jgo Resume	Reading Room
jgo Econ Data & Graphs	jgo Econ News Bits
Economic News Analysis Summary
Kermit's home page	jgo Links
jgo's Work in Progress
Page Bottom

updated: 2020-11-08
 

"By preventing a free market in education, a handful of social engineers... has ensured that most of our children will not have an education, even though they may be thoroughly schooled." --- John Taylor Gatto _Dumbing Us Down_ 1992

 
 

2008 November

U	M	T	W	R	F	S
			1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8	9	10	11
12	13	14	15	16	17	18
19	20	21	22	23	24	25
26	27	28	29	30

 
 

"A program whose basic thesis is, not that the system of free enterprise for profit has failed in this generation, but that it has not yet been tried." --- Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) (Friedrich A. Hayek 1944, 1963 _The Road to Serfdom_ pg10)

 
 
 

captain William Scott's flag for the Republic of Texas.

2008-11-01: 3 days to federal election

2008-11-01
_Times of India_
There are 220K illegal aliens from Indian in the USA
"An estimated 220K Indians have made the United States their home illegally with a whopping 81% increase in their number in last 7 years, according to latest official figures... The estimated population of Indians living illegally in the United States was 220K in 2007 compared to 120K in the year 2000, thus recording one of the highest percentage increases. An estimated 11.8M [to 24M] unauthorised immigrants were living in America in 2007 January compared to 8.5M in 2000. The unauthorised population increased by 3.3M between 2000 and 2007 while the annual average increase during this period was 470K. Nearly 4.2M (35%) of the total 11.8M unauthorised residents in 2007 had entered in 2000 or later. An estimated 7.0M (59%) were from Mexico. California remained the leading state of residence for the illegal population in 2007 with 2.8M, followed by Texas with 1.7M and then Florida with nearly 1M."

2008-11-01 07:12PDT (10:12EDT) (14:12GMT)
Eileen Sullivan & Elliot Spagat _AP_/_Yahoo!_
Obama's aunt from Kenya is an illegal alien
Wales on-line
Halifax Chronicle Herald
Charlotte NC Observer
Jacksonville
CBS: corrupt US government leaps into action... not to deport Zeituni Onyango, but to find out who make her illegal presence in the USA public
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Ian Brockwell: American Chronicle
Daphne Eviatar: Washington Independent
"Zeituni Onyango (zay-TUHN on-YANG-oh), referred to as 'Aunti Zeituni' in the Democratic presidential candidate's memoir, was instructed to leave the United States by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request..."

2008-11-01 16:05PDT (19:05EDT) (23:05GMT)
Drew Zahn _World Net Daily_
Obama wants to increase energy prices and drive coal-fired power plants out of existence

2008-11-01
Rachel Gallegos _Iowa City IA Press-Citizen_
Congressional approval 9%, incumbent re-election rate 96%
"The House is divided between 235 Democrats and 199 Republicans, with one vacancy.   It's time for a change from a Congress with a 9% approval rating, but 96% re-election rate, he said."
 
 

2008-11-02: 2 days to federal election

2008-11-02
Felicity Spector _Channel 4_
Illegal alien aunt of Obama made illegal campaign donation
Times of the Internet/UPI
Agence France/News Corp
"The Times first broke the story that Zeituni Onyango was living in Boston public housing where she volunteers as a health advocate -- and because she's a foreign citizen, had acted illegally by donating some $260 to her half-nephew's campaign."

2008-11-02
Bob Lewis _Info World_/_IDG_
Cobol programmer with 7-year employment gap
ASB Zone
Bon Lebon
CTO Forums
related, somewhat contradictory head-lines from NewsNow (ISO non-compliant dates from that site retained)
"A Cobol programmer with a seven-year employment gap InfoWorld - Bob Lewis (WebLog) 20:13 2-Nov-08
COBOL in the cloud. No, seriously Computer Business Review - Editor's Blog 15:17 30-Oct-08
Micro Focus Delivers COBOL to Windows Azure On-Demand Enterprise - Applications 19:59 28-Oct-08
Cobol provides job security The Inquirer 08:58 24-Oct-08
Looking for job security? Try Cobol Computerworld 23:42 23-Oct-08
Cobol Job Market Heating Up Slashdot 19:28 23-Oct-08"

2008-11-02 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 04)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Ego and Mouth
 
 

2008-11-03: federal election tomorrow

2008-11-03
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
ISM manufacturing index fell to 38.9, lowest since 1982

2008-11-03
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
What's in store

2008-11-03
Ed Silverman _Pharmalot_
Pfizer training cheaper, more easily brown-beaten foreign workers to displace US workers in Connecticut
"The drug-maker has been training foreign workers in its Groton and New London, Connecticut, R&D facilities over the past few months in anticipation of transferring much of its IT work from local contractors [bodies shopped] to outside [foreign-based] contracting firms [bodyshops], according to The Day.   The new policy, known internally as Procedure 117, will force many contractors, or 'contingent workers', some of whom have been working at Pfizer for a decade or more, to leave by year's end, sources tells the paper.   Pfizer would not comment on what it called speculation and gossip.   'These rumors are distracting and hurtful to our colleagues who are working together to deliver a pipe-line of new medicines in areas of unmet medical need.', a Pfizer spokeswoman tells the paper.   Pfizer has between 800 and 1K contractors [bodies shopped] on site locally during any given day, along with about 5,400 employees.   More than half of the IT workers in Groton and New London are contracted rather than being Pfizer employees, sources said.   Pfizer would not give a number for its IT work force.   At the same time, the paper writes Pfizer is adding foreign workers, mostly from India, who are arriving at R&D head-quarters on controversial H-1B visas.   These special visas were created to allow foreign workers to take jobs in the US that could not be filled by Americans, but Pfizer has been using them to replace American workers, sources tell the paper.   'We're training them.', one source says...   scores of other foreign workers have been cycling through the local campuses over the past several months in anticipation of moving much of Pfizer's IT functions over-seas...   Infosys Technologies and Satyam Computer Services and then leased to Pfizer at rates in many cases much lower than American contractors have been making..."

2008-11-03
Steve Sailer _V Dare_
Immigration, Affirmative Action, Bucking the Bail-Out -- any or all could have won the election for McCain

2008-11-03
_NJ Biz_
HCL Systems to pay $92.644 in back pay to 7 H-1B guest-workers

2008-11-03
Burt Prelutsky _Town Hall_
America's doom

2008-11-03
Art Carden _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Diminishing Marginal Utility: It's a Law

2008-11-03
Radley Balko _Fox_
The 2-party monopoly

2008-11-03 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 05)
Jonathan Tobin _Jewish World Review_
Was Bush Wrong about Everything?

2008-11-03 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 05)
Jonathan Rosenblum _Jewish World Review_
Who says Jews are Smart?

2008-11-03
_Dice_
Dice Report: 75,640 job ads

2008-11-03

DJIA	9,319.83
S&P 500	966.30
NASDAQ	1,726.33
10-year US T-Bond	3.91%
crude oil	$64.00/barrel
gold	$726.80/ounce
silver	$9.75/ounce
platinum	$827.10/ounce
palladium	$202.30/ounce
copper	$0.115/ounce
natgas	$6.838/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.3625/gal
heatingoil	$1.9828/gal
dollarindex	86.35
yenperdollar	99.03
dollarspereuro	1.2641
dollarsperpound	1.5835
swissfranksperdollar	1.1674
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	374.56

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Commodities" and "Metals" and "Currencies" columns.
 
 
 

2008-11-04: federal elections of president and congress-critters

2008-11-04
Incumbent Re-Election Rates
Jimbo Wales's WikiPedia
This Nation: Why are sitting members of Congress almost always re-elected?
Quantitative Historical Analysis #7 from the Thirty-Thousand.org
Quantitative Historical Analysis #8

2008-11-04
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
leftist indoctrination

2008-11-04 10:33PDT (13:33EDT) (18:33GMT)
Jim Goldman _GEM$NBC_
Obama backed by corrupt tech executives by a 5 to 1 margin

2008-11-04
Andrew B. Wilson _Wall Street Journal_
5 myths about the Great Depression

2008-11-04
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #1934
Obama's fans in India
alternate link
Barack Obama has a growing fan base in India.   They are very excited that Obama promised to make India his "top priority".   One of the groups of admirers calls themselves the "Barack Obama Bangalore Fan Club".   They are a small group of activists who raised money for Obama's campaign, made phone calls, and sent emails to people in the U.S. urging them to vote for Obama.   They even staged rallies in Bangalore to show their support.
 
So why the enthusiasm for Obama?
 
One of the reasons they adore Obama so much is that he wants to raise the H-1B cap.   In a recent interview with the Indo-Asian News Service Obama made 2 things very clear -- he wants to give amnesty to illegal aliens and he feels that we need to import more foreign workers.
 
I will also increase the number of people we allow in the country legally to a level that unites families and meets the demand for jobs employers cannot fill.
 
That quote might sound like something Bush has said many times, but according to that news service it was straight out of the mouth of Barack Obama!
 
Bush, McCain, and Congress tried and failed to pass a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill to give amnesty to illegal aliens and to hand out more H-1B visas.   The failure of that bill, and the political cost that came with it doesn't seem to deter Obama who seems ready to push for something similar:
 
I support comprehensive immigration reform that includes improving our visa programmes, including the H-1B programme, to attract some of the world's most talented people to America.
 
The Bangalore Fan Club is not alone among Indians that are hoping Obama wins the election.   In the town of Tirupur in Tamil Nadu the knitwear union workers chant "Om Obummer".   Just FYI: "Om" is a Hindu word for veneration.
 
Still another group in India planned to present a statue of the revered Indian monkey God to Barack Obummer.   I wasn't able to find out if Obama ever accepted the monkey God.
India will be my 'top priority', says Obummer
Campaign out-sourcing: Bangalore techies root for Obummer
Entire town in south India praying for Obummer win
India monkey god idol for Obummer

2008-11-04
John Distaso _NH Union Leader_
Same-day voter registration triggers court contest
"I personally know of an illegal alien (expired H-1B Visa) who is on the voter registration list because no one ever took the time to verify that this person..."
Richard Winger: Ballot Access News

2008-11-04
Michael Cutler _Family Security Matters_
Not all terrorists are suicide bombers

2008-11-04
Marcus Epstein _V Dare_
This Appalling Election and Pat Buchanan's 70th Birth-Day

2008-11-04
Michelle Malking _V Dare_
And the winner is... Peggy the Moocher

2008-11-04 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 06)
Frank J. Gaffney _Jewish World Review_
US Treasury Department submits to Shariah law
NY Times

2008-11-04 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 06)
Frida Ghitis _Jewish World Review_
A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

2008-11-04 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 06)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
A "Sound" Economy
 
 

2008-11-05

2008-11-05
Stephen Taub _CFO_
Job Losses Widened in October
Times of the Internet
Timothy R. Homan: Bloomberg
Jessica Dickler: CNN
Burton Frierson: US Daily/Reuters
Business Week
UPI
Manchester Guardian
USA Today
MarketWatch
Central Valley Business Times
ForExTV
"Challenger Gray... counted 112,884 workers removed from their pay-rolls in October, 19% more than the September job-cut total of 95,094, based on announced plans.   It cited heavy down-sizing in the financial and automotive sectors.   What's more, October's cuts were 79% higher than a year ago, when employers announced plans to cut 63,114 jobs.   Last month's total was the largest since 117,556 job cuts were announced in 2004 January.   Altogether, employers have now announced 875,974 job cuts in 2008, 14% more than the 768,264 in all of 2007, according to the report...   the financial sector topped the list with 17,949, followed by the automobile industry, which announced 15,692.   Year to date, the auto industry has announced 110,610 job cuts.   In 2008, these sectors have announced a total of 239,760 lay-offs, 27% of all lay-off announcements, the report said."
graphs

2008-11-05
David _Chicago IL Sun-Times_
Finding work is tough work
"At the University of Chicago, the number of companies at a recent job fair dropped from 100 to 80, in part because of the economy and also because many companies want to hire more interns, a trend that started before the slow-down.   The number of full-time positions posted at the DePaul University Career Center has fallen 40% in a year, to fewer than 1K this Fall.   Posted internships have fallen 15%, to 456...   The number of employers at a Northern Illinois University job fair dropped from 240 to 205 this year, and the number of students attending rose from 1K to 1,300...   Loyola University officials said they haven't seen a drop in recruiting, while Northwestern said that its two job fairs were at capacity with employers.   DePaul has still seen strong recruiting in marketing, management and software engineering.   And the Illinois Institute of Technology drew a record number of companies -- 128 -- for a job fair in September."

