Subject: [Industry Studies Association] Response to Wadhwa regarding high-tech immigrant entrepreneurs
Dear colleagues:
Vivek Wadhwa harshly criticized our recent report (pdf) on this listserv. In what follows we respond in detail to his critique. For those who may not want to read this post in full, we summarize our response here. Most of Wadhwa's criticisms should be ignored by scholars. He makes elementary mistakes of math and methodology. He frequently makes assertions that have no foundation. He exaggerates and demeans, ultimately impugning no one but himself.
We believe our study provides a better estimate of high-tech immigrant entrepreneurship, as those terms are ordinarily used by scholars, than Wadhwa et al. 2007. However, there is room for the figures in the 2 studies to be reconciled, depending on one's definitions of the key terms and what one thinks the relevant population of firms is. We would be more than happy to entertain a serious scholarly debate on this subject and look forward to engaging in one.
We refer at several points in our response to the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS). We couldn't hope to match on our modest budget the methodological sophistication and level of effort that this multi-million dollar project achieved. But we reference it as the gold standard for survey research on entrepreneurship.
Definition of High-Tech: We use a standard definition of high-technology found in the economics literature, based primarily on the ratio of R&D employment to total employment and referencing BLS data. The KFS uses the same definition, although it defines three groups of SICs, high-technology, medium technology, and all other industries; our high-tech category basically combines KFS's high- and medium-tech categories, as we state in the report. Wadhwa et al. 2007 use the following definition: "the main work of the company is to use technology or engineering to design or manufacture products or services".
The only SICs in our high-tech category that are not in KFS's high- and medium-tech categories are 303 (reclaimed rubber), 374 (railroads), 489 (communication services, n.e.c.), and 874 (management and public relations). 303 and 374 account for less than 0.05% of the firms in our population. 489 accounts for almost 1%; this group may include emerging ICT-based service sectors that fit conventional notions of high-tech. But the key point is that these 3 SICs are too small to affect the results that we report in any significant way.
874 is a special case. As we describe in the report, it would have dominated our results had we left it in, accounting for more than a third of all firms in our population. We judged it better to omit this industry and tell the reader that we did so. Perhaps others might find it interesting to explore the role of foreign-born entrepreneurs in management and public relations at some future date.
We report the distribution of immigrant-founded and native-founded firms by broad sector (manufacturing vs. services) in Table 3 and by two-digit SIC in Figure 1. In both comparisons, the patterns are similar between the two groups of firms. Wadhwa misunderstands Figure 1 in his comment. Each bar in the graph shows the share of IFCs or NFCs in that sector divided by the total number of IFCs or NFCs respectively. Because there are many more NFCs than IFCs in the sample, there is no sector in which IFCs out-number NFCs.
Use of Dun & Bradstreet Data: D&B is the best source from which a sample like ours could have been pulled. KFS used D&B for its sample. Indeed, Wadhwa et al. 2007 used D&B as well. Census and IRS data are undoubtedly richer sources, but they are only made available to researchers under strict confidentiality conditions, and it is not possible to identify individual firms for survey research purposes.
Age of Firms: A prior study by two of the co-authors of this study (Acs, Parsons, and Tracy 2008) shows that a small fraction of firms account for the bulk of net job creation in the U.S.A. One surprise in that study was that the age range of these firms is wide. It seems that there are relatively old firms as well as young ones that for some reason or another "catch fire" and grow rapidly for at least several years. That growth is happening today, not 30 years ago, as Wadhwa implies.
In any case, as Table 4 reports, there is no statistical relationship between age of firm and immigrant founding in our sample.
Definition of Founder: For the most part, we let our respondents identify the firm's founders without a definitional prompt. However, if the occasional respondent asked for a definition, the one that our survey contractor supplied, which Wadhwa quotes in his post, is the one that is used in the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED). Paul Reynolds, the PI for PSED, is one of the country's leading authority on survey research related to entrepreneurship and has invested considerable effort in creating this definition.
We point out in the report, as Wadhwa acknowledges in his comment, that CEOs and CTOs who were the subjects of his study are not necessarily founders. The Stanford Project on Emerging Companies, for instance, found that about half of founders were not employed in either of these roles. We thus come to a semantic question: who is an "entrepreneur" -- the founders about whom we asked or the senior executives about whom Wadhwa et al 2007 asked? The vast majority of scholars equate "entrepreneur" with founder, although more encompassing definitions that include senior executives can be found. We believe that firm founders and senior executives perform different functions in society -- both important, but different. They must be treated separately if we are going to understand firms and economies.
Response Rate: We used the response rate calculator made available on-line at aapor.org by the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). That calculator provides 14 alternative definitions. We use the one that we thought our colleagues and readers would find most intuitive: of those firms that our survey contractor actually reached, what proportion finished the survey? Technically, this is the "cooperation rate". (All 4 definitions of the cooperation rate in the AAPOR calculator yield the same value, 53%, for our sample.) If we include all of the other dispositions of phone numbers called by our survey contractor, such as fax numbers, busy signals, non-working numbers, and the like, the rate drops to between 29% and 34%, depending on which definition (AAPOR 1-4) is used. We were surprised to get such a high response rate, however calculated. Survey researchers whom we consulted before we began the project told us to expect a response rate of 10% or even less. (One of the most intimidating things that we learned was that the KFS had made 375K phone calls to obtain 3,782 completed interviews.)
But this discussion is something of a digression. The response rate does not determine whether a survey sample is representative. A representative sample is unbiased. We addressed bias by validating the sample against the population data that we had in hand from D&B. We also used the population data to weight the observations in the two regressions that we report. And we obtained a large enough sample to keep random error low. Of course, it is always possible that there is an unknown variable that makes the respondents different from the non-respondents. That is a hazard in all survey research. But we did what could reasonably be done to have confidence that our sample is representative: worked with a professional survey research organization, validated the data, and obtained a large sample. We certainly believe our data collection method is more reliable and valid than that described on pg 9 of Wadhwa et al. 2007.
Policy Recommendations: We don't make policy recommendations in this report. We seek to add information that is relevant to the policy debate.
Indian Founders: We report (Table 20) that 16% of the founders in our sample were born in India. Table 16 shows that 25% of the founders in our sample had been in the U.S.A. for 15 years or less, and another 25% had been here for 25 years or less. There's certainly no mathematical problem here with the timing of Indian immigration to the U.S.A. We do think the issue of mapping the country of origin and timing of firm founding onto the changing demographics of immigration is a good issue for further study, and we have been working on that.
Female Founders: This issue is also worthy of further study. Wadhwa does not state a reason for doubting our findings but simply makes unfounded assertions.
The Community of Scholars: We certainly agree that the growth in research on the role of the foreign born in the U.S. innovation system and in U.S. entrepreneurship is an excellent development. We look forward to participating in further discussions with those scholars, who, like us, take care in designing and carrying out research and who engage in serious and evidence-based debate.
Wadhwa's Restraint in Making Negative Comments about Us to the Press: We are disappointed that Wadhwa did not discuss our work with reporters. We would have been happy to rebut his views, even though we understand that the rules of the game are different in the media than in the scholarly community. As the old saying goes, "any publicity is good publicity".
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2009-08-06
Andrea Ciccocioppo _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
3 citizens sue Dickinson township officials
"Thompson, Breslin and Cunningham each began attending township meetings several years ago. Breslin, a retired U.S. Army colonel and U.S. Army War College graduate, said he became interested in local government after being asked by Wyrick and Jones to organize a citizen's group in opposition to the Trammell Crow warehouse project in 2006. Cunningham, also a retired Army colonel and War College graduate, became interested in township matters in 2004 because of the Dennison warehouse project and later the Trammell Crow project. Thompson, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and War College graduate, said he began taking an interest in township matters in 2005. The 3 men said they began asking questions about their local government in an attempt to understand how things worked. Breslin founded Concerned Citizens for Dickinson Township, a grass roots group formed primarily to address the possible construction of a warehouse. He asked Thompson and Cunningham to join. Over the years, the more the 3 asked questions, the more they said they felt they weren't getting answers from their elected officials... Later, after making multiple requests for information under Pennsylvania's Right to Know law, the township labeled Thompson a 'disruptive requestor' -- a charge that the state Open Records office said was unfounded in June."
2009-08-06
Jonathan Allen _Congressional Quarterly_
Health Care debate produces angry protests as government runs counter to public (ObummerDoesn'tCare)
2009-08-06
Jay Ambrose _Scripps Howard_
Health care protests are on target (ObummerDoesn'tCare)
2009-08-06
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Left's distorted views of history
Warren Kozak: Wall Street Journal: Hiroshima Rorschach Test
"the appalling number of Asians who were dying at the hands of the Japanese. Upwards of a quarter-of-a-million were dying each month. The fact that this orgy of death -- 17M died in all -- came to an abrupt halt when the Imperial Army was finally forced to go home is rarely mentioned... Today, Hiroshima has become a Rorschach test for Americans. We see the same pictures and we hear the same facts. But based on how we view our country, our government, and the world, we interpret these facts in very different ways. A former G.I., now 90, who survived the war in Europe and was about to be sent to the Pacific understands quite clearly that the bomb saved his life. His grand-children may see this event in a very different way."
War Casualties
2009-08-06
Allan Wernick _NY Daily News_
USCIS investigate H-1B fraud
2009-08-06
J.D. Longstreet _Small Government Times_
Privacy violation in doctor's office
"I have been availing myself of this doctor's services since the late 1960s. But -- on this visit, as I weighed-in and signed-in, I was asked to produce my drivers license! I was stunned, frankly! I had not expected this. Being one of the old mossbacks who believes that 'the less government the better' is the ONLY way, I protested vigorously, loudly, and profusely -- and, I am somewhat embarrassed to say, used some language I learned in the military and haven't used since those long ago days -- before I remembered I am a Southern Gentleman, and got hold of myself... It was, she said, a new HIPAA ruling... I am a private person. I like it that way. I am extremely uncomfortable with social networking sites. That is why you do not see me on those sites... It was during that short commute that it became clear. A photograph. My DNA did not have a photograph. My Driver's License does. It was a photo ID they were after, preferably a 'likeness' that my state certified was, in fact, me. You can imagine, I suppose, how much disdain I am going to have for government-run health care... ObummerDoesn'tCare."
