- Gary Sherman of Nederland, Texas
- Congress should clean up the ethics and accountability of its members first and impose stricter sanctions on those who violate them or the rest of what they do is moot. If we can't have honesty, integrity, accountability and responsibility in our representatives, then how can we trust them?...
- Daryl Jackson of Shutesbury, Massachusetts
- IMHO the first thing that must be done is to restore the nation's trust in Congress. The Republican K Street project was a disaster for the American people [as was the Democrat K Street project]. Second, I would demand that law-makers act like legislators, not partisan attack dogs. Fighting over gays, guns, and God divides the country. We need to celebrate our diversity and have respect for each of our opinions. Third, I would call for an end to the war on the American middle class. Only our corporate leaders and the wealthy think the H-1B visa program is good for America. On the same subject, I would get the borders under tight control. It doesn't help our democracy to have millions of illegal immigrants in the country.
- Angelina Broussard of Reynoldsburg, Ohio
- Reduce student loan interest rates, so that the middle class can afford to send their children to college.
- John Kuhn of Salina, Kansas
- Provide for defense of our service personnel fighting for our freedoms. Stop counting how many die and understand that our service personnel are dying to defend us here and in Congress to be free of harm or death by terrorist factions around the world wanting to destroy our rights and freedoms. Stay the course, fight the battle outside the U.S. while protecting our nation with defense, not economics or political gain as our choice.
-
- Karen Bragg of Anderson, Indiana
- Close the borders. Stop illegal immigration. Do not allow them to receive any benefits, which we have paid into for years. I am 64 and have worked since I was 17. Wrong is wrong. If I did something illegal, I'm sure the government would not say, "That's OK, we forgive you."...
- Bill Cope of Taylorsville, Illinois
- Does it really matter? Both political parties are so full of themselves with such arrogance and self-fulfillment that it doesn't matter who is in control. They will butt heads over Iraq, taxation, entitlements, as easily as they would argue over who buys the next round or a piece of chicken at free buffet. The entire governing process has made me such a cynic and non-participant for politics at all levels...
- David Delgado of Hemlock, Michigan
- I work for the auto industry and would like to see changes in fair trade agreements that would make it a more level playing field. G.M., Ford and Chrysler put a lot of American people to work. Let's keep the jobs we have left...
2007-01-04
Christian Bottorff & Michaela Jackson _Tennessean_
Davidson county TN sheriff Dan Hall set to screen for illegal aliens in jail: Hopefully, the program could lead to more deportations
Dickson Herald
Fairview Observer
Ashland City Times
"As Nashville sheriff's deputies prepare to step in to help enforce federal immigration laws, their assistance could result in the deportation of maybe thousands more people each year from Nashville... Under the program, Davidson county Sheriff's deputies will check the immigration status of every foreign-born person booked into the Metro jail. Anyone found to have an immigration hold or immigration violation will be turned over to federal authorities for deportation proceedings. Sheriff Daron Hall requested that Nashville participate in the program after several high-profile crimes in which illegal immigrants were charged. In some cases, the [illegal aliens] had been arrested repeatedly in the Midstate without being processed through the federal immigration system... Metro police chief Ronal Serpas and governor Phil Bredesen have voiced support for the program, which is coordinated through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau... Nashville's program is patterned after a similar effort in Charlotte, NC and comes at a time when the number of foreign-born people booked into Metro Jail each year continues to soar. Nashville officials estimate the program could result in 2,960 illegal immigrants being turned over to federal officials each year. Officials say that the 4,173 foreign-born prisoners who moved through the Nashville lock-up during the past fiscal year are nearly twice as many as were booked 5 years ago, county figures show. Those who support the measure expect the new procedures will lead to better cooperation with the federal government to remove illegal immigrants from the community. 'And we're taking a burden off local [tax-victims], not to mention that we'll be getting some more of the criminal element off the street.', said Theresa Harmon, co-founder of Tennesseans for Responsible Immigration Policies. Harmon, whose organization lobbies for tougher laws against illegal immigrants, said the measure pales in comparison to the larger issues facing the country: porous borders, businesses that hire illegal [aliens] and lack of enough detention space. 'Obviously, I would much rather see something done at the federal level.', Harmon said. 'But barring that [and in light of federal government resistance to doing their job], the local governments are really having no choice but to protect the citizens.'"
2007-01-04
Spencer S. Hsu _Washington Post_
Visa processing falling behind even without proposed additional guest-worker programs and thorough background checks
"Another 100K names submitted to the FBI for background checks have been on hold for a year or more. Congressional auditors recently reported that 14 immigration offices had lost track of 111K files as of July... The agency announced in September that it had cut its back-log of applications by 70% after a 5-year, $560M effort provided more personnel. In August, USCIS awarded a 5-year, $150M contract to convert 55M files into electronic form."
2007-01-04
Uma Shankar Sathya Kumar _Hindustan Times_
Why the USA should be worried
"From the beginning of this 21st century, the United States is facing competition from beyond its borders as well as internal difficulties. Its lower and middle class families are slowly turning out to be the biggest losers of current globalisation. The United States, like ancient Rome, is beginning to be plagued by the limits of its power. The current globalisation is heavily affecting its economy. In fact, the US has actively promoted the worldwide exchange of commodities like no other nation, and the result is that their local manufacturing industries have begun to be eroded. Some manufacturing sectors such as furniture, consumer electronics, automobile part suppliers and computer manufacturers have had left the country for good. In the recent past, 'free' trade has primarily benefited the very rival countries that are now mounting a heavy economic offence on the United States and the rival countries have cut off a large slice of America's global market share... In the near future, many US citizens may have to face harsh reality like a poverty-stricken, third world family, living from hand to mouth situation without any kind of financial reserves whatsoever... the US job growth rate is falling behind its own population growth. A country that cannot create jobs for its own population is not a super-power. Today, the United State's biggest bankers are [Red China] and Japan, both of whom could cause the United States very serious financial problems, if they wish to do so at any time. Roughly 27% of the government bonds issued by the US treasury are held by [Red China] and Japan. That's why US doesn't complain much about [Red China] and Japan. A country whose financial affairs are in the hands of foreigners is not a super-power."
2007-01-04 15:00PST (18:00EST) (23:00GMT)
Lou Dobbs _CNN_
Immigration corruption legislation is one of top congressional priorities
"the Democrats are bent on giving amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and leaving our open borders wide open. One of those critics is Congressman Brian Bilbray...
William Schneider: We haven't heard a lot about immigration reform. Why? Too big, too difficult, too controversial. They want to concentrate on things they can actually get done...
James Thurber of American University: There are many issues where there's going to be dead-lock, dead-lock within the Senate because basically it's tied. Dead-lock between the Senate and the House, therefore, but also dead-lock between the president and Congress... [It is a beautiful thing...jgo]
Lisa Sylvester: On trade, Democrats plan to fight to protect American jobs, replacing free trade with fair trade. Many Republicans, including President Bush, vow to fight additional tariffs... And on immigration, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce predicts victory on passing a guest worker program amnesty for illegal aliens. The chamber's president delicately putting it this way...
Tom Donohue of the US Chamber of Communists: You know, people that oppose guest-worker programs are dumb as a box of rocks. [When actually, its people who support the existing corrupt guest-worker programs and additional guest-worker programs who are as dumb as a box of rocks...jgo]
Lisa Sylvester: a growing number of Democrats who are listening to concerns of working Americans that inviting illegal workers into the country will drive down wages and dry up good-paying jobs...
Lou Dobbs: Still ahead, a communist Chinese company breaking U.S. law, forming an energy alliance with Iran. So why is that [Red Chinese] company still listed on the New York Stock Exchange?... The U.S. government bars American companies from doing business now with Iran. At the same time, it is opening American capital markets to foreign companies that do business with Iran. And in so doing, they violate American law...
Christine Romans: State-owned [Red Chinese] oil company CNOOC is pledging $16G to develop Iranian natural gas fields, flouting American foreign policy and law, undermining Washington's stated goal... The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act forbids foreign companies that invest in Iran's energy sector from tapping American capital markets. CNOOC is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, one of 33 [Red Chinese] companies, many of which maintain ownership by or close ties with the communist government.
representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinin (R-FL), International Relations Committee: Just because they're on the stock exchange here in the United States, just because they have the veneer of being like any old -- good old-fashioned American company. They are not...
Christine Romans: The New York Stock Exchange says since no action has been taken against CNOOC... foreign companies using American capital markets are injecting funds into a country with a long list of dangerous ambitions... By law, this proposed CNOOC deal requires the president to launch an investigation to determine which sanctions apply here. Congress also looking into the matter. It's on the top of the agenda for the House Foreign Relations Committee...
Lou Dobbs: Foreign spies tonight are increasing their efforts to steal American technological secrets. A Defense Security Service report saying there is a surge in espionage activity from Asian countries, and some reports saying communist China is leading the way...
Kathleen Koch: espionage attempts aimed at sensitive U.S. defense technology have shot up 43% over the last year. That finding in a new report by the Defense Security Service counterintelligence office. Space systems, lasers and missile and radar-evading stealth technology were in greatest demand... And East Asian and Pacific countries are the biggest suspected thieves. The study found they account for a third of all spy attempts. The Near East is next at 23%, followed by Eurasia at 19%. And South Asia at 13%. Africa and the Western Hemisphere count for 11%. The 29-page report doesn't accuse specific countries. But [Red China], followed by Russia and Iran, are often cited by U.S. officials as the top spy threats to the United States... The study is based on suspicious foreign contacts reported to the government by defense contractors and other defense-related sources. It says operatives in some cases made simple verbal requests for classified information. Other methods, trying to buy controlled technology. Spying while visiting U.S. companies, offering marketing services to contractors...
Lou Dobbs: The privacy of U.S. mail protected by law, but President Bush may have changed all that. When the president signed a postal bill last month, President Bush added a signing statement that appears to loosen the rules... And the U.S. Border Patrol tonight is reporting one of its observation posts on the Arizona-Mexico border was approached by unknown gunmen. The site in the Rust Desert District, was approached late last night. The site is manned by National Guard troops who, according to their policy, withdrew. The Border Patrol would not say whether any shots were fired. No guardsmen were injured in the incident, and the gunmen fled back into Mexico. The area where the incident took place is a known drug smuggling corridor...
representative Brian Bilbray (R-CA): just finished talking to Sylvester Reyes who's actually going to be a new chairman about a bill that he has, about making it a very simple system, working with David Dreier at cracking down on the source of illegal immigration. That's illegal employment of illegals. And so all we do is we shift from one chairman to the other. But the strategy should be the same and that's defending our national community -- I mean our local communities from over-seas influences... And I think the real issue was not doing more at cracking down on the employers and allowing the Chamber of Commerce to dictate the Republican policy on national security and immigration control rather than the American people... are you willing to stand up for enforcing the law and not rewarding those who broke it, and are you willing to stand up for those who have not broken our immigration law who wait patiently in other countries to come here, work, do the kind of work that the chamber says they want done and then go home, not get citizenship, not get [Socialist Insecurity], not get -- earn income tax credit and not get job security that's far beyond what legal U.S. citizens are allowed? That's the challenge for the chamber. Are they really for a guest worker program or is this their way of trying to reward themselves and the people that are profiteering from illegal immigrants that are their members, that the employers who have been hiring illegals behind our back for the last 20 years...
representative Tom Lantos (D-CA): We have a law on the books and it's up to the administration to fully enforce it. Next week I am calling Secretary Rice to get an assurance from her that sanctions will be imposed on [Red China] if [Red China] goes ahead with its plan to put $16G into Iran, which obviously will be used, at least in part, to develop nuclear weapons. The administration has a legal obligation to place sanctions on Iran. This has not been done in the past. And I will insist that it be done. And if the answer is unsatisfactory, I will hold early hearings on this subject... And I will seek assurance from the secretary of state that the sanctions will not be waived. We simply cannot allow [Red China] to supply Iran with billions of dollars to be used for the development of nuclear weapons."
2007-01-04 15:00PST (18:00EST) (23:00GMT)
Jeffrey Rowe _Cadalyst_
ICEM rocks the Motor City
2007-01-05
2007-01-05
Rob Sanchez _Zazona_/_American Workers Coalition_/_Job Destruction News-Letter_
Indians blocked distribution of Job Destruction News-Letter via AT&T
"There is no shortage of news and opinions concerning the negative effects of out-sourcing but... ALMOST NOTHING IS SAID ABOUT HOW OUT-SOURCING IS ERODING OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. I had an experience with AT&T that demonstrated to me the insidiousness and pervasiveness of this attack on our basic rights. In mid-December of 2006 AT&T blocked my news-letter from all of its customers. I found out that AT&T was blocking it mostly by coincidence while talking to a subscriber who asked me why I haven't been publishing news-letters lately. To make a long story short, the reason they weren't getting the news-letters is that someone in India arbitrarily decided to put a spam block on all e-mail content from ZaZona internet servers. I base this accusation on converstations I had with a few AT&T customers that fought this censorship. I am pleased to announce that the AT&T blockade was lifted today after efforts by several of their customers who called AT&T's technical support -- which is in India. It was no small effort by these brave activists because the Indians they talked to were snotty, arrogant, and uncooperative. They wouldn't even honor their American customers by explaining why the news-letter was blocked and when or if the block would be lifted. Battling the censorship took a lot of my own personal time also. The time I take to ward off these attacks detracts from other efforts. AT&T and their staff in India may think their trans-national status gives them the right to subvert our freedom of speech but they are wrong on several counts. Violations of U.S. and international laws as well as their own were made: 1) The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects our right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. 2) Article 19 of the Indian constitution states that all citizens shall have the right to freedom of speech and expression. 3) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, says that: 'Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.' Several people suggested that I contact the ACLU, FCC, EFF, and a variety of other organizations to take action against AT&T. Great idea, but folks, I can only fight so many battles! I have enough on my plate as is, and I hope you agree that my time and energy is best spent fighting H-1B and out-sourcing. I will conclude this news-letter with some thoughts about AT&T, corporatism, and fascism. James Carlini [wrote in a recent article] that the merger of AT&T was a net positive. He then [went] on to say: AT&T won. Even though some people for Net neutrality are very passionate about their position as they fight AT&T, they don't understand who they are going up against, the prior regulations and guarantees set in the Telecom Act of 1996 and what resources the incumbents really have. Carlini makes some good arguments in favor of the merger, but I think he is the one who doesn't understand what we are going up against. This concentration of power will allow AT&T to be a bigger and more powerful bully than they are now. Once this merger is completed you can bet that BellSouth customers will experience similar erosions of their Constitutional rights, which means the abuse will be bigger and badder. Carlini's material has been used several times for this news-letter because he has great insight on high-tech, H-1B, and out-sourcing. This time though, I think he missed the boat. As the trans-national corporations concentrate their power they are becoming tyrannical behemoths."
2007-01-05 04:27:27PST (07:27:27EST) (12:27:27GMT)
Leo Sears _Times-Standard_
Employers of illegal aliens are sucking at Uncle Sam's teat
"The 1986 amnesty was supposed to halt illegal immigration and make employers liable for hiring illegal aliens. But the agricultural lobby succeeded in adding a provision that required search warrants before going into a field to check worker documentation. This enabled agricultural interests to maintain substandard working conditions and hold down the wages of the illegal workers. It was a major reason for the tripling of illegal immigration, and the billions of dollars in associated costs to the [tax-victims]. 'Uncle Sam's teat', the title of a farm subsidies article in The Economist, is very appropriate. The American Farm Bureau was successful with its lobbying to continue the present federal farm subsidies of over $20G yearly. Not included in that figure are the billions of our tax dollars that go to support illegal [alien] farm-workers, which is just another form of farm subsidy. Cheap, exploitable labor also stifles innovation and automation... Businesses, with governmental complicity, exploit illegal aliens to drive down labor costs. The non-living wages they pay result in [tax-victims] subsiding their illegal [alien] workers at a cost far greater than any savings we might realize from lower prices... labor is less than 10% of the retail price of produce, and a 40% increase in labor costs equates to a 4% increase in consumer prices."
2007-01-05 (5767 Teves/Tebet 15)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
The bitter fruits of corruption
2007-01-05
Dave Eberhart _News Max_
USA-Mexico pact revealed: Billions to be given to non-USA citizens
"As a result of lawsuits, the U.S. government released this week the actual U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement, an understanding signed between the Bush administration and the Mexican government in 2004 that would funnel billions of U.S. [Socialist Insecurity] funds to Mexican citizens."
2007-01-05
"brian" _Media Bistro_
Lou Dobbs's viewership up 57% in 2006Q4 over 2005A4
"Lou Dobbs Tonight up 57% Most Growth of any program on CNN or FNC. The Situation Room at 19:00 up 50% (Fox Report down -7%). The Situation Room at 17:00 up 40% (Big Story flat). CNN Newsroom at 15:00 up 31% (Studio B down -8%). The Situation Room at 16:00 up 30% (Your World down -3%). Anderson Cooper 360 at 22:00-midnight up 24%. American Morning up 17% (Fox and Friends down -8%). Larry King Live up 12% (Hannity & Colmes flat)."
2007-01-05
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
Non-native workers had the merriest Christmas (with graph)
"The Household Survey was a blow-out, registering a whopping [seasonally adjusted] 303K new jobs in December. That's nearly twice the job growth counted in the more widely cited business survey. More important from our perspective is who is getting those new jobs: to a large extent, immigrants. Here are month's gains by racial group: Total: +303K (+0.21%); Hispanic: +178K (+0.89%); Non-Hispanic: +125K (+0.10%). 6 out of every 10 jobs created last month went to Hispanics -- who account for 14% of the U.S. labor force. Since about half of Hispanics are foreign-born, we use Hispanic employment as a proxy for immigrant employment. The government does not make immigrant data available in its monthly employment report, yet another example of its failure to keep tabs on our ongoing immigration disaster. The national unemployment rate held steady at 4.5% in December. Hispanic unemployment dropped by 0.1%age point, to 4.9%. White unemployment rose by 0.1%, to 4.0%. Last month's decline in Hispanic unemployment is especially noteworthy in that it coincided with a large increase in their labor force participation rates. In December 69.2% of adult Hispanics were in the labor force, up from 68.8% in November. White participation was 64.0% last month... Since 2001 January Hispanic employment has increased by 4.013M—a gain of 24.9% -- while 4.137M new jobs were filled by non-Hispanics—a gain of 3.4%. In other words, Hispanic grabbed almost half all the jobs created during Señor Bush's great job boom."
2007-01-05
| DJIA | 12,398.01 |
| S&P 500 | 1,409.71 |
| NASDAQ | 2,434.25 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 4.65% |
| crude oil | 56.31 |
| gold | 606.90 |
| silver | 12.23 |
| platinum | 1,109.00 |
| palladium | 335.10 |
| copper | 0.15844 |
| natgas | 6.184/MBTU |
| unleadedgasoline | NYMEX no longer trading |
| reformulatedgasoline | $1.4931/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.5658/gal |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
| |
"If you tax something, you get less of it. If you subsidize something, you get more of it. In America we tax work, growth, investment, employment, savings, productivity, initiative and ability, while subsidizing non-work, consumption, welfare and debt. Isn't it time to allow our people to probe, test, prove their character and sensibilities, to be inspired to growth and initiative?" --- Jack Kemp
| |
2007-01-06
2007-01-05 16:00PST (2007-01-05 19:00EST) (2007-01-06 00:00GMT)
_Yahoo!_/_Investor's Business Daily_
Mexico's Big War Against the USA
"The invasion and rout of an Arizona National Guard station by Mexican traffickers Wednesday signals that Mexico's fierce new war against smugglers is spilling over into the U.S. We should have been prepared... This attack on the National Guard is part of a much larger war that Calderon is waging on Mexico's violent criminal syndicates, which thrive on smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants. Last week Calderon dispatched 3,K federal troops to Mexico's second-worst crime haven, Tijuana -- where traffickers murdered 300 people in 2006 -- in a head-on confrontation with the enemy. This is Calderon's second dispatch of troops to fight organized criminal mafias, following a dispatch of 7,200 federal troops into crime-racked Michoacan state in the south. The timing of Calderon's move coincided with Wednesday's armed border attack by bandits on U.S. National Guard troops near Tucson, AZ. The U.S. troops are patrolling the border to help spot illegal immigrants but aren't allowed to shoot. So once attacked, they had no choice but to retreat... Al-Qaida terrorists have been [crossing] our unfortified border... for some time."
2007-01-06
Michael Cutler 
_Family Security Matters_
Unarmed border guards put more than our nation at risk
"Recently, unarmed National Guard troops were forced to flee when they were confronted by armed intruders who ran our nation's border with Mexico. The troops who fled the confrontation were assigned to an entry-identification team, asigned to monitor major illegal-alien and drug-smuggling routes into the United States. Clearly these troops succeeded in identifying the fact that armed intruders had crossed the Mexican border. Unfortunately, because they were forced to escape, the troops were unable to identify the intruders and were uncertain how many there were. All that they were able to report is that our borders had been violated by an unknown number of armed and dangerous men! The Border Patrol agents, obviously disgusted with the abysmal situation on the border they've taken an oath to protect, refer to this operation as 'Nanny Patrol'. The government refers to it as 'Operation Jump Start'. Actually, 'Jump Start' may not be an inaccurate name for the operation. The bad guys jumped our unarmed National Guard troops and our troops started to run. Actually, I refer to the administration's efforts to provide tough-sounding names for largely ineffectual field operations by another name, 'Operation Back Rub'... Teddy Roosevelt described his concept of foreign policy as, 'Walk softly but carry a big stick.'. Here the administration demonstrates a reverse philosophy. It engages in all sorts of false bravado by providing all sorts of macho sounding operational names for efforts they claim have the situation under control. The facts simply do not add up. The bad guys learned an important lesson as a result of that encounter. They know, if they doubted it before, that they can cross into our country with impunity. They have already learned that the administration is more than willing to prosecute the sworn Border Patrol agents to the maximum if they make a split-second decision to try to protect our border and their own lives... I was appalled that Congress wanted to hire only 800 new special agents but absolutely flabbergasted that the administration wanted to hire only a fraction of that number. Similarly I was amazed that while Congress had provided the funding to hire an additional 2K new Border Patrol agents, the administration slashed that number to just 210!"
hearing transcript
2007-01-06
_News-Press_
Enforcement against illegal alien invasion is long over-due
2007-01-06
Gene A. Nelson, PhD _Immigration Daily_
H-1B visas are at the heart of the Abramoff scandal
"These leaders associated directly or indirectly with lobbyist Jack Abramoff will not be a part of the 110th Congress: representative Tom DeLay (R-TX), representative Bob Ney (R-OH), representative Richard W. Pombo (R-CA), representative J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ), representative John E. Sweeney (R-NY), senator Conrad Burns (R-MT), and senator Mike DeWine (R-OH)... M$ lobbyist Jack Abramoff lobbied for expansion of the harmful H-1B visa program in 1998. In 1998, M$ lobbyist Jack Abramoff lobbied former U.S. Representative and Majority Whip Tom DeLay's office for expansion of this controversial visa program as shown in disclosures posted at the U.S. Senate Office of Public Records... Select the link to view lobbyist disclosure records. Use 'Abramoff' as the lobbyist name. Select 'Jack Abramoff' as the lobbyist name. Then view line 22, which is the 1998 mid-year report for M$ Corporation. Page one of this report shows that M$ paid Abramoff $360K for 6 months (or $60K/month). Then, go to page 6 of 11. The reader will learn that DeLay's office was lobbied by Abramoff regarding 'HR3736, The Workforce program and S1723 American Competitiveness Act (sic), all provisions relating to the H-1B visa program'. William Jarrell, representative DeLay's Deputy Chief of Staff was lobbied. Non-partisan site Public Integrity provides documentation of the $46.02M that M$ Corporation has spent on lobbying between 1998 and 2004. Add the $15,420,453 in campaign donations at Open Secrets since about 1998. In exchange for these funds, M$ has been able to save billions annually. H-1B Info shows over 4,327 H-1Bs directly employed by M$ between 2001 and 2003. (Many more are hired via contractors such as Tata, Infosys, Satyam, etc.) Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) attempted to push through a version of his S2611 in the last days of the lame duck session of the 109th Congress. The House counterpart was HR5744. S2611 could caused the largest (and open-ended) expansion of the H-1B visa program in its 16 year history. This 'under the radar' action is extremely controversial! Lobbyist (and convict) Jack Abramoff's role in the destruction of the American science and engineering enterprise is under-appreciated."