2008-11-05
Michael Cutler _News with Views_
US ports relying on scanning equipment made in Red China
Jacob Goodwin: Government Security News: Port of Los Angeles used US federal funds to buy Red Chinese X-ray scanning system

2008-11-05
Marcus Epstein _V Dare_
Election 2008: There's Got To Be a Pony in Here Somewhere

2008-11-05
Thomas J. DiLorenzo _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
The Corrupt Origins of Central Banking

2008-11-05 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 07)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Destitute Debtors

2008-11-05 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 07)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Affirmative Action and Gay "Marriage"

2008-11-05 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 07)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Capitalism and the Financial Crisis
"First, let's establish what laissez-faire capitalism is. Broadly defined, it is an economic system based on private ownership and control over of the means of production.   Under laissez-faire capitalism, government activity is restricted to the protection of the individual's rights against fraud, theft and the initiation of physical force."

2008-11-05
John Ribeiro _CIO_/_IDG_
Indian bodyshoppers and their lobbyists feeling nervous

2008-11-05
_No Slaves_
Election outcomes WRT H-1b, etc.

2008-11-05

DJIA	9,139.27
S&P 500	958.00
NASDAQ	1,681.64
10-year US T-Bond	3.671%
crude oil	$65.30/barrel
gold	$742.40/ounce
silver	$10.455/ounce
platinum	$880.00/ounce
palladium	$219.00/ounce
copper	$0.1136875/ounce
natgas	$7.249/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.4244/gal
heatingoil	$2.0547/gal
dollarindex	84.918
yenperdollar	98.41
dollarspereuro	1.2948
dollarsperpound	1.5926
swissfranksperdollar	1.1606
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	388.2

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Commodities" and "Metals" and "Currencies" columns.
 
 

2008-11-06

2008-11-06 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & 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 463,932 in the week ending Nov. 1, an increase of 14,543 from the previous week.   There were 325,831 initial claims in the comparable week in 2007.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5% during the week ending Oct. 25, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,319,936, an increase of 86,818 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.7% and the volume was 2,261,001.   Extended benefits were available in North Carolina and Rhode Island during the week ending Oct 18."
graphs
more graphs

2008-11-06
Norm Matloff H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
one campaign promise I hope Obama doesn't keep
 
Now that Obama has been elected, the tech publications are full of stories on what he'll do with regard to IT.
 
Basically Obama's line has been that we need a "temporary" increase in the H-1B cap, while the nation's K-12 schools ramp up to produce more scientists and engineers.   Those who have been following the H-1B business will recognize that as the line the industry lobbyists have been using for the last 15 years or so.   And most importantly, it presumes that we have a shortage of scientists and engineers, which has been shown repeatedly to be false.
 
One thing Obama has really highlighted on the foreign tech worker issue is liberalizing the employer-sponsored green card program, a move largely aimed at pleasing the large number of H-1Bs who are currently waiting for green cards.
 
Given Obama's strong support from his fellow senate colleague from Illinois, Dick Durbin, and given Durbin's excellent H-1B reform bill with senator Grassley, one would hope that Obama would have a more enlightened view.   Well, it turns out that Durbin apparently supports the green card liberalization too, according to a reader of this e-news-letter who talked at length with Durbin's aide recently.
 
I've explained frequently and in detail in the past why the expansion of the green card program is a bad idea, but I want to emphasize that IT'S AN EVEN WORSE IDEA TODAY, IN THE CURRENT ECONOMIC SITUATION.
 
The economy is sinking fast, a fact conceded by economists and politicians of all stripes.   Major lay-offs have already begun.   As we all know, the financial industry has lost tons of jobs in the last couple of months.   But as people on the Hill may not know, a lot of those jobs are for programmers and engineers.   For example, IIRC, the Electrical Engineering Dept. at Carnegie Mellon University stated about a year ago that more than 30% of its graduates were getting jobs in the financial industry.
 
All experts agree that the tech industry in general will be hard hit as well.   For instance, eBay recently announced that it would lay off 10% of its work-force.   AMD just announced a lay-off today.   There have been various others, and again, by all accounts, much more to come.
 
NOW HERE IS THE POINT: When those green card-awaiting H-1Bs get laid off, they must leave the country if they can't find another employer to sponsor them.   But if they are given green cards, they will stay here and compete with other laid-off Americans for jobs.   It should be obvious that granting more green cards is absolutely the wrong thing to do in the current situation.
 
And remember, the green card issue is NOT about "the best and the brightest".   While I do strongly support facilitating the immigration of outstanding talents, they come through other green card categories, and do NOT experience the long waiting times the "ordinary" foreign workers face.
 
Now, more than ever, Congress should resist the temptation to liberalize the employer-sponsored green card program.
 
Norm

2008-11-06
Norm Matloff H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
Obama and Off-Shoring
In the 2004 election, John Kerry gave the impression that he would really crack down on off-shoring, while intending actually to do very little.   Don't take my word for this; Kerry later admitted it, agreeing with Charlie Gibson in a TV debate with Bush that Kerry's proposal to end a certain arcane tax break would really have no real impact on off-shoring.
 
Obama, sadly, has been saying the same thing -- ending tax breaks for those who off-shore.   Granted, he later also added that he would set up tax incentives for companies that don't off-shore.   But it would be exceedingly difficult to devise truly effective incentives of that sort, and in any case the tax breaks would not be great enough to off-set the savings accrued by off-shoring.
 
See details on both Kerry and Obama.
 
[Linked] are a Computerworld blog on this subject, and [reports] on off-shoring -- and replacement of American workers by H-1Bs -- at Pfizer.
 
Norm
Ed Silverman: Pharmalot: Pfizer training cheaper, more easily brown-beaten foreign workers to displace US workers in Connecticut
Patrick Thibodeau: Computerworld: Can Obama reduce off-shoring, and is he willing to try?
Kevin Fogarty: eWeek: Pfizer making US workers train foreign replacements
Lee Howard: CT Day: Pfizer to axe IT contractors?

2008-11-06
Patrick Thibodeau _Computer World_/_IDG_
Why Obama may support an H-1B visa increase, even though they're already vastly excessive and we're in a recession
Norm Matloff _H-1b/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
CW's Thibodeau speculates on what Obama will do on H-1B, green cards
 
The late Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle often gave "Unclear on Concept Awards" for ideas that clearly were not well thought out before implementation.   For instance, he wondered about the wisdom of supporters of a SF city ballot proposition waving placards at commuters leaving the city in the afternoon rush hour -- most of whom could not vote on the proposition, as they don't live in the city.   I must say that the [above-linked] blog by Pat Thibodeau, an excellent writer for Computerworld, seems Unclear on Concept to me.
 
Addressing proposals such as those by representative Zoe Lofgren, "Queen of H-1B", to give essentially automatic green cards to foreign students in STEM graduate programs at U.S. universities, Thibodeau asks rhetorically why Congress would enact such legislation in today's severe economic times.   His answer is that Obama's campaign promise to increase research spending will require giving the foreign students these easy green cards.
 
It's unclear whether this is merely speculation on Thibodeau's part or Obama's people have actually given him indications along these lines.   He doesn't cite any Obama aides.   In any case, the entire notion just doesn't make sense.
 
First, the foreign grad students themselves don't have much of a green card problem in the first place.   As I've noted before, people with grad degrees, especially PhDs, already have priority for green cards, with short waiting times.   The much-lamented long waiting times for green cards are experienced mainly by those who just have a bachelor's degree.
 
Second, as I've often noted, the reason there are so many foreign students in U.S. tech PhD programs is that doctoral study is simply financially unattractive to American students.   Even the industry-oriented NRC study found that an American student incurs a life-time loss in earnings by studying for a Ph.D.   That in turn is due to the presence of the foreign students themselves, who act as cheap labor both in graduate school and later in the work-force -- all planned by our government National Science Foundation [NSF].
 
I've often cited that NSF position paper, but it's so important that I will excerpt it again here.   Recall that the NSF specifically advocated bringing in a lot of foreign students in order to attain the NSF's goal of holding down PhD salaries.   The paper commented on the consequences:
 
A growing influx of foreign PhDs into U.S. labor markets will hold down the level of PhD salaries to the extent that foreign students are attracted to U.S. doctoral programs as a way of immigrating to the U.S.A.   A related point is that for this group the PhD salary premium is much higher [than it is for Americans], because it is based on BS-level pay in students' home nations versus PhD-level pay in the U.S.A...
 
[If] doctoral studies are failing to appeal to a large (or growing) percentage of the best citizen baccalaureates, then a key issue is pay...   A number of [the Americans] will select alternative career paths...   For these baccalaureates, the effective premium for acquiring a PhD may actually be negative.
 
And again, note that it's not just the industry salaries for PhDs, but the large numbers of foreign students keeps stipends for grad students low too, around $15K for the 9-month academic year.   Comparing this to the $60K or more that a new bachelor's holder starts with in industry, you can see now why the NRC found that doctoral study is a financial loser for domestic students, something the NSF recognized too in the last passage above.   That's why there aren't so many domestic students in grad school.
 
If Obama really does increase research funding (actually, I think he will simply reallocate other research funds to energy research etc.), we would not "need" the foreign students, as the blog claims.   All that would need to be done is to raise the graduate stipends.
 
I served as graduate admissions coordinator in my department for 13 years, and thus have seen this up close.   Money does indeed motivate potential grad students.   Give them a stipend even half of what industry is offering, and they will apply in droves.   Every computer science graduate admissions officer knows this only too well.   Even Hillary Clinton made this proposal during the primary campaign.
 
It's even more true now that tech lay-offs are beginning.   The classical pattern is that in times of economic slowdown, grad school applications surge.   And we're in much more than a mere slowdown now, with the implosion of the financial sector and its shock waves felt by most other sectors.   I mentioned the other day, for example, that in recent years about 30% of Carnegie-Mellon University graduates in electrical engineering have been hired by the financial industry.   Since that industry is laying off like crazy, and there isn't much hiring elsewhere, a lot of this year's CMU grads are going to find grad study to be a good option.   If only we offer them a reasonable stipend, even more will apply.
 
Regardless of those conditions, academia and industry are going to have to wean themselves from this dependence on foreign students anyway.   As I have noted frequently, including the other day, interest among foreign students in U.S. study had been declining in the last few years anyway, well before Wall Street's implosion.
 
For details on this, I again refer you to the materials in [my earlier article] where you can see quotes from immigrant executives in the U.S.A. explaining that the tech markets in India and [Red China] have grown to the point at which new grads find it more attractive to stay home than to come to the U.S.A.   Here is a condensed version of the comments you can find at the above link:
 
[Quoting Lin Lee, director of Sun Microsystems' government strategy in Asia:] ...said many [Chinese] entrepreneurs want to join startups in [Red China] -- where even 5 years ago they would have tried to immigrate.
 
[Quoting Rosen Sharma, a U.S. CEO who graduated from India's top top university,IIT:] Of the 40 people in Sharma's graduating class at IIT Delhi [in 1993], he says, all but three came to the U.S.A...   Last year, only 10 of the 45 IIT graduates... decided to pursue jobs in the U.S.A.
 
So even if our economy improves, expecting to rely on the foreign students in the coming years is utterly unrealistic.
 
If Obama really wants people to staff his ambitious research projects, he should avoid the advice reported/speculated in the enclosed blog, and take up senator Clinton's suggestion on grad stipends.
 
