PST (13:00EST) (18:00GMT)
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee _Information Week_/_EE Times_
HP being sued over Carly Fiorina's $42M pay-out
"Pension fund investors filed a suit against Hewlett-Packard directors on Tuesday, calling 'excessive' the $42M severance package plus other perks paid last year to fired chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina.   The action was filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California by Indiana Electrical Workers Pension Trust Fund and pension funds administered by the Service Employees International Union.   The suit alleges that HP's board breached company policy last year by granting a pay-out to Fiorina that exceeded 2.99 times the sum of an executive's base salary, plus target bonuses, without seeking share-holder approval.   That HP policy had been put in place in 2003 after share-holder dissent over a $16M pay-out to former HP president Michael Capellas, who had been in the position for only about 7 months, according to a statement released by law firm Grant & Eisenhofer, which is representing the 2 pension funds in the new law-suit..."

2006-03-07
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DJIA	10,980.69
S&P 500	1,275.88
NASDAQ	2,268.38