2007-01-07
2007-01-07
_KXLY Miami_/_AP_
Security increased at Miami port AFTER 3 Middle-Eastern men were taken into custody
Conservative Voice
"Security has been increased at the Port of Miami, where 3 Middle Eastern men were caught trying to slip past a checkpoint today in a cargo truck. Two of the men are from Iraq, and the other is from Lebanon. They are legal permanent residents of the US, and authorities say they don't show up on any terrorist watch list. One of the men was the driver of the truck. Police say a port security officer became suspicious when the driver couldn't produce the proper paper-work. He also indicated he was alone. But police say they searched the truck and found the other two men in the cab, trying to conceal themselves... Authorities say an initial check of the truck found that its contents don't match what was listed on its manifest."
2007-01-07
_Courier News_
Illegal aliens go under-reported
"This letter cited various recent local episodes, including the fatal accident at the Kimball Street railroad crossing in Elgin and the fatal stabbing on the Grand Victoria riverboat parking deck. Her point was that taxpayers are obligated to pay the medical costs for illegals, as well as education, social services, and other costs. When arrested, she says, the public should be informed if they are legal residents. The answer is that police do not identify every person they arrest as a legal or illegal resident of this country. Police reports usually do not provide that information to us, and of course we have no way of knowing the status of every person arrested. Additionally, courts have held that it is not lawful in many cases for government officials to even request such information. Schools, for example, cannot ask those who apply for free or reduced lunch whether they are legal residents. Likewise, when illegal immigrants enroll in school, they might not be entitled to a free public education, but the courts do not allow schools to pursue that. Hospitals cannot ask people in emergency rooms if they are legal residents before treatment. The list goes on. The inability to identify illegal aliens makes it nearly impossible to enforce any immigration laws. Couple that with the unwillingness of federal agencies to initiate meaningful action when these illegals are identified and the futility of it all becomes apparent. In a related matter, another person called to chastise us for not making the residency status of the driver in the Dec. 8 van-train crash the main focus of our follow-up story, which detailed the charges filed against her. We agree that whether the driver was a legal resident of this country is pertinent to the story, but we disagree that it is or should be the central theme. The same goes for the legal status of the 3 dead and 4 injured passengers in whom you are so interested."
2007-01-07
Jayme Evans _WEB Commentary_
I'd like to give you a swift kick...
2007-01-07
Michael Kinsman _Jamaica Observer_
Businesses should help train today's and tomorrow's workers
Law Crossing
"Several months ago, I reviewed the job posting for an entry-level position at the newspaper where I work. The job was for a newsroom support person, who would assist editors and reporters and sometimes do minor writing jobs. There is no heavy lifting in this job. But upon reviewing the job requirements, I am embarrassed to say I would not be considered a viable candidate today for that job. Still, I certainly could do the job, and did when I first started in the newspaper business. And, I certainly am capable of handling a job more demanding than that position right now. But I would not be hired today. That thought lingers with me, and I must admit that it bothers me to a degree. I have come to realise that sometimes employers sabotage their hiring flexibility by becoming too rigid in the list of requirements they demand of job candidates. If you stand in the middle of the street today, you can hear employers on one side who claim they cannot find 'qualified' workers. On the other side of the street, you can hear job seekers complaining that they cannot find work even though they have been diligently looking for months... Although it is certainly not the only goal of our educational institutions, helping prepare young people for the work is an important role for schools and universities. And, the basic education they provided was fine for people through the 1960s. Then, an individual could graduate from high school and go out and land at least a middle-class job. And, to fill jobs that required advanced training or special expertise, companies often helped individuals gain that training... [Now, firms are turning up their noses at people who have been to college and even people with work experience, claiming they're 'unqualified' because they haven't got years of experience in some specific variant or brand-name tool.] A simple solution is for employers to lower their hiring standards and step up to the plate to provide more training for the individuals they need to fill highly specific skilled jobs."
2007-01-07 09:22PST (12:22EST) (17:22GMT)
John Lillpop _Conservative Voice_
US border with Mexico attacked, National Guard backed off under fire: Where is Bush?
"Meanwhile here at home, the National Guard stationed at the Arizona border was attacked, presumably by Mexican thugs. IOW, U.S. personnel have been attacked on American soil by foreigners. No doubt they were good hearted, hard working foreigners who only came for a better life!... It is reported that in 2004, the Bush administration and Mexico entered into an agreement, not yet approved by Congress or signed by the president, that would results in billions of dollars being paid to illegal aliens in the form of [socialist insecurity] benefits. That would be the same social security system that is in danger of going bankrupt..."
2007-01-07
_Aspen Times_
On readers' comments on illegal aliens
"At the same time that we have lost over 3K soldiers fighting terrorism around the world, 19710 American citizens have been killed by illegal aliens..."
2007-01-07 12:58PST (15:58EST) (20:58GMT)
Jim Kouri _Conservative Voice_
The big lie about immigration enforcement
"The Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement dierctorate recently authorized 16 additional Alabama state troopers to enforce federal immigration law, following their completion of ICE training at the Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, AL. A Florida deputy sheriff was also authorized to enforce federal immigration law after participating in the same class. That graduating class boosted the number of Alabama troopers trained and certified to a total of 60. The Immigration and Nationality Act includes section 287(g), added in 1996, that grants local and state jurisdictions the ability to enforce immigration law with proper training and supervision by federal authorities. In 2003, Alabama became the second state in the nation to participate in the program by signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Department of Homeland Security. Florida was the first state to participate, in 2002."
2007-01-07
Seth Freedland _Hampton Roads Daily Press_
Williamsburg city council wrangling over how to dodge protections for J-1 guest-workers
2007-01-07
Steve Huygens _Sioux City Journal_
GESTAPO
"I've got it: Governmental Evidence, Surveillance Tracking and Personnal Observation System. That should be the name of the camera system RedFlex is putting in for the cities who sign up with them. Whataya think? A little GESTAPO never hurt anyone."
2007-01-07
Judy Wells _Pasadena Star News_
Fed up with holes in borders
Whittier Daily News
"When Eisenhower was elected president, he was very upset with the fact that illegal aliens were taking jobs away from citizens of this country and destroying their wages. He sent border enforcement to farms in California and arrested the illegal aliens of several farms or dairies. In the following months, when the illegal aliens knew they would be next on the list, they deported themselves. That is a fact. It is inconceivable to my friends and family that our elected officials do not care if the illegal aliens are stealing the identification of citizens of this country and are keeping the citizens of this country from gaining employment! We do not want and should not have to work next to someone who does not speak English, and then they get together with their cousins/friends and run the citizens out of the work-place. My sister and nephew worked in a meat packing plant near Council Bluffs, Iowa, in the 1980s. They did hard work. When the union said they were going out on strike, they went. The company shut down the plant, moved to another city and started hiring illegal aliens. We are fed up with our elected officials. Immigration and Customs Enforcement needs to arrest more employers and shouldn't let them have business licenses ever again. They also need to pay heavy fines and serve prison time."
2007-01-07
Jonathan T. Rothwell _Princeton 14 Points_
Racism & IQ: Recalling the Political Genealogy of Genetic Fundamentalists
2007-01-08
2007-01-08
Norman S. Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
Robert Reich interview
"In an interview last month, enclosed below, Reich at least avoids using the term 'fat and lazy', but the message isn't any better. His basic theme, of course, is retraining. I say 'of course' because this is a favorite of the Democrats, especially the labor-oriented ones. I'm a life-long Democrat myself, and maybe retraining is just the ticket for laid-off steel workers, but it sure isn't a solution for IT people. Just what is it that Reich thinks programmers who are displaced by the H-1B program and offshoring can retrain for? If he means simply to update their skills in their present field, say learning a new programming language (and his comments seem to indicate this), then he's way off the mark. Employers don't want the older (> 35 years old) programmers because they are too expensive. After taking a retraining course, they're just as expensive as they were before -- especially compared to the H-1Bs and off-shore workers. Maybe Reich feels they should leave the field, say go into nursing? Fine, but if so, why go into IT in the first place? It's especially odd to see Reich dismiss the lower number of IT jobs in the last 5 years or so as simply a dip in the business cycle. Different analysts may disagree about the degree of off-shoring occurring today, but they all agree that it is not cyclical -- it's an upward trend. Moreover, Reich misses the mark badly again when he says, 'But every time the business cycle turns up again, IT professionals are once again employed and they get good jobs.' No, Dr. Reich, this is not like the auto workers, who would get rehired by the industry when business picked up again. In IT, once you're not working in the field for say, a year, employers don't want you anymore, even if they need to hire people. You're viewed as out of date, hopelessly so. Reich also uses language disturbingly like that of the industry lobbyists, such as 'the increasing mythology among college students that IT is a risky profession'. How can it be a myth? Reich himself said that employment in the field has its ups and downs? So who can blame young people for seeking a more stable profession?"
Allan E. Alter interview of Robert Reich CIO Insight
2007-01-08
_Corruption Chronicles_
Criminal illegal aliens repeatedly released
CBS
"Many of the states and municipalities that annually receive millions of federal dollars to deal with criminal illegal aliens violate the law by releasing repeat offenders -- up to 6 times -- and refusing to document immigration status because they are self-described sanctuaries... In numerous cases, county and city law enforcement agencies released offenders with existing criminal histories -- including serious weapons and drug charges -- who had been previously arrested without notifying the Department of Homeland Security to begin deportation proceedings. Among the more scandalous revelations in the [DoJ Inspector General's] audit's 109-page report are the 2 self-described immigrant sanctuaries that received a combined $4.5M in federal funds to specifically deal with criminal illegal aliens. Oregon got $3.4M yet the entire state is a sanctuary that refuses to identify illegal aliens and seldom cooperates with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. The famously liberal northern California city of San Francisco got $1.1M even though ICE agents crowned it the least cooperative."
2007-01-08
Charles Hurt _Washington Times_
Immigration debate gets religious as ad hoc coalition proposes compromise
Austin Statesman
2007-01-08 11:00PST (14:00EST) (19:00GMT)
Phyllis Schlafly _Conservative Voice_
We need compassion for our border guards
"President George W. Bush pardoned 16 criminals including 5 drug dealers at Christmastime, but so far has refused to pardon the two U.S. Border Patrol agents who were trying to defend Americans against drug smugglers. It makes us wonder which side the self-proclaimed 'compassionate' President is on. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were guarding the Mexican border near El Paso on 2005 February 17 when they intercepted a van carrying 743 pounds of marijuana. For what happened next, they were convicted and sentenced under a statute that was designed to impose heavy punishment on criminal drug smugglers caught in the commission of a crime. The two agents are scheduled to start 11- and 12-year prison terms, respectively, on January 17, for the crime of putting one bullet in the buttocks of the admitted drug smuggler, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, and failing to report the discharge of their firearms. The non-fatal bullet didn't stop the smuggler from running to escape in a van waiting for him on the Mexican side of the border... The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice are stone-walling requests for a presidential pardon from 55 Members of Congress and U.S. citizens who have sent at least 160K petitions and 15K faxes. When the Bush Administration deigns to respond at all, the official line is that the Border Patrol agents got a fair trial... How did the prosecution go from an administrative violation for failing to report a firearm discharge, with the penalty of perhaps a 5-day suspension, to prosecution for intent to commit murder? After the trial, two jurors gave sworn statements that they had been pressured to render a guilty verdict and did not understand that a hung jury was possible."
2007-01-08
Chad Groening & Jim Brown _USA Religious News_
Lack of fortitude in enforcing immigration laws emboldens Mexico
Agape Press
WDC Media
2007-01-08
Bonnie Booth _AMA Medical News_
extreme age discrimination in medicine
"Nationwide, only 1% of the students who entered medical school [in 2000] were 36 or older, a number that holds steady today."
2007-01-08
Frosty Wooldridge _American Daily_
Bush escalates immigration crime wave
News By Us
"President George W. Bush, by violating his oath of office and by his disregard of Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, escalates a crime wave on American citizens unprecedented in 231 years of our republic. Every day, in the United States, thousands of illegal aliens unleash a reign of terror on Americans. Illegal alien migrants murder us, rape our wives and daughters, kill us on our highways, commit identity theft, smuggle drugs, forge documents, steal our cars, spread diseases and create a new bench-mark of lawlessness in our country. Bush aids, abets and encourages illegal aliens to remain in our country by not enforcing our laws to deport them. In 2003, the Government Accountability Office reported 55,322 illegal aliens in federal prisons. Those criminals had been arrested 459,614 times, or eight times each. They committed 700K crimes, or 13 each. A third had been arrested 5 times each. If you're deported and return, it's a felony that sends you to prison. None of them were deported after their crimes—even after the eighth arrest... According to a report in The New American 2006 January 8, by Cort Kirkwood, 'Illegal aliens made up 27% of the federal prison population in 2003. Mexican felons composed 67% of that number. In excess of 267K illegal aliens were jailed in federal, state and local facilities.' They cost [tax-victims] $1.6G annually. In Los Angeles, California, 95% of outstanding warrants for murder named illegal aliens. Deborah Schurman Kauflin, head of the Violent Crimes Institute, reported sex offenders represent two percent of illegal aliens. With a minimum population of 12M illegal aliens, 240K sexual predators reside within the U.S. If the Bear-Stearns Report showing 20M illegals holds true, that's 400K illegal alien sexual fiends preying on our citizens. 'IOW, 93 sex offenders and 12 serial sex offenders cross our borders daily without interruption.', she said."
Nancy Pelosi
president
2007-01-08
James H. Walsh _News Max_
Immigration free-for-all is under way
"Failing to learn from its past mistakes, Congress is doomed to repeat the history of flawed U.S. immigration legislation set in motion by the Immigration & Naturalization Services Act of 1965 (INSA). That insidious law laid the foundation for the open-door free-for-all we under-write today. Subsequent immigration laws, especially Ronald Reagan's Immigration Reform & Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), have managed to push open that door ever wider... On 2007 January 4, a secret agreement between the United States of America and Estados Unidos Mexicanos was made public. The agreement, in the mill for several years, will reward Mexicans in the United States illegally with Social Security benefits that will cost U.S. [tax-victims] billions of dollars... The Democrats' 2007 immigration agenda features a 'pathway to citizenship', which is another name for amnesty for illegal aliens, based on last year's legislation passed by the then-Republican-controlled Senate but stalled by the more conservative Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
2007-01-08
_Family Security Matters_
Illegal aliens' impact on American jobs part 2
"The mainstream media report ad nauseam that illegal aliens are doing work that Americans won't but that is mostly because the compensation is artificially depressed and illegal aliens are the only ones who will do the work for such low wages. However, as noted in the Education report, it also probably has something to do with the very low education level of the vast majority of illegal aliens. In any case, illegal aliens are not just picking strawberries and cleaning toilets any more. It wasn't that long ago that being a dry-waller, brick-layer, house framer, painter, carpet layer, plumber, or electrician was a decently compensated, middle class trade. Now it is increasingly becoming the work for illegal aliens at far less than the free market rate. While illegal alien workers are only a small portion of many of those job categories their willingness to work at dramatically lower rates artificially drags down the compensation for all workers... In 2003 March the American Engineering Association reported that the US high tech sector lost 560K jobs between 2001 January and 2002 December. While this corresponded with the dot-com bust, it is worthwhile to note that during the same period companies sponsored more H-1B and other 'temporary' visas than the numbers of jobs lost. Obviously, there could not have been a shortage but employers simply wanted cheaper labor. In 2001 it was reported that 9 out of every 10 new job openingsfor computer/IT were taken by H-1Bs, and the INS issued 312K visas in 2002."
Alan Tonelson "Immigrants and wages" Washington Times
2007-01-08
_Washington Times_
Illegal-alien positioning system
2007-01-08
Chip McClean _Post Chronicle_
Bush falling through looking-glass
American Daily
2007-01-08
Bob Herbert _NY Times_
Working harder for the man
"Data recently compiled by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston offers a startling look at just how out of whack executive compensation has become... According to the center's director, Andrew Sum, the top 5 Wall Street firms (Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley) were expected to award an estimated $36G to $44G worth of bonuses to their 173K employees, an average of between $208K and $254K, 'with the bulk of the gains accruing to the top 1K or so highest-paid managers.'... Between 2000 and 2006, labor productivity in the nonfarm sector of the economy rose by an impressive 18 percent. But workers were not paid for that impressive effort. During that period, according to Mr. Sum, the inflation-adjusted weekly wages of workers increased by just 1%. That's $3.20 a week... There are 93M production and non-supervisory workers (exclusive of farm-workers) in the U.S.A. Their combined real annual earnings from 2000 to 2006 rose by $15.4G, which is less than half of the combined bonuses awarded by the 5 Wall Street firms for just 1 year."
Boston Globe
2007-01-08
_Hindustan Times_
Indian lobbied for nuclear deal
"Our numbers in the US too have risen, what with students, professionals, the H-1B visa holders coming in droves -- we are now 2.5M strong..."
2007-01-08
Rush Limbaugh
GOP doesn't have the will for immigration fight
2007-01-08
Kavan Peterson _StateLine_
Are you a citizen? Prove it.
"Going to the DMV never has been a walk in the park, but it's likely to get even more difficult as states across the country begin to comply with stringent federal identification rules required by the 2005 Real ID Act... One of the plaintiffs, 70-year-old LH, became homeless after he was robbed of his identification and money shortly after moving to Denver in 2006. He was denied a new ID when he could produce only his original California birth certificate and a photo-copy of his driving record... 'In Colorado they've made it so hard to get an ID, it's truly a Catch-22 where citizens can't get an identity card unless they've already got one.', said Denver attorney Tim MacDonald, whose law firm is working pro bono on the case with the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless... 'When lines at the DMV are snaking around the block and the cost of a driver's license has doubled or tripled, the politicians holding the bag won't stay in office very long.', predicts Lee Tien, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco consumer advocacy group that opposes national ID standards. It worries that large government data-bases of personal information are a threat to privacy and could expose consumers to identify theft and fraud."
2007-01-08 13:05PST (16:05EST) (21:05GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
US consumer credit increased by a seasonally adjusted $12.3G in November: Outstanding debt $2.39T
Federal Reserve Board statistical release
2007-01-08
| DJIA | 12,423.49 |
| S&P 500 | 1,412.84 |
| NASDAQ | 2,438.20 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 4.66% |
| crude oil | 56.09 |
| gold | 609.40 |
| silver | 12.36 |
| platinum | 1,129.90 |
| palladium | 332.10 |
| copper | 0.158 |
| natgas | 6.378/MBTU |
| unleadedgasoline | NYMEX no longer trading |
| reformulatedgasoline | $1.4685/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.5571/gal |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
2007-01-09
2007-01-09
Norman S. Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
article in Employment Law 360
"The quote of me at the end is a condensation of what I said, and is misleading. My point (made earlier in the article) was that in most cases, employers use the skills issue as a pretext to avoid hiring the older programmers, but to have any chance at all, an older programmer needs to get on-the-job work experience (not training) by constantly asking his employer to assign him work using new language, OS, etc. At any rate, this is an interesting and useful article. It's the first time I've seen the difference in health benefits costs quantified, for instance. BTW, as some of you know, the Google suit is still alive, with the case being currently on appeal."
Quotes of NSM from the article: "Older workers cost more than younger workers, but in this field the problem is worse because the technology is constantly changing. Employers shove older workers out by using the excuse that their skills are out of date. It's a pretext, but it sounds good if litigation ever comes up."... "An employee has to keep up with one's job skills. One way this does not work is by taking courses. What does work is getting on-the-job training."
Erin Coe & Cat Fredenburgh _Employment Law 360_
Suit Takes Aim At Silicon Valley's Youth Culture
2007-01-09 02:09PST (05:09EST) (10:09GMT)
Steve Goldstein _MarketWatch_
Performance of Europe's 3 leading economies may be diverging
2007-01-09 06:50PST (09:50EST) (14:50GMT)
Jeffry Bartash & Matt Andrejczak _MarketWatch_
Sprint Nextel to cut 5K jobs
2007-01-09 08:04PST (11:04EST) (16:04GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Federal government deficit fell $85G in FY2007Q1
2007-01-09 11:11PST (14:11EST) (19:11GMT)
William L. Watts _MarketWatch_
Dem congress-critters strive to make America lose the war
2007-01-09 12:01PST (15:01EST) (20:01GMT)
Rex Crum, Stacey Delo & Matt Andrejczak _MarketWatch_
Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced iPhone
"iPhone, its new touch-screen mobile phone that will be able to play music, surf the Internet and take pictures, among other features... The phone, to be available in June, will use new 'multi-touch' technology, Jobs added, calling the phone the 'ultimate digital device'. It will have a 3.5-inch diagonal screen and be 11.6mm thick. Apple's iPod technology is built into the phone. Among its features, Apple said that the phone will have a 2Mpixel camera, instant text-messaging capacity, iTunes sync and a visual voice-mail system, which will allow users to read a list of people who called."
2007-01-10
2007-01-10 04:00PST (07:00EST) (12:00GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Mortgage applications up 16.6% last week from the week before
"The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate loan fell from 6.22% the previous week to 6.13%, which was the highest rate seen in 8 weeks."
2006-01-10 05:47PST (08:47EST) (13:47GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
US trade deficit reduced in November to $58.2G
BEA press release
2007-01-10 07:46PST (10:46EST) (15:46GMT)
Nick Obradovich _Yahoo!_/_Rooftop Publishing_
North American Union would erase US borders, replace US constitution, destroy Americans' standard of living
PR News Wire
"As the 110th Congress convenes, supporters of U.S. borders and sovereignty urge more Americans to join Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Virgil Goode (R-VA), Ron Paul (R-TX) and Walter Jones (R-NC) in fighting a little-known plan to create a North American Union. The scheme would combine the U.S. with Mexico and Canada into a single political and economic system modeled after the European Union. The merger would erase U.S. borders and sovereignty and allow for the free movement of people, products, and capital between the regions by 2010. It would allow unelected bureaucrats and corporate internationalists to 'harmonize' U.S. laws with corrupt Mexico and socialist Canada, according to Daniel Sheehy, author of _Fighting Immigration Anarchy: American Patriots Battle to Save the Nation_. In 2006 September, the 4 congressmen introduced a resolution opposing the merger and the construction of the NAFTA Superhighway system that would connect the 3 countries. The massive corridors would result in the loss of countless acres of private land and more terrorists, criminals and drugs entering the U.S., Sheehy said."