Brad Wilmouth: Media Research Center: abc's Stossel slams socialized medicine, documents Obama's expressed goal of government "single payer system"
2009-08-06
_Fox_/_Comtex_/_FAIR US_
Costs of Illegal Aliens in Pennsylvania
Miami Examiner
PR News Wire
Biloxi MS Sun Herald
2009-08-06 16:25PDT (19:25EDT) (23:25GMT)
"Caleb" _Red State_
The Real Mobsters
2009-08-06
Carolyn Troiano _Miami Examiner_
Readers hare the "Citizens' Line-Item Veto" on Health-Scare Perversion bill
---- HR3200; Dingell; Unconstitutional Socialist Obamacare
2009-08-06
Dylan McGrath _EE Times_
Only 3 firms expect to invest $1G or more in capital expenditures on semi-conductors
2009-08-06
John David Lewis _Classical Ideals_
What HR3200 says
---- HR3200; Dingell
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"[A]n artist can learn how to program, but teaching someone how to be creative is impossible." --- Nilson Neuschotz 1994 _Macintosh MultiMedia_ pg 235
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2009-08-07
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-06 17:26PDT (2009-08-06 20:26EDT) (2009-08-07 00:26GMT)
Patrick Thibodeau _Computer World_/_IDG_
Off-Shorer/Cross-Border Body Shopper Phaneesh Murthy says "global citizen" will emerge
InfoWorld
"The company, head-quartered in Fremont, CA, is an off-shore IT services provider. Of the 6,500 employees in his company, only about 10% are in the U.S.A., or roughly 650 people. And out of that U.S. work-force, 35% are permanent residents, or like Murthy, U.S. citizens. The balance of iGate's U.S. work-force is temporary visa workers... Murthy envisions that perhaps 20 to 30 years from now, a world where restrictions on the movement of workers will melt way... Foreign language enrollments in elementary schools is believed to be increasing dramatically, driven by parents, many of whom 'are looking at the growth and emergence of [Red China] as a major player', said Steve Ackley, a spokesman for the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages... If [the Durbin/Grassley H-1B and L-1 reform bill] passes, Murthy will need to increase his U.S. work-force by 15%. He will do this by hiring more permanent residents and citizens and using Mexican nationals who can work in the U.S. under the provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) without the need for an H-1B visa [using TN visas]. He will increase the amount of work done off-shore."
2009-08-07 02:41PDT (05:41EDT) (09:41GMT)
William L. Watts _MarketWatch_
European central bankers conspire to limit sales of gold for 5 years
"In a joint statement that was also signed by the euro-zone's 16 national central banks, the institutions agreed to limit total gold sales to 400 metric tons [per] year, with total sales over the 5-year period capped at 2K metric tons."
2009-08-07
Thomas J. DiLorenzo _Lew Rockwell_
Single-Payer Groceries, Anyone?
2009-08-07
Bruce Harrison _Daily Illini_
Commission recommends that U of IL trustees resign
2009-08-07
Dale Heberlig _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
Job-seeking skills mentor seeks young adult clients in Franklin county PA, as federal age discrimination and privacy violation continues to worsen
2009-08-07
_Cumberland PA Sentinel_
B-17 Flying Fortres coming to Capital City airport Tueday
2009-08-07
Phil Fairbanks & Dan Herbeck _Buffalo NY News_
former NY supreme court judge Ronald H. Tills sentenced to 18 months for transporting illegal alien prostitutes across state lines
Niagara Gazette
2009-08-07
Richard Connelly _Houston Press_
Shipley Do-Nuts to pay $250K fine plus $1.3M forfeiture for harboring illegal aliens
2009-08-07
Joel Sutherland _Allentown PA Morning Call_
Red China makes it difficult to send illegal aliens back there
"Of the more than 40K Chinese in the U.S.A. illegally, only about 500 are deported per year. The primary reason is that [the Red Chinese government] refuses to recognize many of these illegals as Chinese citizens -- a step 'necessary' for deportation... To complicate matters, the U.S. [government] is only allowed [by their own rules] to imprison non-violent illegal immigrants for up to 6 months while it negotiates his or her return home. At the end of this period, those non-violent illegal immigrants not deported may simply be released back into [the USA]."
2009-08-07
Floyd Norris _NY Times_
Lack of employment growth for a decade (graph)
2009-08-07
Wallace Witkowski _MarketWatch_/_Wall Street Journal_/_Dow Jones_
HP sued by sales-clones for under-payment
2009-08-07
Daniel E. Ritchie _First Things_
Winning the War over The War on Terror: versus Orwellian double-speak
"To modify Burleigh Taylor Wilkins' excellent definition, terrorism is violence against the property or lives of noncombatant civilians, whose purpose is to promote the terrorist's cause by preventing moderate solutions or provoking extreme counter-measures... It appears that those luminaries have won the war on the war on terror. Scores of innocents will continue to be killed by terrorists but their lives will no longer be part of a narrative that we understand as the fight against terrorism."
2009-08-07
_Wall Street Journal_
Drug Dealers: The White House buys Big Pharma's silence on national socialist health care
2009-08-07
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
Obamacare For Illegal Aliens Becoming Huge Problem For Democrats
Lamar Smith: The Hill: Health care scheme would benefit illegal immigrants
2009-08-07
Ben Johnson _Right Side News_/_Front Page Magazine_
ObummerDoesn'tCare = SorosCare
"demonstrations were organized by Health Care for America Now! (HCAN)... Howard Dean... Campaign for America's Future... Maine People's Alliance... ACORN, MoveOn.org, and the Center for American [Regress] (CAP)... John Podesta... Open Society Institute (OSI)... Rockefeller Family Fund... [HCAN] Co-founder Robert Borosage previously served as director of the overtly Marxist Institute for Policy Studies, while co-founder Roger Hickey also co-founded the Economic Policy Institute... socialist columnist Harold Meyerson, sixties radical Tom Hayden, socialist feminist Barbara Ehrenreich, SEIU president Andrew Stern, AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney, Jesse Jackson, and Julian Bond... Children's Defense Fund (CDF)... CDF Action Council is a member of the HCAN steering committee. CDF founder Marian Wright Edelman once admitted she got nowhere pushing a left-wing message until 'I got the idea that children might be a very effective way to broaden the base for change'. Hiding behind 'the children', her undisguised Sixties radicalism still shines through... Carnegie Corporation... Teresa Heinz Kerry... AFSCME, Change to Win (James Hoffa's break-away group of 7 powerful unions...), UAW, NEA, AFT, CWA, UFCW... USAction... 'The President of USAction is long-time radical activist William McNary, who has written for and supported the official newspaper of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), the People's Weekly World.'... Center for Community Change (CCC)... founder of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)... La Raza VP Cecelia Munoz; and Heather Booth, who founded the Midwest Academy, where SEIU's Andrew Stern learned about union 'orgnizing'... Carnegie Corporation of NY, Fannie Mae Foundation, the Ford Foundation... Democracy for America... Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR)... Progressive States Network... Gamaliel Foundation... National Congress of American Indians... True Majority... USPIRG... Soros-funded clergy... Jim Wallis' Sojourners... People Improving Communities through 'Organizing' (PICO) (which is funded by Citigroup Foundation and William Randolph Hearst Foundation among others) is rallying the Religious Left for ObummerDoesn'tCare... National Council of Churches (NCC)... Tides Foundation... Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good... Clergy Strategic Alliance, LLC, and the National Council of Jewish Women... Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the National Abortion Federation, Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. Planned Parenthood already gets one-third of its billion dollar annual budget from the government, and the Capps Amendment in the current health care bill opens the spigots of federal funding for abortion through fungible payments and accounting transfers. The Alan Guttmacher Institute concluded public funding of abortion increases the number of abortions -- and thus, pads Planned Parenthood's bottom line... National Women's Law Center (NWLC)... Rockefeller Family Fund... Teresa & John H. Heinz III Fund of Heinz Family Foundation..."
2009-08-07
_NASA_
formaldehyde and nitrous oxides over the USA
"Across virtually all of the United States, the ratio of formaldehyde to nitrogen dioxide is greater than 1 (yellow, orange, red) throughout the summer months, despite the seasonal decline in naturally produced volatile organics. In other words, formaldehyde is more abundant than nitrogen dioxide. Since there are plenty of naturally produced volatile organics in the air in most places, ozone production is limited by the amount of nitrogen oxides. Further reductions of nitrogen oxides, then, would be the best way to limit ozone production in most places. Where urban development is extensive enough, however, the ratio of formaldehyde to nitrogen dioxide shifts to less than 1 (purple, blue, green). An excess of nitrogen oxides means that in those places, ozone production is limited by the amount of volatile organics..."
2009-08-07 (5769 Ab 17)
Rabbi Yehonasan Gefen _Torah.org_
Do Not Steal part 5
2009-08-07
| DJIA | 9,370.61 |
| S&P 500 | 1,010.48 |
| NASDAQ | 2,000.25 |
| Nikkei | 10,357 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 3.85% |
| crude oil | $70.93/barrel |
| gold | $957.30/ounce |
| silver | $14.668/ounce |
| platinum | $1,268.50 /ounce |
| palladium | $279.05/ounce |
| copper | $0.17409375/ounce |
| natgas | $3.674/MBTU |
| reformulatedgasoline |
$2.0081/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.9122/gal |
| dollarindex | 78.98 |
| yenperdollar | 97.54 |
| dollarspereuro | 1.4179 |
| dollarsperpound | 1.6698 |
| swissfranksperdollar | 1.0808 |
| indianrupeesperdollar | 47.80 |
| mexicanpesosperdollar | 12.924 |
| MorganStanleyHighTechIndex | 498.78 |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
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"Quick revising is simple & minimal. A lot depends on having the right spirit: business-like & detached. A certain ruthlessness is best of all. Not desperate-ruthless... but breezy-ruthless... If you are too worried about what you wrote or too involved with it, you'll have to work over-time to get the right spirit. You need to stand outside yourself..." --- Peter Elbow 1981 _Writing with Power_ pg 33
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2009-08-08
1306-08-08: king Wenceslas of Poland murdered by his brother, cruel king Boleslaw
1570-08-08: king Charles ix of France signed Treaty of St. Germain giving freedom of religion to Huguenots and ending 3rd war of religion
1648-08-08: Ibrahim, sultan of Istanbul, imprisoned and assassinated
1844-08-08: Brigham Young succeeded Joseph Smith as head of Mormonite church
1876-08-08: Thomas A. Edison patented mimeograph
1896-08-08: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings born
1899-08-08: first household refrigerator patented
1901-08-08: Ernest Orlando Lawrence born at 15 Monk Road in Bishopston, Bristol, England
1902-08-08: Paul A.M. Dirac born
1937-08-08: Japan occupied Beijing
1940-08-08: Nazi Luftwaffe attacked Great Britain, beginning Battle of Britain
1942-08-08: US Marines captured Japanese air-strip on Guadalcanal
1944-08-08: US forces completed capture of Marianas Islands
1945-08-08: Soviet Union declared war on Japan
1950-08-08: US troops repelled 1st attack at 10 day battle of Naktong Bulge
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-08
Jennifer McKee _Billings MT Gazette_
Some 100,552 people received food stamps in July in Montana
"Utah saw a 45.5% increase in SNAP recipients between 2008 April and 2009 April. More than 34M Americans participated in the program in May, a national record... 130% of the federal poverty limit, which is $1,984 a month for a family of 3... The maximum food stamp allowance for a family of three is $526 a month."
2009-08-08
Victor Thorn _American Free Press_
Who is behind Obama's rise to stardom?: An anti-Jewish conspiracy theory
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"[P]eople produce their best writing when they finally have ideas that are powerful & exciting to them. When they try to weave an essay out of ideas that are watery & uninteresting to them, their language often disintegrates into incoherence: they are trying to make something solid out of what they know isn't really worth the effort. How can you reason well & produce strong language if you aren't connected to the topic & don't have any ideas that excite you?" --- Peter Elbow 1981 _Writing with Power_ pp 60-61
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2009-08-09
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-09
Rick George _Charleston Examiner_
Is America waking up?