Norm
-30-
 

2008-11-06
Donald Allen _Binghamton NY Press Connects_/_Gannett_
Congratulations Barack... and Oh, By the Way
"If Obama is truly serious in taking on the power groups who victimize the American people, he can begin with his own party in control of the Congress and elsewhere in the government, along with their Republican allies.   If he can't stand up to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, then what chance does he have with Chairman Hu, Prime Minister Putin, or President Amedinijan?   A real change would include getting rid of the current party bosses who handle public business as a source of patronage which they dole out in the style of feudal lords, without respect for the welfare of the people.   Do away with the archaic spoil system of chairmanships based on seniority, which only serves to institutionalize incompetence or corruption, and replace it with a thoughtful meritocracy which rewards those who truly serve the public interest.   Once the inside deal makers and bottom feeders are named for what they are and replace by honest public representatives, then it will be easy to turn back the predatory legislation such as; illegal alien sanctuary which will create a permanent underpaid class of “guest workers” which only benefit the plantation owners; the wholesale fraudulent handing out of H1B visas which allow the billionaire overlords of Silicon Valley to reduce their labor costs by hiring foreign skilled workers for half the salary of the fired American workers with advanced degrees (who deserve a decent salary) in the technology industries; the allowing of outsourcing American jobs while claiming tax benefits, creation of off shore incorporation to avoid taxes and the hundreds of other tax dodges and scams perpetrated against the taxpaying citizens of America.   Once the corrupt legislators are striped of their power and the biggest criminals of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Agribusiness are indicted, handcuffed and paraded off, convicted, sentenced to long prison terms and fined a huge sum, it'll be easy for President Obama to tell the people who hold power to behave themselves or else, and watch them jump to it.   Then, because everyone knows he really means business, anyone and everyone he talks to world wide will believe: he says what he means and means what he says."

2008-11-06
Christopher Leonard _Galesburg IL Register-Mail_/_AP_
New wave of job cuts could worsen down-turn
"The current wave of lay-offs is unusual because it seems to be coming fairly early in the down-turn, noted David Card, an economics professor at the University of California-Berkeley.   No one is quite sure why, Card said.   One factor could be that [executives] now are more adept at monitoring inventory and projecting sales...   Economists say the surge in lay-offs is just starting, with some saying the unemployment rate could reach 8% or higher, which would be the highest since it hit 10.8% in 1982 December."

2008-11-06
Chuck Baldwin _V Dare_
Conservatives Lost More Than An Election

2008-11-06 11:12PST (14:12EST) (19:12GMT)
Laura Mandaro _MarketWatch_
NBER is sifting data before declaring starting date of recession (with graphs)
"'We have to resolve what appears to be a difference between the peak in employment' and the peak in real GDP...   The NBER panel instead looks at jobs, manufacturing and sales data, as well as GDP, for a 'significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months'."

2008-11-06 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 08)
Rabbi Yonason Goldson _Jewish World Review_
6 out of 10 isn't bad... is it?

2008-11-06

DJIA	8695.79
S&P 500	904.88
NASDAQ	1,608.70
10-year US T-Bond	3.69%
crude oil	$60.51/barrel
gold	$732.20/ounce
silver	$10.055/ounce
platinum	$838.30/ounce
palladium	$222.60/ounce
copper	$0.10784375/ounce
natgas	$6.98/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.34/gal
heatingoil	$1.94/gal
dollarindex	86.280
yenperdollar	97.43
dollarspereuro	1.2677
dollarsperpound	1.5753
swissfranksperdollar	1.1762
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	345.42

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Commodities" and "Metals" and "Currencies" columns.
 
 
 

2008-11-07

2008-11-07
monthly employment/unemployment graphs updated from BLS data

2008-11-07
_NY Times_
Obama meeting with economic advisers

2008-11-07
Marshall Allen _Las Vegas NV Sun_
State government: Please probe our J-1 visa system
series index

2008-11-07 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 09)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Livni's Obama strategy
"If Israel's next prime minister intends to prevent Iran from acquiring the means to implement its stated aim of destroying Israel, he or she must be prepared to stand up to America."

2008-11-07 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 09)
Rabbi Francis Nataf _Jewish World Review_
Of Children and Immortality

2008-11-07
Robynne Boyd _Web MD_
Study Shows Protein in Diet Should Be Based on Weight, Not Age
"The RDA and EAR for protein is 0.80 grams and 0.66 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, respectively.   That's an RDA of about 54 grams of protein a day for a 150-pound adult, or approximately 1.5 chicken breasts and a 7-ounce steak."

2008-11-07
Kevin Fogarty _eWeek_/_Ziff Davis_
Did Pfizer force staff to train H-1B replacements
"'It's not surprising to have a [company's corrupt executives] bring in [workers on] H-1B or L-1 visas to transition that work to companies like Infosys and Satya, which are classified as H-1B-dependent because more than 15% of their work forces here are on visas.', Hira said.   'Still, you shouldn't have to dig your own grave by bringing in someone on an H-1B and training them to do your job.'"

2008-11-07
DeMarcus Hamilton _Southern Illinois University Daily Egyptian_
B-school students prepare for unsteady job market

2008-11-07
Kevin Fogarty _eWeek_/_Ziff Davis_
H-1B reform proposals take shape to address fraud and procedural nightmares: These changes are not enough

2008-11-07

DJIA	8,943.81
S&P 500	930.99
NASDAQ	1,647
10-year US T-Bond	3.77%
crude oil	$61.09/barrel
gold	$734.20/ounce
silver	$9.963/ounce
platinum	$852/ounce
palladium	$224/ounce
copper	$0.1060625/ounce
natgas	$6.98/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.35/gal
heatingoil	$1.98/gal
dollarindex	85.359
yenperdollar	97.43
dollarspereuro	1.2747
dollarsperpound	1.5666
swissfranksperdollar	1.1706
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	355.14

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Commodities" and "Metals" and "Currencies" columns.
 
 
 

2008-11-08

2008-11-08
Michael Cutler _News with Views_
Many illegal aliens belong to terrorist organizations, spy rings, drug cartels

2008-11-08
_Chandler MN News-Dispatch_
Radical leftists have a long legislative wish list

2008-11-08
Arnold Kling _Library of Economics and Liberty_
Lectures in MacroEconomics #1
"From a traditional economic perspective, unemployment looks like a labor surplus.   Surpluses and shortages are corrected by the pricing mechanism.   So, if there are surplus workers, then a simple drop in wages should solve the problem.   Bring wages down and you reduce labor supply, increase labor demand, and get rid of the labor surplus.   There cannot be any [long-term] unemployment, at least if the wage-adjustment mechanism works properly...   If there were a shortage of network administrators, I would expect the salaries of network administrators to rise.   That would cause some firms to look for ways to economize on their use of network administrators.   Perhaps they would outsource the function to service providers.   Perhaps they would select computer systems that require lower levels of manual administration.   Another effect of higher salaries would be to draw more people into network administration.   People who happen to be working in other jobs but who have experience in network administration might return to the field.   Others might take training courses that would allow them to qualify for job openings."

2008-11-08
Richard Mitchell & Frank Popham _Lancet_
effect of exposure to "natural" environment on health
DoI
PubMed
NHS
 
 

2008-11-09

2008-11-09
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
panicky article warns that foreign students may go home... while US workers celebrate the prospect
 
The enclosed article, evidently yet another plant, taking it as a given that Silicon Valley would not have developed well without foreign workers.
 
I of course have addressed these claims before.   For example, the article says that 50% of the start-ups in Silicon Valley have been founded by immigrants, but it doesn't tell you that more than 50% of the engineers in Silicon Valley are immigrants.   If you have a lot of immigrants working there, then of course you'll have a lot of immigrants starting companies.   If the natives were in the jobs the immigrants hold, we'd have the same number of start-ups.
 
And as to the large percentages of foreign students in engineering grad programs, recall that the National Science Foundation actually planned for this to happen, in order to keep PhD salaries down.   The NSF noted too that the low salaries would make doctoral study unattractive for U.S. students, and that of course is what has happened.
 
Both the Valley and university grad programs want cheap workers, and H-1B, which the NSF pushed Congress to establish, gave it to them.
 
Now ABC News is worrying that those foreign workers might go home.   As I've been pointing out the last couple of years, it isn't even a matter of the foreigners going home; instead, they will not come here in the first place.   Why should they come here?   Their interest in the U.S.A. used to be our high standard of living.   Well, now the tech job markets in [Red China] and India are burgeoning, while ours [were] falling or stagnant even before the recent financial crisis.   The foreign engineers know that careers in the U.S.A. are short-lived, due ironically to that same H-1B program, which enables employers to hire young foreign workers instead of older Americans.
 
But in any case, what's say is that the article for the most part doesn't realize that this is a good thing.   It should be clear that the presence of the foreign workers will cause a major problem for U.S. workers as more and more lay-offs occur.   The article does include one quote to that effect, saying the departure of foreign workers will be beneficial to the Americans, but the overwhelming thrust of the article is that the departure is a "ticking time bomb" that will hamper the ability of the U.S.A. to innovate.   This is simply not true, as I said above.
 
No such article would be complete without references to "the best and the brightest", but recall that that too is a red herring.   Very few of the foreign workers are in that league, and those that are really talented don't have the visa quota problem described by the article.
 
It is true, though, that at least some "best and brightest" will leave, for the reasons I gave -- the H-1B program, not to mention off-shoring, has made it very difficult to have a sustained career in the U.S.A.   To the extent that that does happen, the industry will be a victim of its own greed.   Sound familiar?
 
Norm
Worsening job market may send cheap, more easily brow-beaten foreign workers packing.   Hooray!

2008-11-09
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Auto Firm Bail-Out
 
 

2008-11-10

2008-11-10 14:08PST (17:08EST) (22:08GMT)
_M$N_/_AP_
M$ spent nearly $2M lobbying in 2008Q3
Conde Nast Portfolio

2008-11-10
Mark Pitt, Bob Ivry & Alison Fitzgerald _Bloomberg_
Fed refuses to disclose where the bail-out money went

2008-11-10
Llewellyn H. Rockwell _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
End the Central Bank/Fed

2008-11-10 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 12)
Barry Rubin _Jewish World Review_
A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

2008-11-10 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 12)
Rabbi Avi Shafran _Jewish World Review_
$8M modern-day tower of Babel being built?: Large Hadron Collider

2008-11-10
Patrick J. Buchanan _V Dare_
Red China's Path to World Power

2008-11-10
Mike Shedlock _Global Economic Analysis_
Battle Over Bazooka Point Lending

2008-11-10
Gad Levanon _Conference Board_
The Employment Trends Index (ETI)™ Suggests Employers Will Continue to Aggressively Reduce Pay-Rolls

2008-11-10
Burt Prelutsky _Town Hall_
All the news the main-stream media can suppress

2008-11-10
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
The High Cost of Diversity Due To Go Up Under Obama

2008-11-10
Ron Paul _Daily Paul_
Hopes for the future

2008-11-10

DJIA	8,870.54
S&P 500	919.21
NASDAQ	1,616.74
10-year US T-Bond	3.76%
crude oil	$62.31/barrel
gold	$746.50/ounce
silver	$10.22/ounce
platinum	$859.90/ounce
palladium	$222.00/ounce
copper	$0.1095/ounce
natgas	$7.248/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.3679/gal
heatingoil	$2.0056/gal
dollarindex	85.931
yenperdollar	97.95
dollarspereuro	1.2757
dollarsperpound	1.5586
swissfranksperdollar	1.1797
indianrupeesperdollar	47.3750
dollarsperredchineseyuan	6.8267
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	348.36

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Commodities" and "Metals" and "Currencies" columns.
 
 
 

2008-11-11

2008-11-11
_CT Day_
Each Job Critical As Americans Struggle
"In light of all the questions raised about a visa program that allows U.S. companies to hire foreign workers, Congress should push for an investigation of it.   An immediate and thorough investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor of the H-1B visa program that allows U.S. companies and universities to hire foreign scientists, engineers, programmers and others could provide the answer and perhaps protect evaporating American jobs and intellectual curiosity."