2007-01-10
Mike Johanns _USDA_
Productivity
"U.S. agriculture, ladies and gentlemen, as a whole achieved a record-breaking $68.7G in exports in Fiscal Year 2006 and should reach $77G this fiscal year. I think in the 6 years that this President has been in office we've set a record 3 out of those 6 years. This is equivalent to one-quarter of our cash receipts. Trade is vital to our agricultural industry. Our productivity is increasing by about 2% a year on average, but the population is growing and consumption is growing at about half that rate. Chart that out over 10 years and you begin to see the dramatic imbalance between production and consumption in the United States. As the world's second-largest cotton producer, the United States achieved a record $4.7G in exports last year. We expect that number is going to grow this year. We expect that it should be about a $5G year in exports. And to keep reaching new customers around the world and have a role in that growth, USDA is announcing that we are granting $12.7M this fiscal year to the Cotton Council International under our Market Access Program, a program that really makes a difference. I am also very pleased to announce that 67 U.S. trade organizations are going to receive a total of $100M in Fiscal Year 2007 to promote U.S. agricultural products over-seas. If I'm not mistaken in looking at the list, though, I think cotton is the largest recipient. This is the kind of support that helps our farmers and ranchers to compete in the market-place. This is the kind of support that I believe just is really sound farm policy. While we export close to 80% of our cotton production, our own share of world consumption has dropped to about 5%. That would be the lowest since the 1800s. Developing countries are increasingly driving world textile production and trade... 50% of our rice goes into the international market-place... about one-third of our row crops go into the international market-place... 15% of the largest farms in America do receive 54% of all farm program payments... 60% of U.S. producers really are pretty well left out of farm programs because they don't raise the program crops that are traditional to farm bills leading back to the Depression... per capital cotton consumption has jumped by over 27% since 1985 -- 27%."
2007-10-10 08:57PST (11:57EST) (16:57GMT)
Y.P. Rajesh _Yahoo!_/_Reuters_
India could dump US nuclear deal
"'Can we walk away from this deal if it does not correspond to our national interest? Obviously we have to walk away from this and we will walk away from it.' President George W. Bush last month signed into law a bill approved by Congress allowing the deal to go through, a major step toward letting India buy U.S. nuclear reactors and fuel for the first time in 30 years. But Congress attached several conditions to the law which have not gone down well with New Delhi, and the two countries have returned to negotiations. Under the bill, the U.S. president would be required to end the export of nuclear materials if India tests another nuclear device. It tested one in 1998. It also does not guarantee uninterrupted fuel supplies for reactors and prevents India from reprocessing spent fuel. Saran said these conditions were not acceptable to India and this had been conveyed to the U.S.A... The deal has also been unpopular with the U.S. non-proliferation lobby which says Washington is undermining efforts to curb the spread of nuclear arms. India has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."
2007-01-10
Kevin O'Horan _Lakeland Ledger_
DNA search firms help clients discover missing pieces of past
"men and women today are reconnecting with their forebears not in stories passed down from generation to generation, nor with the paper trail of birth certificates and marriage licenses and death records and such -- but through science. Genetic testing, to be precise... Most human cells contain 23 pairs of chromosomes in their core - or, nucleus. Each chromosome contains genes that determine everything from height to hair color to health, with one pair of chromosomes responsible for determining sex. Here's where it gets a little tricky: Cells reproduce in a couple of ways, one that copies the chromosomes and sends just half a set to egg or sperm cells, and the other that makes a whole, though somewhat-jumbled, copy for a completely new cell. Don't sweat the details. What's important is that when cells split the first way, with half the genetic set, labs can track and analyze the Y chromosome, the sex-determining chromosome that is passed down from father to son alone... [A] mitochondrial DNA test... looks at genetic material passed down only from mother to daughter... A match of DNA, he explains, confirms an ancestor, but it doesn't necessarily mean a direct link... She had DNAPrint Genomics of Sarasota look at her DNA to find information in the mix of genes she has received from her father and mother, as well as their fathers and mothers, and so on for generations. Random recombination... It happens when a cell splits to produce two new cells, when chromosomes swap little snippets of genetic material before the split. In those little snippets, scientists have discovered distinct patterns of how and where a tiny set lines up on chromosomes. But there's a tiny set of genetic information that remains relatively consistent, and relatively different, for 4 predominant population groups around the globe: Indo-Europeans, sub-Saharan Africans, East Asians and Native Americans. By comparing a DNA sample against a vast data-base of patterns known for those four groups, DNAPrint can break down a person's ancestry by contribution from those various population groups. For T, the company looked at 176 genetic markers -- out of the 3.3G found in human DNA -- and found her roots to be 75% Indo-European, along with 12% East Asian, 8% sub-Saharan African and 5% Native American... T has ponied up for an expansion of her first test and will have the company look at another 150 or so markers that bring a little more focus to the European findings."
2007-01-10
Leah Beth Ward _Yakima Herald Republic_
Washington Department of Labor and Industries drops proposed regulation of bodyshops under pressure from corrupt agriculture groups
"But the Department of Labor and Industries is still asking the 2007 Legislature to fund two new staff positions for administration and enforcement of existing farm-labor contractor rules. The Washington Farm Bureau, Washington State Horticultural Association and Washington Growers League opposed the tougher requirements, saying they were unfair and would hinder growers' ability to hire workers... The proposal grew out of the state's problems with a Los Angeles-based company that recruited Thai workers to the Yakima Valley in 2004 and 2005... The draft legislation would have required contractors to post a repatriation bond to cover room and board for foreign guest-workers waiting for their return trip home at the end of a season, as well as their travel expenses. Fees that contractors could charge workers also would have been capped... Officials came up with the proposal because they felt at a disadvantage in dealing with Global Horizons of Los Angeles, which brought about 260 workers from Thailand to the Yakima Valley in 2004 and 2005. L&I revoked the company's farm- labor contracting license in 2005, saying it failed to correct labor and insurance-law violations in a timely manner. One of the violations was a failure to fully reimburse workers' travel expenses back to Thailand..."
2007-01-10
_PR News Wire_
Small Business Legislative Council revealed its agenda
"We believe that it is important for any immigration reform proposal to include [an additional] guest-worker provision, a path to citizenship [i.e. amnesty for illegal aliens in the USA], and increased border security... between 2004 and 2005 the number of uninsured increased by 1.3M to 46.6M, while spending on health care rose 7.9%... Small businesses cannot afford to return to the draconian level of estate taxes prior to the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act of 2001... there should be adjustments made to the Research and Development Tax Credit... we encourage the implementation of a simple flat credit. The credit should be limited to companies with 500 or fewer employees or an asset size of less than $50M."
2007-01-10
Elliot Spagat _Chicago Sun-Times_
Wealthy Mexicans, fleeing kidnappings & violence, follow millions of illegal aliens north
"The city has nearly doubled to 230K people since 1990 as new housing tracts have sprung up on the plains and rolling hills beyond Chula Vista's aging downtown. The well-to-do newcomers cross the border legally, using green cards, investor visas or temporary permits for shopping trips or other short visits. Kidnappings-for-ransom in the last year or two appear to have fueled the northward push."
2007-01-10
Tom Curry _M$NBC_
Illegal alien invasion puts downward pressure on pay and job opportunities
"In its assessment last May of the Senate immigration bill, which would have created a new guest-worker program and allowed thousands of illegal immigrants living in the United States to become legal residents, the Congressional Budget Office said it was likely that the addition of additional immigrants 'would slow the growth of the wages of workers already present in the United States with whom they most closely compete'... Lofgren, like Hoyer, is something of an agnostic on the question of whether illegal immigrants undermine native-born workers' wages... For employers, the cost of workers is not only the wages that must be paid to them, but other costs such as health insurance, paid sick days, and workers' compensation insurance in case of injury on the job. In each case, unscrupulous employers can use illegal immigrants to escape and minimize all these costs... Lofgren said, 'To the extent that some economists worry that the under-ground economy impacts adversely American workers, it's important that workers who are here temporarily not be [abused]. Because that's not only unfair to them, it's not fair to Americans. So a comprehensive immigration approach is important to American workers, but so is the minimum wage.'... For most Democrats the phrase 'comprehensive immigration reform' means deterring illegal [aliens] and those who hire them, but also legalizing the illegal [aliens] who are already living in the United States [which would attract rather than deter illegal aliens]... 'The hardest issue still is going to be how to deal with the [12M to 24M] (illegal [aliens] living in the United States).', Cornyn said. 'My position is we don't repeat the mistake we made in 1986, where we traded an amnesty for enforcement and we got an amnesty and no enforcement.'... If Congress enacts stringent border and work-site enforcement, then, he said, 'The American people would be far more generous about how we deal with the [12M to 24M illegal aliens].'"
2007-01-10
Bay Buchanan
New year, new congress, same old amnesty: Stop Martinez
"With a new year and a new congress comes a new attempt for amnesty. The usual suspects in the Senate -- John McCain and Ted Kennedy -- are planning on pushing through legislation in the spring with their friends Louis Gutierrez and Jeff Flake in the House. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said 'comprehensive immigration reform' will be among the first 10 bills he introduces, and Democratic Majority leader Steny Hoyer says that President Bush will have an 'easier time' getting amnesty with the Democrats than with his own party. I guess the Democrats only want to control Congress for one term! The open borders folks are hoping to sneak the legislation past without anyone noticing, and this is where you come in. As soon as an amnesty gets introduced, I will let you know, and we will not let up until we stop them. With Democrats embracing open borders, you would think the Republicans would take this as an opportunity to seize up on a popular issue, but the leaders are doing just the opposite. As I told you earlier, Mel Martinez has been nominated as chairman of the Republican National Committee chair. They will be voting on him next week. Martinez has a terrible record on securing our borders and was one of the sponsors of the Senate Amnesty last year. The leaders of the state parties will vote on his nomination on January 20th. [If you're a contributor to the Repucrat half of the Repucrat/Demoblican party, go] to http://www.gop.com/States/ and click on your state to contact your party and tell them that they should not be putting a pro-amnesty politician in charge of the party if they want your support. If you get any junk mail from the GOP asking for your money, tell them they won't get a dime until they get serious about securing their borders."
2007-01-10
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_
Recent Duke U study
"The press never questions whether this study is scientifically valid because it confirms their preconceived notions that our high-tech industries cannot survive without the better educated geniuses from foreign countries. The most important thing to notice when looking at the 'study' is that it's merely a telephone survey that was made by calling corporate PR and HR departments. It says so right up front, but of course reporters probably never get past the introductory pages with the glossy pictures. Does this methodology sound like science to you? (page 8) Our research team then made thousands of unsolicited phone calls to these companies. We asked whether one or more immigrant key founders had established the company and if so, what their nationality was. This became the source of the data presented in this report. If all of this sounds fishy to you just wait, it gets worse! There is an abundance of hyperbole about the brilliant entrepreneurs from India, [Red China], and Taiwan that should make you suspicious -- unless of course you are a journalist for the Mercury News or Washington Post!... Now let's look at a list of students at at Duke who did the telephone survey... Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian: Hometown: Mumbai, India; Pradeep Kamsali Hometown: Hyderabad, India; Nishanth Lingamneni Hometown: Hyderabad, India; Chris Morecroft Hometown: Georgetown, KY, USA; Niyanthi Reddy Hometown: Hyderabad, India; George Robinson; Batul Tambawalla Hometown: Bombay, India; Mark Weaver; Zhenyu Yang Hometown: ChongQing, [Red China]. OBVIOUS CONCLUSION: Based on who did the telephone survey, the only real surprise is that they didn't conclude that Indians are responsible for every technological innovation in the history of mankind. Instead they made a more modest claim by giving [Red China] the #2 spot, perhaps to appease Zhenyu Yang. If we are to consider all of the bias in the study, let's not overlook the fact that Vivek Wadhwa and AnnaLee Saxenian were the [brains] behind this sham. Wadhwa is one of the often quoted gurus of out-sourcing and Saxenian is the queen of sham studies on out-sourcing and H-1B. You can read more about the shenanigans of these 2 by searching the news-letter archive."
Duke study (pdf)
related article
corporate.internet.comain.name.coordinator@exxonmobil.com
2007-01-10 07:22PST (10:22EST) (15:22GMT)
Cheryl Hall _Dallas Morning News_
Giving gives back to Exxon
2007-01-10
John Stossel _Jewish World Review_
Bush and Dems sticking it to low-skilled workers
2007-01-10 (5767 Teves/Tebet 20)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The new "Yellow Peril"
2007-01-11
2007-01-11
Norman S. Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
A case study of under-payment of H-1Bs
"I've always stressed the point that the under-payment of H-1Bs is in most cases fully legal. The law is so full of loop-holes that an employer looking for cheap foreign labor has no need to violate the law; he can under-pay H-1Bs yet be in full compliance with the law. Recall that even an industry-friendly 2003 GAO report (unwittingly) pointed to the loop-holes when discussing the employer survey the GAO had conducted: 'Some employers said that they hired H-1B workers in part because these workers would often accept lower salaries than similarly 'qualified' U.S. workers; however, these employers said they never paid H-1B workers less than the required wage.' Again, interesting as it may be that some employers actually admitted to the GAO that they were under-paying their H-1Bs (you can imagine how many decided NOT to share such information with the GAO), that is NOT my point here. Instead, my focus is on that last statement by the GAO, 'however, these employers said they never paid H-1B workers less than the required wage.' IOW, the prevailing wage as defined in the law and regs is so broad that it is easy to pay an H-1B below-market wages yet be in full compliance with the law. All this was illustrated a few years ago in an outstanding case study by John Miano of the Programmers Guild, presented on a web page titled, How to Under-pay H-1B Workers. In my posting here, I will present another interesting case study, with information kindly provided to me by Vivek Wadhwa, CEO of Relativity Technologies at the time I'll be speaking of, and consented to my discussing it here. (He gave further information, including the names of the 2 programmers discussed below, but wishes to not have the names released publicly.) Vivek is now an academic (among other things), with an adjunct appointment at Duke University. You may recall that I have found a couple of Vivek's studies to be refreshingly 'out of the box' thinking, but that I was quite disappointed in the study he released last week. You may also recall that I pointed out that a check of the Dept. of Labor's H-1B web page shows that Vivek's firm hired an H-1B Software Engineer for $44,144, and a Computer Programmer for $31,933. Note that even new graduates in computer science get around $50K, so these are very low by any standard. Vivek is not a rabid defender of the H-1B program, and readily agrees that many employers abuse it. However, he believes that his hiring of the 2 H-1B programmers was justified on the grounds that they are brilliant people. I too have always supported bringing in 'the best and the brightest' from around the world. Most H-1Bs are not in that category (see my Michigan Journal of Law Reform article on this point (pdf)), but if Vivek says those 2 H-1Bs fall into that category, that's good enough for me. There is, however, the issue of how much to pay them. The one making $44K had a Master's degree and had been working part-time for Vivek in Russia for the previous 3 years. Moreover, at the time Vivek hired this worker, the guy had been working for a Russian government joint venture company in Russia, developing telephone and networking systems, which is sophisticated work. And yet as an H-1B he was being paid less than a Bachelor's graduate with no experience. The reader's reaction to all this is probably, 'Well, THAT must be illegal. The salary Wadhwa paid this H-1B didn't take into account the worker's Master's degree and his work experience.' But that is a perfect example of the myriad loop-holes in the law. The key point is that under the law, prevailing wage is defined by the JOB, not by the WORKER. If the job just requires a Bachelor's degree, then an H-1B with a Master's can legally be paid a Bachelor's-level wage. What about this worker's experience? Doesn't that have to be taken into account? Well, first of all, the experience level DoL used at the time lumped everyone with 0-2 years of experience into one category, and this worker with 3 years of part-time and one year of full-time experience might fall into that category. But beyond that, again, keep in mind the prevailing wage is defined by the JOB, not by the WORKER. If this was an entry-level job, then the guy could legally be paid an entry-level salary. Last but not least, what about the fact that the guy is supposedly brilliant? The guy got his Master's degree at the age of 16! (He was only 17 at the time Vivek hired him.) On the open market, that would command a premium salary. But remember, this ain't the open market. And there is nothing in the prevailing wage law about factoring in brilliance. So, the bottom line is that Vivek got a brilliant worker with a Master's degree and the equivalent of something like 2 years of experience for the price of a Bachelor's graduate of average talent and no experience. And don't forget, that isn't even accounting for what I call Type II wage savings an employer accrues by hiring H-1Bs -- by hiring young H-1Bs, he avoids hiring the older, thus more expensive, Americans. IOW, any way you slice it, Vivek got a great bargain -- one that would have been impossible on the open market. BTW, the exact salary the guy was hired at was $44,144. Why the odd-ball figure? Well, the law at the time allowed employers to pay 5% less than the prevailing wage, and the latter was, according to the form Vivek's firm filed, $46,467. Yep, 0.95 X 46467 = 44144. Of course, this additional 5% savings was peanuts compared to the other savings, but it does show that Vivek's firm's HR Dept. and/or their immigration lawyer knew all the loop-holes. (You can see this same 5% provision being used in Intel's H-1B data, by the way.) The other H-1B was hired at $31K. He had some experience, and was also supposedly brilliant. You can see the rest of the story here. Vivek does point out that he gave both H-1Bs regular raises, with the first H-1B making $85K when he left the firm 4 years later. Fine, but if he had been hired on the open market, he may well have STARTED at $85K (brilliant people with new Master's degrees and a bit of experience were often making that much), and gotten big raises after that."
Matloff on Duke university report
Matloff on Case study of under-payment of H-1B visa-holders
2007-01-10 23:52PST (2007-01-11 02:52EST) (2007-01-11 07:52GMT)
Paul Eakins _North San Diego County Times_
Escondido council OKs resolution opposing illegal alien invasion
2007-01-11 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 506,988 in the week ending January 6, an increase of 7,943 from the previous week. There were 555,114 initial claims in the comparable week in 2006. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.3% during the week ending Dec. 30, an increase of 0.3 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,030,341, an increase of 375,609 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.5% and the volume was 3,155,322. Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending December 23."
graphs
2007-01-11
Donald Mann _Negative Population Growth_/_PR News Wire_
NPG President Calls on Congressional Leaders to Openly and Quickly Pass Immigration Reform
Earth Times
"Concerned that an immigration reform bill could be deceitfully drafted in Congressional back rooms and sprung on the American people without warning OR alternatively put off until next year for political expediency, Donald Mann, President of Negative Population Growth, today called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to openly and quickly move immigration reform that does not grant amnesty and citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants through the 110th Congress... without a strong new immigration law that is effectively enforced, our nation is doomed to a future of record-breaking population growth that will wreak havoc on our economy, our society and our environment... almost all members of Congress -- including most of the newly elected Democrats -- ran on a platform of strong immigration laws and enforcement -- and few promised to embrace amnesty legislation similar to that passed by the Senate last year... they include a call for any guest workers to be exactly that -- 'guests'. Thus, current illegal immigrants in the U.S.A. should be required to return to their home country and reenter the states only if sponsored by an already identified employer... new legislation cannot create massive new openings for new 'legal' immigrants and 'guest-workers' to bring in their extended families. Such lax legislation would greatly accelerate our population growth and add tens of millions of new people in a very short time... [Congress should] demand that present immigration laws be enforced -- with employers who hire illegals made to pay a severe penalty."
2007-01-11
Tom deWeese _Cybercast News Service_
Dumb Party acts as predicted
"So Ms. Resnick, which part of the 'middle' did Republicans ignore? The 85% who demand the Republicans stop illegal immigration, as the Republican Administration and Senate supports doing away with border control all together? The 65% who oppose U.S. involvement in the United Nations, as the Republican Congress rejoined UNESCO? The overwhelming majority of Americans who are opposed to a North American Union, now being secretly put in place by our Republican president? The property owners who desperately seek action to stop eminent domain to save their homes from the wrecking ball of private developers, only to see Republican Senator Arlen Specter stop it? The majority of the Republican base which fought in the trenches of local prescincts for 50 years to make Republicans the majority party, expecting it to reduce the size and power of government? All of these are natural constituencies of the Republican Party. All held out hope that a Republican majority would stand with them. All were betrayed... Had the Republicans stayed true in their old positions of limited government and individual liberty, keeping down spending and regulations; blocked efforts to intrude in our private lives; supported a foreign policy that looked after American interests; and protected our sovereign borders, then the loyal base would have followed the Republicans over the abyss in the Iraq war."
2007-01-11 (5767 Teves/Tebet 21)
Jeff Jacoby _Jewish World Review_
Ask hard questions about Islam, get sued
2007-01-11
_Family Security Matters_
Illegal aliens are overwhelming public services
Free Market News Network
2007-01-11 (5767 Teves/Tebet 21)
Zev Chafets _Jewish World Review_
Maybe Israel should bust Iran's bunkers
2007-01-11
| DJIA | 12,514.98 |
| S&P 500 | 1,423.82 |
| NASDAQ | 2,484.85 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 4.74% |
| crude oil | 51.88 |
| gold | 613.90 |
| silver | 12.46 |
| platinum | 1,144.80 |
| palladium | 332.85 |
| copper | 0.1661 |
| natgas | 6.292/MBTU |
| unleadedgasoline | NYMEX no longer trading |
| reformulatedgasoline | $1.3905/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.4804/gal |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
2007-01-12
2007-01-11 16:32PST (2007-01-11 19:32EST) (2007-01-12 00:32GMT)
Candace Lombardi _CNET_
Tech executives still confess they're increasing off-shoring
Ziff Davis
"Of the respondents, about 57% of software companies that have off-shore operations said they increased off-shoring work significantly within the past 18 months, according to the report by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) [an association of tech executives with a personal financial interest in off-shoring, bodyshopping and guest-worker abuse]... Of those respondents, 48% said their company had started 'global software development initiatives' within the past one to 3 years, compared with 19% that began projects within the past 3 to 5 years and 18% more than 5 years ago. About half the off-shore out-sourcing companies used an off-shore provider, while about one third operated through a subsidiary and a quarter used both. (For some questions, multiple responses were possible.)... India was the country that respondents listed most often, at 65%, as a current or potential off-shore partner. That was followed by Eastern Europe/Russia at 29% and [Red China] at 21%. Moving operations overseas didn't guarantee profits, the survey found. Of companies that did see a gain, their profits were in the 10% to 20% range..."
2007-01-11 19:33PST (2007-01-11 22:33EST) (2007-01-12 03:33GMT)
Riccoh Player _North San Diego County Times_
Media fails to report Iraq successes
"To say that very few media outlets are reporting the progress being made here by Ready First Combat Team is a story. RFCT arrived in Ramadi in 2006 June and at that time this Forward Operating Base was getting hit with indirect fire every day. That is no longer the case. There were 3 Iraqi police stations. Today there are 9 and multiple sub-stations and Emergency Response Unit positions. Tribal participation, which reflected 9 uncooperative and 3 neutral tribes, now reflects 3 uncooperative, 6 neutral and 12 cooperative... We're a society of instant results who are perhaps victims of our own impatience. It took 11 years to write our Constitution and if I'm not mistaken, the British are still working on theirs!... there are successes in Ramadi. For example, there are civic action programs, coupled with Iraqi police and tribal leaders are making tremendous gains by providing repairs to water pump stations, abandoned building demolition -- which is vital because these places are laced with IEDs and are used as terrorist attack positions, rubble removal once the buildings are destroyed, school and hospital repairs and support to the local bank. Several steps have been taken to reinforce 'normal life' in Ramadi. It's frustrating and sometimes difficult to articulate these success stories because they become targets for terrorists trying to sabotage progress."
2007-01-11 22:17PST (2007-01-12 01:17EST) (2007-01-12 06:17GMT)
Chris Bagley _North San Diego County Times_
Local government agency's off-shoring trips raise eye-brows
"Elected officials have reacted skeptically to a Riverside county agency's attempt to out-source local manufacturing jobs to Mexico. In an ongoing series of meetings south of the border, representatives of the county's Economic Development Agency are exploring ways to help American companies shift labor-intensive, low-tech stages of their production to Mexican factories... Lake Elsinore Mayor Bob Magee said he didn't see much of an upside. 'I'm concerned about the agency's efforts in Mexico.', Magee wrote in a Jan. 3 e-mail to Robin Zimpfer, the county's assistant executive officer for economic development. 'My constituents have let me know that they do not support the direction your agency is taking.'... similar efforts by a Los Angeles-area development agency... Unemployment in Riverside county has remained between 4% and 5% for most of the last year. Mexico's jobless rate is now below 4%, though the country's average incomes are just 10% to 20% of what Americans earn."