2009-08-09
Bill Lambrecht _Southern Illinoisan_
Anger greets congress-critters at town hall meetings
2009-08-09
Anna Prior _Wall Street Journal_
Employers cut back on severance packages
2009-08-09
James K. Glassman _Technology, Commerce, Society Daily_
Having to deal with actual citizens is, and long has been, hell to pols
alternate link
"David Hyman, on the excellent Volokh Conspiracy blog, points out a nice bit of irony: The leader of the protest against Rostenkowski was 'Jan Schakowsky -- then Director of the Illinois State Council of Senior Citizens -- and currently Democratic representative from the Ninth Congressional District of Illinois, and chief deputy whip to Majority Leader Pelosi'."
2009-08-09
_Florida Capital News_
Allen Boyd's summer recess schedule
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Wednesday, Aug. 12
13:30 — Live Oak City Hall Annex
17:00 — Jefferson County Courthouse, Monticello
Monday, Aug. 17
10:00 — Cross City Woman's Club, NE 134 Street
13:00 — Lafayette County Community Center, 150 SW Community Circle, Mayo
15:00 — Perry Woman's Club, 502 N Jefferson Street
Tuesday, Aug. 18
10:00 CDT — Blountstown
14:00 EDT — Bristol
Wednesday, Aug. 19
10:00 CDT — Marianna
Tuesday, Aug. 25
09:00 — Wakulla County Senior Citizens Center, Crawfordville
13:00 — William A. "Bill" McGill Library, 732 Pat Thomas Highway, Quincy
18:00 — Tallahassee City Hall
Wednesday, Aug. 26
10:00 — Port St. Joe
13:00 — Apalachicola
Friday, Aug. 28
17:30 — Panama City
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"It would require an imagination of truly artistic rather than legalistic talents to justify this measure under the general welfare clause, or under any other section of the Constitution. This is nothing but an outright subsidy to the arts, despite some attempts to label it something else... Mr. President, on page 9 of the report, under the heading 'reasons for the bill', appears this statement: 'Almost alone among governments of the world, the US gov't has to date displayed little concern for the development & encouragement of the artistic resources of its people.' Far from being a justifiable reason for enacting this measure, I believe that the committee has enunciated one of the principal reasons why the bill should not be enacted... I am certain that we do not wish now to emulate other forms of gov't after the one under which we have thrived for over a century & a half has enabled the people of America to have the best of everything. Our form of gov't does not contemplate, nor condone, dabbling in the arts." --- Strom Thurmond 1963-12-20 (quoted in Livingston Biddle 1988 _Our Government & the Arts_ pg 38)
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2009-08-10
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-10
John S. Baker & Elliott Stonecipher _Wall Street Journal_
Illegal aliens' affect on census and congressional districts
"...early census questionnaires generally asked a question that got at the issue of citizenship or permanent resident status, e.g., 'what state or foreign country were you born in?' [and 'In what state or country was your father born?' and 'In what state or country was your mother born?'] or whether an individual who said he was foreign-born was naturalized. Over the years, however, Congress and the Census Bureau have added inquiries that have little or nothing to do with census's constitutional purpose... Dr. Elizabeth Grieco, chief of the Census Bureau's Immigration Statistics Staff, told us in a recent interview that the 2010 census short form does not ask about citizenship because 'Congress has not asked us to do that'... According to the latest American Community Survey, California has 5,622,422 noncitizens in its population of 36,264,467. Based on our round-number projection of a decade-end population in that state of 37M (including 5.75M non-citizens), California would have 57 members in the newly reapportioned U.S. House of Representatives. However, with non-citizens not included for purposes of reapportionment, California would have 48 House seats (based on an estimated 308M total population in 2010 with 283M citizens, or 650K citizens per House seat). Using a similar projection, Texas would have 38 House members with non-citizens included. With only citizens counted, it would be entitled to 34 members."
2009-08-10
_WITN_
Hundreds in Greenville NC protest against health care perversion
2009-08-10
James Hirsen _News Max_
Dems and media distorting public objections to health care perversion schemes
2009-08-10
Michael Cutler _Border Fire Report_
Chuck Schumer pushing Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion
News with Views
"Yet our nation's borders remain porous and administration of our nation's immigration laws encourages massive levels of fraud in which aliens are easily able to game the system. I place the term system in quotation marks because there is really not much of a system in place. The adjudicators at USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) are under extreme pressure to keep the paper moving. The easiest (and most expeditious) way for an adjudicator to dispose of an application for an immigration benefit such as an application for lawful residence or even United States citizenship is to approve the application. Once the application is stamped 'Approved' no further action is needed and the adjudicator can take credit for completing an action. The adjudicators are evaluated by their productivity. If they want to be successful in the eyes of their bosses, they need to move as many applications as possible. This sort of situation does not encourage the adjudicators to seek to uncover fraud but to simply approve as many applications as possible in the shortest time possible."
2009-08-10
Kimberly Dvorak _San Diego Examiner_
Gallup finds Americans do favor decreasing immigration (with graph)
2009-08-10
Roger Hedgecock _World Net Daily_
Pelosi repeatedly fumbled attempts to defuse critics of health care perversion
2009-08-10
Steven Emerson _Family Security Matters_
The Strengthening Islamist/Leftist Alliance
2009-08-10
"Geek Mom"
It was Americans who started the big tech roar and it's the Americans who deserve the jobs
2009-08-10
Marianne Lavelle _Center for "Public Integrity"_
1,150 business and interest groups weighing in on climate bill
Keith Johnson: Wall Street Journal
"There are now 1,150 companies and organizations groping for the sausage grinder -- that's almost one lobbyist for each page of legislation."
2009-08-10
Glynn Custred _Family Security Matters_
The 1837 Caroline Affair with implications for today
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"We ought to consider what is the end of gov't, before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of gov't, as all divines & moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man." --- John Adams 1776 "Thoughts on Governance" (quoted in Charles S. Hyneman & Donald S. Lutz 1983 _American Political Writing During the Founding Era 1760-1805_ vol 1 pp 401-409; quoted in Robert J. Samuelson 1995 _The Good Life & Its Discontents_ pg 144)
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2009-08-11
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-11
Andrea Coombes _MarketWatch_
Salary hikes hit new low, bonuses hit new high (excluding executive bonuses)
"Average salary hikes this year dropped well below 3% for the first time since Hewitt started tracking the data in 1976... Meanwhile, the portion of companies' compensation budgets devoted to performance-based bonuses rose to about 12% of pay-roll on average for some salaried workers, up from about 6% a decade ago. (This survey counts executive bonuses only to the extent executives are eligible for all-employee bonuses; most executive bonuses are not counted here.)... Executive pay hikes averaged 1.4%, while non-union hourly workers saw an average 2% raise, and union workers received a 2.2% average hike, according to the survey... Companies spent an average of 12% of pay-roll on performance pay for salaried exempt workers in 2009, up from 10.8% in 2008. They expect to pay 11.8% for those workers in 2010. For salaried non-exempt workers, companies paid an average of 6.5% of pay-roll in bonus pay, up from 5.7% in 2008. The outlook for 2010 for those workers is 6.1%. For non-union hourly workers, companies paid an average of 5.8% in bonus pay, up from 5% in 2008. The outlook for 2010 is 5.5%. For union workers, companies paid an average of 6.6% in bonus pay, up from 5.9% in 2008. The outlook for 2010 is 6.4%."
2009-08-11
Linda Halstead-Acharya _Billings MT Gazette_
Medical students give first aid to accident victims between wedding and reception
2009-08-11
Arun Kumar _Two Circles_/_Silicon India_/_Smash Hits_/_Mangalorean_/_Zee News_/_Zimbabwe Star_/_Hindustan Times_/_Thaindian_/_Samay Live_/_Sindh Today_/_Express Buzz_/_IBN Live_/_Daiji World_/_Central Chronicle_/_New Kerala_
Indians are the most quickly-growing illegal alien group in USA
Economic Times of India
"According to the American Community Survey of the US Census Bureau, the Asian Indian population in the US grew from almost 1.679M in 2000 to 2.57M in 2007. With a growth rate of 53% the highest for any Asian American community, and among the fastest growing ethnic groups in the USA, Indian Americans are the third largest Asian American ethnic group, after Chinese Americans and Filipinos. When it comes to illegal immigration, Hispanic illegal immigrants largely out-number other undocumented immigrants. Mexicans make up nearly 7M of the estimated 12M illegal immigrants. The next largest group of Hispanics are Salvadorans and Guatemalans. But Indians are the fastest-growing group of illegal immigrants in the USA, according to US Department of Homeland Security report. There are 270K unauthorised Indians in the USA -- a 125% jump since 2000, the largest percentage increase of any nation with more than 100,K illegal immigrants. Many Indians get into the US with an H-1B Visa so they do not have to cross the border illegally. Indian illegal immigrants tend to have attained a higher level of education than other illegal immigrants in the USA."
2009-08-11
Dave Eberhart _News Max_
How illegal aliens counted in 2010 US census will pervert congressional districting
2009-08-11
Chuck Baldwin _Right Side News_
Why are FEMA camps being built?
Prophezine
Idaho Observer
Help Wanted: National Guard Internment/Resettlement Specialist
2009-08-11
_News Blaze_
Utah employers and immigration lawyers used fraud to obtain visas for workers
"Charged in the indictment are the Alcala Law Firm, which practices immigration law and is located at 1380 West Indiana Avenue in Salt Lake City; Westside Property Management, a Salt Lake County company; James Hector Alcala, age 41, of Salt Lake City; Carlos Manuel Vorher, age 43, of Salt Lake City; Carlos Enrique Gomez-Alvarez, age 41, formerly of Salt Lake City now living in Houston; Daniel Trigo Villavicencio, age 30, of Orem; Gustavo Ballesteros-Munoz, age 45, of West Jordan; Andres Lorenzo Acosta Parra, age 31, of Salt Lake City; Florentino Jose Ayala Villarreal, age 39, of Mexico; and Olga Adriana Garza Muniz, age 47, of Mexico."
2009-08-11
_Spectrum_
29 gangsters arrested for illegal immigration racket
"The group taken into custody includes a Salvadoran national with ties to the notorious MS-13 gang, a citizen of Afghanistan, and a citizen of the Bahamas."
2009-08-11
Paul Williams _Family Security Matters_
Pelosi threatens to impose health care perversion by Halloween
"Pelosi remains equivocal when asked if the bill will provide coverage for the 12M to 32M illegal aliens who now reside in the U.S.A... 'If you're in this country illegally, should you be able to get health care?', CNN's John King asked Mrs. Pelosi. 'No, illegal immigrants are not covered by this plan.', she replied. 'And so what happens to a public hospital then, if they walk into the emergency room? The hospital I was at this week, they said, you know, they do 6K births a year there and 70% of them are for undocumented [patients].', said King. 'I don't know about that.', said Pelosi. 'But I do know that the law requires that if somebody comes in off the street and needs care; that is extended...' Mrs. Pelosi's remarks are downright deceptive, according to Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX), who points out that the proposed health care legislation 'contains gaping loop-holes that will allow illegal immigrants to receive [tax-victim]-funded benefits'. These loop-holes, representative Smith maintains, are 'no accident'... The Republican members of the Ways and Means Committee attempted to address this loop-hole by an amendment proposed by Congressman Dick Heller (R-NV) which would have required applicants for government provided or subsidized health care to demonstrate eligibility through the Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) systems. But, on July 29th, the Heller Amendment was soundly defeated by the following 26 Majority Members of the House Ways & Means Committee: Xavier Becerra (CA), Shelley Berkley (NV), Earl Blumenauer (OR), Joe Crowley (NY), Artur Davis (AL), Danny Davis (IL), Lloyd Doggett (TX), Bob Etheridge (NC), Brian Higgins (NY), Ron Kind (WI), John Larson (CT), Sander Levin (MI), John Lewis (GA), Jim McDermott (WA), Kendrick Meek (FL), Richard Neal (MA), Bill Pascrell (NJ), Earl Pomeroy (ND), Chairman Charlie Rangel (NY), Linda Sanchez (CA), Allyson Schwartz (PA), Pete Stark (CA), John Tanner (TN), Mike Thompson (CA), Chris Van Hollen (MD), and John Yarmuth (KY)."