2008-11-11
_Domain B_
NASSCOM, India tech lobbyists, to meet with Obama administration in March

2008-11-11 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 13)
Frank J. Gaffney _Jewish World Review_
Will Obama stop government officials who are considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

2008-11-11
_INO_/_AP_
Google spent $720K lobbying in 2008Q3
Forbes
KLIV
Boston Globe

2008-11-11
Teresa Watanabe _Los Angeles CA Times_
In addition to displacing over 1M US citizens, visa system leaves 300K college educated foreigners unemployed and under-employed

2008-11-11 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 13)
Jonathan Tobin _Jewish World Review_
They Will Decide Their Own Fate

2008-11-11
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Krugman's Simple-Minded Economics
Robert P. Murphy: Ludwig von Mises Institute: Consumers Don't Cause Recessions
"actual production must occur before people can consume anything...   even in a state of widespread unemployment, the Keynesian solutions don't help.   To repeat, this is because we can't simply increase activity in all sectors by, say, 1% to raise output back up to pre-recession levels.   Generally speaking, this is physically impossible.   No matter how much money consumers or the government throw at it, Ford can produce 1K more Rangers only if it can purchase 4K more of the appropriate tires.   And the tire producer in turn can only meet Ford's request if it can buy the appropriate amount of extra rubber.   And the rubber producer can only do this if... and so on...   people cut back on present consumption in order to be able to 'spend money' in the future...   people right now aren't sure exactly when, and on what, they will be spending this extra savings."

2008-11-11
_History_
UCLA study: FDR's programs prolonged Great Depression

2008-11-11
Michelle Malkin _V Dare_
Obama's illegal alien auntie: The rest of the story
"the Bush administration issued a 72-hour cease-and-desist order to all fugitive apprehension teams to spare Obama embarrassment over his Kenyan half-aunt, Zeituni Onyango."

2008-11-11 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 13)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
"Intellectuals"
"The intellectual levels of politicians are just one of the many things that intellectuals have grossly misjudged for years on end."

2008-11-11
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Subsidizing executives and teachers unions
Frank Madarasz: Scientific Research: Maybe It Is Salaries

2008-11-11
Kim Berry _Programmers Guild_
Proposal to give green cards to every US grad would turn US universities into green-card mills and displace even more US workers

2008-11-11
Michael Feldman _HPCwire_
ORNL's "Jaguar" Leaps Past PetaFLOp Performance Bar

2008-11-11
Abigail Thernstrom & Stephan Thernstrom _Wall Street Journal_
Racial Gerrymandering Is Unnecessary
Maraleen D. Shields: Racial Gerrymandering: Enfranchisement of Political Apartheid
 

2008-11-12

2008-11-12
Frank Shostak _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Can Milton Friedman's Money Rule Stabilize the Economy?

2008-11-12
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
America's Economic Crisis Is Beyond The Reach of Traditional Solutions

2008-11-12
Galen Gruman _IT World_/_IDG_
The 2009 IT career survival guide
"There's plenty of data to support the fears that many tech workers have about their job security and ability to make ends meet.   For example, more than 50K tech workers lost their jobs before the financial melt-down hit, and more jobs are in danger...   The U.S. and Europe appear to be especially hard hit, though the downturn is being felt worldwide.   Still, tech workers might consider moving to China, Canada, or other stronger markets where the demand for IT skills -- and the opportunities to develop new ones -- remains good.   A move abroad may also give you more than technical skills: It can make you more appealing to companies that have global teams, an increasing reality everywhere.   To remain competitive, IT workers need a combination of the 30 essential basic skills -- including, according to one survey, strong ethics and morals -- and abilities in emerging recession-proof areas where demand remains high, such as security, VoIP, and wireless."

2008-11-12
Moira Herbst _Business Week_
Unemployment: Sustainable employment or a quick fix?

2008-11-12
_Examiner_
Brit IT workers strike over off-shoring by their French employer
"British trade union Unite said that British employees in Manchester and Skelmersdale are to take strike action after their [French] employer Steria said their jobs would move to India."

2008-11-12 13:30PST (16:30EST) (21:30GMT)
Simone Seth _PC World_/_IDG_
Out-Sourcing/Off-Shoring: An IT Security Expert's View

2008-11-12
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #1937
DHL firing 9,500 in USA, hiring 500 prisoners in the UK
Deutsche Post's DHL, a German company, announced that it is going to cut 9,500 jobs in the United States.   That's on top of another 5,400 job cuts it already announced.   Meanwhile, in Wales and England, DHL is hiring 500 prisoners from Her Majesty's (HM) Prison Service...   learn more about this award winning employer.
 
Be sure to take the virtual tour of the prison.
 
To learn more about Her Majesty's Prison Service, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_Majesty's_Prison_Service Prison labor is big business in the U.K.   Seven of the UK's ten prisons are run by private companies and many of them run labor camps.   An example, a company called the GEO Group uses detained immigrants in the Campsfield House for cheap labor. GEO Group is a worldwide prison out-sourcing operation that specializes in detaining illegal immigrants.   They also run a part of Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba.   To find out from CorporateWatch] more about GEO.
Migrants exploited for cheap labour... even in prison
 
HM Prison Service is an award winner!   Recently they won an excellence award for "Best New Shared Services Organisation" on 2008 May 19th-22nd at Barcelona, Spain (see link below).   The term "Shared Services" was new to me so I went to the Shared Services & Out-sourcing Network (SSON) web site to figure out what it meant.   Of course the name sort of gives it away, but here is their description of the term.
 
The shared services model is a collaborative strategy in which a subset of existing business functions are concentrated into a new, semi-autonomous business unit that has a management structure designed to promote efficiency, value-generation, cost savings, and improved service for the internal customers of the parent corporation.   That description may sound somewhat confusing, but fortunately they clarify things later in the page:
 
What is Shared Services? * Shared services creates a dynamic internal marketplace for services * Shared services requires an understanding that the role is to provide a service at cost, quality and timeliness that is competitive with alternatives, to a clearly defined group of clients * Shared services is not the same as "centralized functions" -- the difference is the principle of the market-place...
 
Uhhhhhhhh!   That makes perfect sense, NOT!   I'll give you my best shot at what "Shared Services" is: it's the new Eurospeak buzz-word for "out-sourcing".   As usual, [Jimbo Wales's] Wikipedia is right on top of this trend.
 
The Private Sector has been moving towards Shared Services since the beginning of the 1980.   Large organizations such as the BBC, BP, Bristol Myers Squibb, Ford, GE, HP, Pfizer, Rolls-Royce, and SAP are operating them with great success. Remember my last newsletter about Pfizer?
Yahoo!/AP
DHL to cut 9,500 jobs and close US service centers
Packaged by HM Prison Service
The 2008 Shared Services Excellence Awards were presented at Shared Services Week on May 19th-22nd 2008 at the Melia Sitges, Barcelona, Spain.
Harry R. Weber & Samantha Bomkamp: AP: DHL to cut 9,500 jobs and close US service centers
 

2008-11-12
James Carlini _Midwest Business Technology News_
Is Red China's Infrastructure Program Better than the $1.2T Bail-Out in the USA?
" AIG had another retreat in Arizona after it was criticized for holding a $440K retreat that included golf outings and banquets (not to mention a $86K hunting trip in England)."

2008-11-12
James E. Challenger _Midwest Business Technology News_
Executives strive to protect their perks amidst down-turn

2008-11-12
Martin Kelly _V Dare_
Foreigners Victorious In Obama's Election
"it wasn't much or a victory for healing and pluralism, but for borderless emotional leftism."

2008-11-12 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 14)
Michael Doyle _Jewish World Review_
Supremes consider ban of donated monuments with religious messages from public parks

2008-11-12 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 14)
Elizabeth Moyer _Forbes_
Washington DC's $5T tab
Richard A. Miller: Miller Microcomputer Services
Reality Zone

2008-11-12 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 14)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Tyrannical Co-Workers
"it is surprising how many people suffer difficult situations in silence, and don't make an effort to rectify them...   if we reprove someone, we give them an opportunity to defend their actions.   Sometimes it is the reprover who owes an apology, but no matter what it is the gentle and private reproof that creates the opportunity for reconciliation."

2008-11-12 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 14)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Getting beyond race
"in 2005 black Americans earned $644G, making them the world's 16th richest nation.   That's just behind Australia but ahead of Netherlands, Belgium and Switzerland...   The illegitimacy rate among blacks stands at about 70%.   Less than 40% of black children are raised in two-parent households.   Those are major problems but they have nothing to do with racial discrimination.   During the early 1900s, illegitimacy was a tiny fraction of today's rate and black families were just as stable as white families.   Fraudulent education is another problem, where the average black high school senior can read, write and compute no better than a white seventh-grader.   It can hardly be blamed on discrimination.   Black schools receive the same funding as white schools and most of the teachers and staffs are black and the schools are often in cities where the mayor and the city council are mostly black.   Crime is a major problem.   Blacks commit about 50% of all homicides and 95% of their victims are blacks.   Tragically, many black politicians and a civil rights industry have a vested interest in portraying the poor socioeconomic outcomes for many blacks as problems rooted in racial discrimination.   One of the reasons they are able to get away with such deception is because there are so many guilt-ridden white people.   Led by guilt, college administrators, employers and others in leadership positions, in the name of diversity, buy into nonsense such as lowering standards, racial preferences and acceptance of behavior standards they wouldn't accept from whites.   Maybe the election of a black president will help white people over their guilt feelings so they can stop acting like fools in their relationships with black people."
 
 

2008-11-13

2008-11-13 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & 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 539,868 in the week ending Nov. 8, an increase of 73,527 from the previous week.   There were 351,760 initial claims in the comparable week in 2007.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6% during the week ending Nov. 1, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,452,619, an increase of 141,541 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.7% and the volume was 2,292,297.   Extended benefits were available in North Carolina and Rhode Island during the week ending Oct 25."
graphs
more graphs

2008-11-13
Liz Pulliam Weston _M$N_
Feel like a sucker? You're not alone

2008-11-13 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 15)
George Friendman _Jewish World Review_
Iran Returns to the Global Stage

2008-11-13
_e Web Smith_
Business - The Myth of Foreign Workers

2008-11-13
_e Web Smith_
Finance -- Let the Bells of Freedom Ring Once More

2008-11-13
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Bail-out/buy-out startign to show up in increased federal deficit/debt

2008-11-13
Ben Feller _Yahoo!_/_AP_
Free markets are the cure for economic problems

2008-11-13
_India Journal_
India Inc. Hails Obama Victory; Down-Plays Fear on Out-Sourcing
"Indian industry [executives], particularly those working closely with U.S. firms, November 5 hailed Barack Obama's victory as the next American President, playing down the fears of an adverse impact on flourishing outsourcing business.   'Relations between the two countries will grow further.   Bilateral trade is expected to reach $60 billion this year.', President of the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce S.K. Jain said.   India-U.S. trade stood at $45G in 2007-2008.   Jain said Obama has been supporting Indo-U.S. relations, including the nuclear deal.   The I.A.C.C. chief said he has no fears about India losing on the business process outsourcing (B.P.Os).   The American Chamber of Commerce in India, popularly known as A.M.C.H.A.M., also down played election statements of the Democratic leader."

2008-11-13
Shailaja Neelakantan _Chronicle of Higher Education_
India's engineering schools may double enrollments but not faculties and facilities
alternate link
"The number of engineering colleges in India has boomed in the last 15 years, with private institutions rising from 222 in 1991 to 1,116 in 2005, and all of them are approved by the All India Council for Technical Education, the regulatory body.   But while the regulator’s approval gives the colleges a stamp of respectability, it does not ensure quality, say many critics...   India has close to a million unemployed engineering graduates."

2008-11-13
_Accounting Web_
NACE: Bad Economy Not Expected to Negatively Impact Hiring of New College Grads

2008-11-13
_FinFacts Ireland_
Scientists say entrepreneurs' brains are different to those of managers; Entrepreneurial process could be taught or enhanced by drugs
Andrew Lawrence, Luke Clark, Jamie Nicole Labuzetta, Barbara Sahakian & Shai Vyakarnum: Nature
"entrepreneurs' brains were more active in the region responsible for taking 'risky or hot' decisions...   it occurs to Finfacts that collective or copycat decisions that were not perceived as personally risky, were the hall-mark of the likes of the hapless Stan O'Neal at Merrill Lynch who was obsessed with the performance of rival Goldman Sachs, copied them but the GS managers saw that the US subprime market was about to blow up and hedged their bets in time.   O'Neal got a platinum boot worth $161M.   What he lost was his pride while an entrepreneur at an early stage in particular, may have personal lock, stock and barrel at risk."

2008-11-13
Sam Diaz _Ziff Davis_/_CNET_/_CBS_
Watch out for disgruntled employees

2008-11-13
Phil Fersht _PC World_/_IDG_
Will recesison end off-shore out-sourcing: The Global Battle for Jobs is Well Underway
"What is clear, is that shipping jobs off-shore isn't necessarily very healthy for the rising U.S. unemployment rate."