2007-01-11 22:24PST (2007-01-12 01:24EST) (2007-01-12 06:24GMT)
Ann Perry _North San Diego County Times_
Economists are wary of cost-benefit balance for cities building stadiums at tax-victim expense
"They say cities that join with major-league teams to build stadiums get little, if any, benefit from such projects. And they are likely to be on the hook for many millions of [tax-victim] dollars in subsidies, cost over-runs, additional city services and the cost of new roads and sewer upgrades. The Chargers, however, insist that they plan to finance a stadium that costs $700M or more at no cost to the city chosen, raising the money by building adjoining housing, commercial or retail projects. That would make the Chargers the first National League Football team to do so, according to Mark Fabiani, the team's lead negotiator on the stadium project. 'We're not asking for public funding.', Fabiani said... Dennis Coates, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland at Baltimore who researches sports economics, said that Oceanside officials should be skeptical of the team's promise to build a stadium at no cost to the city. 'I wouldn't believe it for a second.', Coates said. The city, he said, could lose lots of money if it partners with the team. 'If it's profitable to do, then the franchises should do it themselves.' Craig Depken, a professor of economics at the University of Texas at Arlington who studies sports stadium financing, said that in the past 15 years, the majority of money to pay for new football and baseball stadiums for professional teams has come from [tax-victims]. He said the teams typically contribute one-third of the cost, with cities and taxpayers funding the two-thirds balance, often by issuing government-backed bonds. Depken said there is little evidence that any boost to local economies or jobs from new stadiums outweighs the public cost -- or that they add much financial value at all... 'They'll drive up, go to the game and go home.', said Coates. 'There's no evidence that a stadium serves as an anchor for other development.' As for jobs, Depken said, it's true that local workers get hired to sell concessions and direct traffic. But, he asked, 'Are those the kind of jobs you want?'... [Fabiani] pointed to a 2004 study by two economists who did find financial value in having an NFL team -- by comparing rents and property taxes in cities with a franchise to those in cities without one. The study concluded that on average, apartment rents were 8% higher for cities with teams than without, and that property tax revenues were about $50M higher on average in 1999 for cities with teams than without. That was more than enough to cover the average annual subsidy in 1999 of $27M in the form of stadium maintenance, tax breaks and police and fire services that the cities provided the teams."
2007-01-12 00:42PST (03:42EST) (08:42GMT)
Dave Downey _North San Diego County Times_
California cops break public records law
2007-01-12 03:49PST (06:49EST) (11:49GMT)
_Fox_
Fairfield restaurant owner pled guilty of employing illegal aliens
Cincinnati Enquirer
composite: "Jing Fei Jang pled guilty in United States District Court Thursday on charges of inducing, transporting and harboring an illegal alien to work at his Bee's Buffet Restaurant in Fairfield. Jiang also pled guilty of making a false statement on an application for a small business loan. The government seized Jiang's business, his 2004 GMC Yukon XL and about $400K in cash. Some of the money was stashed in a safe at his house, and the rest was in bank accounts and a safe deposit box. Jiang, 37, is in the country illegally but had been seeking asylum at the time of his arrest in June and has several relatives, including a son and a daughter, who are U.S. citizens. He claims he was a pro-democracy protester at Tiannanmen Square in 1989 and would be subject to imprisonment if sent back to Red China. Jaing faces the possibility of separate deportation hearings."
2007-01-12
Nicholas Paphitis _AP_/_abc_
Leftist terrorists blast at US embassy in Athens, Greece
Globe and Mail
Houston Chronicle
Jerusalem Post
Reuters
BBC
"The U.S. Embassy in Athens came under fire early Friday from a rocket that exploded inside the modern glass-front building but caused no casualties in an attack police suspect was the work of Greek leftists. Narrowly missing the embassy emblem, the anti-tank shell pierced the building near the front entrance shortly before 06:00 [local time, 03:58GMT], damaging a bathroom on the third room, which houses the ambassador's office, and shattering windows in nearby buildings."
2007-01-12
_KFMB_
Crack-down on illegal aliens in jail
"Law enforcement agencies in Orange county [CA] are working with the federal government to deport illegal immigrants serving time in U.S. jails. The news could mean as many as 11K illegal aliens could be handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] for deportation... they are checking the immigration status of all inmates..."
2007-01-12 03:36PST (06:36EST) (11:36GMT)
Daniel Gross _Slate_
What are the jobs Americans won't do?
"The United States is a nation of hard workers. Compared with many other developed countries, the U.S. boasts high rates of labor-force participation and productivity and has a very low unemployment rate. Americans work longer hours than Europeans -- 1,804 hours per worker for the United States in 2005, compared to 1,434 in Germany and 1,535 in France, according to the OECD. Yet it's increasingly common to hear politicians, CEOs, and immigration activists impugn American workers as a bunch of shiftless layabouts who regard many good jobs as beneath their dignity. That, they say, is why employers have to turn to immigrants—some of them legal, many of them illegal. To hear CEOs tell it, they'd much rather hire English-speaking, tax-paying U.S. citizens, people who won't disrupt operations by getting rounded up in Homeland Security sweeps. But they just can't find any Americans willing to do their jobs... The failure here isn't in the work ethic of Americans. Rather, it lies with the CEOs, business owners, university and hospital administrators, and government officials—and ultimately, with all of us who benefit from cheap labor—to offer the wages and benefits necessary to attract sufficient numbers of legal workers. There's a reason they call the labor market a market."
2007-01-12
Glen Johnson _AP_/_Salem News_
Governor Deval Patrick rescinded Mitt Romney's agreement allowing state police troopers to arrest illegal aliens, instated policy to deport convicted criminals
Eagle-Tribune
2007-01-12
_Examiner_/_AP_
Colorado's Tancredo testing Presidential bid
Denver Post
"Tancredo, known for his outspoken criticism of illegal immigration, will meet with Iowa GOP leaders and grass-roots activists to see how they would respond if he ran, Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinosa said."
2007-01-12 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
Retail sales were up 0.9% in December
"For all of 2006, sales increased 6.0%, down from a 6.9% gain in 2005. The figures are not adjusted for inflation."
census bureau tables
2007-01-12
James P. Pinkerton _Centre Daily_
Our troops need to surge to the USA-Mexico border
Philadelphia Inquirer
In-Forum
"But in fairness to the main-stream media, the journo-establishment would cover this Mexican invasion of America -- the larger story, of course, is the millions of illegals traveling across the border every year -- if it were ever to get the signal that the American government took this under-covered onslaught seriously. In a different era, the American commander in chief took seriously his constitutional oath to 'preserve, protect and defend' these United States. In 1916, after the terroristic forces of Pancho Villa crossed into American territory, President Woodrow Wilson sent general John 'Black Jack' Pershing and the U.S. Army into Mexico on a punitive retaliatory expedition. That's how a country convinces outsiders that it cares about its own national sovereignty... But, of course, both parties in Washington are experts at the game of selling out ordinary Americans... What Americans on the southwestern border need is political leadership that will stand up for them, not ignore them."
2007-01-12
Richard G. Shuster _Conservative Voice_
Illegal aliens are not lawful immigrants
"We have laws to defend our borders and a mandate to do so, but we have a sad history for the past 45 years of not enforcing the laws. This is the 3rd such amnesty scam I have witnessed since my youth, with each, in the 1960s, 1980s and again today, opening the flood gates wider and wider. If individuals wish to be Lawful Immigrants and are willing to adopt the principles and ideals of America, I welcome them with open arms and an open mind to my country, my community and to my neighborhood... If the existing laws were to be enforced, we would not need any new legislation. Secure our borders first, clean house and stop this cycle of insanity of Illegal Aliens that has plagued us since the 1960's and eroded our national security."
2007-01-12
Mike Cutler _Family Security Matters_
Legislators introduced huge agricultural guest-worker/illegal alien amnesty program
"Senator Larry Craig, R-ID, joined by lawmakers from Florida and California and supported by hundreds of farm, labor and church groups, is reintroducing a guest-worker plan that's been debated for years. As many as 1.5M farm workers and their relatives now in this country illegally could gain legal status under the bill. 'I happen to believe we have the votes.', said senator Dianne Feinstein, D-CA. 'I believe the bill can move quickly [before the public can catch on and raise a stink].' It is incredible that politicians claim they want to implement the recommendations of the 911 Commission but then propose legislation that actually goes in precisely the opposite direction! My concerns are based on history and experience... Our leaders have all taken oaths of office in which they swore to defend Constitution of the United States and to defend our nation against its enemies. An amnesty program for millions of illegal aliens whose true identities are unknown and unknowable and therefore their true intentions and histories are unknown and unknowable, flies in the face of that oath and must not be enacted."
2007-01-12
Nathan Burchfiel _Cybercast News Service_
Anti-war leftists want stronger Dem opposition to Bush's "surge" plan
2007-01-12
Nicholas Johnston & Laura Litvan _Bloomberg_
Murtha plans to defeat USA by restricting funds
"Democratic representative John Murtha, chairman of a House subcommittee on defense spending, said he will try to block the increase of U.S. forces in Iraq and force the closing of a military prison in Guantanamo Bay by withholding funds for those operations... Bush this week said he plans to deploy 21,500 more troops to Iraq in an attempt to defeat insurgents and end violence. The Defense Department submitted a request to the White House last month for $99.7G more in emergency funding to pay for military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror, which would bring such spending in fiscal 2007 to a record $170G."
2007-01-12
Jim Kouri _Reality Check_
Illegal alien gangs flourishing in America
American Daily
Mens News Daily
Hawaii Reporter
"Law enforcement officers from communities unaffected by gangs until the 1980s or early 1990s often find themselves scrambling to obtain training relevant to what are called hybrid youth gangs in the 21st century. These include gangs with large memberships of illegal aliens from Mexico (Mexican Mafia), El Salvador (MS-13), the Dominican Republic, and others... The assumption that new gangs share the characteristics of older gangs can impede law enforcement's attempts to identify and effectively counter local street gangs, and actions based on this assumption often elicit inappropriate responses from the community as a whole... law enforcement officers should focus on the criminal activity, regardless of the ideological beliefs or identifiers (i.e., name, symbols, and group colors) of the suspects... Some gangs are very transient and conduct their activities on a national basis. This is especially true of illegal immigrant gangs..."
2007-01-12 07:25PST (10:25EST) (15:25GMT)
_DoJ_/_Earth Times_
Raul Santillan-Leon, of Memphis, TN, pleaded guilty late yesterday to one count of commercial sex trafficking of a minor
2007-01-12
Meagan Eagle _Middletown Journal_
Butler county sheriff Richard K. Jones at community forum
"'Immigration in this country is out of control.', he said to the crowd of about 40 people. And, he said later, 'Middletown is no different. You have pockets of illegal aliens.' Residents who attended the meeting expressed support for Jones' immigration policy, in which he has successfully petitioned the federal government for training to help enforce immigration laws... Middletown police chief Mike Bruck, who also spoke Thursday, said fighting crime is a community effort. 'It was a tough year for us. Crime was up 10%.', said Bruck, who said Middletown police will be trying to get more neighborhood watch groups in place... 'We need you to call us if you see something suspicious going on.'"
2007-01-12 09:06PST (12:06EST) (17:06GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
USA import prices were 1.1% higher in December: export prices up 0.7%
BLS data
2007-01-12
_abc_/_CNN_
Farmers and some in congress clash with US populace over illegal alien invasion
"9 out of 10 farmers attending the American Farm Bureau Convention in Salt Lake City this week say they have an unfair burden to ensure their workers are legal, according to a Reuters survey... But a 2006 congressional research service report reached a dramatically different conclusion. It found a significant surplus, not a shortage of agricultural workers. Since 2001, the annual farm worker unemployment rate has averaged 12% -- more than double the jobless rate for other U.S. workers. And farm workers earn about 50 cents for every dollar earned by other non-supervisory private sector employees. Still, farmers are pressuring Congress for a guest worker program to legalize the same illegal labor critics say has driven down wages and destroyed American farming jobs... 52% of U.S. agricultural workers are illegal aliens, up from 37% 12 years ago. The congressional research report says it can't determine if the farm industry's addiction to illegal alien labor could be cured by raising wages or relying on mechanization, because farmers have never had to operate without illegal aliens."
2007-01-12 12:22PST (15:22EST) (20:22GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
US federal budget had surplus of $44.5G in December
"Receipts in December rose to $259.9G compared to $241.8G in the same month a year ago. A year ago, the government posted a surplus of $10.9G. The December surplus was higher than the $40G estimated earlier this week by the Congressional Budget Office. Through the first 3 months of the fiscal year, the deficit has fallen to $80.4G, compared to $119.3G in the first 3 months of last year. The year-to-date deficit in December is the lowest since 2002, when it was $37G. For the 2007 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, the White House expects a deficit of $339G, up from $248G in 2006... Outlays in December fell to $215.4G from $230.9G in December 2005. Year-to-date, receipts are up to $573G versus $530G in the first 3 months of last year. Outlays are up $653.9G year to date, compared to $649.5G in the first 3 months of fiscal 2006. Through the first 3 months of the fiscal year, on-budget receipts rose to $438.7G, while off-budget receipts (mostly pay-roll taxes) rose to $134.7G. Year-to-date, individual income tax receipts increased to $250.7G and corporate income tax receipts rose to $98.7G."
2007-01-12
| DJIA | 12,556.08 |
| S&P 500 | 1,430.73 |
| NASDAQ | 2,502.82 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 4.77% |
| crude oil | 52.99 |
| gold | 626.90 |
| silver | 12.88 |
| platinum | 1,152.10 |
| palladium | 334.95 |
| copper | 0.16269 |
| natgas | 6.601/MBTU |
| unleadedgasoline | NYMEX no longer trading |
| reformulatedgasoline | $1.432/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.5036/gal |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
| |
"The divorce of income from effort, & from success in producing goods for which the market will pay money, does gradually take a toll from productivity growth & even from the level of productivity." --- Paul Samuelson 1987-08-30 NY Times
| |
2007-01-13
2007-01-13
_North Texas e-News_
Irving, TX man sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for conspiracy to provide counterfeit documents to illegal aliens: Smith county man guilty of producing fake IDs for illegal aliens
Pegasus News
Dallas/Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"Khanna's sentence is a downward departure from the United States Sentencing Guidelines in recognition of Khanna's assistance in the prosecution of his co-defendants, Syed S. Shahabuddin and Shariq Ahmed Khan. Syed S. Shahabuddin, who pled guilty to conspiracy to transport and harbor aliens, will be sentenced next month. Another co-defendant, Shariq Ahmed Khan, was convicted by a federal jury in October on numerous related charges and will also be sentenced next month. Sunny Khanna, age 48, is a former resident of Colleyville, TX, but now resides in Irving, TX. According to documents filed in court, beginning sometime prior to 2001 March, Sunny Khanna and his co-defendants were part of a conspiracy to provide false paperwork to aliens illegally in the United States to allow them to get work permits. Khanna, along with his co-defendant Sharique Ahmed Khan, age 44, operated a business in Bedford, TX, to aid aliens who wished to enter and work in the United States to obtain visas and work permits. Sunny Khanna was the registered agent and Vice President for Reference Data Consulting and Recruiting Inc. (RDCR). RDCR forfeited its charter on 2001 March 23, for failing to pay its franchise tax. However, RDCR continued to file H-1B petitions with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), many of which were in fact approved. Sunny Khanna appears as the signing official for all of the H-1B petitions (Form I-129). The beneficiaries of the petitions filed by Sunny Khanna were mainly from Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka and Yemen. RDCR submitted approximately 95 petitions with the INS for H-1B visas. On 2002 December 18, the American Consulate in Chennai, India returned one of the H1-B petitions submitted by the defendant, Sunny Khanna, after it was determined during an interview that the beneficiary admitted that the documentation in support of the visa was counterfeit... RDCR charged aliens approximately $5K to submit petitions for work visas to the INS, with $2K-$3K of that amount paid to the government for fees. RDCR would use Worldwide Education Service to get diplomas and then 'white-out' the name and alter the document to change the name to the name that appeared on the H-1B petition. In one such instance, on 2002 February 15, Sunny Khanna and his co-defendant, Shariq Ahmed Khan, presented a forged and altered university diploma to the INS in Dallas, TX, in connection with a Petition for Non-Immigrant Worker, for Manzoor Buchh. "
2007-01-13
Brian Bosely _Shelbyville Times-Gazette_
Unanswered questions about gang activity
"The question comes up after reading a federal indictment handed down in Nashville Wednesday against 13 members of the deadly gang La Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13. For those who may not know, MS-13 is a violent international criminal organization composed primarily of immigrants or descendants of immigrants from El Salvador, according to the Justice Department. The 13 were indicted on racketeering charges for their involvement in the murders of rival gang members. They allegedly killed 3 people and attempted to kill 7 others... how did 10K Central American killers and thugs get into this country in the first place... Members of MS-13 and other gangs are making sure they are blending in with the rest of the vast and growing illegal alien community, who are referred to in Washington circles these days as Voters in the Larval Stage... Authorities said last year that al-Qaeda terrorists under surveillance in El Salvador had been seen meeting with local MS-13 leadership in that country, giving rise to the suspicion that the Salvadorans may be smuggling Islamic terrorists into the U.S.A. They already have the established alien smuggling routes through Mexico, and the ability and will to do so. In December of 2005, an MS-13 gang member and a Muslim from Bangladesh were arrested crossing the Rio Grande together. Nearly 60K illegal aliens designated as other-than-Mexican, or OTMs, were detained in 2005 along the U.S.A.-Mexico border."
2007-01-13
_American Daily_
Illegal aliens are not immigrants
"Those who argue on behalf of illegal aliens and their 'rights' often play word games in appealing to the pride of real Americans."
2007-01-13
Stacey Shepard _Bakersfield Californian_
Leases in government housing denied to illegal aliens in Wasco, CA
North San Diego County Times
Contra Costa Times
San Luis Obispo Tribune
Monterey Herald
"At least 3 tenants recently received notice that their leases will be terminated because they lack documents proving they are legal U.S. residents. The notices give the residents up to 4 months to leave the apartments... The Wasco Housing Authority manages about 200 apartments in agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide low-cost housing to farmworkers. Tenants must meet income requirements and work in the fields to qualify, but some residents said it was the first time their immigration status had been questioned. Commissioner John Lynch said Wasco Housing Authority officials were following the federal legal residency requirement for renting the apartments."
2007-01-13
Andy Selepak _Post Chronicle_
Will journalists report the facts about the invasion of illegal aliens?
"Like many local governments, Prince William County in Northern Virginia is struggling to deal with the influx of illegal [aliens] into the area, and 'Supervisors say a wave of immigrants is driving up costs for schools, social services, health care and law enforcement.' The county, as well as the country, has no idea how many illegal immigrants are in the U.S.A... the Washington Post... doesn't want to know the cost of illegal immigration, out of fear that the public might demand control over our nation's borders. Supervisor W.S. Covington III (R-Brentsville), who proposed the study during a 2006 December 12 Board of County Supervisors meeting, [said], 'By putting a number on the cost, this gives us an opportunity to push back on the federal government and say, Look what you are doing to us on the local government level... I mean, it is the federal government's responsibility to regulate commerce. They are the ones who are supposed to secure the borders.' Covington even wants the federal government to reimburse the county for the additional costs of illegal immigration..."
2007-01-13
Jill Whalen _Hazleton Standard Speaker_
Rush township crash turns up 13 illegal aliens
"Thirteen illegal immigrants who were involved in a one-vehicle accident in Rush Township while on their way to work will be deported to Mexico by Tuesday. Rush Township police took them into custody following a 07:48 accident on Route 309. Two of the passengers in the Ford Econoline van were treated for minor injuries at a local hospital. Rush officers contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials after learning that the individuals were not legal United States citizens. Later Friday, two ICE officials arrived in Hometown to pick up the illegals... Police said the 10 men and 3 women were traveling north on Route 309 to their jobs at a grower in northern Schuylkill County... All 13 admitted to being in the United States illegally since about 2002."
2007-01-14
2007-01-14
Matthew Benson _Arizona Republic_
GOP donors battle over chairmanships, illegal aliens (a real spin job)
"But Pullen's passion has at times raised eyebrows [and energized backers]. In November, following President Bush's nomination of Mel Martinez to lead the Republican National Committee, Pullen was quoted telling the Los Angeles Times, 'I'm hoping it's not another Harriet Miers moment.' The reference to Bush's lampooned and ultimately withdrawn nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court was a clear slap at Martinez, who favors liberalized immigration laws... Pullen remains popular among activist Republicans... State senator Jack Harper, R-Surprise, said those same officials owe their offices to the toughened voter identification requirements that Pullen fought for at the polls through Prop 200. 'Without voter ID, I'm confident the Democrats would have been busing illegal aliens to the polls.', Harper said. 'Randy Pullen was selfless in his efforts to ensure the integrity of our voting process.'"
2007-01-14
Michael Cousineau _Union Leader_
NH guardsmen on duty along USA-Mexico border
2007-01-14 09:07PST (12:07EST) (17:07GMT)
Malcolm Ritter _AP_/_San Diego Union-Tribune_
2nd gene linked with Alzheimer's
Houston Chronicle
Dr. Koop
Monsters and Critics
News Max
Science Daily
Nature Genetics
related: Nature Genetics
composite: "Scientists analyzed DNA from more than 6K people from a variety of ethnic groups and found evidence implicating certain versions of the gene, called SORL1... Up to 4.5M Americans are estimated to have Alzheimer's, which gradually destroys memory and other mental abilities. No cure has been found. The study, released Sunday on the web site of the journal Nature Genetics, focused on Alzheimer's that appears after age 65, the most common type. Only one gene, called APOE, has been firmly linked to raising susceptibility to the common form. A Harvard-based group lists about 20 other genes it considers promising candidates, based on research. Some authors of the new paper said they believe the evidence for SORL1 is unusually strong... The new paper implicates SORL1 in Alzheimer's in 2 ways. First, it shows that inheriting certain variants was associated with developing the disease in 7 out of 9 samples of people examined. The association appeared in African-American, Caribbean Hispanic, northern European and Israeli Arab groups. The key event in Alzheimer's disease is the generation of A-beta peptide from a protein called amyloid precursor protein (APP), researchers said. The A-beta peptide is thought to trigger the neuro-degeneration that characterizes the disease. In laboratory studies, researchers also found that when they suppressed the activity of SORL1, cells made greater amounts of amyloid beta, a substance thought to play a key role in causing Alzheimer's. Researchers believe the disease-promoting variants of SORL1 act by suppressing the gene's activity."
2007-01-14 10:00PST (13:00EST) (18:00GMT)
David Roberts _Conservative Voice_
Poking holes in a leaky bucket
2007-01-14
Doc Farmer _Op Ed News_
Open letter to Border Patrol
2007-01-14
Barbara Correa _Los Angeles Daily Breeze_
Women in charge
"Mitchell, who started Computer Consulting Operations Specialists in Culver City almost 20 years ago... The largest woman-owned business in California is Act-1 Group, a $718M temporary employment firm [body shop] based in Torrance. Other prominent local businesses headed by women are Pinnacle Petroleum in Seal Beach, Music Express Limousine in Burbank and RLRAdvertising & Marketing in Pasadena."
2007-01-14
_Reading Eagle_
13 in Reading held as illegal aliens
2007-01-14
_Family Security Matters_
Economic costs of illegal alien invasion
2007-01-14
Michael Richards _Appleton Post Crescent_
US government priorities are out of whack
"I had a cold. I went to store to purchase an over-the-counter medication. I couldn't purchase it without showing a picture ID and signing a mandated government form to get the right to purchase this medication. I went to vote. I showed my driver's license. I was told, 'Do not need to see it.'... We're more concerned about buying an OTC than we are preserving our constitutional right to legally vote. We have an invasion of illegal aliens entering our country, we allow abortions on demand (for the most part) as stated by the Supreme Court, we allow many thousands and probably millions to live here with expired visas, but as a natural-born American, a veteran -- a producer, not a taker -- I have to sign a government-mandated form to get cold medication. What's wrong with this picture?"