2009-08-11
Glynn Cutred _Family Security Matters_
Mexican military incursions into the USA part 2 of 5
2009-08-11
Del Quentin Wilber _Washington Post_
4th person charged in DC tech office bribery, kick-back, wire-fraud, money-laundering scheme
2009-08-11
Lowell Ponte _News Max_
Government tactics against critics of health care perversion proposals is chilling
2009-08-11
Cal Thomas _Town Hall_
National Socialist Health Care (ObummerDoesn'tCare): What Lies Beneath
2009-08-11
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
Media, Obama admin are spinning economic news
2009-08-11
Thomas McCall _Tallahassee Examiner_
Is Allen Boyd afraid to face his constituents?
"What his web site neglects to tell you is that the forum is really being held by former Tallahassee mayor and current executive director of the Capital Area Community Action Agency, Dorothy Inman-Johnson... Ms. Inman-Johnson scheduled the forum at City Hall, a location which can only seat 160 people... Calls to Congressman Boyd's asking for a change of venue have fallen on deaf ears... Calls to Ms. Inman-Johnson requesting a larger venue have been unsuccessful... A local church in Tallahassee which has the capacity to seat over 1K people has offered its sanctuary for the forum. Ms. Inman-Johnson has been made aware and refuses to move her meeting from City Hall."
more articles by Thomas McCall
2009-08-11
Kristina Cooke _Interactive Investor_/_Reuters_
What the Fed is considering
"The U.S. Conference Board's consumer confidence index fell to 46.6 in July from 49.3 in June as the percentage of Americans saying jobs are hard to get increased."
2009-08-11 (5769 Menachem-Ab 21)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Random thoughts
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"An American attends to his private concerns as if he were alone in the world, & the next minute he gives himself up to the common welfare as if he had forgotten them. At one time he seems animated by the most selfish cupidity; at another, by the most lively patriotism. The human heart cannot be thus divided. The inhabitants of the USA display so strong & so similar a passion for their own welfare & for their freedom that it may be supposed that these passions are united & mingled in some part of their character. And indeed, the Americans believe their freedom to be the best instrument & surest safe-guard of their welfare; they are attached to the one by the other. They by no means think they are not called upon to take a part in public affairs; they believe, on the contrary, that their chief business is to secure for themselves a gov't which allows them to acquire the things they covet & which will not debar them from the peaceful enjoyment of those possessions which they have already acquired." --- Alexis de Tocqueville 1840 _Democracy in America_ vol 2 pp 150-151 (of 1945 Vintage edition; quoted in Robert J. Samuelson 1995 _The Good Life & Its Discontents_ pg 154)
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2009-08-12
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-12
_Wall Street Journal_
The Truth about National Socialist Health Care Proposals (ObummerDoesn'tCare)
2009-08-12
Stephanie Overby _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Some H-1B visa sponsors are being audited
Network World/IDG
InfoWorld
Business Week
2009-08-12 07:00PDT (10:00EDT) (14:00GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
trade deficit up to $27G, Imports of goods and services rose 2.3% to $152.8G
BEA report
"Meanwhile, exports of goods and services from the United States of America increased 2% to $125.8G. In inflation-adjusted terms, exports rose 0.6%. In the past 12 months, real exports are down 21%. Real imports are also down 21%."
2009-08-12 11:42PDT (14:42EDT) (18:42GMT)
Robert Schroeder & Ronald D. Orol _MarketWatch_
US government posted $181G deficit in July (over 10 times total federal expenditures from the founding to 1902)
2009-08-12
Fred Hutchison _Renew America_
Dishonest sales game pushing socialized medicine
2009-08-12
Don Boudreaux & "mreconotarian" _Hayek Cafe_
Manufacturing Error
"The weighted average U.S. tariff rate was 1.6% in 2006. High out-of-quota tariffs, some import and export bans and restrictions, some import fees, some services market access restrictions, regular use of anti-dumping and countervailing duties, and export-promotion programs and subsidies add to the cost of trade. Ten points were deducted from the U.S. trade freedom score to account for non-tariff barriers."
2009-08-12 (5769 Menachem-Ab 22)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Some practical applications of how animals may be used to benefit man
2009-08-12 (5769 Menachem-Ab 22)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Politics and blacks
"Between 1960 and 1980, black poverty fell roughly 17% and continued falling to today's 24%... In 1940, 86 percent of black children were born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate among blacks was about 15%. Today, only 35% of black children are born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate hovers around 70%... Today's illegitimacy rate among whites, at nearly 30%, is higher than it was among blacks in the 1960s when Moynihan sounded the alarm. In Sweden, the mother of the welfare state, illegitimacy is 54%..."
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"Deserve the best. Demand it for yourself. And when you demand it, see how far your reach expands, how many possibilities present themselves." --- Milton Katselas 1996 _Dreams Into Action_ pg 100
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2009-08-13
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-13 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 479,824 in the week ending Aug. 8, an increase of 13,129 from the previous week. There were 373,858 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.4% during the week ending Aug. 1, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,860,918, a decrease of 158,904 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.4% and the volume was 3,199,339. Extended benefits were available in AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, and WI during the week ending July 25. [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs
2009-08-13 05:51PDT (08:51EDT) (12:51GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
Import prices down 0.7% in July; export prices down 0.3%, ag export prices down 4.9%
"Non-agricultural export prices rose 0.2%. The exports index is down 8.1% over 12 months, the largest annual decline since data were first published in 1983. For the year, agricultural export prices are down 22.3%, the largest annual decrease since the data were first published in 1985. Non-agricultural exports are down 6.5% for the year, also a record annual decline."
2009-08-13
Kerry Grace Benn _Wall Street Journal_/_Dow Jones_
Foreclosures up 7% from June to July, 32% up from 2008 July
Alan Zibel: AP/Yahoo!
Fox
Gail Rosenblum: Minneapolis Star Tribune
Josie Huang: Maine Socialist Broadcasting Network
WLS TV
Jason Scott: Cumberland PA Sentinel
2009-08-13
William L. Watts _MarketWatch_
France and Germany showed GDP growth, but Europe continued contraction in 2009Q2
Pan Pylas: AP/Yahoo!
2009-08-13
Tom Morton _Casper WY Star-Trbune_/_Billings MT Gazette_
Rancher promotes alternative energy
"A solar-powered computer and transmitting device beamed data to a satellite from 6 anemometers spinning on a 200-foot-tall meteorological tower at the Pathfinder Ranch on Monday... While these wind farms are generating electricity, they're also generating conflicts about the proximity of towers -- and transmission lines -- to land-owners, and a seemingly helter-skelter approach to development, Meyer said. Pathfinder Renewable Energy LLC is not about building wind farms, but rather enabling land-owners, Meyer said."
2009-08-13
_Work Permit_
About 20K H-1B visas remain available for FY2010
2009-08-13
Cindy Saulter _Greenwood MS Commonwealth_
Tea parties give voice to long silent scream
"We were not organized before this because everyone was on their own to do what they thought best. We voted for the best person for the job, we hoped. We voted every election. We put up with whatever the previous administrations did. Then it became a silent scream in each of us. This administration pushed it too far. The last didn't help any, nor the one before that."
2009-08-13
Hans Bader _DC Examiner_
Obama is lying about HR3200
UA Today
Ed Morrissey: Hot Air
Beacon Street Journal
2009-08-13
Luke Rosiak _Daily Beast_
The Leftist Sweat-Shop: FFPIR
2009-08-13
"CmdrTaco" _Slash Dot_
US college executives tell firms not to hire US students
"Many US colleges and universities have notices posted on their web sites informing US companies that they're tax chumps if they hire students who are US citizens. 'In fact, a company may save money by hiring international students because the majority of them are exempt from Social Security (FICA) and Medicare tax requirements', advises the [tax-victim]-supported University of Pittsburgh (pdf) as it makes the case against hiring its own US students. You'll find identical pitches made by the University of Delaware, the University of Cincinnati, Kansas State University, the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Iowa State University, and other public colleges and universities. The same message is also echoed by private schools, such as John Hopkins University, Brown University, Rollins College and Loyola University Chicago."
2009-08-13
Thomas McCall _Tallahassee Examiner_
Tax-victim funded health care for illegal aliens
2009-08-13
Michelle Malkin _V Dare_
Etiquette czar's rules for patriotic protest
2009-08-13
_Rant/Rave_
Podesta, Jones, SEIU, ACORN, Tides Foundation, and Apollo Alliance
"What is the Apollo Alliance, and what are its ties to Obama's green czar, Van Jones, a self-professed communist and black nationalist, who was put in jail for violence during the Rodney King riots. What are the Apollo Alliance's ties to Wade Rafky, of the Tides Center and the Tides Foundation. What is the link between the SEIU, the labor group pushing healthcare reform, ACORN, and the Apollo Alliance? Why is the Apollo Alliance claiming that they wrote the Obama Recovery Act(stimulus bill) in 2008, before Obama was even sworn in as president? Why did Harry Reid thank them for writing it? Why are private groups writing legislation? Why are they writing energy legislation for individual states? John Podesta, CEO of the Center for American Progress, is also on the board of directors for the Apollo Alliance."