2008-11-13
Mark J. Perry _Carpe Diem_
Unemployment: Can we use 1930s, 1970s, 1980s or 1990s as bench-mark? (with graphs)
more graphs

2008-11-13 15:06PST (18:06EST) (23:06GMT)
Kate Devlin _London Telegraph_
Scientists learn how bleach kills bacteria
"When... heat [or] bleach are applied the proteins 'unfold' and start to clump together...   Occasionally, however, the bugs can produce a protective 'heat shock' protein that increases their resistance to bleach...   Inflammation damage is believed to be the result of uncontrolled hypochlorite production."
 
 

2008-11-14

2008-11-14 07:33:08PST (10:33:08EST) (15:33:08GMT)
Judith Apter Klinghoffer _Free Republic_
US Tax-Victims to bail out Red Chinese sovereign wealth fund?
George Mason University History News Network
Rick Carew: Wall Street Journal

2008-11-14 07:57:50PST (10:57:50EST) (15:07:50GMT)
_Free Republic_
Europe tumbles into recession
Rosie Lavan: Times of London
"Eurostat, the European Union statistics agency, said third quarter GDP across the 15-nation eurozone shrank 0.2%, following a 0.2% fall in the previous quarter."

2008-11-14 08:07:02PST (11:07:02EST) (16:07:02GMT)
_Free Republic_
24th reporter murdered in Juarez
Laredo Morning Times

2008-11-14 08:17:48PST (11:17:48EST) (16:17:48GMT)
Oliver North _Free Republic_
New World Financial Order
Town Hall

2008-11-14 07:42PST (10:42EST) (15:42GMT)
Tawnell D. Hobbs _Dallas Morning News_
Dallas school district abusing fake socialist insecurity numbers (SINs) for foreign teachers
variant
"In recent years, DISD has hired people from various countries, including Mexico and Spain...   [26 of the] numbers were already being used in Pennsylvania...   That year, the TEA division became aware of the practice when DISD faxed copies of about 100 new Social Security Administration cards for foreign citizens -- most of whom had been assigned district-issued numbers -- and asked TEA to replace the old numbers, according to the investigative report.   The state office told DISD at the time that it's illegal to make up [Socialist Insecurity numbers, SINs and pass them off as legitimate, the report says."

2008-11-14
Rick Smith _WRAL_
Lay-offs at Ill-Begotten Monstrosities
"cut-backs in its Systems and Technology Group.   Those being cut were 'selected to participate', IBM says.   I'm sure people were waiting in line to sign up for the exit plan.   From those facing customers to the executive suite at the vice president level, from young to seasoned, from sales and marketing to engineers, and even at least one person honored within Big Blue's ranks as a 'distinguished engineer', the ranks of those being given their walking papers is quite striking...   jobs to be cut but also the ages of the people affected.   An IBM spokes-person confirmed 38 lay-offs at RTP...   some jobs are being shifted over-seas, and IBMers will be training their replacements in Taiwan and elsewhere.   It's bad enough to have one's job off-shored, but having to train a replacement while preparing for unemployment -- now that's pouring salt on an open wound."
Paul McDougall: Information Week/UBM: Ill-Begotten Monstrosities landed $873M Georgia state government contract
"Records show that EDS, recently acquired by Hewlett-Packard, and Northrop Grumman also bid on the contracts, but withdrew from the process."

2008-11-14
Patrick Thibodeau _Computer World_/_IDG_
Sun's latest lay-off plans bring tech cuts to 140K for the year
"Sun plans to cut as many 6K jobs, or about 18% of its workforce, a move that raises the total number of technology-related job cuts announced so far this year to more than 140K, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a Chicago-based out-placement consulting firm that tracks lay-off announcements by sector. Most of the job cuts have taken place in the past few months, with nearly two-thirds of them, or 89,500, occurring since July. At the current rate, Challenger is forecasting tech-sector job cuts totaling 180K by the end of the year... In 2007, the number of job-cut announcements in the tech sector totaled 107,300; in 2006, it was 131,200; and in 2005, it hit 174,744. The worst year was 2001, the year the dot-com bubble burst, when nearly 700K tech [job cuts] took place, according to Challenger."

2008-11-14
Phyllis Korkki _NY Times_
No One Wants Invitation to Lay-Off "Event"

2008-11-14
Christian Copley _eFlux Media_
Sun to lay off 6K

2008-11-14
Richard Behar _Fox_
IMF systems cracked, probably by Red Chinese government

2008-11-14
Michael Cutler _Family Security Matters_
Illegal alien lobby to petition Obama

2008-11-14
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
If 83% of Americans think government is going the wrong way, why was 95.6% of congress re-elected?

2008-11-14
_News Letter_
House repossessions stem from job losses

2008-11-14
Will Wilkinson
Failure: For Our Future

2008-11-14
Rabbi Shmuel Pollen _Reveal the Essence_
The Tipping Point and parshas Va Yeira

2008-11-14

DJIA	8,497.31
S&P 500	873.29
NASDAQ	1,516.85
10-year US T-Bond	3.73%
crude oil	$57.04/barrel
gold	$742.50/ounce
silver	$9.49/ounce
platinum	$845.10/ounce
palladium	$216.65/ounce
copper	$0.10675/ounce
natgas	$6.312/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.2391/gal
heatingoil	$1.8318/gal
dollarindex	87.392
yenperdollar	97.02
dollarspereuro	1.2596
dollarsperpound	1.4749
swissfranksperdollar	1.1852
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	325.31

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Commodities" and "Metals" and "Currencies" columns.
 
 
 

2008-11-15

2008-11-14 18:00PST (2008-11-14 21:00EST) (2008-11-15 02:00GMT)
Andy Barr _Politico_
Obama's science transition team apparently includes no scientists

2008-11-14 22:00PST (2008-11-15 01:00EST) (2008-11-15 06:00GMT)
Sonja Bjelland _Riverside CA Press-Enterprise_
Riverside man pled guilty in connection with his $5M business making fraudulent visas and employment records

2008-11-15
Danielle Carver _Las Cruces NM Sun-News_
Job market has students losing sleep

2008-11-15
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Amplifying on Krugman's simple-minded economics

2008-11-15
Mark J. Perry _Carpe Diem_
Corporate taxes 1930-1940

2008-11-15
Mark J. Perry _Carpe Diem_
Big 3 Bail-Out: The Ultimate in Lemon Socialism (with graph)

2008-11-15
_Programmers Guild_
Dumped immigrant lead electrical test engineer from China killed CEO from India and 2 other executives at SiPort
Terry Collins: Miami FL Examiner/AP
New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung
Eureka CA Times-Standard
Charleston WV Daily Mail
Charlie Brett: eFlux Media
Southern Ledger
Times of the Internet/UPI
UPI
Detroit Free Press
Riverside Press-Enterprise
WRAL
Anchorage Daily News
Lexington KY Herald-Leader
Joe Garofoli & Carolyn Jones: San Francisco CA Chronicle
San Jose Mercury News
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Forbes
Brandon Bailey, Sandra Gonzales & Scott Duke Harris: Inside Bay Area/San Jose Mercury News
Mike Harvey: Times of London
Nicholas Carlson: Silicon Valley Insider
 
 

2008-11-16

2008-11-16
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
The Crisis Has Hardly Begun

2008-11-16
Kimberly Miller _Palm Beach Post_
UF's Machen has top pay package among state university chiefs
Jenna Ross: Minneapolis Star Tribune
Springfield OH News Sun
Morgantown WV/Harrisonburg VA News
Iowa City Press-Citizen
Jenna Youngs: Columbia MO Tribune
Jacquelyn Ryberg: University of Wisconsin Badger Herald
Chronicle of Higher Education
Brain-Storm: Making Comparisons
"Compensation rankings, compiled annually by The Chronicle of Higher Education, were released today. They show University of Florida President Bernard Machen as still one of the highest-paid public university presidents in the nation. Florida law limits the amount of a president's salary paid for with tax dollars to $225K. The rest is usually paid for by university foundations and private donors. The University of Minnesota, with 51K students, is one of the largest public universities in the country. Tuition and fees broke the $10K mark this year. Bruininks' freeze for 40 top employees, in total will save $500K in its first year. William Gleason, a lab medicine and pathology professor, doesn't think a freeze is enough. On his blog, which often takes aim at the university administration, he stated, 'If President Bruininks wants to demonstrate his concern about our financial situation, perhaps he should take a 5% pay cut?'   The average president's compensation among 12 reporting Ohio public universities was $413,018 while the average compensation for the 29 private universities included in the report was $301,298.
 
Washington State landed its largest private grant ever earlier this year: $25M from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the new School for Global Animal Health, a project Floyd had pushed. Despite the troubled economy, public universities increased tuition 6.4% this fall, according to recent figures from the College Board. Governing boards, which increasingly comprise people from the business world, 'see the investment in a CEO as the single most cost-effective investment they can make in the whole university', said Raymond Cotton, a Washington attorney who specializes in college presidential compensation matters."

institution	executive	salary	fringes	Total
Aquinas College	Ed Balog	$140,160	$15,084	$155,244
West Virginia University	Peter Magrath	salary?	fringes?	$300K
Wittenberg University	Mark Erickson	salary?	fringes?	$313,991
Wright State University	Hopkins	salary?	fringes?	$326,400
Florida A&M University	James Ammons	$325K	Car, $12K; house, $36K; deferred compensation, $27K; performance bonus, $1K; retirement, $28,243	$429,243
Florida Atlantic University	Frank Brogan	$324,938	Car, use of house, $10,673; deferred compensation, $34,800; retirement, $30,003. (Brogan was awarded a 10% raise effective in March, bringing his base salary? to $357K.)	$400,414
Oklahoma State University	Burns Hargis	salary?	fringes?	$443,465
University of South Florida	Judy Genshaft	$395K	Deferred compensation, $47,400; retirement pay, $23,445; performance bonus, $37K	$502,845
University of Missouri System	Gary Forsee	$400K	$100K bonus	$531,920K
University of Oklahoma	David Boren	salary?	fringes?	$550,544
Texas Tech University	Kent Hance	salary?	$24K car allowance	$552K
Florida International University	Mitch Maidique	$462,608	Car, use of house, $9K; retirement pay, $40,208; performance bonus, $50K	$561,816
University of Central Florida	John Hitt	$463,500	Car, use of house, $3,680; deferred compensation, $92,700; retirement pay, $32,708; legislative bonus, $1K	$593,588
Albion College	Peter Mitchell	salary?	fringes?	$596,073
University of Alabama at Birmingham	Carol Garrison	$487K	fringes?	$604,000
University of Alabama	Robert Witt	$487K	fringes?	$604,000
Washington State University	Elson Floyd	salary?	fringes?	$623K
Florida State University	T.K. Wetherell	$309,613	Car, use of house, $48K; deferred compensation, $45,089; retirement pay, $23,443; deferred bonus pay, $285K	$711,145
Auburn University	Jay Gogue	$450K	fringes?	$725,000
University of Florida	Bernard Machen	$414,566	Car, $7,800; retirement pay, $23,445; annual bonus, $75K; retention bonus, $210K; legislative bonus, $1K	$731,811
University of Minnesota	Bruininks	salary?	fringes?	$733,421
Southern Methodist University	Gerald Turner	salary?	fringes?	$877K
University of Washington	unknown	salary?	fringes?	$887,870
University of Washington	Mark Emmert	salary?	fringes?	$905,000
Johns Hopkins University	William Brody	$614,805	fringes?	$1,060,772
Ohio State University	E. Gordon Gee	salary?	$310K bonus	$1,346,225
Columbia University	Lee C. Bollinger	salary?	fringes?	$1,411,894
NorthWestern University	Henry S. Bienen	salary?	fringes?	$1,742,560
Suffolk University	David J. Sargent	salary?	fringes?	$2,800,461
institution	executive	salary	fringes	Total

 
 

2008-11-17

2008-11-17 08:07PST (11:07EST) (16:07GMT)
Brett Philbin _CNN_/_Dow Jones_
CitiGroup to fire 53K
Times of the Internet/UPI
Greg Pitcher: Personnel Today
Fox/AP
Jonathan Stempel & Dan Wilchins: Macon Daily News
FinFacts Ireland
Sara Lepro & Madlen Read: Akron Beacon Journal/AP
Sara Lepro & Madlen Read: One News Now/AP
Kirk Shinkle: US News & World Report: Bonus Watch on UBS, Goldman and CitiGroup
Kate Gibson: MarketWatch
"In the past 12 months, the bank has cut 23K jobs, while losing more than $20G in investments tied to the U.S. housing market, CNNMoney reported...   Chief Executive Vikram Pandit... While press wasn't allowed to attend the meeting, slides show that Citi is targeting 2009 expenses of $50G to $52G.   The announced job cuts would bring the bank to a near-term worldwide headcount of about 300K.   As of September 30, Citi had 352K employees.   At its peak level, Citigroup had 375K employees as of the end of 2007.   The bank reduced its headcount by 11K in the third quarter.   In the slides, Citi featured the names of its worldwide leadership team, including Sir Win Bischoff in an apparent show of support for its chairman."
class action against Tata
2008-10-10: CitiGroup inks out-sourcing deal with Tata

2008-11-17
Jaikumar Vijayan _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Significant IT lay-offs and out-sourcing expected in CitiGroup purge
"the largest reduction by a company since IBM's lay-offs of 60K employees back in 1993, and the 50K cuts by Sears that same year, says executive out-placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.   Citigroup's latest round comes on top of the 17K cuts that the company has already made in the first three fiscal quarters of this year."