2007-01-14
Renee E. Taylor _Family Security Matters_
Beginning of bad things with big trucks to come
"Currently, jurors are deliberating the fate of Tyrone Williams, the truck driver who abandoned 75 illegal immigrants in his unventilated trailer in the unbearable Texas heat in the summer of 2002 -- 19 of them died. It would seem the trucking industry would do everything in its power to make sure such a horrific incident would never happen again. But as Renee E. Taylor shows, the industry has not only done nothing to crack down on truckers who smuggle people into the United States, they have actually taken numerous steps to make such human trafficking easier."
2007-01-14
Mike Cutler _Family Security Matters_
Pardons for drug merchants, jail for Border Patrol
2007-01-15
2007-01-14 21:01PST (2007-01-15 00:01EST) (2007-01-15 05:01GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
Executive pay returns to the cross-hairs: Drums beating for share-holder approval of compensation, but legislation faces hurdles
"New House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, is planning hearings on CEO pay this year, and wants to give share-holders more of a say in approving compensation. Last year, he introduced a bill that would've given share-holders a vote about pay and 'golden parachute' packages for CEOs. It's unclear if Frank will reintroduce the bill or write a new one -- Frank's spokes-man, Steven Adamske, says the congress-man hasn't decided what course to take this year. But one way or another, analysts say, sentiment is moving toward an even tighter process for approving corporate chiefs' salaries and benefits. One such way to raise the bar is by requiring share-holder approval of pay packages, a [power] already enjoyed in the United Kingdom... Neither the SEC nor Frank has aimed to cap executive pay. But share-holders may not have to wait for Congress or regulators to act. The AFSCME Employee Pension Plan, for one, is planning to file resolutions this year that would give share-holders a vote about approving CEO pay. Last year, the plan filed such resolutions at companies including US Bancorp, Merrill Lynch, Sara Lee and Home Depot. Ferlauto says more are coming this year. Meanwhile, out-placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. is predicting more share-holder discontent about spiraling levels of pay. 'With new regulations about full disclosure of CEO compensation we will undoubtedly see more instances of share-holder outcry on this issue.', said John Challenger, the consultancy's CEO, in a statement. 'Chief executives will have to prove day in and day out that they are worthy of such rewards.', Challenger said Monday. In a survey released Monday, Challenger's firm said CEO departures were up 12% last year, particularly in the health care, financial and computer industries."
2007-01-14 22:16PST (2007-01-15 01:16EST) (2007-01-15 06:16GMT)
David J. Lynch _USA Today_
Enthusiasm for globalization is ebbing
"The ebbing enthusiasm for additional integration is particularly noteworthy coming [as the Clinton-Bush economic depression lingers on]... 59% of Americans believe [so-called] 'free trade' costs more jobs than it creates, according to a 2006 poll by the non-profit German Marshall Fund of the United States... The risk of a 50% drop in family income has more than doubled since the 1970s, according to Jacob Hacker, a Yale University professor... When the current era of global interdependence began with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, only the jobs of low-skilled factory workers appeared threatened by foreign competition. Technological change, shrinking communication costs and falling trade barriers are exposing a growing share of the labor force to foreign competition. Many of the newly insecure are white-collar workers in service industries, including computer programmers, radiologists, copy editors and accountants. So far, despite controversy over [off-shore out-sourcing] in the 2004 presidential race, the number of jobs actually transferred over-seas has been limited. But, ultimately, 28M to 42M service sector jobs could be at risk, according to Alan Blinder, former Federal Reserve Board vice chairman."
2007-01-15
_AMA Medical News_
Shift from J-1 to less restrictive H-1Bs
"Fewer international medical graduates are in the U.S.A. on J-1 visas... According to a government study released in 2006 November, part of this decline, dropping to 6,200 in 2004-2005, from 11,600 in 1996, is attributed to more IMGs seeking less-restrictive H-1b visas."
2007-01-15
Dalia Naamani-Goldman _Los Angeles Times_
Anti-terrorism program abuses IRS records
"In 2002, in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the IRS and the [Socialist Insecurity Abomination] made 12,236 emergency disclosures of personal tax information to intelligence and law enforcement agencies, according to a count obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request... After receiving a tip from a high-level Al Qaeda operative in Pakistan in 2003, the FBI began investigating an alleged plot to poison prepackaged Meals Ready to Eat bound for U.S. troops over-seas. McAllen, Texas-based Wornick Co. had a $47.2M contract with the Department of Defense for packaged meals for troops in Iraq. Federal investigators screened Wornick employees, relying on confidential [tax-victim] information, including [Socialist Insecurity] numbers [SINs]. The FBI also reviewed employee records for the temporary employment agency [body shop] Remedy Intelligent Staffing, which supplied workers to Wornick. In 2005 January, Remedy pleaded guilty to hiring illegal immigrants and falsifying hundreds of employee eligibility verification forms. 28 illegal immigrants and a Remedy vice president paid fines or served jail time -- although none had any ties to terrorism... 'The starting point of this kind of thing is going to be for terrorism and we are all going to be in favor of fighting the terrorists.', said Jim Harper, at the libertarian Cato Institute. 'The finishing point of this is going to be for catching dead-beat dads and enforcing student loans and unpaid parking tickets. It's basically the beginning of comprehensive financial surveillance.'"
2007-01-15
Haley Barbour _Jackson Clarion Ledger_
State of the State of MS address
NorthEast MS Daily Journal
"All these were grants of federal money, as was $58M to support state and local law enforcement, $128M for social services grants, $74M from the Labor Department for temporary employment [bodyshopping] and job training."
2007-01-15
Jim Kouri _Mens News Daily_
Terrorists training in South America threaten USA
American Chronicle
Sierra Times
"According to testimony given to the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee by General Peter Pace, then Vice Chairman, now Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hamas has joined Hezbollah and Al Qaeda in the Triple Frontier Zone in Latin America where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay converge. There the Islamic terror groups train recruits, gather intelligence on targets, launder money and sell drugs. There is evidence that these terrorists and narco-terrorists will soon migrate north into the United States. He cited terrorism reports indicating terrorist groups are active in Canada and Central-South America... In Los Angeles, a look at outstanding arrest warrants for homicide reveals that over 90% are for illegal aliens. Examination of all LA felony arrest warrants (murder, rape, armed robbery, etc.) shows that 65% are for illegal aliens, according to the Manhattan Institute. The Institute estimates that 350 killers managed to escape back into Mexico and the Mexican government refuses to extradite them to the US to stand trial. In another study -- this one by the Government Accountability Office [GAO] -- a sample group of about 55K criminal aliens committed over 700K criminal acts."
2007-01-15
_Family Security Matters_
What to do about illegal aliens
2007-01-15
Leslie Deckard _Blood-Horse_
Ag illegal alien amnesty/guest-worker bill has been introduced in DC
"As many as 1.5M undocumented farm workers and their relatives currently living and working in the United States could gain legal status under an ambitious agricultural guest-worker plan introduced Jan. 10 on Capitol Hill. The Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act of 2007 -- AgJobs Bill [S237?]... Under the bill, illegal immigrants that can prove they have worked in agricultural jobs for at least 150 working days for the past two years would become eligible for a 'blue card' giving them temporary legal status. Their spouses and minor children also could get a blue card if they already live in the U.S.A... The horse industry uses both agricultural and non-agricultural workers under the H-2A and H-2B program."
2007-01-15 15:00PST (18:00EST) (23:00GMT)
Lou Dobbs & Jamie McIntyre _CNN_
off-shore out-sourcing USA's national security?
"And troubling concerns tonight that a new port security initiative to stop terrorists will actually do very little to protect Americans. Is the federal government out-sourcing some of our most vital security checks?... U.S. troops are targeting Iranians like the 5 men arrested in a raid last week who are suspected of being members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's Al-Quds Brigade... [Iran] is moving ahead with its nuclear program, announcing that it is installing thousands of centrifuges in one of its central facilities to proceed with the full-scale enrichment of uranium for nuclear fuel... 3,020 of our troops killed since war began. 22,834 of our troops have been wounded, 10,191 of them [seriously enough that] they could not return to duty within 3 days... who is in charge of screening cargo before it reaches the United States. The plan to inspect cargo before it leaves for the U.S. is a key component of the Department of Homeland Security's anti-terrorism efforts. But there are serious questions about one country, Pakistan, where critics charge we have outsourced our security... Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland Security: 'If we are not satisfied that our security concerns have been met over-seas, we will not allow that particular container to be loaded on a ship or to come into the United States of America.'... U.S. Customs officials have been leaving the real inspection work to foreign officials... A DHS spokesman denies U.S. Customs officials have been told to stay away in Pakistan, but adds U.S. inspectors have the ability to examine containers remotely, using a video link that transmits live images... Michael Cutler, former INS agent: 'The only people who we can really 100% trust, unfortunately, are our own Customs officials. They should be doing this, not somebody else. And if we can't get our people to do it over there, then certainty the cargo needs to be screened once it gets here.'... the Pakistani port is managed by Dubai Ports World... DPW is controlled by the government of the United Arab Emirates... The Department of Homeland Security says that the cargo can be screened again when it arrives in the United States, but the U.S. government signed a trade security agreement known as the IC3 with Pakistan last year. That calls for the joint screening of U.S.- bound cargo, but under those terms, U.S. Customs will not subject the cargo to re-examination... Coast-to-coast rallies this weekend in support of two former Border Patrol agents, Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos. The two agents were convicted of shooting a Mexican drug smuggler as he fled to the border. The smuggler was given immunity by the Justice Department for his testimony against the agents."
2007-01-16
2007-01-16
Greg Johnson _Los Angeles Times_
Coaches' pay puts colleges to the test
"Nick Saban: $4M; Bob Stoops: $3.45M; Kirk Ferentz: $2.84M; Pete Carroll $2.78M... Petersen, Boise State's first-year head coach, made more than $660K this season, compared with a reported $3.4M salary for Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops, whose team lost 3 games... Saban's pay dwarfs the $572,620 earned by university [of Alabama] President Robert E. Witt... Concerns about sky-rocketing college coaching salaries surfaced 2 years ago when the University of Florida successfully lured University of Utah football coach Urban Meyer by offering him $2M, quadrupling his salary. Notre Dame made a similar offer to sign Charlie Weis from the NFL's New England Patriots -- and later the Fighting Irish gave Weis a 10-year extension that will pay him about $3.5M annually... 'You'll soon see someone at $5M and then $6M.', said Gary Roberts, director of Tulane University law school's sports law program. 'The figures will keep going up because the dollars that flow from successful football programs are so enormous that universities will keep hiring coaches who they believe will lead them into the promised land.'... NCAA data show that only 6 Division I-A athletic programs regularly generate surplus revenue. Another half-dozen big-time programs receive modest annual university subsidies, and more than half of big-time programs receive annual university subsidies of 5% or more... Salaries for college football coaches already are augmented by such perks as courtesy cars, private jets, country club memberships and bonuses for improved graduation rates, conference championships and post-season bowl play... Peter Likens, president emeritus at the University of Arizona and chairman of the recent NCAA task force. 'But when you commit $100M in bonded indebtedness to build or renovate a football stadium or basketball arena, you're talking a 30-year commitment.'... NCAA data show that spending at big-time college athletics programs has increased at 2 to 4 times the rate of spending elsewhere on campus -- even as the rate of revenue increases slows... Universities can expect additional scrutiny from lawmakers who question whether big-time athletics programs merit tax-exempt funding. Some lawmakers also wonder if well-heeled alumni deserve tax deductions for donations to help build sports suites that ultimately guarantee them luxury seats. In October, the House Ways and Means Committee sent Brand a 7-page letter with questions about an amateur sports system in which the Division I men's basketball tournament generates the bulk of the NCAA's $521M annual budget, along with the $1.2G that will be shared during the coming decade by college football conferences that send teams to postseason bowl games. The NCAA's response filled 66 pages... Colleges continue to ignore that 'players are generating the money', said David Berri, an associate professor of applied economics at Cal State Bakersfield and a co-author of _The Wages of Win_, a book about modern sports. 'The money for coaches is coming from players. When you put it that way, it really is a reverse Robin Hood effect -- rob from the poor, give to the rich.'... During the 1980s, federal courts found that the NCAA had run afoul of anti-trust law when it capped salaries of assistant coaches."
2007-01-16 08:27PST (11:27EST) (16:27GMT)
_Tulsa World_
7 illegal aliens killed in crash on I-40 near Elk City, Oklahoma
2007-01-16
Jim Kouri _American Chronicle_
6 illegal aliens arrested in NC
Sierra Times
"Following public outcry over illegal alien drivers commiting vehicular homicides, sixty illegal alien criminals, mostly DUI ex-convicts, were arrested in North Carolina by federal agents during a 3-day operation, according to a statement released by officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement... Operation Safe Streets... The primary targets of this particular operation were individuals with prior convictions for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI)... The operation yielded 23 arrests of individuals convicted for DUI. The remaining individuals were either fugitives, foreign-born nationals with other criminal convictions, or those deemed to be in violation of immigration laws. Their criminal convictions range from indecency with a child and larceny to domestic violence and assault and battery. The fugitive criminal aliens were ordered removed by a federal immigration judge, but failed to comply with their lawful orders. Some of the fugitives have been in hiding evading law enforcement for years. Those arrested represent countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Ecuador and Gambia... ICE officers have removed more than 200 illegal aliens with criminal backgrounds from the Charlotte area."
2007-01-16
_DoJ_/_PR News Wire_
148 illegal aliens charged with identity theft
"Federal identity theft charges have been brought against 148 illegal aliens accused of stealing the identities of lawful U.S. citizens in order to gain... employment... 108 have been charged with aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 2 years imprisonment and is the most serious federal identity theft charge. Other federal defendants will be charged with illegal reentry by an aggravated felon, document fraud, [Socialist Insecurity] fraud, and identity theft. State charges of identity theft, forgery and criminal impersonation charges are also being pressed against 98 additional defendants... Operation Wagon Train... Agents executed civil search warrants on 2006 December 12, at 6 meat-processing plants owned by Swift & Company (Swift), one of the nation's largest processors of fresh pork and beef. In total, ICE agents apprehended 1,282 illegal alien workers on administrative immigration violations at Swift facilities. To date, 148 of the most serious offenders have been charged with federal criminal violations. 53 defendants have been charged in the Northern District of Texas, 30 in the Southern District of Iowa, 20 in the District of Minnesota, 26 in the District of Nebraska, 18 in the District of Utah, and one in the District of Colorado. The District Attorney in Cache County, UT (home of a Swift plant), is prosecuting 80 defendants on charges that include identity theft and forgery and the District Attorney in Weld County, CO (home of another Swift plant), is prosecuting 18 defendants on charges that include identity theft, forgery and criminal impersonation."
FTC identity theft site
USDoJ identity theft site
2007-01-16
Tony McNicol _Japan Times_
Japan is changing, but system, attitudes toward immigration need to keep pace with alleged labor shortages
NY Daily News
East Valley Tribune
Inside Bay Area
Canton Repository
Napa Valley Register
Arizona Daily Star
Columbus Dispatch
Mainichi Daily News
"The birth-rate in Japan is at an all-time low, far below the rate needed to maintain the population [at current over-crowded levels]. The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research has predicted that Japan could lose 20M people by 2050. If that isn't bad enough, Japan also has one of the most rapidly graying populations in the world. Four out of 10 Japanese could be over the age of 60 by the middle of this century, and there may not be enough people of working age to support them. Many people argue that mass immigration is the only way to defuse a ticking demographic time-bomb... Unlike in most other developed nations, the number of foreign residents in Japan is extremely low -- just over 2M people or 1.56% of the population. By way of comparison, in the U.S.A., foreign-born residents make up almost 12% of the population, and in the U.K. around 8%. Immigration has generally been a seen as a last resort in the face of chronic labor shortages. In the early 1990s, Japan began issuing visas to South Americans of Japanese ancestry to meet a shortage of manual labors. Brazilians, many of who work in automobile plants in central Japan, are now Japan's third largest ethnic minority after Koreans and Chinese. In 2000, visa rules were changed to help attract skilled workers to come to Japan. The number of 'engineer' visas increased 10 times between 1995 and 2005, many given to workers from India's booming IT sector. The Indian population in Japan has more than doubled since 2000. 'The time it took to get visas was reduced from 6 months to a few days.', says Manish Prabhune. 'If a customer tells me tomorrow that they want 2 engineers from India, I can fly them out in a week.' But business leaders say that the foreign skilled workers currently in Japan meet just a fraction of Japanese industry's needs. Keidanren (The Japan Business Federation) is calling for a radical overhaul of Japan's immigration policy. Last year, a policy statement advocated the creation of a 'multi-cultural' society through a raft of measures to draw foreign in workers."
2007-01-16 14:38PST (17:38EST) (22:38GMT)
_MarketWatch_
William Spain: Orange-juice turmoil: California's cold snap may have little effect on a market soured by high prices
Myra P. Saefong: Crude futures fall back below $51 as OPEC output cut hopes fade
Radio report said Wednesday evening (tomorrow) that oranges were selling at $12 for 25.
2007-01-16
Lou Dobbs & Jamie McIntyre & Bill Tucker & Lisa Sylvester _CNN_
War in Middle East continues: Investigators say Pentagon has sold equipment to adversaries of USA
"The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Karl Eikenberry, today said he wants additional U.S. troops sent to fight radical Islamist terrorists... Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, the top U.S. commander, has already requested that one U.S. infantry battalion, roughly 1,200 soldiers from the Army's 10th Mountain Division, stay on for a whole year, instead of going home after four months. And NATO is still waiting for other U.S. allies to send a reserve battalion of 1,200 additional NATO troops that the alliance promised last year but failed to deliver... Russia today admitted it has defied the United States and sold sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. Russian defense minister Sergei Ivanov said that Russia is prepared to sell even more weapons to Iran and plans to do so. Russian officials said Moscow has supplied to Iran with 29 missile systems for defensive purposes, as they put it. Iran is believed to be using the missiles to defend its nuclear weapons facilities. The United States is also supplying military equipment to Iran, however, because of bungling and incompetence in the Defense Department. Federal investigators now say the Pentagon has sold surplus U.S. military equipment to middlemen representing some of our most dangerous adversaries. We have literally been, it turns out, arming our enemies... The United States retired the F-14 Tomcat fighter plane program last year, leaving a surplus of parts necessary to maintain those planes stockpiled. Only one air force in the world still flies the F-14, Iran. Repeatedly, brokers have purchased parts for the F-14 at surplus auctions with the intention of shipping them to Iran, only to be arrested. But not everyone gets caught. Investigators for the Government Accountability Office successfully bought parts for the F-14 over the Internet using fake identities. Greg Kutz, GAO Special Investigations: 'We actually, in the time we did our 2006 July study, identified 79 buyers, not us, but 79 other buyers that purchased over 2,600 sensitive military items that were not supposed to be sold to the public.'... Representative Christopher Shays (R-CT): 'We're selling inventory that we're still buying. And we're selling it on pennies on the dollar. And then we're selling to people that we don't even know who they are. We are, in essence, funding Iran. We're funding [Red China]. We're funding jihad on the cheap.'... [Shays asks] why is it that [any large retail chain] can tell you within minutes what product [is] sold and where, and why can't the military be as efficient with its inventory, and as protective of its sensitive technology?... there's still no word tonight from U.S. district Judge Kathleen Cardone (ph) on the request by former Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos to remain out of prison while their convictions are appealed. The agents are scheduled to surrender to U.S. marshals in El Paso, Texas, tomorrow afternoon, to begin serving 11 and 12-year sentences. Their convictions for shooting and wounding an illegal alien Mexican drug smuggler has sparked nationwide protests. Fifty-five members of Congress and nearly a quarter of a million Americans have signed letters and petitions demanding a presidential pardon for the agents. Texas Congressman Ted Poe, who served 22 years as a felony court judge in Texas, says he's never seen a case like this... And severe winger storms continue to batter the [West,] Midwest and NorthEast. Dozens have now died... The new House majority leader, Steny Hoyer, is once again blasting plans for that 700-mile fence on the border with Mexico. Congressman Hoyer voted against legislation authorizing that fence last year, and tonight he says the whole idea, in his words, will be revisited. Hoyer said the matter would be taken up in Appropriations and added that the Bush administration is not enthusiastic about the fence either... The Senate is considering a bill that would require legislators to disclose when they insert a tariff break in a bill and to specify which companies benefit... These benefits are in the millions of dollars. It's very difficult to follow the trail, but it should be easier. And, in fact, it's a lot like a phone book; you just see these random numbers."
2007-01-16
David Hubler _FCW_
ITAA and Northern Virginia Tech Council conspire to bribe congress-critters to win favors for executives
2007-01-16
| DJIA | 12,582.59 |
| S&P 500 | 1,431.90 |
| NASDAQ | 2,497.78 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 4.75% |
| crude oil | 51.21 |
| gold | 625.90 |
| silver | 12.625 |
| platinum | 1,145.80 |
| palladium | 335.85 |
| copper | 0.16109 |
| natgas | 6.638/MBTU |
| unleadedgasoline | NYMEX no longer trading |
| reformulatedgasoline | $1.3693/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.4803/gal |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
2007-01-17
2007-01-16 22:00PST (2007-01-17 01:00EST) (2007-01-17 06:00GMT)
_World Net Daily_
Tony Snow: Immigration laws have not been enforced
"Tony Snow was responding to a WND question about the status of that enforcement, since there are estimates of 20M illegal immigrants in the U.S. now, with border enforcement in a questionable state as two former U.S. Border Patrol agents are being sent to prison for shooting at a fleeing drug dealer, National Guard troops are being forced to retreat in the face of armed incursions, and other similar situations... Snow continued that the message to employers is: 'If you're hiring illegals and you're doing it all -- if you're hiring illegals, we're going after you, and especially if you're doing it in a way that you have people who are here illegally who are also taking jobs that Americans might want to have.', Snow said... That report from the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies concluded that there was a 13% increase of U.S. immigrants, more than 4M, between 2000 and the date of the report in 2004. The center said at that point there were about 34M immigrants in the country, both legal and illegal, but a disturbing trend was that fully half of the newcomers were illegal."
2007-01-17 04:17PST (07:17EST) (12:17GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Mortgage applications down 0.6% last week, down 1% from a year ago: refinance applications increased 6.3% for the week
2007-01-17 07:30PST (10:30EST) (15:30GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
Net capital flows into USA rose to $74.9G in November: US investors bought #39.1G foreign securities
Treasury report
2007-01-17 09:30PST (12:30EST) (17:30GMT)
Katherine Hunt _MarketWatch_
Former Cendant chair, Walter Forbes, sentenced to 12 years + 7 months in prison, $3.275G restitution
DoJ press releases
2007-01-17 09:34PST (12:34EST) (17:34GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
PPI up 0.9%: Core up 0.2%, gasoline up 7.1% (with graph)
BLS data
2007-01-17 09:53PST (12:53EST) (17:53GMT)
Robert Schroeder & Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Industrial output rose 0.4% in December: Manufacturing up 0.7%
"High-technology output rose 2.2% in December and was up 27.3% in the past year. Production of information-processing equipment rose 1.2% in December... Meanwhile, capacity utilization rose slightly in December to 81.8% from a revised 81.6% in November... Manufacturing capacity utilization rose slightly, reaching 80.4% from 80%."