Carl Horowitz: National Legal & Policy Center: Jason Sanders, an adviser to the Tides Foundation, pled guilty to embezzling
Henry K. Lee: San Francisco Chronicle: Jason Sanders, an adviser to the Tides Foundation, pled guilty to theft
Gail Shepherd: Broward/Palm Beach New Times: Tides Foundation engaged in culture war
Proud Parenting: ACLU receives large gift from Tides Foundation to lobby to end Florida's ban on adoption by gays
Advocate: Tides Foundation funding gay pride march in DC
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"More troubling still are the findings from a survey conducted for the Volcker Commission in 1989 involving 1800 college seniors belonging to national honor societies. The federal gov't employs approximately 8% of all newly graduated lawyers in the country, 7.5% of all scientists & engineers, & more than 15% of new doctors. Yet among the 1800 outstanding students, only 3% ranked the federal gov't as their 'most preferred' career choice, & most of those who did were members of the public administration honor society (which made up 20% of the sample)." --- Derek Bok 1993 _The Cost of Talent_ pg 64 (referencing Ronald Sanders "The Best & the Brightest: Can the Public Service Compete?"; reprinted in Volcker National Commission on the Public Service report pg 157)
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2009-08-14
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-14
Jason Scott _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
Job losses drive demand for unemployment insurance benefits
"The number of people filing for their first week of unemployment benefit in Pennsylvania dropped to its lowest level in 9 months in July. The state Department of Labor and Industry said 29,600 people filed for benefits in the week ending Aug. 1 -- the lowest since the week ending Nov. 1. Still, that total is 40% higher than last year at the same time, when fewer than 21,200 people filed initial claims. All told, more than 520K people filed for benefits in Pennsylvania during the week ending Aug. 1. That's about 1 in every 12 people in the state's work force... The labor department's Center for Workforce Information and Analysis reports that 9,742 unemployed county workers have filed for benefits in 2009 as of July 31, the most recent data available. Those numbers are well ahead of the 2008 total. Last year, 11,794 people filed initial claims in Cumberland County, which was up from 10,265 in 2007. The highest monthly total occurred in December, eclipsing 2K initial claims, according to the labor department. The upward trend started in 2008 July when initial claims hit 896 for the month -- up from 840 in 2007 July. Month over month the gap widened until 2009 January when claims reached 1,757, compared to 1,160 in 2008 January. March and April also produced claims nearly twice as much as 2008 figures. The last three months have slowly started to level off. In July, the labor department reports that 1,225 people in Cumberland County filed initial claims... Pennsylvania now offers up to 79 weeks of jobless benefits. Since 2007 December, Pennsylvania has lost more than 180K jobs, or one in every 32 jobs."
graphs
more graphs
2009-08-14
Chris Murphy _Information Week_/_UBM_
Patni going deeper, not broader for cross-border bodyshopping and off-shoring work
"Patni CEO Jeya Kumar is betting Indian IT companies need to specialize on even deeper industry expertise... Most prominent is the proposed U.S. '50-50 rule', which would cut off additional H-1B visas for companies that have more than 50 employees and have more than 50% of U.S. workers on work visas... Proposals like the 50/50 rule are part of the reason Kumar this week announced geographic group presidents for the first time in Patni's history, in the Americas and Asia Pacific. Kumar's goal is to double Patni's U.S. business over the next 3 years, from a $555M business with about 2,300 North American employees, to $1G and about 4K employees. It has 13,800 employees worldwide, and 2008 revenue of $718M."
2009-08-14 07:26PDT (10:26EDT) (14:26GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index from 66.0 in July to 63.2 in mid-August
2009-08-14 08:27PDT (11:27EDT) (15:27GMT)
_Yahoo!_/_AP_
Boeing finds wrinkles in 787 fuselage sections, orders Italian supplier to halt production
2009-08-14
Noel Brown _Georgia Socialist Broadcasting_
Foreign Workers Won't Be Furloughed by Georgia University System, though US Citizen Employees Will Be
Laura Diamond: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
2009-08-14
Robert Appleby _Frederick county VA Examiner_
Uprising in progress: Why so many are so angry at increasing government abuse
2009-08-14
Kathy Jessup _Kalamazoo MI Gazette_/_Michigan Live_
Michigan Citizen Action, Kalamazoo Single Payer Across the Nation, staged propaganda session
"MCA's Web site shows it is affiliated with HCAN and USAction... KSPAN sought signatures on its own local petition Tuesday night supporting a so-called 'single-payer' health care system. Under that option, tax revenue pays for cradle-to-grave health care for all U.S. residents, eliminating private health insurance. According to Teeter, MCA supports an expanded Obama Administration plan that's also backed nationally by USAction and Health Care for America NOW!"
2009-08-14
"Yosemite_Sam" _Auburn CA Journal_
Focus on the Big Picture: CHOICE
2009-08-14
Norm Matloff _H-1b/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
Numbers USA
unfortunate DoL decision for audit blitz: audits will do little good because most of the fraud surrounding H-1B and L-1 visas is perfectly legal, and because information is not available to run proper cross-checks
I usually don't post articles like the one [by Stephanie Overby], because abuse of the H-1B program is primarily due to exploiting huge loop-holes of the law, rather than to weak enforcement of the law. However, I feel the need to state this periodically, to inform new subscribers to this e-newsletter, and for that matter, to remind the existing ones.
Once again, folks, it is LEGAL to pay H-1Bs below-market wages. Yes, they must pay something called the "prevailing wage", but the legal definition of that term is full of major loop-holes, which are exploited by employers, including the large, mainstream firms. So, while it's true, that some employers do break the law, most find no need to do so, as they can use the H-1B visa for cheap labor while complying fully with the law [and its fraudulent provisions].
Therefore, audits cannot fix the H-1B cheap labor problem. Nor can they fix the loop-hole referred to by professor Hira in his remark about circumventing the U.S. labor market -- there is no legal requirement that employers try to fill jobs with U.S. citizens and permanent residents before resorting to hiring H-1Bs, and thus THERE IS NOTHING TO AUDIT in this regard. (I thus don't see Ron's point, and suspect he's been misquoted.)
So, why engage in these audits, especially in such a high-profile manner as we see in the [Overby] article? There are 2 possible answers: (a) DoL is naive, and truly wants to fix the perceived problem, or (b) DoL is grandstanding, trying to deflect attention away from the real issue, the loop-holes. I've pointed out before that the industry lobbyists love to see highly-publicized raids on bodyshops, precisely because of (b), and since both major parties are beholden to the tech industry on the issue due to campaign contributions (prominent Republicans have admitted this publicly, and of course it's true for the Democrats too), I must say that (b) may well be the cause for the sudden audit blitz. On the other hand, as a longtime admirer of DoL chief Hilda Solis, I hope the cause is instead (a). If it is (a), it's still sad that she is so uninformed, given her vow at her confirmation hearing to address the H-1B issue.
Again, fraud is NOT the main problem [if you neglect the "talent shortage" fraud and the "prevailing wage" fraud]. Yes, there was a study that found a 21% non-compliance [fraud] rate, but as the article mentions, many of the "violations" were merely technical. Even most of the ones violating prevailing wage requirements probably involved only a small dollar amount; in cases in which a DoL audit on prevailing wage resulting in the department ordering employers to give workers back pay, the typical payment has been about $2K per worker. These violations are probably not deliberate. By contrast, making use of the loopholes can save the employer 10 times that amount, or more.
The excellent Durbin/Grassley bill would, if enacted intact, plug the loop-holes. However, if the bill ever does somehow pass, I believe the loop-hole-plugging portions would be removed, leaving only some provisions to beef up enforcement, for the most part useless.
Norm
Stephanie Overby: ComputerWorld/IDG: Some H-1B visa sponsors are being audited
2009-08-14
Michael Schaus _Jefferson county Examiner_
What we aren't supposed to know about the health care perversion proposal
2009-08-14
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
K-1 fiancee visa racket
2009-08-14 (5769 Menachem-Ab 24)
Rabbi Berel Wein _Jewish World Review_
Believing is seeing: 20/20 spiritual vision is the goal
2009-08-14
| DJIA | 9,321.40 |
| S&P 500 | 1,004.09 |
| NASDAQ | 1,985.52 |
| Nikkei | 10,597 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 3.57% |
| crude oil | $67.51/barrel |
| gold | $948.70/ounce |
| silver | $14.722/ounce |
| platinum | $1,261.70/ounce |
| palladium | $277.25/ounce |
| copper | $0.17725/ounce |
| natgas | $3.238/MBTU |
| reformulatedgasoline |
$1.9380/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.8410/gal |
| dollarindex | 78.75 |
| yenperdollar | 94.86 |
| dollarspereuro | 1.4169 |
| dollarsperpound | 1.6494 |
| swissfranksperdollar | 1.0747 |
| indianrupeesperdollar | 48.25 |
| mexicanpesosperdollar | 12.854 |
| MorganStanleyHighTechIndex | 496.82 |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
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"This 'new deal' insists that job security is history & that employees' best hope lies in making sure they continue to add value to their employer. In return, they can expect broad new freedoms to set their own hours & create their own working conditions. But the safety net that so many employees once took for granted would be gone. In its place would be a new philosophy that everyone is responsible for his or her own career." --- Wellford W. Wilms 1996 _Restoring Prosperity_ pg 13 (referencing Brian O'Reilly 1994-06-13 "The New Deal: What Companies & Employees Owe One Another" _Fortune_ pp 44-52)
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2009-08-15
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-15
Monifa Thomas _Chicago Sun-Times_
Nurses not immune to sick economy, dysfunctional job markets
2009-08-15
Dave Umhoefer _Milwaukee WI Journal Sentinel_
Both sides now mobilized for health care "town hall meetings"
George Bennett: Palm Beach FL Post
Gail Russell Chaddock: Mankato MN Free Press/Christian Science Monitor
"Health Care for America Now! [HCAN], a national coalition of labor, political, health and church groups formed to back health reform. Its largest single funding source is The Atlantic Philanthropies, a huge charity founded by Charles 'Chuck' Feeney, whose fortune was built from a worldwide chain of duty-free airport shops... Americans for Prosperity... The group says it gets 15% of its funds from corporations and the rest from individuals. It does not disclose names. The organization has its roots in a group co-founded by Charles G. Koch, whose Koch Industries was ranked America's second-largest private company in 2008 by Forbes."
2009-08-15
Michelle Malkin _Washington Times_
Thugs Are Wearing Purple Shirts
Harrisonburg VA Daily News Record
SEIU President Andy Stern, the militant social worker turned union heavy, boasts of his organizing philosophy: '[W]e prefer to use the power of persuasion, but if that doesn't work, we use the persuasion of power.'"
2009-08-15
_News Max_/_AP_
$12M ad blitz backing Obamacare
2009-08-16
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-16
Jan Falstad _Billings MT Gazette_
American Steel ready to build new state-of-the-art steel manufacturing facility east of Billings
2009-08-16
_Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights_
Abortion is in the health care bills
"Amendments to explicitly exclude abortion from the bills have been sponsored by representative Bart Stupak, representative Joe Pitts, representative Eric Cantor, representative Sam Johnson, senator Mike Enzi and senator Orrin Hatch. In every case, they lost... When representative Pitts asked Committee Counsel about whether the amendment by representative Lois Capps would allow the secretary of health and human services (HHS) to cover abortion in the public plan, he was told it did... On Aug. 10, when representative Zoe Lofgren was specifically asked about this subject, she said, 'Abortion will be covered as a benefit by one or more of the health care plans available to Americans, and I think it should be.'"
2009-08-16
Ernest Istook _Border Fire Report_
Purple-shirted People Beaters: David Gladney beaten by SEIU thugs
"Representative Tim Bishop (D-NY) loudly refused to hold town halls, but instead scheduled a rally at an SEIU union hall. Many, like representative Kathy Castor (D-FL), have asked SEIU to be a 'sponsor' of their town halls. 'Enforcers' might be a better word. One news account of a Castor's town hall reported, 'Tractor sized bouncers (union thugs) man-handled the over-flow crowd, injuring several... Eyewitnesses report SEIU/ACORN members roughing up seniors, pushing little old ladies against a wall and literally tearing a man's shirt.'... This spring the Associated Press dubbed SEIU the nation's fastest-growing labor union as it passed the 2.2M member mark. The growth has come largely through mergers as SEIU swallowed up other groups. About half its members are in health care -- hospital and nursing home workers especially. Estimates say 17% of American health care workers are now in SEIU. It would like to sign up the other 83%... 'In coalition with other organizations, SEIU will participate in multi-million dollar paid advertising campaigns this month and throughout 2009.' SEIU's overt orchestration should be remembered when people like senator Harry Reid (D-NV), complain about the huge crowds of private citizens at town hall meetings."