2008-11-17
Ilana Mercer _V Dare_
Why Aren't The H1-B Hogs Satisfied With The O-1 "Extraordinary Ability" Visa?

2008-11-17
Greg Sterling _Search Engine Land_
Yahoo! lay-offs to begin December 10

2008-11-17
Frosty Wooldridge _News with Views_
Good Riddance Mr. Bush
"Bush and Congress gave away jobs by pushing for millions of H1-B and H2-B visas for foreign workers to displace American jobs.   Bush worked hardest at out-sourcing and off-shoring American jobs.   He and Congress killed U.S. manufacturing.   He [carried on] the job that Clinton started!...   While 400K illegal [alien] mothers birth their instant 'jackpot babies' annually, our hospitals and medical systems collapse from lack of funding and non-payment by millions in this country illegally...   Finally, with our schools over-run by 4.3M illegal alien children..."

2008-11-17
Mark J. Perry _Carpe Diem_
Where teachers send their children to be educated

2008-11-17
Mark J. Perry _Carpe Diem_
Credit crunch is certainly not evident in the data (with graphs)

2008-11-17 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 19)
Diana West _Jewish World Review_
Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

2008-11-17 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 19)
Rabbi Yonason Goldson _Jewish World Review_
The End of the Age of Reason
"hesik haDa'as: the failure of reason."

2008-11-17
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
US government's moronic Iraq policy has increased Muslim immigration

2008-11-17<,br /> Ed Burnette _Ziff Davis_
iPhone vs. Android development: day 1
 
 

2008-11-18

2008-11-18 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
_Economic Times of India_
Indian government slaps import duty on iron and steel

2008-11-18 03:19PST (06:19EST) (11:19GMT)
John Cook _Tech Flash_
Washington state unemployment rate rose to 6.4%: Inching toward previous dot-com bust depths
Lay-Offs at CarDomain, PayScale, Jobster, AdReady, Sun, Zillow, ClayValet, WildTangent, Redfin, Merck, Entellium, M$, Yapta, Avelle, Intrepid Learning, Faves, Digital Railroad, Mercent, Daptive...

2008-11-18 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
Chuck Baldwin _V Dare_
Make Yours a Patriotic Christmas

2008-11-18 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
Jonathan Tobin _Jewish World Review_
Does Barack + Binyomin = Disaster?

2008-11-18 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
Doctor Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn _Jewish World Review_
Which is it: Pride or Arrogance?

2008-11-18 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
It's Priceless
National Review
Mark J. Perry: Carpe Diem (with graph)

2008-11-18 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
Ed Burnette _Ziff Davis_
iPhone vs. Android development: day 2

2008-11-18 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 20)
P.A. Madison _Federalist_
defining "natural-born citizen"
 
 

2008-11-19

2008-11-19 09:23PST (12:23EST) (17:23GMT)
_Wall Street Journal_
Excessive flood of foreign students continues to worsen
alternate link
"International student enrollment increased by 7% to 623,805 in the 2007-08 academic year -- the largest annual increase since 1980.   The survey, funded by the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, accumulates data from 3K accredited institutions of higher education.   The report also notes that more American students are choosing to study abroad.   In 2006-07, 241,791 Americans studied in foreign universities, a 150% increase from a decade ago.   [It's just terrible that those US students are sent back to the USA with all that knowledge and are not permitted to stay and obtain gainful employment.]"

2008-11-19 14:34PST (17:34EST) (22:34GMT)
Mike Sunnuck _Phoenix Business Journal_
Free trade camps watch as Obama considers Clinton appointees for cabinet posts
"Rob Sanchez, publisher of Job Destruction News-Letter in Arizona, said Emanuel backed free trade as well as trade with [Red China] during his tenure with Clinton administration and when he served as a congressman.   Senator Clinton has fostered strong ties to Indian business people in the U.S.A. and India, which might impact offshoring issues if she takes the Secretary of State job, he said.   Sanchez also notes that Clinton and Emanuel are among those backing an increase in the number of H-1B visas for skilled foreign workers.   [Executives of] U.S. businesses and technology companies, including Intel Corp., Google Inc. and M$ Inc. have pushed to raise or lift H-1B caps."

2008-11-19
James Carlini _Midwest Business Technology News_
Life-boats, yes; luxury liners, no
Wisconsin Technology Network
"You don't walk off [a] luxury liner [your actions helped sink] expecting that the Queen Mary II is going pull up and bail you out with a platinum stateroom.   It doesn't work that way on the high seas and it shouldn't work that way on the high seas of finance and capitalism.   That means no bonuses, no $400K banquets and no multimillion-dollar salaries...   There needs to be some radical transformation if GM, Ford and Chrysler are to survive...   While the abuse of the H-1B visa program is a whole other issue, it has also damaged the hull of the economy by putting holes in it like Swiss cheese.   Now in addition to the automakers, Detroit is looking for $10G for itself.   Atlanta, Philadelphia and Phoenix are looking for some bailout as well.   Many states (including Wisconsin) have multi-billion-dollar deficits.   Everyone is trying find a seat on an already crowded life-boat.   Just like on the high seas, put too many people in one life-boat and it will sink under the burden of weight.   Another means must be used to bail out all these other ships of state.   It's called handing them lots of buckets, telling them it's 'all hands on deck' and everyone has to help bail the wastewater off their ship.   Cut spending.   Too much bloat won't keep you afloat.   Sink or swim.   Cut taxes.   Get businesses to want to locate in the state.   We should be hearing that echo in Illinois as well instead of 'bail, bail, bail'."

2008-11-19
Kimberly Miller _Palm Beach Post_
Top priority of FAU executives is more control in setting tuition
"Currently, five of the 11 public universities in Florida are allowed to raise the tuition on residential undergraduate students higher than what state lawmakers set each year.   So while FAU could only raise its tuition by 6% this fall, the University of Florida went up by 15%, and the University of Central Florida grew by 9%...   Who sets tuition is a standing battle between the Board of Governors, which over-sees Florida's public universities, and the legislature.   But the legislature has agreed in the past 2 years to allow universities with at least $100M in research money to charge more.   Those schools include UCF, UF, University of South Florida, Florida International University, and Florida State University...   With local fees, in-state under-graduate students at FAU pay $122 per credit, or $3,660 for a 30-credit year...   Traditionally, about 75% of a student's university education is paid for by the state.   Tuition covers 25%."

2008-11-19
Todd Finkelmeyer _Madison WI Capital Times_
State universities and colleges wade into uncertain economic times
"Part of that report suggested system President Kevin Reilly should request a 7.8% pay increase for faculty -- in each of the next two years -- so system educators' salaries could rise to the median of those in peer institutions by the end of the 2009-2011 budget cycle.   No one suggested such hefty raises were simply out of the question, though Reilly and some regents acknowledged the tough economic climate.   But on Nov. 11, exactly one week after the election, governor Doyle delivered a blow to the gut when he announced the projected budget short-fall was far worse than his earlier prediction of a $3G deficit...   For a feel of how seriously some in higher education are taking this financial crisis, consider this anecdote from Radomski: 'President Reilly called over here recently wondering if we could look and see what the UW did during the Great Depression to both maintain its excellence and continue to serve the people of Wisconsin during such difficult times.'...   Similarly, UW System leaders have stressed for years that they need more financial support from the state.   In 1974, they note, state taxpayers supplied 52% of the total UW System budget; by 2008 that number had dropped to 25%.   And while state funding to the UW System has increased by 22% between fiscal year 1997 and 2007, UW System officials note that, when adjusted for inflation, state funding of the system has actually dropped 4%...   According to a report by The Project on Student Debt, an advocacy group that tracks student loans, the average debt of students graduating with loans in 2007 jumped to $20,098 -- up from $18,976 for those graduating in the previous year, according to the report released in October.   The study reported that 64% of those who graduated from a college in Wisconsin owed money in 2007, with an average debt of $19,241."

2008-11-19
Mark J. Perry _Carpe Diem_
Honda celebrated opening of plant in Greensburg, IN on Monday

2008-11-19
Rahm Emanuel _Wall Street Journal_
Crisis as Opportunity (video)

2008-11-19
other Jim Ludwick _NY Daily News_
More illegal aliens may qualify under 1986 amnesty

2008-11-19 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 21)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

2008-11-19 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 21)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The Right to Win
"some people want everybody else to obey the rules, while they don't have to."

2008-11-19 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 21)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Evil Concealed by Money

2008-11-19
Ed Burnette _Ziff Davis_
iPhone vs. Android development: day 3
 
 

2008-11-20

2008-11-20 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & 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 511,941 in the week ending Nov. 15, a decrease of 26,717 from the previous week.   There were 323,124 initial claims in the comparable week in 2007.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6% during the week ending Nov. 8, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,518,151, an increase of 60,257 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.7% and the volume was 2,293,829.   Extended benefits were available in North Carolina and Rhode Island during the week ending Nov. 1.   [Some indicators worst since 1982.]"
graphs
more graphs

2008-11-20 09:45PST (12:45EST) (17:45GMT)
Owen Bowcott _Manchester Guardian_
Red Chinese government increases stealing US defence secrets
"the [Red Chinese] military strategist, Wang Huacheng,[decribed] US dependence on space assets and information technology as its 'soft ribs'.   There are 250 hacker groups in [Red China], the report says, including some whose members have been trained at [Red Chinese] military academies."

2008-11-20
_Fox_
Janet Napolitano probable secretary of Department of Homeland Security appointee: Has waffled on border security & illegal aliens, supported increase of already excessive H-1B visas
Randal C. Archibold: NY Times
Jim Kouri: WEB Commentary
Jim Kouri: National Ledger
John W. Lillpop: BorderFire Report
Patrick Thibodeau: ComputerWorld

2008-11-20
_Conference Board_
US Leading Economic Indicators Index fell 0.8%

2008-11-20
Peter D. Salins
SAT test is an adequate predictor of college success
NY Times

2008-11-20 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 22)
Rabbi Avi Shafran _Jewish World Review_
Edgar M. Bronfman's blindness

2008-11-20
Ed Burnette _Ziff Davis_
iPhone vs. Android development: day 4
 
 

2008-11-21

2008-11-20 23:14PST (2008-11-21 01:14EST) (2008-11-21 06:14GMT)
Thomas Stewart _Independent Florida Alligator_
governor Charlie Crist and Board of Governors propose 15% hike in university tuition
Las Vegas Sun/AP
Dara Kam: Palm Beach Post
associated editorial from Palm Beach post
Jessica Klipa: Bradenton Herald
Composite: "Governor Charlie Crist announced a proposal Thursday that would allow the state's 11 public universities to increase tuition by up to 15% a year.   Bill Edmonds, Board of Governors spokesman, said a full–time student would have to pay about $350 more a year in tuition if a university decided to make the full tuition hike.   30% of tuition raised would go toward need–based aid for [some] students.
 