Federal Reserve statistical release
2007-01-17 10:01PST (13:01EST) (18:01GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Home builders slightly more optimistic
"The NAHB/Wells Fargo housing market index improved to 35 in January from an upwardly revised 33 in December. It's the highest level for the sentiment index since July. A year ago, the index was at 57. The index bottomed at 30 in September."
2007-01-17
_Numbers USA_
AgJOBS, S237, HR371 and S359
2007-01-17
_Federal Reserve Board_
Beige Book
- Summary
- Districts generally reported modest increases in retail sales, and vehicle sales were sluggish in several Districts. Tourism spending was up in a number of Districts. Reports on the service sector were generally positive; many Districts reported growth in technical, legal and information services... District reports generally described labor market conditions as tightening and cited examples of some businesses having difficulty finding 'qualified' workers... Atlanta, Minneapolis and Kansas City noted expanded hiring or signs of tightening. Boston reported that engineering and machinist positions were especially hard to fill and that finance and accounting workers were in great demand. In the New York District, hiring of office workers was strong, led by financial and legal services, but slower hiring was noted in manufacturing and distribution. Temporary employment agencies reported generally stronger demand for workers in the Philadelphia and Richmond Districts. In the Dallas District, labor markets remained very tight, with numerous firms continuing to report difficulty finding skilled and unskilled workers... Despite expanded hiring, Districts reported relatively moderate gains in wages; however, some Districts noted certain business lines that experienced wage increases and have concerns about increases in the benefit portion of compensation. District reports indicated moderate price increases overall as prices for energy and a number of materials eased and competition kept prices for final goods in check... Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Louis and San Francisco reported growing demand for technical services, while Dallas reported that activity was slowing but strong overall... District reports generally described labor market conditions as tightening and cited examples of some businesses having difficulty finding 'qualified' workers. Atlanta, Minneapolis and Kansas City noted expanded hiring or signs of tightening. Boston reported that engineering and machinist positions were especially hard to fill and that finance and accounting workers were in great demand. In the New York District, hiring of office workers was strong, led by financial and legal services, but slower hiring was noted in manufacturing and distribution. Temporary employment agencies [bodyshops] reported generally stronger demand for workers in the Philadelphia and Richmond Districts. In the Dallas District, labor markets remained very tight, with numerous firms continuing to report difficulty finding skilled and unskilled workers. Meanwhile, Cleveland noted that retail hiring was about the same as a year ago. Despite expanded hiring, Districts reported relatively moderate gains in wages; however, some Districts noted certain business lines that experienced wage increases and had concerns about increases in the benefit portion of compensation. Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Kansas City and San Francisco described wage increases as moderate or continuing at rates similar to those in the preceding reporting period. However, Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Dallas and San Francisco mentioned higher increases for benefit costs, particularly health care. Dallas reported that many contacts said high and rising labor costs, including the cost of health insurance, top their list of concerns for the coming year. A contact in the Chicago District said that salaries for executives were 'vigorously competitive'.
- 1. Boston
- Average merit pay increases mostly are expected to remain in the range of 3% to 4%, with much higher increases in benefits costs. Contacts say that engineering and machinist positions are especially hard to fill, and that finance and accounting professionals are in great demand as a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation... Head-counts are growing in response to demand, but at a slightly slower rate than revenues. Contacts note that the labor market for highly skilled individuals remains tight and is feeding through into wages. Respondents plan to increase wages between 3% and 8% in 2007...
- 3. Philadelphia
- Information technology firms generally reported continuing gains. Trucking firms, however, reported that growth had slowed in the final quarter of the year. Employment agencies and temporary help firms reported that, on the whole, demand for workers has been rising, although hiring plans have moderated in some sectors -- notably, construction and government -- and in some parts of the District... Among the measures implemented have been eliminating defined-benefit pension plans and requiring greater contributions toward health-care costs from employees.
- 4. Cleveland
- However, staffing firms [bodyshops] were upbeat in the number of job openings. Half our contacts said that openings have increased over the past 6 weeks and all contacts reported an increase on a year-over-year basis...
- 7. Chicago
- A temporary help services provider said that billable hours in the District were steady, but temp-to-perm conversions and permanent placements were strong.
- 11. Dallas
- Competition put downward pressure on selling prices for a number of products, including high tech and retail... Sales have been weaker than expected for producers of automobiles and high-tech products, causing some of these manufacturers to temporarily shut down factories during the holidays and/or slow hiring. High-tech firms say that there is uncertainty about the outlook for sales growth. Most contacts believe sales will pick up after a slow first half of 2007, but some fear there may be a more serious downturn... Temporary staffing firms [bodyshops] reported weak demand to supply workers to manufacturing, warehousing and distribution, but continued high demand for professionals with experience and technical skills, especially in the accounting, financial services and IT services industries...
- 12. San Francisco
- Contacts indicated that compensation growth was considerably higher for select groups of skilled workers, notably in the health-care, finance, and technology sectors, and in areas with very tight labor markets, such as Idaho and Utah, than it was overall... Sales were brisk in the food and beverage, health-care, and technology services sectors...
2007-01-17 13:55PST (16:55EST) (21:55GMT)
Rex Crum _MarketWatch_
Apple profit rose 78% for 2006Q4: iPod sales reached 21M
"Apple reported a profit of $1G, or $1.14 a share, for the period ended Dec. 30, up from $565M, or 65 cents, a year ago. Revenue rose 24.5% to $7.1G from $5.75G... Macintosh computer sales also surged, rising 40% to $2.4G. Mac shipments rose 28% to 1.61M units, more than double the growth of the overall PC market... In late December, Apple said it would restate its earning for the past 3 fiscal years, and that its after-tax profits would be lowered by $10M for 2004, $7M for 2005 and $4M for 2006. For its fiscal second-quarter, Apple estimates it will earn 54 cents to 56 cents a share on revenue in a range of $4.8G to $4.9G."
2007-01-17
Tim Latshaw _Observer_
Labor trends
"The Chautauqua County WorkForce Investment Board (WIB) heard from... John Twomey, executive director of the NY Association of Training and Employment Professionals (NYATEP), and president of the National WorkForce Association... from a field dominated by the Baby Boomer generation (born in 1946-1964) to one with almost equal populations of Baby Boomers and Generation Y (born in 1976-1994). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the year 2000 saw 48% of the national civilian labor force composed of Baby Boomers. Projections for 2010 predict that this percentage will drop to 37%, with Generation Y representing 38%... the percentage of whites in the work-force predicted to drop 20% between 2003 and 2050 as Hispanic and Asian populations significantly increase... 'in that [alleged] boom period (1992-2002); there was only a 100K increase in the jobs you could do with high school only.'... According to the state Department of Education, 81% of white students statewide graduated high school in 4 years compared to 68.8% of Asian students, 45.4% of black students and 42% of Latino students... only 8% of young people [from] low-income families graduated college by age 26, compared to 3-quarters of young people from high-income families... The maximum Pell Grant is currently only $4,050, and students who attend half-time or less are ineligible to benefit from this full amount..."
2007-01-17
James Carlini _Midwest Business_
Executives' Club of Chicago look at 2007
"The 3 guest speakers were Robert J. Froehlich of Deutsche Asset Management, Allan Murray of the Wall Street Journal and Diane Swonk of Mesirow Financial. Chicago Sun-Times columnist Terry Savage moderated the panel and some of their insights are worth spotlighting... Froehlich... said '90% of [investment] should be outside the United States' in various emerging markets. Most people would find that statement quite radical. He also pointed out these facts:
98% of the land mass is located outside the U.S.A.
93% of the jobs are located outside the U.S.A.
72% of the global economy is located outside the U.S.A.
There are a lot of opportunities outside the U.S.A. I shared his views with some people who lost their jobs at Motorola several years ago. If you look at this in another perspective, you would say he is not bullish on investing in America. If people follow Froehlich's investment strategy, though, how do we fuel our own future growth?... These economists often gloss over what is happening in the U.S.A. when it comes to people who have been caught in industries shifting to out-sourcing. I am talking about highly skilled white-collar jobs evaporating rather than minimum-skilled factory or service jobs. When you talk with some of them who have dropped from jobs paying $80K to $120K a year plus benefits to jobs that are around $30K, their personal view of the economy is that it never turned up since the crash of the NASDAQ in 2000. That statistic of the growing number of under-employed people doesn't seem to make it onto any official economic radar. This is hard to believe if you have been in an insulated industry or government agency that has not seen jobs being out-sourced or replaced by H-1B workers (non-citizens working here on a visa) and you have been getting your 4% raise every year... some reporters don't understand what Apple actually brought to the market and how it should not be looked at as a commodity cell phone... Both [Murray] and Greenberg on CNBC exemplify that many in the media just don't understand the impact of change in technology and its corresponding impact on society. Instead, they focus on price and comparing the wrong features. This totally obscures the real magnitude of what is happening. Maybe it is not all their fault... Apple itself. For all their supposed marketing expertise, the problem was they kept an old-image name (a 'phone') for a totally break-through communications device."
more articles by James Carlini
2007-01-17 (5767 Teves/Tebet 27)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Trade Deficits
2007-01-18
2007-01-18 05:30PDT (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 511,643 in the week ending January 13, an increase of 6,531 from the previous week. There were 439,873 initial claims in the comparable week in 2006. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.4% during the week ending Jan. 6, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,178,053, an increase of 169,813 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.5% and the volume was 3,162,229. Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending December 30."
graphs
2007-01-18 03:38PST (06:38EST) (11:38GMT)
Daniel Gross _Slate_
Unwilling Americans
"In fact, the perceived shortages have less to do with a declining American work ethic and more to do with managerial stinginess. In many industries, employers—and, ultimately, their customers—simply aren't willing to pay the prices that legal American labor demands in exchange for performing the work—or for going through the expense and trouble of obtaining the skills and credentials necessary to ply certain trades. In today's Wall Street Journal, Evan Perez and Corey Dade offer support for this contention... But that sort of thinking -- raise wages to attract domestic workers into your field -- is so last century. In today's flat world, employers can choose from a global labor pool, apparently even for driving big rigs down I-95. Meet Gagan Global, which trains Indian drivers in India to drive American trucks in America. How do you say '10-4, good buddy' in Hindi?"
2007-01-18 10:35PST (13:35EST) (18:35GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
Housing starts increased 4.5% in December to seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 1.64M (with graph)
census bureau press release
2007-01-18
Melanie Turner _Sacramento Business Journal_
Sacramento Bee writers urged to retire early while bringing on board under-paid H-1B guest-workers
"A 35-year employee of the Bee, 51-year-old Graswich is one of about 9 Bee news-room employees to accept a buy-out. Last month, Bee spokesman Steven Weiss said almost 3% of editorial employees would be offered voluntary buy-outs. Weiss said the newspaper had reached its goal with the buy-outs."
2007-01-18
Steve Farrell _Mens news Daily_
Phylis Schlafly talked about Bush's totalization plan
2007-01-18 11:21PST (14:21EST) (19:21GMT)
Vivek Wadhwa _Business Week_
Keeping Research and Leadership at Home: 9 "leaders" offer their opinions on what the U.S. should do to hold onto its brain-trust and stay on the cutting edge of innovation
"They weren't going abroad because of a shortage of engineers in the U.S. or deficiencies in the U.S. work-force; they were simply doing what gave them an economic and competitive advantage... Yet CNN anchor Lou Dobbs predicts utter disaster for our middle class and says that Corporate America has chosen to put our middle-class workers into direct competition with the cheapest labor in the world. He says CEOs have to be talking about how to drive innovation in the U.S. and find a conscience, or Washington will have to adjust public policy."
2007-01-19
2007-01-19
Loren Steffy _Houston Chronicle_
Your medical data gets around
2007-01-19 07:18PST (10:18EST) (15:18GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index increased from 91.7 in December to 98.0 in January
Federal Reserve Board St. Louis
Federal Reserve Board St. Louis
2007-01-19 08:49PST (11:49EST) (16:49GMT)
Jeffry Bartash & Aude Lagorce _MarketWatch_
Motorola to fire 3,500
2007-01-19
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
Silicon Valley executives have dibs on Barack Obama
"Note in particular Obama's connection to Wade Randlett. Randlett was, as noted, an adviser to TechNet, the powerful Silicon Valley lobbying group that was at the forefront in the push for H-1B expansion in the 1990s. You can bet that if Obama runs, his stance on H-1B will be the same as the other Democratic (and Republican) candidates: 'There aren't enough American kids studying math and science, so we have an engineer and programmer shortage. The long-run solution is education, but in the short-run, we need H-1Bs to fill the gap and compete in the global market-place. Also, to stay innovative we need to give foreign students incentives to continue to come to the U.S. and to stay here after they graduate.'"
Mary Anne Ostrom _San Jose Mercury News_
"The PAC, created by San Jose Democrat consultant Jude Barry, raised $30K in the final week of December in Silicon Valley. One-time TechNet adviser Wade Randlett, a San Francisco fund-raiser for Obama, says the phone is ringing off the hook from potential contributors and volunteers. San Francisco district attorney Kamala Harris, an Obama friend, and representative Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, say his story 'reflects America'... Barry, who was Dean's California director in 2004... The son of a Kenyan father and white Kansan mother, who was raised on the Pacific Rim before heading to Harvard University, the U.S. senator from Illinois and likely candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination transcends many traditional divisions."
| |
"As knowledge advances, so does the productivity per hour." --- Kendrick
| |
2007-01-20
2007-01-19 16:42PST (2007-01-19 19:42EST) (2007-01-20 00:42GMT)
Ben Charny _MarketWatch_
Internet's site-traffic watchers scrutinized: Audits propose suspected flaws
"Invariably, Steen said, the estimates compiled by the 2 leading firms that count Internet traffic -- NetRatings Inc. and comScore Networks Inc. -- are 30% lower than what M$NBC.com's own internal data shows... Web site operators are going on the attack. They are now using 2 influential trade groups to pressure Nielsen and comScore to change the way they gather, analyze and report their numbers... As advertisers spend ever greater sums on online ads, estimated at $16.9G in 2006 and more than $25G this year, their industry is demanding more credibility and consistency in site-traffic measurement... The goal of the web-traffic counters is to provide an independent source that advertisers can use to make decisions about where to market their products or services... Nielsen, the grand-daddy of them all, was founded in the 1960s by Arthur Nielsen to gauge the market performance of the television industry. The system he developed has evolved into the world's primary audience-measurement source; his company, A.C. Nielsen, is now part of VNU N.V., the privately held Dutch media group that owns a controlling stake in New York-based NetRatings Inc., which does business under the Nielsen/NetRatings brand name. The Internet has tried to imitate the A.C. Nielsen model, yet the industry's version has never gained full acceptance among advertisers... For a web publisher or an advertiser, the most important measurement is page views, or the number of times a web page has been downloaded. Another important statistic is unique visitors, which represents the number of people who come to the site... Web site operators get their own estimates by dipping into the computer servers that host their sites, and by tracking so-called cookies... Nielsen and comScore differ because each relies on a different panel of viewers to gauge their decisions, and make adjustments to account for things like unique visitors, or the number of times a web page has been down-loaded... The total computed internally by a web publisher is misleading, [comScore President Magid Abraham] says, because it doesn't account for instances in which a single individual may be responsible for dozens of page clicks... Another role played by traffic-measurement services is verification. Nielsen/NetRatings recently slashed its estimates of the number of unique visitors to a web site called Entrepreneur.com, to 2M from 7.6M, after it became clear that the previous estimate had been inflated because it was counting each automated pop-up window, typically used for advertising, as a site 'visit'. Among the most recent examples to surface include Slate.com, whose web logs show 8M unique users during one particular period. But comScore and Nielsen were both reporting the tally at 4.6M... ComScore uses lists of randomly-selected home phone numbers to find its panelists. But as comScore notes, some demographics may not be represented, especially the growing number of people who don't have a land-line phone and only use a cell phone. Also, few of the panelists then let comScore monitor both their home and work behavior, leaving the firm to have to estimate one or the other, according to the company's report."
2007-01-20
Rita Freeman _Orange County Register_
2 arrested for trespassing on private property in Lake Forest after day-worker protest
2007-01-21
2007-01-21
Stephen Frank _California Political News_
Big business executives are lobbying to keep illegal aliens in the USA
"U.S. business is lobbying for law breakers. Instead of hiring citizens, these businesses prefer illegal aliens. To them the bottom line is more important than honesty..."
2007-01-22
2007-01-22 10:13PST (13:13EST) (18:13GMT)
Val Brickates Kennedy _MarketWatch_
Pfizer announces plan to fire 10K by the end of 2008
"The world's largest drugmaker also said it will close two more manufacturing plants, one in Brooklyn, NY, and the other in Omaha, NE. It is likewise seeking to sell a third plant, located in Feucht, Germany. Including these closures, Pfizer hopes to whittle its number of manufacturing sites down to 48 in 2008, from 93 in 2003."
2007-01-22
Dave Montgomery _Sacramento Bee_
Nancy Pelosi & Zoe Lofgren try to push radical amnesty measures for illegal aliens, additional guest-worker visas to worsen US labor glut
"Nevertheless, Republican opponents of Bush's plan -- which includes a controversial [additional] temporary guest-worker program -- say they intend to battle as aggressively as ever, even though they're now in the minority. [It will be] 'one big hell of a fight', said representative Tom Tancredo, R-CO, who heads a diminished anti-immigration coalition, in projecting House Republicans' strategy in the new Congress. 'At least, I hope it's a fight. I hope it's not just a roll-over.'... One trouble spot is the proposed guest worker program being pushed by American businesses to bring in thousands of foreign workers each year to address what they say is a chronic shortage in low and unskilled labor. The 53-union AFL-CIO, which helped Democrats take over Congress in the November elections, is pushing to defeat the guest-worker program on the grounds that it could take jobs from U.S. workers. Some conservative freshman Democrats also may be as tough in calling for a crack-down on illegal immigration as the Republicans they unseated. 'Representative' Allen Boyd [D-2nd district FL], a leader of the conservative Democratic organization known as the Blue Dogs, said colleagues in that group are 'all over the map' on immigration."
2007-01-22 (5767 Shevat 03)
Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
When to do the right thing in reproving wrong-doers
2007-01-22
_Philadelphia Inquirer_
Indian got 20-month prison sentence for immigration fraud
"sentenced to 20 months in federal prison for helping hundreds of immigrants live and work illegally in New Jersey and elsewhere in the United States. Narendra Mandalapa must also forfeit $5.7M and two luxury cars -- deemed to be proceeds of his crimes -- and pay a $25K fine, under the penalties imposed by U.S. District Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise. Mandalapa, 36, was owner and president of Cybersoftec Inc., a business consulting firm based in Edison in 2004 and 2005. He pleaded guilty to immigration fraud on May 5, admitting that he got up to $22K from immigrants to file fraudulent documents. Those included I-140s, which are petitions for an alien worker to become a lawful U.S. resident..."
DoJ press releases
2007-01-22
Marilyn Gardner _Christian Science Monitor_
Consumers search for customer service with a human touch
"The customer service representative, based in another country, was the first of four agents who had what she describes as 'extremely heavy accents'. None of them knew how to handle her request. 'Apparently bereavement fare was not translating well for them'... Even when a customer-service representative abroad speaks excellent English, callers can face another challenge. Representatives often have no authority to make decisions. 'They aren't empowered to do what they need to do to satisfy the customer.', Nunley says. 'They don't dare deviate [from the script]. It counts against them in performance.'... 'The inability to get to a human is the top complaint.', says Lorna Rankin, director of www.gethuman.com, part of a consumer movement to improve the quality of phone support in the US. 'Additionally, when callers get to a person, they can't understand them. Either they speak too quickly or they have a thick accent.'... The web site's data-base of 500 companies gives numbers to press to bypass recordings."
2007-01-22
| DJIA | 12,477.16 |
| S&P 500 | 1,422.95 |
| NASDAQ | 2,431.07 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 4.76% |
| crude oil | 51.13 |
| gold | 634.10 |
| silver | 13.21 |
| platinum | 1,165.10 |
| palladium | 346.70 |
| copper | 0.15809 |
| natgas | 7.319/MBTU |
| unleadedgasoline | NYMEX no longer trading |
| reformulatedgasoline | $1.3754/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.5084/gal |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
2007-01-23
2007-01-23
Matt Wickenheiser _Portland Press Herald_
Narendra V. Mandalapa sent to prison for 20 months for visa fraud
Morning Sentinel
"Narendra V. Mandalapa was facing a sentence of up to 46 months, but U.S. District Court Judge Dickinson R. Debevoise said he reduced the time because Mandalapa has helped investigators identify other potential instances of immigration-related fraud. Since his arrest in 2005 October, Mandalapa has provided federal agencies with a list of 'entities who are doing immigration fraud', as well as individuals doing the same, Debevoise said. Investigators have developed 5 promising investigations from the list, the judge said. However, he described Mandalapa's activity as 'a particularly egregious crime involving the exploitation of hundreds of aliens'. The victims, he said, were 'in vulnerable and exposed positions'. Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam S. Lurie noted that Mandalapa had forged immigration papers for more than 250 foreigners... The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram published an investigation last September that detailed the activities of Mandalapa's company, Cybersoftec, and many other firms trying to bring foreign workers into the United States. The newspaper found that dozens of high-tech staffing companies [bodyshops] leased small spaces in Maine and other rural states in 2004 and early 2005 and filed immigration papers for thousands of foreigners who were supposed to work in the states. In many cases, the companies' connection to Maine was tenuous, and in several instances, landlords had never heard of the companies that called their buildings home on federal applications. Cybersoftec claimed offices in Maine -- at 480 Congress St., Portland -- and in New Hampshire. It obtained more than 150 certifications in the 2 states for H-1B visas in 2004 and 2005 through the U.S. Department of Labor. Cybersoftec also filed about 50 labor-certification applications for green cards in Maine, according to Maine Department of Labor records... A federal grand jury indicted Mandalapa on 2006 May 5, on 29 counts of immigration fraud, money laundering and mail fraud related to his applications for green cards. He pleaded guilty to the one count as part of a plea bargain. Mandalapa will be given credit for the 14 months he's spent in jail, according to his attorney, Bruno C. Bier, and so will spend about six months in prison. At that point, said Bier, he'll be sent to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for what are likely to be deportation proceedings. However, Bier said, Mandalapa could be in custody for anywhere from 12 to 24 months because the Indian consulate doesn't process the necessary paper-work quickly, and the sentence he received Monday marks him as an aggravated felon."
2007-01-23
Frosty Wooldridge _News by Us_
How much further into this nightmare?
American Daily
"How far do Americans want to continue into this horror movie with a cast of millions of consequences including illegal aliens, violent Muslims landing in our country daily and an annual $700G trade deficit? Do you like watching diseases like TB, hepatitis and leprosy [being] imported? Do you find it exciting to watch MS-13 gangs expanding all over our country? What about hospitals bankrupting, prisons exploding and education degraded to the Tower of Babel? Is it fun to watch your neighbors lose their jobs to out-sourcing, off-shoring and in-sourcing?"
2007-01-23
Phillip Yates _Amarillo Globe News_
Benito Garcia-Altamirano charged with smuggling illegal aliens
"A federal complaint against a 20-year-old man alleges he smuggled 12 illegal immigrants across the Texas Panhandle, with at least seven hiding inside the bed of his truck and protected by just a hard cover on top of the bed, despite frigid temperatures last week. Benito Garcia-Altamirano faces a charge of transporting of illegal aliens within the United States, court documents state. He is being held at the Randall County Jail, according to jail logs. According to an affidavit filed with the complaint Thursday, a DPS trooper on Wednesday stopped a 2001 GMC pick-up with Arkansas registration near Vega for a speed violation."