2009-08-16
Shandra Martinez _Michigan Live_
Health care change debate divides retail workers, most of whom have no health care insurance, and divides retail employers
2009-08-16
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Another difference without a distiction
Jon Ward: Washington Times: Ezekiel Emanuel on health care rationing
2009-08-16
Kahrin Deines _Billings MT Gazette_
Pence: Role of Montanans in issue debates is "powerful"
2009-08-16
Lou Dobbs
Dobbs & Jobs
2009-08-16
Justin Ptak _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Keynes and Penn spread Teller's wealth around
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"We feel that our objectives can best be achieved by people who understand & support them & who are allowed flexibility in working toward common goals in ways that they help determine are best for their operation & their organization." --- David Packard 1995 _The HP Way_ pg 128 (quoted in Wellford W. Wilms 1996 _Restoring Prosperity_ pg 153)
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2009-08-17
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-17
Norm Matloff _H-1b/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
Re: unfortunate DoL decision for audit blitz: audits will do little good because most of the fraud surrounding H-1B and L-1 visas is perfectly legal, and because information is not available to run proper cross-checks
Recently I made a post here on the recent government announcement that it would audit H-1B employers. In my post, I stated that the main abuse of the H-1B program is fully legal, due to huge loop-holes, rather than to illegal actions on the part of the employers. Yes, some fraud does exist, but the abuse mainly takes the form of fully legal, good old American exploitation of loop-holes [i.e. fraud and such written into the statutes], exactly what happens with the tax code.
Based on some e-mail response I got from some readers, I believe I should elaborate on my earlier posting, which I'll do below. BTW, the audit is being conducted by USCIS, not DoL. I noticed this error when I was composing my post, but forgot to fix it before dispatching it. Sorry for the confusion. I presume there is some coordination with DoL, but the ones conducting the audit are USCIS.
The most important point I made in my previous posting was that the illegal under-payment of wages sometimes found in audits, whether deliberate or not, is just peanuts compared to what employers can get absolutely legally. Thus the real issue is the loop-holes, not enforcement. [And so, we see that the "prevailing wage" requirement is a fraud, since the name gives the impression that it requires paying the actual, previously existing market compensation for the same work, done by someone with the same talent, knowledge, credentials, experience, etc., while, in actuality, it allows the guest-worker to be paid significantly less. Similarly, the "talent shortage" claims are fraud, and the vast majority of the "no local US applicants are 'qualified'" claims are fraud (and excellent examples of weasel-wording).]
For example, in a 1993 highly-publicized crack-down by DoL on the Digital Equipment Corporation, then one of the main-stream giants of the industry, it turned out that the average under-payment was about $2K. In the equally highly-publicized fine of Computech, a major bodyshop, the DoL fined the firm about $4,500 per worker per year. Adjusting for inflation, the 2 amounts are roughly comparable.
By contrast: John Miano's excellent case 2001 study showed in detail how the [Bank of India] and Exult exploited the loop-holes to fire U.S. citizens and permanent residents in Charlotte making an average of about $80K by H-1Bs making about $40K.
For another case study of the details of how loop-holes are used.
Among other things, one of the key factors, as I always point out, is age. The H-1B program swells the pool of younger, thus cheaper, workers, enabling employers to shun the older, more expensive Americans. In 2006, for instance, new computer graduates made about $50K per year, while the median among all software engineers was $82K. [New college CS grads are receiving average salary offers of $61,407, and $61,738 for CE grads, and $52,089 for IS grads, according to NACE.]
The age factor indirectly plays a role in the first case study above, though not the second.
In any event, clearly the $4,500 under-payment in the celebrated Computech case was nothing compared to the real savings employers incur via H-1B. USCIS has the wrong target.
---30---
2009-08-17
Hilda Surtida _Orange county (CA?, FL?, VA?) Examiner_
Nurses contending with recession
2009-08-17
Bradley Vasoli _Philadelphia PA Bulletin_
Toomey still has lead over Setak and Specter in Rasmussen poll
2009-08-17
Bradley Vasoli _Philadelphia PA Bulletin_
Data Suggest Abundance Of Domestic Labor
2009-08-17
Frosty Wooldridge _Right Side News_
Anchor Babies: Born in the USA
2009-08-17
Andrew R. McIlvaine _Human Resources Executive_
Cincinnati body shop Convergys lost $61M in 2009Q2, and difficulties continue for HR BPO
WikiPedia: Convergys is a privacy-violation firm derived from the Cincinnati Bell local government-enforced monopoly and its privacy-violation arm, Cincinnati Bell Information Systems, together with MATRIXX/AT&T Solutions Customer Care/AT&T Transtech, DigitalThink, Intervoice, Datacom call center operations, Stream Global Services; with subsidiary operations including Infinys Rating and Billing (IRB), Dynamic Decisioning Solution (DDS), ICOMS, Customer Management Solutions
2009-08-17
Ludwig von Mises _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Compulsory National Socialist "Insurance"
2009-08-17
Morgan Simmons _Knoxville TN News_
Proud son of WW1 hero, sergeant York, gives tours of park named for his father
2009-08-17
David R. Francis _Christian Science Monitor_
Is population growth a Ponzi scheme?
"Some nations facing decline are fighting back with incentives for families to have more children. The United States is bucking the trend with its relatively high immigration rate. Growth, whether through immigration or natural increase, is a plus for some groups. For business, it means a boost in the demand for products. It also means a surge in low- and high-skilled workers, which can keep a lid on wage pressures. Religious and ethnic groups want more immigrants of their own faith and ethnicity to raise their political and social clout. The military regards young immigrants as potential recruits. But the public pays a cost for a bigger population. Mr. Chamie speaks of more congestion on highways, more farmland turned into housing developments, more environmental damage, including the output of pollutants associated with climate change."
2009-08-17
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #2049
off-shore out-sourcing at Arizona's Salt River Project
The Arizona utility Salt River Project (SRP) decided to out-source their IT department to the 2 Indian owned bodyshops Accenture and Infosys. SRP officials claim that out-sourcing the jobs will save them money but they won't say how much.
Barbara Hoffnagle, assistant general manager and chief information executive, made a statement that on the surface seems to make sense, but upon reflection is bizarre:
Some of the work that could be out-sourced is done now by contract workers, she said, but out-sourcing could help SRP because the utility would no longer have to manage the workers.
You can be sure that most of the decisions to out-source are being made by bean counters with MBA degrees. Their degree is in MANAGEMENT, yet they're complaining about the burden of having to MANAGE employees. Hopefully once their computer people are fired SRP will decide to no longer burden the MBAs by having to come to work because there are no more people for them to manage.
SRP paints an optimistic forecast of the fate of those who will lose their jobs, but the reality will be quite different for most of them. Some of them will lose their houses, but that will go unnoticed in the Phoenix metro area where foreclosures are epidemic. Most of them will be hard-pressed to find a job in the depressed Arizona economy.
This is the type of standard boilerplate all companies tell the news media when they are going to throw their employees on the street:
SRP officials said that between 40-50 jobs are at stake, but that some employees who work in IT have been leaving for other jobs because of the likelihood of out-sourcing. Others are being encouraged to seek positions in other IT areas that won't be out-sourced, Hoffnagle said.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that SRP employees have been quitting, ostensibly for high paying jobs, and undisclosed numbers of them will be "encouraged" to find other types of jobs at SRP?
So, in order to save a fistfull of dollars, SRP is disposing a few dozen of their American employees. Nobody including SRP seems to be concerned with the fact that Indian nationals will control the computer systems for large parts of Arizona's water and electricity infrastructure. To make matters even worse Arizona residents who are captive customers of SRP will have no say in how their personal data is used by the Indians. National security and personal privacy always seems to play a back seat role when corporate profits are to be realized.
In other SRP news: they are raising rates for electricity that will increase their revenue by $200M and they are applying for federal stimulus funds (they haven't disclosed how many hundreds of millions of dollars) that are supposed to be used to create jobs.
SRP considers out-sourcing to save money
Some question need for huge SRP rate increase
Salt River Project applying for stimulus money; Arizona Public Service considering it
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"I'm an R&D engineer. I'm interested in how it sells, but I am most interested in the contribution it makes to society. I want to do something like no one has done before. To do it better... When I came to work here, I wanted to be proud of my work. To make it the best quality possible. Quality came at a high price, but then we had the money. We were good at what we did, but that also meant that we were insular. We were just like the customer, because every engineer used [the same equipment]. Market research was right here... Often I don't understand the customer's environment, & I'm afraid of looking dumb. Also, we're so open here in the way we talk. There are no secrets. But I worry about divulging information in casual conversations with customers. I also worry that I may get committed to something I don't want to." --- Keith Ferguson 1993-10-19 (quoted in Wellford W. Wilms 1996 _Restoring Prosperity_ pg 162)
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2009-08-18
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-18
Don E. Sears _eWeek_
USCIS finally conducting work-place audits of visa sponsors
2009-08-18
Trevor Jensen _Chicago Tribune_/_WGN_
Rose Director Friedman died today
Vivien Lou Chen: Bloomberg
Wall Street Journal
"Mrs. Friedman died of heart failure today at her home in Davis, CA, according to the University of Chicago... Mrs. Friedman was co-author with her husband on a number of books including _Capitalism and Freedom_ and _Free to Choose_. Milton Friedman, who died in 2006, was a free market champion and a leading thinker in the 'Chicago School' of economics. 'Rose Friedman was fully involved in all the personal and professional decisions made along with Milton Friedman.', said Gary Becker, also a Nobel Prize winning economist from the University of Chicago, in a statement issued by the university. 'She was also a significant economist in her own right.'"
2009-08-18
Dave Gibson _Norfolk VA Examiner_
Ilegal aliens are bankrupting Los Angeles CA
"This June alone, the county paid out $48M to the children of illegal aliens, known as 'anchor babies', an increase of $10M over 2007 June. $26M of that total came in the form of food stamps, while another $22M was given to the illegal alien families in welfare checks. If the current pace continues for the remainder of 2009, Los Angeles County will spend nearly $600M on those two programs this year alone. That is in addition to the more than $1G that the county spends annually on the medical treatment, education, emergency services, and incarceration of illegal aliens."
2009-08-18
Martin Feldstein _Wall Street Journal_
Obamacare is all about rationing by fiat
2009-08-18
Chad Groening _One News Now_
Illegal aliens trump veterans at US medical offices
2009-08-18
Michael Cutler _News Blaze_
Response to "DHS Report Attacking True Immigration Reformers as 'Extremists'"
2009-08-18
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
Legal Immigration -- The Bigger Obamacare Problem
"Fully 80% of Americans say they don't want illegal aliens to be covered by government subsidized health insurance. A Rasmussen Poll shows only 11% supported it. A full 70% said that it would be a deal-breaker... But here's the problem: the long-term budget crisis is essentially a health care crisis—and neither crisis can be resolved without curbing legal immigration... First, the Congressional Budget Office's latest long-term budget forecast estimates that federal spending for Medicare and Medicaid alone will rise from 5.3% of the Gross Domestic Product this year to 6.4% in 2020 and 10% in 2035... Second, a Pew Foundation study (see table below) finds that new (post-2005) immigrants and their U.S.A.-born children and grandchildren will account for 82% of U.S. population growth through mid-century. The 1990 immigration law supposedly 'capped' legal immigration at [a hideously excessive] 700K people a year. Yet, for technical reasons, there have been only 2 years in which legal immigration has been below that level since 1990. In 2006, 2007, and 2008 the number of people granted permanent resident status was 1,266,129; 1,052,417; and 1,107,126, respectively... In 2008, Median weekly earnings of immigrant workers were 20% below native-born Americans—and 24.5% below earnings of white non-Hispanic native-born American whites ($595/wk for immigrants vs. $744/wk for all native-born Americans and $788/wk; for native whites). Foreign-born males earned 27% less than their native-born American counterparts... There is only one way to stop Obamacare from being yet another transfer program forcing American [tax-victims] to subsidize immigrants: an immediate and permanent immigration moratorium."