Edmonds said if all 11 universities raised tuition by 15% next year, it would generate $72M more than if they only raised tuition to match inflation.   That number would soar to $538M in the 2015–2016 academic year, bringing in about $1.5G over the next 7 years, according to numbers from the board.   This year, universities have experienced a 4% budget hold back, which likely will result in a permanent budget cut, said Sam Savin, provost and vice president of academic affairs at New College of Florida.   A 1% funding cut from the state at New College is equivalent to about $200K.   Based on current enrollment, a 1% increase in tuition would earn New College $35K, while a 15% increase would bring in $500K.   Florida universities have been losing faculty to other states.
 
However, just because universities have the option to raise tuition by 15% doesn't mean they will.   Of the 5 universities allowed to raise tuition up to 15% in 2008–2009, only 4 did.   UCF raised tuition 9%.   UF charges about $3,800 in tuition and fees.   The average student in Florida pays $3,808 for a full 30-credit year, while the national average is $6,585.   McGriff, filling in for UF President Bernie Machen, said after the meeting that UF is fine with the cap because it is shrinking its enrollment.   Machen is abroad in Iran.
 
The increases would not be covered by Bright Futures and would not affect students with Florida Prepaid plans.   State senator Ken Pruitt, R-Port St. Lucie, who helped create the popular Bright Futures scholarships, offered the most enthusiastic endorsement.   Under Crist's plan, Bright Futures students would have to pay the difference between the state-set base rate of tuition and the individual university increase.   Area college students said school already spills over their budgets, and without grants and scholarships they could not afford to attend.   There are many students who have kids along with part-time or full-time jobs, and who would struggle with a tuition increase.
 
The board said that the universities no longer would accept new students who came without new money.   For the University of Florida, the system's flagship and its most competitive, that meant 1K fewer students in this year's freshman class and a plan to take 1K fewer freshman for the next 3 years.   This year's systemwide freshman class was roughly 30K.   Not all of the universities are crowded; Florida Gulf Coast University, in Lee County, is 12K students under its limit.   Florida Atlantic University has slightly higher enrollment."
 
Tuition covers only about 25% of the cost, and the Board of Governors estimates that about 6K of the system's 233K under-graduates have no financial support from the state.
 
State senator Al Lawson, D-Tallahassee, said Crist's proposal would put higher education out of students' reach.   'Florida ranks among the highest for foreclosures, job loss and bankruptcies.', the Tallahassee law-maker said in a press release.   'Dumping tuition hikes into the laps of students and their families is the wrong move at the wrong time.'"
 

2008-11-21 11:34PST (14:34EST) (19:34GMT)
Ronald D. Orol _MarketWatch_
Congress-critters, SEC, sheisters, Treasury, Fed, Public Company Accounting Oversight Baord, FASB argue whether phony prices or honest, dynamic market prices should prevail

2008-11-21
Jeff Mills _Greensboro NC News-Record_
Tuition at University of North Carolina at Greensboro to to up
"UNCG's board of trustees voted 7-2 Thursday for a plan to raise tuition by 5% for students from North Carolina and by 2.5% for out-of-state students...   A separate vote to increase student fees by about 1% -- $16 per year -- passed unanimously...   Under-graduate students from North Carolina will pay $141 more.   Tuition and fees total $4,276, a 3.4% increase over this year.   Out-of-state under-grads will pay $366 more.   Tuition and fees for out-of-state students total $15,995, a 2.3% increase.   In-state graduates students will pay an additional $161 for an annual total of $4,688.   Out-of-state grad students will see a $370 increase for a total of $16,168.   Room and board costs won't be available for another couple of months, Chancellor Linda Brady said, but they will almost certainly increase from the $6,088 on-campus students paid this year."

2008-11-21
Patrick Thibodeau _Computer World_/_IDG_
Obama's choice of Napolitano for DHS could inflame tech visa battle
"For the most part, Obama is bringing in a team that has forcefully advocated for increasing the use of foreign tech workers.   The recession has not blunted that advocacy."

2008-11-21 08:03PST (11:03EST) (16:03GMT)
Rick Merritt _EE Times_/_UBM_
Expected nomination of Napolitano to head DHS may tip desire to expand H-1B program

2008-11-21
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
IIE report on foreign student enrollments in the USA
 
No sooner than had I sent out a couple of postings to this e-news-letter on the coming (and in-progress) decline of international students in computer science, out came a number of articles in the press, such as the one enclosed below, reporting a big rise in foreign students in the U.S.A.   So, where is the disconnect, if any?
 
First of all, most of the press reports are misleading, because the increase was not in the "eventual Silicon Valley" type of student.   Instead, the more nuanced article in Inside Higher Education reports that "the record result was driven largely by dramatic increases in the numbers of international students employed off-campus through optional practical training (OPT) and those enrolled in non-degree and intensive English programs."
 
Readers of my and Rob Sanchez's e-news-letters are well familiar with OPT, which allows a foreign student to work in industry after graduation yet still retain foreign student status.   Earlier this year, the government suddenly extended the OPT time from 12 to 29 months.   The Programmers Guild is fighting that extension in court, but in any case that extension, plus the dearth of jobs (one need not have a job to have OPT status) and limited number of H-1B visas means that we now have many more OPTs than in the past.
 
And while there was some increase in "real" university foreign students too, it was not in computer science.   Here are the data as of the end of each academic year:

year	math/CS	CS only
2008	46,313	34,819
2007	46,019	33,437
2006	45,518	34,318
2005	50,747	38,966
2004	67,693	57,739
2003	71,926
2002	76,736
2001	67,825
2000	57,266

 
(It is common in government data to combine math and CS, even though CS is actually less mathematical than engineering.   Most of the math students, by the way, are studying statistics.   During the last decade or so, the term "statistics PhD student" has come to be virtually synonymous with "statistics PhD student from China".   See a rather dramatic visual example.)
 
So, you can see that the number of CS foreign students started to decrease in about 2002, holding approximately steady since 2006.
 
Moreover, just to keep steady, academia has had to make strong efforts to recruit more foreign students since the decline.   Amazingly, and arguably inappropriately, even the State Dept. has been engaged in such efforts (http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=131590).   This in turn affects quality, if the "outreach" efforts include lowering the standards for admission, which is almost certain.   I know that many departments, including my own, have lowered the admissions bar at the under-graduate level (for all students, not just foreign ones) to stem that decline, and I'm sure this is happening at the graduate level too.   Recall from my last posting that the number of foreign students coming to the U.S.A. from IIT, India's "MIT", has dropped sharply.
 
As to the enclosed article, the interesting/frustrating part is at the end.   North is saying, in essence, that the reason we don't have more American students in grad school is that it's not financially attractive to them, while Goodman says universities need foreign students because not enough Americans apply to grad school.   There is nothing contradictory about those two remarks, yet the author (or editor) says that Goodman "disagrees" with North.   I wonder how many readers understood.
 
In any case, North's statement is correct.   Recall that the NSF advocated bringing in lots of foreign students in order to hold down PhD salaries.   The same obviously holds for PhD student stipends.
 
Norm
Mary Beth Marklein: USA Today: Already excessive foreign student enrollments surged
"The number of foreign students enrolled in U.S. colleges surged 7% last year to 623,805, an all-time high and the largest one-year increase on record...   [Foreign] enrollments reached 586,323 [in school year 2002-2003]...   Of 432 schools that said international enrollments were up this fall, 19% said the weak U.S. dollar made tuition costs more attractive...   In 2006, U.S. universities were the primary source of graduate-level financial aid for 90.7% of foreign students, compared with 64% of U.S. citizens."

2008-11-21
_ALIPAC_
Illegal Immigrant Apprehensions Decrease in New Mexico Corridors Where Fencing Has Been Built

2008-11-21
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
"Legal Immigration" Too Often Means Fraud -- and Fraud Is Illegal
"as many as 80% of all 'Priority-3' or 'P-3' designation grants are fraudulent.   P-3 status is given to individuals of certain nationalities (mostly African) who are claimed as a parent, spouse, or minor child of legal residents in the United States.   Think chain migration, refugee style."

2008-11-21
Pete Carey _San Jose Mercury News_
Silicon Valley unemployment rate jumps to 6.9%
graphs

2008-11-21
"Herman" _Lew Rockwell_
The New Protectionism

2008-11-21
Ed Burnette _Ziff Davis_
iPhone vs. Android development: day 5

2008-11-21/1977-11-10
Friedrich A. Hayek _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
A Free-Market Monetary System

2008-11-21 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 23)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Civilization walks the plank

2008-11-21

DJIA	8,060.92
S&P 500	795.26
NASDAQ	1,372.35
10-year US T-Bond	3.20%
crude oil	$50.53/barrel
gold	$791.80/ounce
silver	$9.48/ounce
platinum	$825.70/ounce
palladium	$178.85/ounce
copper	$0.0986875/ounce
natgas	$6.48/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.09/gal
heatingoil	$1.71/gal
dollarindex	87.392
yenperdollar	94.80
dollarspereuro	1.2573
dollarsperpound	1.4912
swissfranksperdollar	1.22
indianrupeesperdollar	50.15
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	325.31

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Commodities" and "Metals" and "Currencies" columns.
 
 
 

2008-11-22

2008-11-22
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Is Laissez-Faire Finished? Will it ever be tried?
"When free-market credit analysts questioned Fannie's and Freddie's lending and accounting practices, Congress refused to listen.   Even after government investigators uncovered fraudulent accounting and highly risky balance sheet maneuvers, Democrat/Socialist congressional leaders stiff-armed Republicans who demanded corrective action."

2008-11-22
Edwin Chen & Jason Gale _Bloomberg_
Obama brags his economic stimulus plan will create 2.5M jobs in 2 years

2008-11-22
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #1939 -- 11/22/2008>>>>>
J-No as secretary of DHS: at least she won't be messing up things in Arizona as much
alternate link
 
President elect Barack Obama recently announced that he would like Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano to be the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.   This exemplifies Obama's predilection to surround himself with artifacts from the Clinton administration. Obama's choice of Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff and Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State sent a clear message that Obama intends to stack his cabinet with Washington insiders who are proponents of open borders, amnesty, expansion of H-1B, and unfettered free trade.
 
Mark my word folks, some day very soon we will be reminiscing about the good ol' days when Michael Chertoff was stumbling and bumbling at the DHS!
 
The only thing positive about Napolitano taking this job is that Arizona will get rid of her.   Hopefully the new governor, republican Jan Brewer, might be able to straighten out some of the huge mess Napolitano has made of this state.
 
Note: in Arizona we call Napolitano J-no.
 
For many of us in Arizona J-no seems like a weird choice for anything dealing with national security, especially considering the large number of people in her state who have been victims of illegal aliens.   The illegals thumb their nose at our border security and at our stupid government.   Take for instance the most recent victim of the invasion -- a teenage girl who was killed by an illegal alien who was driving while drunk.
 
The death of that teenage girl wasn't an isolated incidence of violent crimes committed by illegal aliens in Arizona.   Just this year alone we have had serial rapes, murders, and many deadly traffic accidents.   If that isn't bad enough, Arizona has become known as the "kidnap capital" of America and is #1 in identity fraud and car theft.   Napolitano's response to the crime and violence has been to cut off funding for Sheriff Joe Arpaio's immigration enforcement efforts.   J-no did everything she could to stop propositions passed by majorities of the voters in Arizona who demand action to stop the invasion.
-30-
 

2008-11-22
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #1940
Cinram Denied H-2B visas
Cinram is in trouble again.   In May I reported that about 100 Nepalese workers at Cinram vanished.   That raised some question by the Dept. of Homeland Security, but not much happened.
 
See this news-letter for the May story: "Nepalese H-2Bs go poof, while Baca and Pelosi push for more visas" JDN #1830 -- 2008/03/05
 
Now Cinram has another problem.   Cinram wanted to hire about 800 H-2Bs to wrap DVDs at their Huntsville plant.   The US DoL denied their request for visas on the basis that the housing provided for the workers was substandard.
 
The H-2B program requires that employers provide housing.   Usually it's nothing more than a dumpy trailer or a run down motel with 5 workers per room.   H-2B forest workers called Pineros often have no more for housing than a truck bed or a tent.
 