2007-01-23
_WTSP_
Border Patrol agents had a busy day in Pasco county FL
"Border Patrol agents from Tampa spent most of the morning chasing several illegal aliens who jumped from a van during a traffic stop in Pasco County off I-75 near State Road 54 and State Road 56. This was the second bust of the day in that same area. The first traffic stop of an SUV ended with 7 illegals in custody. The second stop involved a van travelling with 9 people... Agents say earlier this week, 2 other vehicles were stopped on I-75 carrying several illegal aliens being transported by smugglers..."
2007-01-23
John Lillpop _Chron Watch_
Stop amnesty
2007-01-23
_News Blaze_
2 charged with death of illegal alien they were smuggling from the Bahamas
First Coast News
2007-01-23
_Nogales International_
Border Patrol found another stash house in Rio Rico
"The agents saw a truck drop suspected illegal aliens at the house. The agents approached the house and found 34 undocumented migrants inside the home. Agents also performed an Immigration stop on the truck that initially led them to the house. The driver of that vehicle was an undocumented migrant. This is the third large stash house that the Nogales DISRUPT Unit has discovered in the last 3 months. In November, a stash house was found in Rio Rico with 109 illegal aliens inside. In December another house that was being used for smuggling was discovered with 26 [illegal aliens] inside."
2007-01-23
_Investors' Business Daily_
No, the USA is not falling behind in productivity (with graph)
Ireland's Financial Facts
National Center for Policy Analysis
composite: "It might be true, as the Conference Board reports, that U.S. productivity grew just 1.4% in 2006 (remember, final data aren't in yet) while the EU will likely post a 1.5% gain. But even if those data hold, last year will likely be an anomaly. The U.S. is positioned to keep its place in the commanding heights of the world economy for decades to come... The most glaring gap is in work force. Projections by the Census Bureau show that by 2025, America's working population will have increased by 55M. Western Europe's, meanwhile, will have shrunk by about 10M... A study by economists Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon for the National Bureau of Economic Research notes that from 1995 to 2004, U.S. total labor productivity grew on average 73% faster than the EU's. In 1995, EU productivity was 94% of the U.S. level. By 2004, it was down to 85%. Europe is losing, not gaining, ground... In 2005, the average American worker produced close to $81K in real gross domestic product; the average European produced $66K -- a difference of $15K, or 22%. Germany and Japan [productivity grew] 2.5% in 2006. Most of the decreased U.S. productivity growth comes from service sectors where hiring has been comparatively high in the last few years. Nordic countries, in particular Finland (3.7%) and Sweden (2.8%), showed productivity growth well above the European average. In contrast, the productivity record of most Mediterranean countries, particularly Italy, Portugal and Spain, remains consistently weak at 0.1%, 0.3% and -0.5% respectively. The UK continues to enjoy steady growth in labour productivity, 1.1% in 2005 growing to 1.7% in 2006. Productivity growth was 0.9% in Ireland."
2007-01-23
Carl Manning _AP_/_Wichita Eagle_
Kansas legislators are looking at ways to deter illegal aliens
"Over time many Kansans have become increasingly frustrated at the federal government's inability to control the nation's borders as illegal immigrants, especially from Mexico, cross over and fan out across the country... Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of the state's population of 2.6M, doubling in number from 1990 to 2000. Census Bureau estimates for 2005 put Hispanics at 8.4% of the population. Last year, 84 bills about immigration were enacted in 32 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The NCSL ranks immigration as the No. 1 policy issue among the nation's legislators this year... Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley... said the key issue is employment, noting the state already has a law banning the hiring of illegal immigrants but with a small penalty. 'We need to crack down on unscrupulous employers who decide to employ illegal immigrants.', Hensley said. 'The employment of illegal immigrants is the root cause we need to address.' No one has introduced a bill to deal with employment. Lewis noted that federal law restricts what states can do about employers hiring illegal immigrants, although legislators still could ban such employers from receiving state contracts."
Kansas legislature
2007-01-23 10:35PST (13:35EST) (18:35GMT)
Jim Kouri _Conservative Voice_
3 Mexican men face life sentences for sex trafficking
"Three Mexican men -- 2 of them illegal aliens -- face the possibility of life in prison after pleading guilty to sex trafficking a 13-year-old girl in Jackson, Wyoming. The guilty pleas were announced on Friday by US Attorney Matthew H. Mead, District of Wyoming. Jacobo Dominguez Vazquez, 33; Jose Luis Chavez, 42; and Braulio Aniceto Velez, 21; all Mexican nationals, entered their guilty pleas before US District Court Judge Clarence A. Brimmer, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Dominguez Vazquez is a permanent resident of the United States while the other two men reside in the US illegally. The FBI investigation revealed that the girl was smuggled into the United States from Mexico specifically for prostitution. She was transported to Jackson through Phoenix in 2004 March."
2007-01-23
Tony Dolz _American Chronicle_
President Bush's state of the union address will reveal a fatal surge in his unpopularity
"President Bush deserves little sympathy. The president's number one priority is to protect our nation. This is not only his constitutional responsibility but a matter of conscience in the post-2001/09/11 world. Whereas there is no arguing that radical Islam is a barbaric threat against modern civilizations, the greatest threat to the future of the United States comes from massive corruption and criminality on both sides of our border with Mexico. President Bush and in all fairness many elected representatives from both parties know this, yet their self-interest prevail over our security and our future. On his 2006 May address to the nation, President Bush admitted that the United States did no have control of its borders. The borders then, as it is now, are under the control of foreign criminal cartels and their silent partners; common domestic profiteers, open-borders international-capital globalization profiteers; and self-serving elected representatives who put their personal gain above the best interest of the nation. Criminal activity is the number one source of revenue for Mexico. In order of importance, narco-trafficking at the USA-Mexico border accounts for $140G annually. Human trafficking accounts for $10G. Our purposely unprotected borders and our lack of employer-sanction law enforcement have allowed approximately 12M to 20M illegal aliens to invade the United States and to work. Their numbers swell by 2M or more annually threatening to make illegal aliens the majority in many communities. Illegal aliens from Mexico send home $19G... For example, uniformed Mexican military and police are known to be in the employ of the criminal cartels to either fend-off one cartel against another or to defend their trade routes into the United States' southwest from the marginal obstruction provided by about 11K U.S. Border Patrol agents covering the [nearly] 9K miles of border. In contrast, New York City has 40K police officers to protect a few square miles... Our southern border is a very dangerous place. The FBI estimates that there are as many as 80K members of the ruthless Mara Salvatrucha Salvadorian criminal gang using the Mexican border as their corridor into the United States. In the last 5 months, the Border Patrol has arrested no less than 42,722 aliens with criminal records on the border, and that is just in 5 months -- over 42K. Among them were 6,770 felons, 148 persons wanted in connection with a homicide, 42 associated with kidnapping, 164 associated with a sexual assault, 298 associated with robbery, 1,957 wanted for assault, and 4,161 connected with drug crimes. DHS recently advised us that about 139K of the 1.1M people apprehended on the border in 2005 were criminal aliens seeking to illegally reenter the United States. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported last year that criminal aliens made up nearly one-third of the Federal prison population, and that the number of aliens incarcerated jumped from 42K in 2001 to 49K in 2004. In 2003, State prisons held about 74K criminal aliens. Our Federal and State governments have expended billions of dollar incarcerating them. The bill in California is $1.4G per year."
2007-01-23
Andrew Perkinson _Loudon Times-Mirror_/_Z Wire_
Attorney General Bob McDonnell repeated reques to governor Tim Kaine to apply for authority additional immigration authority for state police investigating violent crimes
"'I am renewing my request to the governor in the interest of adhering to the rule of law and providing for additional public safety for our citizens of Virginia.', McDonnell said in a press conference January 17. In addition, senator Jay O'Brien (R-Clifton) and delegate Tom Rust, (R-Sterling) announced their patronage of two bills designed to give state and local law officials the authority to enter into agreements with the Department of Homeland Security. 'Our law enforcement officers routinely come in contact with those that they have reason to believe are illegal immigrants. Yet, we have no ability to retain those people who are in violation of federal immigration laws.', McDonnell said. 'I think that is wrong and that we have the authority in Virginia to do something about it.' McDonnell said police can only hold an illegal immigrant for 72 hours. Current law limits legal detention -- only in cases where the illegal immigrant has previously been convicted of a felony, deported and has returned to Virginia."
2007-01-23
Ephraim Schwartz _InfoWorld_/_IDG_
Employee turn-over rising at off-shore work-sites
"Off-shoring -- especially for BPO (business process out-sourcing) -- is about to hit a wall. After all, despite being a relatively new phenomenon made possible by advances in communications, it remains subject to one timeless principle of economics: supply and demand. The HR pros call it attrition. On any particular project out-sourced to a service provider in India, you can expect at least a 15% turn-over rate for personnel assigned to the project within a year. For some projects, BPO chief among them, it is not unheard of for a whole staff to turn over by year's end, according to Paul Schmidt, a partner in the global [body shop] at TPI, one of the larger sourcing advisory organizations... As I see it, supply and demand will increase the cost of off-shoring. Over time, this will level the playing field -- and will motivate companies to reconsider whether they should keep projects in-house or send them over-seas."
2007-01-23
Jim Kouri _Renew America_
Terrorists and criminals gain entry into USA through fraud
American Chronicle
Hawaii Reporter
"The Identity and Benefits Fraud Unit, an investigative component of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is the agency responsible for detecting, deterring, and disrupting the fraudulent schemes used by terrorist and criminal organizations. In fiscal year 2006, the IBF Unit opened about 4K new cases of immigration fraud and received or developed thousands of leads... For example, a recent case in Washington, DC saw ICE agents target 4 document fraud/counterfeiting operations, seizing over 1,800 false documents, shutting down 4 document mills, and apprehending 50 illegal aliens."
2007-01-23
_PR News Wire_
Illegal alien from Brazil sentenced for bribery and harboring other illegal aliens
"A former Allston man, himself an illegal alien from Brazil, was sentenced today in federal court for knowingly harboring illegal aliens and bribing an immigration official... Jose Neto, age 40, formerly of 33 Blaine Street in Allston, was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Morris E. Lasker to 5 years in prison, to be followed by 2 years of supervised release. In addition, a multifamily residence in Allston where Neto previously resided has been ordered forfeited to the United States. Upon completion of his term of imprisonment, Neto faces deportation to his native Brazil. On 2006 May 10, a trial jury convicted Neto of knowingly harboring illegal aliens. Prior to the trial, on 2006 April 3, Neto had pled guilty to charges of bribing an immigration official, inducing illegal aliens to remain in the country and having a pattern or practice of knowingly employing illegal aliens. The sentence imposed today by the court reflects both Neto's trial conviction and guilty plea. Neto was among approximately 700 suspected foreign nationals who were directed to report to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the wake of an investigation into the fraudulent sale of identity records. When Neto reported to the ICE office, he offered to pay the interviewing agent a bribe to assist Neto and his wife with their immigration status. The ICE agent, operating under-cover, arranged to meet Neto at a nearby mall. Neto paid the agent $20K in cash for Green Cards (i.e. documentation for legal permanent residency) for himself and his wife. In subsequent meetings, between 2004 October and 2005 March, Neto paid the under-cover ICE agent more than $147K in additional bribes, mostly for Green Cards but some to obtain the release of individuals from ICE custody. At the time of Neto's arrest, ICE Agents interviewed over 50 employees of a company that Neto operated, Spectro Cleaning Services, all of whom were identified by ICE as unauthorized aliens."
2007-01-23
_Alaska Report_/_Reuters_
ICE agents capture 761 criminal illegal aliens in Los Angeles area
World Net Daily
"Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said the week-long sweep identified 423 criminal aliens due for release from jails across 5 counties in the Los Angeles area, and took them into custody. The operation also led to the arrest of 338 [illegal aliens] in the area, more than 150 of whom were classed as 'immigration fugitives' -- foreign nationals who ignored final deportation orders... Those arrested in the swoop have all either been removed from the United States already or face deportation."
2007-01-23 14:16PST (17:16EST) (22:16GMT)
Ed Baker _Weymouth News_
Ordinance aimed at illegal aliens is being considered
"Casimiro said that the ordinance is needed because Congress is not making any strides to remedy illegal immigration in the United States... Casimiro said that local authorities have been forced to confront illegal immigrants on several occasions during the past 5 years. 'Mr. Joseph Dickey of Weymouth was allegedly killed in an automobile accident by an illegal alien in 2002 April.', he said. 'We've been told that 5% of the traffic stops by the Weymouth police department involve illegal aliens. This might be an area to be explored by the (town council) public safety committee.' During a raid in 2003 September, Casimiro said, federal authorities discovered that illegal immigrants were using a home on Jaffrey Street to produce fraudulent documents to smuggle non-citizens into the United States. Connolly argued that the ordinance is needed to prevent illegal immigrants from being exploited by businesses and home-owners. 'Businesses and home-owners who hire illegal immigrants turn a blind eye towards their exploitation, which is immoral and corrupts our values.', he said. 'They, too, show contempt for our laws, and their greed and selfishness tear the fabric of our community. The ordinance addresses that problem.'... Casimiro said the proposed ordinance is modeled after similar ordinances being considered or approved by several towns in Massachusetts."
2007-01-23 (5767 Shevat/Shebat 04)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The "Greed" fallacy and CEO compensation
Town Hall
Real Clear Politics
"I could become so greedy that I wanted a fortune twice the size of Bill Gates' -- but this greed would not increase my income by one cent. If you want to explain why some people have astronomical incomes, it cannot be simply because of their own desires -- whether 'greedy' or not -- but because of what other people are willing to pay them. The real question, then, is: Why do other people choose to pay corporate executives so much? One popular explanation is that executive salaries are set by boards of directors who are spending the stock-holders' money and do not care that they are over-paying a CEO [and themselves, when the CEO] may be the one responsible for putting them on the board of directors in the first place... CEO compensation is even higher in corporations owned by a few giant investment firms, as distinguished from corporations owned by thousands of individual stock-holders... If people who are capable of being outstanding executives were a dime a dozen, nobody would pay 11 cents a dozen for them [if there were no barriers to entry]."
see also _Dismantling America_
2007-01-24
2007-01-23 17:41PST (2007-01-23 20:41EST) (2007-01-24 01:41GMT)
_AM New York_
NJ congressional delegation reacts to state of the union speech
NewsDay
"'I am encouraged to hear him talk about the need for a balanced budget through permanent tax relief, meaningful earmark reform, and fiscal restraint. I have serious misgivings about some of the president's ideas, particularly his immigration plan that is tantamount to amnesty for illegal aliens.', [said] representative Scott Garrett, R-Wantage."
2007-01-23 17:52PST (2007-01-23 20:52EST) (2007-01-24 01:52GMT)
Kelly Brewington & Matthew Dolan _Baltimore Sun_
24 held after ICE stumbled onto illegal aliens
"But officers who made the arrests at the 7-Eleven parking lot on the corner of Broadway and Lombard Street did not intend to raid the area, according to ICE officials. They were actually searching for an illegal [alien] who had been ordered out of the country by a judge but failed to comply, said ICE spokesman Marc Raimondi. They never found the man, whom authorities declined to identify. About 10 agents in 3 or 4 un-marked vehicles stopped at the 7-Eleven around 11:00, according Raimondi. As soon as the agents pulled their vehicles into the lot, about two dozen men approached, asking in Spanish if those in the car had work for them. The agents, who were wearing raid jackets and badges on their chests, asked the men for identification and found cause to believe they were illegal immigrants, Raimondi said. Of the 24 suspected illegal immigrants detained by authorities, Raimondi said, 6 men had criminal records, 3 had final judges' orders of removal from the country, and another 8 men previously been physically removed from the country, including one who had been caught at the border 6 times... Deborah Meyers, a senior analyst with the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, said while immigration officials are stepping up work-place enforcement, they are not penalizing employers. 'If ICE went into this parking lot and arrested these individuals, they easily could have arrested the people in the trucks trying to hire them.', she said."
2007-01-23 18:09PST (2007-01-23 21:09EST) (2007-01-24 02:09GMT)
George W. Bush _MarketWatch_
State of the Union message
Jim Webb's response
2007-01-24
Stephen S. Roach _London Times_
Pendulum swings toward new era of localisation
"The self-interest of individual nation states is in the ascendant, whereas the collective push for cross-border integration is on the wane... At the core of this change is an extraordinary tug-of-war between capital and labour in the rich countries of the developed world. As can be seen in the accompanying chart, corporate profitability as a share of national income is at historic highs for the 'G-7 plus' nations. At the same time, the labour compensation share of national income has fallen to a record low for the same economies. This unprecedented divergence between soaring returns to the owners of capital and lagging rewards of workers emphasises a destabilising asymmetry to the so-called win-win globalisation paradigm... the benefits of the second win have showed up in the form of surging corporate profits in the industrial world. Increasingly, multinational companies have taken advantage of a new IT-enabled connectivity to link global distribution platforms to low-wage pools of labour in the developing world. The result has been a powerful global labour arbitrage bearing down on workers in the big developed economies -- pushing employment growth well below historical norms and squeezing real wages as never before. Yet there is a new and important twist to this globalisation. Unlike previous periods of trade-related pressures that were directed exclusively at blue-collar workers in the factory sector, the new globalisation is also bearing down on white-collar workers in the vast and once non-tradable services sector. Courtesy of the internet, the click of a mouse delivers the knowledge content of an increasingly broad array of white-collar workers to desktops anywhere in the world. As white-collar off-shoring spreads from data processing and call centres to increasingly high-value-added tasks, such as software programming, engineering, design, medical and legal advice, consulting and financial services, the global labour arbitrage has migrated at hyperspeed to the upper echelons of the occupational hierarchy... Nowhere is that more evident than in the United States. Economic theory holds that workers are paid, ultimately, in accordance with their marginal productivity contribution. Yet in the US -- the leader in the productivity revolution -- gains in real compensation per hour of 1.4% over the past 5 years have been less than half the 3.1% average rate of productivity growth over the same period. Moreover, academic research indicates that only about 10% of the American work-force realised gains in labour income that were in excess of underlying productivity growth -- meaning that 90% of the work-force has been on the outside looking in. Widening income disparities are another worrying and destabilising characteristic of the global labour arbitrage."
2007-01-24
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_
Coalition developing for worsening excess of H-1B visas
"A coalition of odd bed-fellows has formed to pressure Congress for a wide range of guest-worker visas... One of the 'high-tech businesses' that is playing a very big role is M$. This lobbyist makes it very clear that he wants an increase of both H-1B visas and green cards... Since 1999 representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has been pushing for unlimited H-1B visas, and she has been a key player in previous H-1B legislation. Her self-interest in the issue stems from her previous career as an immigration attorney, and of course a steady flow of 'donations' from California's high-tech [executives]. Lofgren thinks that the time is ripe to push for another escalation of visas."
2007-01-24
Lee Gomes _Arizona Republic_/_Wall Street Journal_
Macintosh fans seek out and repair OS X bugs
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"On New Year's Day, Fuller put word out on the web that he would try to create a fix for each Apple bug as soon as it was publicized. Others wrote in offering their help, and there quickly emerged a cadre of programmers who each morning would get to work on fixing the bug du jour. 'It is a technically very challenging thing to do.', says Fuller in explaining his motivation. He also didn't at all like the idea of not telling software makers about the flaws before publicizing them. A week or so after Mr. Fuller started his bug-patching program, Mr. Finisterre and LMH emailed him and offered to make him their partner. He would be told early about each bug so that he could start working on his patch, but only on the condition that he not tell anyone else before they announced the bug. Mr. Fuller declined, saying that would make him complicit in a practice he strongly disagreed with... Fuller says that while a number of the flaws were significant, many others pose little or no security threat. They would simply cause a program to stop working. And some have long been known about in one form or another. Indeed, a number of the affected programs weren't even written by Apple, but by software companies selling products for the Mac, some of which have quite small shares of the market. There was, though, at least one 'show-stopper' bug, says Fuller: a flaw in Apple's QuickTime movie player... Apple released a fix for the QuickTime problem Tuesday afternoon; patches for any other serious bugs should be available soon. Unfortunately, it will be a slightly longer wait for the glorious day when computer owners no longer have to worry about this sort of nonsense."
2007-01-24
_India Times_/_Reuters_
IMF says India needs deeper reforms
2007-01-24
Rob Enderle _Dark Reading_/_TechWeb_/_CMP_/_UBM_
Executives and recruiters often behave stupidly
"no matter how much technology you throw at a problem, one brain-dead employee or executive can screw it all up in a moment. Such problems are often caused by employees who are not properly selected, trained, and motivated to help... What takes me down this path is a recent interview with Google's CEO [Eric Schmidt], in which he discussed the company's [alleged] staffing problems and what it's doing to [make them worse]. Like many companies that experience very rapid growth, Google is having [self-created] problems getting enough [capable] people to do the jobs they [want] done. And, like many companies, Google has been using academic accomplishments as a key metric for weeding out [many very capable people from the flood of] applicants. Google's executive staff has [idiotically] concluded that interviewing takes too long and that by sorting potential employes based on grades -- largely an artificial metric in business -- they are probably missing out on many great employees they might otherwise hire. Unfortunately, Google's 'solution' to this problem is to hire people [who are capable of doing] jobs '3 levels higher' than the jobs they are hired for. This approach clearly addresses the need to fill the pipe-line for potential executives in a rapidly growing company; it could also result in a security nightmare. As anyone in security knows, the most likely employee to steal from a company is one who feels under-paid and under-appreciated. These employees often feel the company owes them if they don't move up fast enough, and they typically don't enjoy the job they are doing because they are [capable of doing much more and better]. Such people can [retaliate] as their frustration on the job grows... If history repeats itself, Google's approach could result in declining employee benefits, reduced productivity, and an increasing number of employee-caused security incidents. It [has made] Google a less attractive place to work, and that's not in the best interest of Google, its employees, its stock-holders, or its customers."
And Google wants to pay sys admins only $34K per year to work in a location where a typical 1BR apartment costs over $18K per year
2007-01-24 12:03PST (15:03EST) (20:03GMT)
William L. Watts _MarketWatch_
Income inequality has created a back-lash against executives, off-shoring, guest-worker programs
"In the United States, median wages have stagnated despite sharp gains in productivity. 'Political discourse about this problem is way too low.', warned Yale University economics professor Robert J. Shiller at a panel discussion Wednesday afternoon. 'We need in every major country a serious debate about how to keep this problem from getting worse.'... Over the 25 years between 1979 and 2004, the top 1% of the population has seen its average, inflation-adjusted, after-tax income rise $554K, or 176%, the data showed. The middle fifth saw an inflation-adjusted, after-tax rise of $8,500, or 21%, over the same period, while the bottom fifth saw an increase of $800, or 6%."
2007-01-24 12:31:01PST (15:31:01EST) (20:41:01GMT)
_Earth Times_
Employees sick with influenza and drowsy from over-the-counter medications reduce work-place productivity
"Every year, about 20% of the US population gets the flu. It costs the US economy billions and not just from those calling in sick... Presenteeism."
2007-01-24
Gordon Boyd _WVLT_
Immigration reform vs. continuing deform
'He wants to let the little crooks in, and keep the big crooks out.', says Fabian Story, from Tennesseans for Immigration Reform and Education. T-FIRE, Tennesseans for Immigration Reform and Education, claims that any so-called guest worker program amounts to amnesty for the thousands already here illegally; that any faster track to citizenship amounts to cutting line on immigrants following the rules. And that any reform has to take into account, who is, or isn't paying taxes. 'Most of them aren't paying taxes because they're working under the table because their employers can't report them.', says Story."
2007-01-24
Tim Weber _BBC_
And now for the bad news
2007-01-24 (5767 Shevat/Shebat 05)
John Stossel _Jewish World Review_
Milton Friedman Day
2007-01-24 (5767 Shevat/Shebat 05)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Fear-Mongering
"The environmental extremists' true agenda has little or nothing to do with climate change. Their true agenda is to find a means to control our lives. The kind of repressive human control, not to mention government-sanctioned mass murder, seen under communism has lost any measure of intellectual respectability. So people who want that kind of control must come up with a new name, and that new name is environmentalism."