2009-08-18
Michael Schaus _Jefferson county Examiner_
What we aren't supposed to know about the health care perversion proposal part 2
2009-08-18
Andrew Biggs _American Enterprise Institute_
Elderly receiving more from Medicare than they paid in
"This typical person paid around $64,971 in Medicare pay-roll taxes over his life-time. Likewise, after netting out Medicare premiums, he'll receive around $173,886 in lifetime Medicare benefits. The net? He can expect to receive around $108,915 more in benefits than he paid in taxes over his life-time."
2009-08-18 (5769 Menachem-Ab 28)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Are Wall Street traders' salaries obscene?
2009-08-18 (5769 Menachem-Ab 28)
Jonathan Tobin _Jewish World Review_
No second thoughts: Is Obama's bestowing Presidential Medal of Freedom on woman who presided over a United Nation's anti-Semitic hate fest yet another testing of the waters for future outrages against Israel?
2009-08-18 (5769 Menachem-Ab 28)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Whose medical decisions? part 1
"Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is 'Special Advisor for Health Policy' for the Obama administration. That's nowhere? He is also co-author of an article on Americans' "over-utilization" of medical care in the 2008 June 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association... Dr. Emanuel's article points out that Americans do not visit doctors or go into hospitals more than people in other industrialized countries. In fact we go to both places less often than people do in those other countries, which include countries with government-controlled medical care... when you select people like Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel to give "independent" guidance, you have already chosen a policy through your choice of advisors..."
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"The amount of parental involvement in the child's education may explain up to 4 times as much of the variance in the child's intelligence & achievement test scores at age 11 as the quality of the schools... In a national sample of 5K children in England, [it was] found that parent interest & involvement with the child's education were far more important than the quality of schools, even after statistically controlling for family socio-economic status." --- Earl Schaefer (quoted in James L. Buckley 1975-03-12 to the National Congress of Parents & Teachers; entered in _Congressional Record_ 1975-05-13 pg S13991)
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2009-08-19
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-19
Mark Thornton _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Bernanke's Apoplithorismosphobia
2009-08-19
Jim Hightower
Corporate spending on politics may be examined by supremes in September
2009-08-19
Steve Minter _Industry Week_
Off-Shoring by US companies has doubled
"In 2008, more than 50% of U.S. companies had a corporate offshoring strategy, more than doubling from the 22% in 2005, according to the Duke Off-Shoring Research Network's fifth annual report produced in collaboration with The Conference Board. Moreover, 60% of the companies currently off-shoring have aggressive plans to expand existing activities... Of all the off-shoring/out-sourcing projects initiated in 2007, most were related to product and software development... having a senior-level champion for off-shoring efforts..."
Offshoring Evolving at a Rapid Pace, Report Duke University and The Conference Board
2009-08-19
_Palm Springs CA Desert Sun_
USA life expectancy 77.9 years: 75.3 years for men & 80.4 years for women
Stacey Singer: Palm Beach FL Post
UPI
"The preliminary number of deaths in the United States in 2007 was 2,423,995, a 2,269 decrease from the 2006 total... The preliminary infant mortality rate for 2007 was 6.77 infant deaths per 1K live births, a 1.2% increase from the 2006 rate of 6.69, though not considered statistically significant. Birth defects were the leading cause of infant death in 2007, followed by disorders related to pre-term birth and low birth-weight... Another recent CDC report containing early data for 2008 counted 2.45M deaths last year."
National Center for Health Statistics
2009-08-19
Marc Gallagher _Liberty Maven_
Rand Paul talks family, founders, and politics
2009-08-19
Todd Keister _NY Examiner_
Participation in meetings with congress-critters show Americans still love freedom
2009-08-19
Michael Schaus _Jefferson county Examiner_
How health care proposal threatens our liberties
2009-08-19 11:02PDT (14:02EDT) (18:02GMT)
_8 Las Vegas NV Now_/_AP_
Former ACORN Las Vegas director Christopher Edwards pled guilty to violation of Nevada law against paid registration gathering
2009-08-19
Mike Rogoway _Oregonian_
Tektronix moving some production to Red China
2009-08-10
James Hannah _Dayton OH Daily News_/_AP_
HBO documentary "The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant" depicts closing of GM plant in Moraine south of Dayton in December
UAW local 1853
Boston Globe
2009-08-19 (5769 Menachem-Ab 29)
Steven Emerson _Jewish World Review_
US Tax-Victims Funding Pro-Hamas Propaganda
"In its 1994 October 27 issue, Al Zaytounah's headline was: 'In its greatest operation, Hamas takes credit for the bombing of an Israeli bus in the heart of Tel Aviv.'"
2009-08-19 (5769 Menachem-Ab 29)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Is Racial Profiling Racist?
"According to the American Cancer Society, the life-time risk of men getting breast cancer is about 1/10th of 1 percent, or 1 in 1K; and 440 men will die of breast cancer this year. For women, the risk of developing breast cancer is about 12 percent, or 1 in 8, and 40,610 will die from it this year. Should doctors and medical insurance companies be prosecuted for the discriminatory practice of routine breast cancer screening for women but not for men?... The rates of death from cardiovascular diseases are about 30% higher among black adults than among white adults. Cervical cancer rates are 5 times higher among VietNamese women in the U.S.A. than among white women. Pima Indians of Arizona have the highest known diabetes rates in the world. Prostate cancer is nearly twice as common among black men as white men... Here's my question: Is the racial profiling done by cab drivers, pizza deliverers or Jesse Jackson a sign of racism or economizing on information costs?"
2009-08-19 (5769 Menachem-Ab 29)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Whose medical decisions? part 2
"My experience is probably not very different from that of many other people in their seventies. My medical expenses in the past year have been more than in the first 40 years of my life -- and I did not spend one night in a hospital all last year or go to an emergency room even once. Just the ordinary medical expenses of keeping an old geezer going along in good health are high. Throw in a medical emergency or two and the costs go through the roof. So long as my insurance company and I are paying for it, it is nobody else's business what my medical expenses are. But once the government is involved, everything is their business."
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"Now it is a funny thing about life. If you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it; if you utterly decline to make do with what you can get, then somehow or other you are likely to get what you want." --- Somerset Maugham (quoted in Roberta Jean Bryant 1991 _Stop Improving Yourself & Start Living_ pg 65)
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2009-08-20
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-20 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 454,216 in the week ending August 15, a decrease of 28,406 from the previous week. There were 343,169 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.4% during the week ending August 8, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,798,001, a decrease of 97,650 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.4% and the volume was 3,160,610. Extended benefits were available in AK, AZ, AR, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VT, VA, WA, and WI during the week ending August 1. [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs
2009-08-20
Dustin Bleizeffer _Casper WY Star-Tribune_/_Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Some senators say they'll fight Waxman-Markey cap and trade scheme
2009-08-20 02:56PDT (05:56EDT) (09:56GMT)
_Wall Street Journal_
Obamacare's Contradictions
2009-08-20
Alison Damast _Business Week_
Foreign student admissions down at US grad schools, but, unfortunately, only by 3%
"Applications from both India and South Korea fell in 2009, with declines of 12% and 9% respectively... The one [dark] spot in the report came from [Red China], where applications were up 14% and the Middle East and Turkey, a region that posted a 22% increase. Admissions offers, meanwhile, were up 13% for [Red China] and 10% for the Middle East and Turkey—without which the 3% overall decline would be a lot [better]."
2009-08-20
_Billings MT Gazette_/_AP_
Denny Rehberg got an earful from constituents at Montana State U, but are any of the congress-critters listening and hearing?
2009-08-20
Joan Barron _Caspar WY Star-Tribune_/_Billings MT Gazette_
Coalition to Protect Patients' Rights calls for slower pace when considering unconstituional federal meddling in health care
2009-08-20
Alissa Groeninger _Daily Illini_
Home make-over benefits philanthropic family of former engineer who'd let their own home go while helping others
"Before Nathan Montgomery left his engineering job, he was on pace to make six figures. Montgomery left the corporate world five years ago and formed the non-profit Salt & Light, a ministry that seeks to meet the physical and spiritual needs of poor people in Champaign County. The organization runs solely on donations and feeds an average of 250 families a week. Montgomery, who was born and raised in Champaign, helps distribute the food. There are nearly 23K people in Champaign County who live in poverty, according to the 2007 Report on Illinois Poverty. Salt & Light also gives free clothes, furniture and household goods to people in need."
2009-08-20
_Reliable Plant_
Age discrimination can be eased if lay-offs and hiring focus on job context
2009-08-20
Rabbi Yonason Goldson _Jewish World Review_
It's right before your eyes
2009-08-20
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Whose medical decisions? part 3
"Deception is not an incidental aspect of this medical care legislation, but is at the very heart of it."
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"[Andrew Carnegie's] philanthropy that touched the most people directly was the 2811 free public libraries given at a cost of more than $50M. Carnegie donated the building but only if a town or city agreed to stock it with books & operate it. Not forgetting his native land, Carnegie set up a Scottish Universities Trust with a gift of $10M... Churches received 7689 organs... at a cost of over $6M. He donated $17M to several hundred colleges & universities, selecting small ones rather than the best known institutions... He hated football..." --- Fon W. Boardman 1979 _America & the Robber Barons 1865-1913_ pg 97
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2009-08-21
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-21
Caitlin Byrnes _Red and Black_
UGA picks its furlough days: lay-offs possible
"Adams announced the 6 official furlough days -- all student holidays with the exception of spring Reading Day -- as an answer to the statewide budget shortfall. All faculty making more than $23,660 will be effected, with the exception of student workers, graduate assistants and workers with H-1B visas."
2009-08-21
Bridget Mulcahy _Daily Illini_
IL governor Pat Quinn gives U of IL board of trustees a make-over
2009-08-21
Alan Reynolds _Wall Street Journal_
Big Government, Big Recessions: There's no evidence for the theory that state spending has shortened this or any other slow-down
"Federal spending rose by 6.2% in 1930, 7.7% in 1931 and 30.2% in 1932. Since prices were falling, real increases in federal spending were huge during the Hoover years... the average length of recessions from 1887 to 1929 was 10.3 months. If the current recession ended in August, then the average post-war recession lasted 1 month longer -- 11.3 months. The longest recession from 1887 to 1929 lasted 16 months. But there have been 3 recessions since 1973 that lasted at least that long... recessions after the Fed was created soon turned out to be much deeper than before (1920-21, 1929-33, 1937-38) and often more persistent."