Considering the low threshold considered acceptable in the H-2B program, it would be interesting to see what Cinram was providing for housing.   If any activists in Huntsville have a camera I would be happy to host whatever pictures or videos you could find.
DVD maker denied visas for workers at Alabama plant
"Canadian DVD manufacturer Cinram has been denied a request for visas for 800 foreign workers to help its Huntsville plant with holiday orders."

2008-11-22
_BorderFire Report_
Home-land Security pick Napolitano opposes securing nation

2008-11-22
Mark J. Perry _Carpe Diem_
State UnEmployment Rates
graphs
 
 

2008-11-23

2008-11-23
Mark J. Perry _Carpe Diem_
Lessons from the Great Depression

2008-11-23
P.J. O'Rourke
Charity

2008-11-23
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #1941
Mysterious, unsupported 500K STEM worker shortage claims continue to surface

2008-11-23
Phil Manger _Nolan Chart_
Sarah Palin & the Politics of Elitisn: Kathleen Parker and other elitists want the GOP to dump the values voters

2008-11-23
Steve Sailer _V Dare_
will jobs in Obummer's infrastructure boondoggle be reserved for USA citizens as in FDR's WPA?

2008-11-23
Craig Steiner
the myth of the Clinton surplus (part 2)
 
 

2008-11-24

2008-11-24
Mark J. Perry _Carpe Diem_
Anti-Choice Obamas choose to send children to $30K per year school

2008-11-24
Mark J. Perry _Carpe Diem_
More on GM vs. Toyota hourly labor costs

2008-11-24
Maria Aleta Nieva _abs-cbn_
Filippino teachers use blog to air grievances against recruiters
"In their blog called the Pinoy Teachers Hub, the teachers accused their recruitment agency, PARS International Placement Agency and the US-based Universal Placement International, Los Angeles, California of violating their contract, overcharging, issuing threats and intimidation, providing them with poor living quarters and illegal and suspicious opening of their US [Socialist Insecurity Numbers (SINs)]...   Furthermore, some teachers who are still without school assignments had to attend job fairs for placement."

2008-11-24
Allen R. Sanderson _Chicago Tribune_
University executives, admins, coaches abuse student athletes
"For while the quarterback's institution will bring home $10M (and receive several hours of free advertising), the coach will see a sizable financial boost and fans will extend their holiday pleasures, the player will get just coal in his stocking."

2008-11-24
Nicholas Stix _V Dare_
The Winchester Atrocity: Down The MSM Memory Hole While Cops Claim It's Not A "Racial Crime"

2008-11-24
Robert P. Murphy _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
An Open Letter to Gary Becker re: Depressions

 
 

2008-11-25

2008-11-25
"Steve Neago"
Citibank committed to $2.5G contract with Tata
class action against Tata

2008-11-25
_Conference Board_
The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index™ Improves Moderately, But Present Situation Weakens

2008-11-25
_CNN_
Munich Re AG Says It's Eyeing AIG's Asia Life Assets

2008-11-25
Michael Mandel _Business Week_
Massive fiscal stimulus could send millions of jobs off-shore rather than boosting the US economy
"Over the past 10 years, however, the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. has plummeted, going from 17M in 1997 to 13M today."

2008-11-25
Kevin MacDonald _V Dare_
Ethno-Centrism

2008-11-25
_India Times_
Indian techies finally being asked to work as much as US techies have worked for decades

2008-11-25
Barry Ritholtz
Big Bail-Outs, Bigger Bucks

2008-11-25 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 27)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Is It Ethical to Get Emotional for Influence?

2008-11-25 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 27)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Jolting the Economy: bipartisan disasters are often twice as bad as partisan disasters
"Where Hoover made things worse, FDR made them much worse."

2008-11-25 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 27)
John B. Taylor _Wall Street Journal_
Why Permanent Tax Cuts Are the Best Stimulus: short-term fiscal policies fail to promote long-term growth
Economist's View
New Zealand Initiative
op-eds and articles by John B. Taylor
 
 

2008-11-26

2008-11-26 00:04PST (03:04EST) (08:04GMT)
Niraj Sheth & Nathan Koppel _Wall Street Journal_
Journalism and Lawyering Off-Shored
"At the Mumbai subsidiary of out-sourcer Pangea3 LLC, rows of Indian lawyers at new computers pore over contracts, covenants and other financial documents.   They're working for Wall Street banks fighting law-suits filed in the U.S.A. by home-owners, investors and shareholders after the subprime-mortgage crunch."

2008-11-26 05:30PST (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & 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 606,877 in the week ending Nov. 22, an increase of 93,877 from the previous week.   There were 324,047 initial claims in the comparable week in 2007.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.8% during the week ending Nov. 15, an increase of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,748,005, an increase of 226,034 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 1.7% and the volume was 2,217,292.   Extended benefits were available in North Carolina and Rhode Island during the week ending Nov. 8."
graphs
more graphs

2008-11-26
Gabriel Madway _Reuters_
Lay-offs increase in Silicon Valley
Interactive Investor
Manchester Guardian
"that provides little comfort for the growing ranks of unemployed IT professionals struggling to get by...   Employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas has tallied 140,422 job cuts overall by technology firms through October 31, up 31% from all of 2007.   More than two-thirds of this year's lay-offs have come since July...   2001, when the technology industry slashed 695,581 jobs...   Santa Clara County alone lost more than 200K jobs, 20% of its job base.   The county's annual unemployment rate hit 8.4% in 2002...   A Dow Jones VentureSource study released last month showed that VC investment in renewable energy leaped 71% from the previous quarter, even as investment in information technology fell 10%."

2008-11-26 07:25PST (10:25EST) (15:25GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index went from 57.6 in October to 57.9 earlier this month to 55.3 in late November: 76.1 a year ago

2008-11-26 09:15PST (12:15EST) (17:15GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
Durable orders were down 6.2% in October

2008-11-26
John Ribeiro _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Mumbai/Bombay terrorist attacks won't deter tech executives in their search for cheap, pliable labor
"Vidya Natampally, director of strategy at M$ Research India."

2008-11-26
_Trading Markets_
AIG says it will stay in Asia with non-life-insurance business

2008-11-26
Andrew Kuper _Forbes_
From micro-finance to micro-protection-rackets
"According to the International Finance Corporation in a joint report with the World Resources Institute, this population of low-income consumers 'at the base of the pyramid' has $5T in annual purchasing power globally...   From development banks like Germany's KFW to large private institutions like Citibank, global players do not want to miss the boat on this rising tide...   For example, Hollard-Edcon in South Africa profitably sells accidental death and disability policies for $3.93 to $6.61 a month, with a $2,360 pay-out.   Similarly, Tata-AIG in India sells a life and savings product with a $1,320 pay-out...   Zurich Financial Services has micro-insurance operations in South Africa and [Red China]; CNP Assurance, France's leading personal insurance company, partners with China Post; AIG runs micro-insurance operations not only in India but in South Africa and Uganda; and a number of regional insurers manage their own micro-insurance businesses."
class action against Tata

2008-11-26
Nia-Malika Henderson _Politico_
Obama picks: Jonathan Favreau to direct speech-writing, The Race VP and chief propagandist Cecilia Munoz as director of intergovernmental affairs
Detroit Free Press
Detroit News
Palm Springs CA Desert Sun
Michigan Live

2008-11-26
James Fulford _V Dare_
War against ThanksGiving

2008-11-26
Chuck Baldwin _V Dare_
Thanks to readers

2008-11-26 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 28)
Michael Feldberg _Jewish World Review_
Alfred Mordecai

2008-11-26 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 28)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Fraudulent Trade, Honest Trade and Protectionism

2008-11-26 (5769 Mar-Cheshvan 28)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Ivan and Boris and ridiculous CEO compensation packages
 
 

2008-11-27

2008-11-27
Michael Feldman _HPCwire_
The Under-Valued Tech Worker

2008-11-27
Michelle Malkin _V Dare_
Givign thanks for self-reliant Americans

2008-11-27
Nan Mooney _Salt Lake City Weekly_
Paying off college debt may take a life-time... or more: The new form of debt slavery
 
 

2008-11-28

2008-11-28
Patrick McGreevy _Los Angeles Times_
California state legislators' outside jobs raise show conflicts of interest

2008-11-28
Steve Liesman, Sabrina Korber, Sean Entwistle, Yolaiki Gonzalez, Giovanny Moreano & Ariel Nelson _CNBC_
financial crisis tab in the trillions and counting (with table)
Reality Zone
"...Try $7.36T. That's more than double what was spent on WW2, if adjusted for inflation, based on our computations from a variety of estimates and sources... So, for example, we counted the full $800G committed Tuesday in the form of measures directed at supporting consumer loan and mortgage-backed securities, even though none has yet been allocated. We counted the full TARP, even though only $320G has been spoken for... Some $900G, for instance, has been allocated to the Term Auction Credit Facility, known as TAF. Another $1.8T has been set aside for the commercial paper funding facility..."

2008-11-28
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
As "Fairness Doctrine" Looms, Americans Must Fight for Rights

2008-11-28
Thomas Sowell _National Review_
Who Realy Cares?: Charitability left and right

2008-11-28

DJIA	8,829.04
S&P 500	896.24
NASDAQ	1,535.57
10-year US T-Bond	2.9191%
crude oil	$54.43/barrel
gold	$819.00/ounce
silver	$10.22/ounce
platinum	$882.40/ounce
palladium	$192.60/ounce
copper	$0.10146875/ounce
natgas	$6.51/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$1.2096/gal
heatingoil	$1.7271/gal
dollarindex	86.45
yenperdollar	95.56
dollarspereuro	1.2573
dollarsperpound	1.5415
swissfranksperdollar	1.2141
indianrupeesperdollar	50.1075
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	331.51

I usually get this info from MarketWatch and the "Commodities" and "Metals" and "Currencies" columns.
 
 
 

2008-11-29

2008-11-29
Maureen Dowd _NY Times_
Off-Shoring Hitting Reporters Harder

2008-11-29
Barry L. Ritholtz _Barron's_
Uncle Sam, the Enabler
 
 

2008-11-30

2008-11-30
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
"Generous" with Other People's Money

2008-11-30
George Will _Town Hall_
Same Old New Deal

2008-11-30
Donald A. Collins _V Dare_
Obama backing Dem hopes rumored Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano will not get her way
 
 
 

2008 November
John Hutton _GAO_
DHS: Billions being spent without appropriate over-sight

2008 November
Casey B. Mulligan _NBER_
A Depressing Scenario: Mortgage Debt Becomes Unemployment Insurance

2008 November
Dinesh D'Souza _Imprimis_
How Christianity shaped the West
"the rights of a Philadelphia street sweeper are the same as those of Jefferson himself.   This idea of the preciousness and equal worth of every human being is largely rooted in [Judeo-Christianity].   [Jews and] Christians believe that God places infinite value on every human life.   [Judeo-Christian] salvation does not attach itself to a person's family or tribe or city.   It is an individual matter.   And not only are [Jews and] Christians judged at the end of their lives as individuals, but throughout their lives they relate to God on that basis...   In ancient Greece and Rome, individual human life had no particular value in and of itself.   The Spartans left weak children to die on the hillside.   Infanticide was common, as it is common even today in many parts of the world...   Many of the great classical thinkers saw nothing wrong with these practices.   [Judeo-Christianity], OTOH, contributed to their demise by fostering moral outrage at the mistreatment of innocent human life...   Likewise John Adams wrote: 'What do we mean by the American Revolution?   The war?   That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it.   The Revolution was in the minds of the people... a change in their religious sentiments.'   Those religious sentiments were forged in the fiery sermons of the First Great Awakening."

2008 November
John B. Taylor
The Financial Crisis and the Policy Responses: An Empirical Analysis of What Went Wrong

2008 November
_Top 500_
top 500 fastest super computers LinPack bench-mark
 

Proposed Bills 2008

External links may expire at any time.
Neither this page, nor the opinions expressed or implied in it are endorsed by Michael Badnarik, Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Wayne Allyn Root, Warner Brothers, Gary Johnson, president Donald Trump, nor by my hosts, Kermit and Rateliff.

---

jgo Resume	Reading Room
jgo Econ Data & Graphs	jgo Econ News Bits
Economic News Analysis Summary
Kermit's home page	jgo Links
jgo's Work in Progress
Page Top