2007-01-25
2007-01-25 05:30PDT (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 365,045 in the week ending January 20, a decrease of 144,411 from the previous week. There were 317,926 initial claims in the comparable week in 2006. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.2% during the week ending Jan. 13, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,928,707, a decrease of 239,746 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.4% and the volume was 3,044,307. Extended benefits were not available in any state during the week ending January 6."
graphs
2007-01-24 21:28PST (2007-01-25 00:28EST) (2007-01-25 05:28GMT)
Chris Oliver _MarketWatch_
Red China's GDP increased 10.7% in 2006 to $2.7T
2007-01-25 09:58PST (12:58EST) (17:58GMT)
Tom Henshaw _Marshfield Mariner_
Exploring for president
Hanover Mariner
2007-01-25
Mark W. Bradley _Dissident Voice_
Taking guest-work beyond the limits
2007-01-25 10:32PST (13:32EST) (18:32GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Existing home sales fell 0.8% to 6.22M
National Association of Realtors economic indicators
2007-01-25
Tony Dolz _News by Us_
Who is in control of our borders?
2007-01-25
Harry Cline _Western Farm Press_
Emus, coyotes and illegal aliens all weigh on the family ranch
"Rather than build a 700-mile long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants out, a Texas ranch owner may have come up with another idea; breed herds of emus to protect the border. In the latest issue of Texas Monthly, South Texas rancher Tonnyre Thomas Joe talks about the impact of heightened border security on her family's ranch 65 miles north of the Mexican border. Recently a frightened and injured illegal immigrant told Border Patrol of being attached by a 'un pollo gigante'. The rancher is not sure, but suspects the illegal was attacked by one of the emus they keep on the ranch to protect calves from coyotes... In 2004, 1 in 3 hired a smuggler and just 1 in 6 in 2000... Trafficking in illegal [aliens] has become big business... She points out that illegal immigrants are now willing to pay $1,500 to be smuggled into the U.S.A. Why not [require] them to pay the money to get documented as guest workers?"
2007-01-26
2007-01-26 08:49PST (11:49EST) (16:49GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Durable goods orders up 3.1%
census bureau report
2007-01-26 08:55PST (11:55EST) (16:55GMT)
Carol Giacomo _Yahoo!_
US government is banning luxury exports to North Korea
"The United States on Friday banned exports of luxury items to North Korea, including jet skis, iPods, jewelry and fancy cars, in an effort to pressure Pyongyang's communist leaders by denying their reputed high-end tastes. A rule issued by the U.S. Commerce Department details the kinds of luxury goods Washington plans to block under U.N. trade sanctions mandated after Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test on October 9. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez had issued a press release discussing the luxury goods list in November, but publication of a formal rule was delayed until Friday so U.S. negotiator Chris Hill could pursue talks aimed at persuading North Korea to end its nuclear programs, U.S. officials told Reuters."
2007-01-26 09:00PST (12:00EST) (17:00GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
New home sales rose almost 4.8% to 1.12M
2007-01-26 13:47PST (16:47EST) (21:47GMT)
Jim Kuhnhenn _AP_/_Yahoo!_
Penalties for hiring illegal aliens worry firms, as they should
"The Senate, by a 94-0 vote Thursday, inserted a federal contracting ban for businesses that violate immigration laws into a bill that would raise the federal floor on hourly pay from $5.15 to $7.25 over 2 years... Under the provision, offered by senator Jeff Sessions, R-AL, companies caught hiring illegal workers while on a federal contract would be banned from government work for 10 years. Other companies discovered with illegal workers would be prohibited from getting federal contracts for 7 years. The ban would not be subject to appeal in court, but the federal government could waive it for national security reasons. Companies that use a pilot electronic employment verification system would be exempt from the sanctions. Business groups complain the verification system is flawed. [Other critics point out that this still leaves open huge loop-holes for abuse.]"
2007-01-26
John Pomfret _Washington Post_
Fight against smugglers of illegal aliens follows the money trail
"In 2001, Arizona state prosecutors trying to stem the growing tide of immigrant smuggling found a Western Union outlet in the border town of Douglas that was doling out more than $91K a month -- this in a community where the per capita income was barely $10K a year. People across the country, prosecutors said, were sending money to the little Western Union shop in Douglas -- and scores others like it in Arizona -- to pay smugglers to sneak illegal immigrants into the United States. To fight back, Attorney General Terry Goddard employed a controversial technique known as a damming warrant to seize $17M in money transfers into hundreds of Western Union locations in Arizona, prosecute scores of immigrant smugglers and deport hundreds of people in a program he marvels at because of its 'elegant simplicity'. On the surface, the warrants were a success. Between mid-2005 and mid-2006, according to Goddard's office, transfers of $500 and more into Arizona fell from $36.8M a month to just $2.8M. The only problem was that all of Goddard's other sources indicated that immigrant smuggling was still booming in Arizona... In an affidavit filed late last year, Goddard's office contended that Phoenix-based immigrant smuggling enterprises had annual revenues of $1.7G to $2.5G. The Phoenix Police Department estimates that 50% of that city's murders involve either an illegal immigrant as assailant or victim."
2007-01-26
_Mississippi Business Journal_
More money from H-1B visa retraining fund being diverted to construction
"The H1B Pathways to Construction grant training programs have focused on carpentry, electrical, HVAC, heavy equipment operations, sheet metal, plumbing, carpet installation and telecommunications cabling. Other H1B High Growth training is also available in health-care, commercial truck driving, hospitality and customer service."
2007-01-26 15:00PST (18:00EST) (23:00GMT)
Lou Dobbs _CNN_
USCIS & Congress have been keeping actual numbers of H-1B visas issued under wraps
Lou Dobbs: "The United States citizenship and immigration service finally released its report to Congress on the H-1B guest-worker visa program. But Congress still hasn't seen fit to release that report to the public, perhaps because the numbers are much higher than the government has authorized..."
Bill Tucker, CNN correspondent: "The number of H-1B visas an existing guest worker program for skilled workers is capped by Congress at 65K. Another 20K foreign students who graduate from American universities with advanced degrees are also eligible for the visa. That's 85K visas a year. But the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service approved 116,927 applications in 2005. It approved 130,497 in 2004. The reports in 2004 and 2005 were not released until November 20th of last year. A release date that activists find disturbing."
John Miano, attorney: "I think it's odd that it occurred after the election. Somewhat suspicious that while there were bills pending to have an H-1B increase, that the information about the actual numbers of H-1B visas was not available."
Bill Tucker: "A spokesman for USCIS admits the reports were late, but he calls the oversight 'honest', explaining that in the transitions from INS to the Department of Homeland Security they neglected to file the reports. We notified the oversight by a member of Congress. They quickly produced the reports. Some critics see a pattern."
Ron Hira, Rochester Institute of Technology: "There's been a pattern by the administration to -- to keep, you know, this data that they don't particularly want out, bottled up, and we've seen this with the Commerce Department off-shoring report, and we've seen it in other areas like NASA and the like."
Bill Tucker: "And there is intrigue. These reports were obtained by Lou Dobbs Tonight, not off a Congress web site, not from the House Subcommittee on Immigration, but off the Internet, where activists are distributing them by e-mail. The reports are real. USCIS acknowledges publishing the reports and giving them to Congress in late November [after the election]. But USCIS says it's not their job to distribute the reports to the public, that's up to Congress. And, you know, Lou, it may serve in the congressional interests to not make the report widely available to the public, because there are some disturbing facts in that report, and Congress is about to take up debate on doubling that program again sometime this next couple of months."
2007-01-26
| DJIA | 12,487.02 |
| S&P 500 | 1,422.18 |
| NASDAQ | 2,435.49 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 4.88% |
| crude oil | 55.42 |
| gold | 650.70 |
| silver | 13.375 |
| platinum | 1,181.50 |
| palladium | 350.95 |
| copper | 0.1646 |
| natgas | 7.175/MBTU |
| unleadedgasoline | NYMEX no longer trading |
| reformulatedgasoline | $1.4834/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.5914/gal |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
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"Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service." --- W. Edwards Deming
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2007-01-27
2007-01-28
2007-01-28
_Summit Daily News_
Tancredo Campaign
2007-01-28
_Blogger News Network_
Candidate Tom Tancredp: A Report Card
2007-01-28
Dennis N. Rausch _NorthWest Herald_
Confront illegal immigration
2007-01-28
John Armor _Canyon News_
Nancy Pelosi's culture of corruption part 2
"But there is one final wrinkle in this story. The Democrats, and an unfortunate majority of the economically-illiterate press, have been describing this as a 'raise for all Americans'. It is a raise for some, imposed by law. But it is a pink slip for some Americans. A basic law of economics is that when you raise the price of anything, you decrease the amount that will sell. This is a fundamental law, like gravity, or the fact that water runs down-hill."
2007-01-29
2007-01-29
Walter Anderson _Family Security Matters_
Election 2008: A National Security Preview
2007-01-29 05:00PST (08:00EST) (13:00GMT)
Philip Elliott _AP_/_Concord NH Monitor_
Tancredo's message: Immigration reform
2007-01-29
Sumeet Chatterjee _Reuters_
Accenture to increase India staff to 35K
2007-01-29 08:40PST (11:40EST) (16:40GMT)
_WTKR_
Virginia senate panel recommends cock-fighting curbs
"Sheriff Danny Fox says 6 of the birds died of horrific wounds. Fox said 122 people were charged, and about 75% were from outside Virginia, most from North Carolina. He says 22 were illegal aliens and members of gangs who were turned over to the Department of Homeland Security to be deported."
2007-01-29 06:00PST (09:00EST) (14:00GMT)
George Leopold _EE Times_/_CMP_
Avionics software off-shoring deal draws fire
Information Week
Earth Times
"An alliance between a U.S. embedded-software services company and an Indian-based partner to out-source avionics software development is raising flags among off-shoring opponents, who question whether mission-critical software should be written by international teams. Avista Inc. (Platteville, WI) and Silver Software (Malmesbury, England) last week announced an alliance they said would allow aircraft makers and avionics companies to shift software development off-shore while retaining U.S.-based project management... Founded in 1987, Avista claims to have taken on more than 750 projects that meet DO-178B requirements. In most cases, 20% to 30% of a project development team is based in the United States and the other 70% to 80% off-shore, Schneller said... With the number of lines of embedded software code skyrocketing for new aircraft like Boeing's 330-passenger 787 Dreamliner, Schneller said avionics software is designed not only to increase a plane's functionality but also to reduce weight. For example, Boeing has specified wireless in-flight entertainment systems to reduce wiring costs and aircraft weight... Rockwell-Collins and Honeywell are providing most of the flight control, guidance and other avionics for Boeing's 787."
2007-01-29 12:10PST (15:10EST) (20:10GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Number of vacant homes for sale increased by 34% (with graph)
"The number of vacant homes waiting to be sold surged 34% to 2.1 million at the end of 2006 compared with the end of 2005, by far the fastest increase ever recorded, the Census Bureau reported Monday. A year ago, 1.57M homes were vacant and awaiting a sale. The vacancy rate for owned units jumped to a record 2.7% from 2.0% a year earlier. From 1965 to 2005, the homeowner vacancy rate had never been above 2%. The long-term average is 1.4%... In the past 12 months, housing starts have slumped 18% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.64M. In 2006, the number of housing units in the United States rose by 2.14M, or 1.7%, to 126.7M. The number of units occupied, however, rose by less than half as much -- 1.04M. Meanwhile, the home-ownership rate (the percentage of homes occupied by their 'owners') was essentially steady at 68.9%, the government said, close to the all-time high of 69.3%... Rents have a double impact on core inflation, because they are used to calculate owners' equivalent rent, which accounts for nearly a fourth of the consumer price index. In 2006, owners' equivalent rents rose 4.3%. Core inflation excluding owners' equivalent rate decelerated to 1.9% in 2006, O'Sullivan said. "
2007-01-29
Jim Brown _Agape Press_/_GOP USA_
Amendment targets federal contractors hiring illegal aliens
"Thursday the Senate approved by a 94-0 vote an amendment sponsored by senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama). This amendment would ban federal contractors from government work for up to 10 years if they are caught hiring illegal aliens. Senate Democrats killed another amendment sponsored by Sessions, however. That measure would have increased penalties for all employers who hire illegal aliens. The Alabama Republican says illegal immigration is negatively affecting the livelihood of American workers. 'What we know is -- and the statistics are quite clear -- that large flows of illegal workers into the community pull down the wages of American citizens who go to work in those similar jobs.', he asserts."
2007-01-29
Nathan Burchfiel _Cybercast News Service_
Conservatives spar over immigration and national security
2007-01-29
Burt Prelutsky _California Republic_
Reflections on an inordinately long day's night
2007-01-29
Jim Vosler _Hilton Head Island Packet_
Americans, too, want good-paying jobs
"it is a canard, almost a libel on the industriousness of American workers, to blithely say that a liberal immigration policy has little impact on employment or wages because the jobs being taken are ones 'Americans won't do'."
2007-01-29
_Judicial Watch_
Judicial Watch releases records from North American Union meeting
"The North American Forum presentations discussed immigration and border enforcement; full economic and energy integration including infrastructure and transportation; a North American investment fund; and common customs and duties. The idea of a carbon tax was raised as a means to combat so-called global warming. References to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) occur throughout the documents."
2007-01-29
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_
CBS video on H-1B closest to unbiased they have done: CNN & Pascrell
"CBS News interviewed a programmer named Oscar McKee who is trying to make a living off his own software business. McKee is having problems making his business work because he is being squeezed by competition from low wage H-1Bs."
2007-01-30
2007-01-30
_Work Permit_
India's finance minister Palaniappan Chidambaram is unhappy with UK's immigration laws: Povero bambino
2007-01-30
Dino Perrotti _ComputerWorld_
US scientists and engineers vs. Bush, executives, and their lobbyists
2007-01-30 08:35PST (11:35EST) (16:35GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Conference board consumer confidence index inches to 5-year high
"The percentage of respondents who said jobs are plentiful rose to 29.9% from 27.6%, while the number who said jobs were hard to get fell from 21.3% to 19.7%, the lowest since 2001 August [just over a year and a half into the current depression]."
2007-01-30 (5767 Shevat/Shebat 11)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Welcome to Palestine
"Palestine exists. And it is a nightmare."
2007-01-30 (5767 Shevat/Shebat 11)
Jonathan Rosenblum _Jewish World Review_
Free Will and its deniers
2007-01-31
2007-01-31
Loren Steffy _Houston Chronicle_
What's good for Wall Street isn't necessarily good for the USA
2007-01-30 19:57PST (2007-01-30 22:57EST) (2007-01-31 03:57GMT)
Rajesh Mahapatra _Business Week_
India's Tata Steel out-bid Brazil's Companhia Siderurgica Nacional to take over Corus Group for $12.1G
Houston Chronicle
Forbes
Scotsman
Financial Times
MarketWatch
"India's Tata Steel said Wednesday it out-bid Brazilian rival CSN to take over European steel-maker Corus Group PLC, after offering $11.3G for the acquisition, the biggest ever by an Indian company... The winning bid represents a 22% premium [over] the $9.2G Tata Steel had offered to pay in October, which was later trumped by CSN, the statement said... A combined Tata-Corus would have annual steel production of 25M tons, making it the world's fifth largest steel producer... It would also continue the consolidation in the global steel industry after Mittal Steel Company NV's deal to acquire Arcelor SA to create a power-house which has a 10% share of the market."
2007-01-30 21:16PST (2007-01-31 00:16EST) (2007-01-31 05:16GMT)
Sheryl McCarthy & Web Bryant _USA Today_
Too young to retire but apparently too old to be hired
Collecting My Thoughts
"Older workers who have been forced to take buy-outs are facing difficulty finding new full-time jobs, creating a marginalized under-class of citizens... the reality is that being 50 or older and looking for work is tough. A report by the management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that 40% of those who described themselves as retired had stopped working earlier than they had planned. Of that group, 47% stopped working for health reasons, but 44% did so because of job loss or down-sizing. Pre-retirees expect, on average, to work until age 67, the study found, but the average age of retirement is only 59. And average baby boomers can expect to live until their 80s... Offering cash and other incentives based on employees' age and years of service, buy-outs are designed to appeal to older workers, says John Challenger, CEO of Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc., a global [out-placement] firm. Most of the down-sized employees his firm is paid to help in finding new jobs are 50 and older. 7 out of 10 workers 55 and older who were employed at non-agricultural jobs last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, were working full-time, a slight increase from a decade ago. But older workers who suddenly are displaced find it much harder to get new jobs than do younger workers... 'I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science. I have 20 years of experience. I am 50 years old. I am unemployable. I can't even get an interview at companies like Google, Cisco, M$, Dell, HP and Apple, whose Washington lobbyists insist that the H-1B visa program needs to be retained and expanded because they can't find qualified American workers. What abject nonsense. A word of advice to anyone considering getting a graduate degree in Computer Science: don't. Go to law school, get an MBA, start your own business, write the Great American Novel, buy a lottery ticket. But don't listen to Bill Gates or Michael Dell, neither of whom has even an under-graduate degree. There's no future in computer science -- invest your time and energy elsewhere.', [wrote] Doug..."
2007-01-31
_The Age_
4,600 year old village housing hundreds found near Stonehenge
BBC (map, photos)
Chicago Tribune
"these abodes had exactly the same layout as Neolithic houses at Skara Brae, Orkney, which have survived intact because -- unlike these dwellings -- they were made of stone.
2007-01-31 04:00PST (07:00EST) (12:00GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Mortgage Bankers Association says applications up a seasonally adjusted 3.2% last week
2007-01-31 05:54PST (08:54EST) (13:54GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
GDP was up 3.5% in 2006Q4
"Consumer prices fell 0.8% annualized in the quarter, the first quarterly decline in 45 years and the biggest drop in 52 years. The core personal consumption expenditure price index, which excludes food and energy prices, rose 2.1%, slightly above the Federal Reserve's 1% to 2% comfort zone. Core inflation has risen 2.3% in the past year, down from 2.4% in the third quarter. Market-based core inflation rose 1.7% in the quarter. Final sales of domestic product rose 4.2%. Final sales to domestic purchasers increased 2.4%. Disposable personal incomes rose 5.4% annualized, with the personal savings rate improving to a negative 1% from 1.2% the previous quarter. For all of 2006, the economy grew 3.4%, after growing 3.2% in 2005 and 3.9% in 2004. In a separate report, the Labor Department said employment costs rose 0.8% in the fourth quarter after rising 1% in the third quarter. Employment costs, including wages and benefits, are up 3.3% in the past year, down from a 3.5% increase."
BEA
BLS
2007-01-31 07:36PST (10:36EST) (15:36GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Construction outlays were down 0.4% in December: up 4.8% for all of 2006
census bureau data
2007-01-31 08:05PST (11:05EST) (16:05GMT)
Ciara Linnane & Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Chicago purchasing managers index fell from 51.6 in December to 48.8, indicating contraction
2007-01-31
Rb Harris _Guardian_/_AP_
9 arrested in Britain on terror charges
Time
Belfast Telegraph
Kansas City Star
Reuters
IC Wales
CNN
Mens News Daily
"Counterterrorism police arrested 9 men in an alleged kidnapping plot Wednesday -- a plan that reportedly involved torturing and beheading a British Muslim soldier and broadcasting the killing on the Internet."
2007-01-31 13:23PST (16:23EST) (21:23GMT)
Greg Robb & Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Federal Reserve keeps interest rates the same
2007-01-31 13:48PST (16:48EST) (21:48GMT)
_Reuters_/_Yahoo!_
USCIS plans tiny hikes in fees
El Paso Times
Centre Daily Times
"The fee increases, which are subject to a review process, are part of a drive by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to over-haul its strained processing system, which leaves many legal immigrants waiting months or years for a green card or naturalization as U.S. citizens. The fee increases would provide 'appropriate funding to meet customer service needs and national security requirements, and (modernize) an outdated business structure', the agency said. Under the proposed increases, citizenship applications would cost $595, up from $330, while permanent residency applications would jump to $905 from $325 [none of them remotely sufficient to cover the cost of conducting reasonable and necessary background investigations on applicants]."
2007-01-31
_KSHB_
Johnson county district attorney Paul Kline announced arrests of 3 in illegal aliens' driver license scheme
"The arrests of Juan Cedillo, Jose Cedillo and Santos Mateo Baca-Sanchez are the result of a multi-jurisdictional investigation, composed of federal, state and county law enforcement agencies. The investigation focused on a criminal enterprise which operated under the name Servicios Latinos."
2007-01-31
_Input_
INPUT Predicts State & Local Government Out-Sourcing Market to Reach $20G in 2011
2007-01-31
_Reuters_/_Yahoo!_
53 illegal aliens employed by Republic Services were arrested
Columbus OH Dispatch
2007-01-31
Elise Olson _WBTW Morning News_
Representative Thad Viers filed 11 bills to curb illegal alien invasion
"'What I'm doing is empowering our law enforcement through some of my bills to go after illegal aliens and also make the appropriate agreements with the federal government where they can deport them.', Viers said. The representative said he is also going after employers who hire illegal immigrants. 'Also to ban contractors and sub contractors that do business with the state government from hiring any illegal immigrants.', Viers said... The representative claimed illegal immigration is growing at a rapid rate on the Grand Strand at the same time unemployment is growing. He said once the state takes care of illegal immigration, unemployment will improve."
2007-01-31
Shauna Steigerwald _Cincinnati Enquirer_
Happy birth-day, president Harrison
"North Bend will observe the 234th anniversary of President William Henry Harrison's birth on Saturday, February 10. The annual tribute, a longstanding tradition in the community, will begin with a tribute walk to Harrison's Tomb on Cliff Road. Participants will assemble at the North Bend Municipal Building, 21 Taylor Ave., at 10:30, and the walk itself will begin at 10:45. Following the walk, there will be a tribute at the tomb beginning at 11:00. It will include the presentation of a wreath from the current president -- another annual tradition -- as well as a key-note speech, color guard and patriotic music, which will be provided by members of the Taylor High School Band."
2007-01-31 (5767 Shevat/Shebat 12)
Frida Ghitis _Jewish World Review_
"Never again!" Yeah, right.
"Let's face the truth: Never again genocide sometimes requires taking up arms to stop the killing."
2007-01-31 18:07PST (2007-01-31 21:07EST) (2007-02-01 02:07GMT)
W.J. Golz _National Academy of Engineering_
Out-Sourcing: Should Public Universities Use American Taxes to Build a Foreign Labor Pool for Multi-National Corporations?
additional discussion and links
2007-01-31
Lili Chen, Jian Li, Cheng Luo & Hong Liu _Research Gate_/_BioOrganic & Medicinal Chemistry_
binding interaction of quercetin-3-β-galactoside & its synthetic derivatives with SARS-CoV
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"As the economy shifts from production to plunder, the gap widens between the rich and/or politically powerful and the poor." --- "John Galt"
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2007 January
Julian Sanchez _Reason_
Super-accurate surveillance technology threatens our privacy
privacy links
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"Among the features peculiar to the political system of the United States, is the perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect. And it is particularly pleasing to observe in the good citizenship of such as have been most distrusted & oppressed elsewhere a happy begignant policy. Equal laws, protecting equal rights, are found, as they ought to be presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty & love of country; among citizens of every religious denomination which are necessary to social harmony, & most favorable to the advancement of truth." --- James Madison 1820 August to Jacob de la Motta & Mordecai M. Noah (quoted in William J. Bennett 1997 _The Spirit of America_ pg 333)
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