2009-08-21
Sue McAllister _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Silicon Valley median house price rose in July to $540K
2009-08-21
Peter Whoriskey _Washington Post_
EEOC suing AT&T for Age Discrimination
NYTimes/AP
David Glovin: Houston Chronicle/Bloomberg
Gadsden Times
Gainesville FL Sun
Chip Brian: Fox/Comtex
Chad Bray & Roger Cheng: Wall Street Journal
2009-08-21
Bruce Einhorn _Business Week_
US immigration battle heating up
2009-08-21
Yuri N. Maltsev _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
What Soviet Medicine Teaches Us
2009-08-21 (5769 Elul 01)
R' Yehonasan Gefen _Torah.org_
Do Not Steal part 6
2009-08-21 (5769 Elul 01)
R' Dovid Rosenfeld _Torah.org_
Pirkei Avos chapter 4 mishna 8 "Selling Ourselves Short"
"'Go near an anointed person and you will become anointed.' (Talmud: Shavuos 47b)... 'One who pursues greatness, greatness will flee form him; one who flees from greatness, greatness will pursue him.' (Talmud: Eiruvin 13b)... What a person speaks highly about (and badly about) tells us a lot about his or her value system."
2009-08-21 (5769 Elul 01)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Et tu, Netanyahu?
2009-08-21 (5769 Elul 01)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Whose medical decisions? part 4
"The idea that government officials can play God from Washington is not a new idea, but it is an idea that is being pushed with new audacity. What they are trying to do is to create an America very unlike the America that has existed for centuries -- the America that people have been attracted to by the millions from every part of the world, the America that many generations of Americans have fought and died for. This is the America for which Michelle Obama expressed her resentment before it became politically expedient to keep quiet... The thing most associated with America -- freedom -- is precisely what must be destroyed if this is to be turned into a fundamentally different country to suit Obama's vision of the country and of himself. But do not expect a savvy politician like Barack Obama to express what he is doing in terms of limiting our freedom."
2009-08-21
| DJIA | 9,505.96 |
| S&P 500 | 1,026.13 |
| NASDAQ | 2,020.90 |
| Nikkei | 10,238 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 3.57% |
| crude oil | $73.89/barrel |
| gold | $954.70/ounce |
| silver | $14.164/ounce |
| platinum | $1,259.20/ounce |
| palladium | $284.95/ounce |
| copper | $0.18003125/ounce |
| natgas | $2.957/MBTU |
| reformulatedgasoline |
$1.9956/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.9049/gal |
| dollarindex | 78.05 |
| yenperdollar | 94.32 |
| dollarspereuro | 1.4345 |
| dollarsperpound | 1.6485 |
| swissfranksperdollar | 1.0568 |
| indianrupeesperdollar | 48.62 |
| mexicanpesosperdollar | 12.82 |
| MorganStanleyHighTechIndex | 496.82 |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
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"The yearning after equality is the off-spring of envy & covetousness, & there is no possible plan for satisfying that yearning which can do aught else than rob A to give to B; consequently all such plans nourish some of the meanest vices of human nature, waste capital, & over-throw civilization. But if we can expand the chances we can count on a general & steady growth of civilization & advancement of society by & through its best members. In the prosecution of these chances we all owe to each other good will, mutual respect, & mutual guarantees of liberty & security. Beyond this nothing can be affirmed as a duty of 1 group to another in a free state." --- William Graham Sumner 1883 _What Social Classes Owe to Each Other_ (quoted in Fon W. Boardman 1979 _America & the Robber Barons 1865-1913_ pg 138)
| |
2009-08-22
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-22
David Hedrick _You Tube_
disabled Marine instructs Brian Baird WRT health care
alternate link
Sean O'Donnell: Baltimore Examiner
BlueGrass Pundit
Free Republic
Freedom Fighter Radio
War on You
Gold Is Money
Israel Forum
History Channel
Americans for Legal Immigration PAC
Freedom's LightHouse
Daily Paul
Liberty Forest Ron Paul Forums
2009-08-22
Kay Lazar _Boston MA Globe_
Massachusetts edging toward health care rationing
National Center for Policy Analysis
| |
"What is the best government? That which teaches us to govern ourselves." --- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (quoted in John Perkins 1993 _Malice in Wonderland_ pg 240)
| |
2009-08-23
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-23
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_
Wheat producers are wary of futures market after 2009's price collapse
Chicago futures market helped farming succeed in West
2009-08-23
Allison Rupp _Casper WY Star-Tribune_
senator Mike Enzi and the "Gang of 6"
"One of his colleagues on the 'Gang of Six', senator Chuck Grassley, R-IA, said Enzi's background as an accountant shines in many of their conversations. Enzi also has experience running a small business as a shoe store owner in Gillette, said Dr. Eric Wedell, governor of Wyoming's chapter of the American College of Physicians. 'He knows personally the squeezes small-business owners are put under when trying to provide health care for their employees, and sometimes they can't.', Wedell said. Enzi said he is also one of 'the gang' because of his track record of working across party lines. He provided the Casper Rotary Club with an example Monday: A committee passes an average of three bills a year. In the two years Enzi was chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, he and senator Ted Kennedy, D-MA, had 27 bills signed. When Kennedy took over as chairman, the committee passed 14 bills. 'You got to know senator Kennedy is the third-most-liberal senator in the United States Senate, and this is last year's rating.', Enzi said, citing the non-partisan National Journal. 'I am tied for the most conservative in the United States Senate.' U.S. representative Cynthia Lummis, R-WY, said Enzi also has the experience of having a sick family member. The senator's wife, Diana, was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2006."
2009-08-23
_Right Side News_
Obamacare HR3200 will provide tax-victim funded health care to illegal aliens
2009-08-23
Jacqueline I. Ruhl _Mansfield News Journal_
illegal immigration is one factor driving health care problems
2009-08-23
Michael Cutler _Right Side News_
Attempts to apply negative labels should not silence US citizens on illegal alien problem
2009-08-23
Ned Mulka _Daily Illini_
Signs appear across U of IL main campus, asking for chancellor Richard Herman's resignation
2009-08-23 (5769 Elul 03)
Rabbi David Aaron _Jewish World Review_
Your Ony Choice IS Choice: The Secret to ExtraOrdinary Success
| |
"We bear the ark of the liberties of the world." --- Herman Melville
"America is the last, best hope of earth." --- Abraham Lincoln
| |
2009-08-24
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
senator Chuck Schumer has threatened to introduce Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion bill within 2 weeks.
2009-08-24
Andy Arnold _DC Examiner_
Needed: Leadership
2009-08-24
George Korda _Knoxville TN News_
Swimming in a ocean of red ink and not a life-line in sight
2009-08-24
Frosty Wooldridge _Right Side News_
Anchor Babies part 2
2009-08-24
Michael Moriarty _Enter Stage Right_
The inevitably Marxist zoo: $2G-$10G US tax-victim subsidy for George Soros to drill for oil in Brazil: leftist fascism, national socialism
Ben Smith: Politico: EX-Im Bank defends Brazil/Soros loan
Jim Brown: One News Now: White House says "drill, baby, drill, in Brazil"
Rig Zone
Bloomberg
Gregory Dail: Obama pays off Soros with $2G in federal loans to drill in Brazil
James Rosen: Fox
David Smith: Dallas county Examiner
2009-08-24
Brett Arends _MarketWatch_
You may be a health-care profiteer
2009-08-24
David Smith _Dallas county Examiner_
An alternative to HR3200 and the Socialist Insecurity Abomination
text of former Galveston county judge Ray Holbrook's article
2009-08-24 11:51PDT (14:51EDT) (18:51GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
USA economy still in recession
2009-08-24
_San Jose Mercury News_/_Bloomberg_
Apple may be highest grossing retailer on NY's 5th avenue
2009-08-24
Michael Eden _Start Thinking Right_
Politico article reveals that Obama's Cloward-PIven strategy is back-firing
2009-08-24
Zach Benoit _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Catholic schools invest $200k into labs, visual systems
2009-08-24
Timothy Aeppel _Wall Street Journal_
Hair care gadget maker moves manufacturing back from Red China to USA
2009-08-24
Michael Corkery _Wall Street Journal_
Union thug Denis Hughes, James Dimon and Jeffrey Immelt on NY Federal Reserve Board
2009-08-24
Javier E. David _Examiner_
keep it honest, indeed
"The Economist's coverage [of Obummer's health care perversion proposals] has been characterized by a breath-taking degree of intellectual dishonesty and misguided arguments..."
2009-08-24
Charlie Reese
545 People
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
100 senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and 9 Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300M are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1M dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300M can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy", "inflation", or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
What you do with this article now that you have read it... Is up to you.
This might be funny if it weren't so darned true.
Be sure to read all the way to the end:
Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table At which he's fed.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes Are the rule.
Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts Anyway!
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he Tries to think.
Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries Tax his tears.
Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways To tax his ass.
Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till He's good and sore.
Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in Which he's laid.
Put these words
Upon his tomb,
Taxes drove me to my doom...'
When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply The inheritance tax.
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax (FICA)
Road Usage Tax
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Ser vice FeeTax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What in the he** happened? Can you spell 'politicians?'
And I still have to 'press 1' for English!?
I hope this goes around THE USA at least 100 times!!! YOU can help it get there!!!
GO AHEAD - - BE AN AMERICAN!!!
---30---
2009-08-24 (5769 Elul 04)
Rene Stutzman _Jewish World Review_
Judge: 17 year old convert from Islam to Christian who ran away from her Muslim family in Ohio can stay in Florida for now
2009-08-24 (5769 Elul 04)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Condemning those who succeed at making a killing with other people's money
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"[W]e can say that everybody in the universe at this particular moment is doing the best that he or she can... Everything, just as it is, is perfection." --- Charlotte Joko Beck 1989 _EveryDay Zen_ pp 56-57
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2009-08-25
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-25
Norm Matloff _H-1b/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
the candidates on H-1B
No, you did not accidentally open a message from me dated last October. :-) There really are candidates involved, as I will explain, but first, please bear with me.
I do not endorse political candidates in this e-newsletter, as I don't consider that to be proper. However, I do analyze their positions on H-1B and offshoring, and have written about the politics -- money politics, that is -- of those topics.
As I've mentioned before, I'm a lifelong Democrat, but on the H-1B issue, both major parties are culpable, succumbing to pressure from a variety of groups having vested interests in the visa -- industry CEOs, the American Immigration Lawyers Association [AILA], the university lobby and so on. And in addition to campaign contributions, many in Congress have the gut feeling that the tech industry is the last bastion of American economic power, so "don't mess with it", e.g. by reforming H-1B. Indeed, as some people who call their senators and representatives tell me, many on the Hill are rather closed-minded on the issue. The excellent bipartisan Durbin/Grassley bill in the Senate is a welcome exception, but there were no co-sponsors to the bill, last I heard.
In that sense, H-1B is a microcosm for the current ills of our democratic process. Monied lobbyists and DC insiders run the show. As such, an analysis of the politics involved is worthwhile, even though this is an election only for a specific congressional district.
As it happens, it is my district. The current office holder, Ellen Tauscher, has resigned in order to accept a position in the Obama administration, so we now have an election to replace her. There is an excellent information page on the election in Wikipedia.
Also, you can read a posting I made to my e-mail list early this year on the political mess, complete with quotes from 2 politicians admitting that Congress voted for a higher H-1B cap in 2000 primarily due to campaign contributions from the industry, and with some material on Tauscher.
Well, last Saturday, a man who is a family member of one of the candidates was canvassing for votes in my neighborhood. He stopped at my house, so I asked him the candidate's stance on H-1B. He didn't know, but called the candidate, and then informed me that the candidate had said, "Many CEOs in Silicon Valley have told me that we have a shortage of programmers and engineers, so we need H-1Bs." This of course is the standard line for those already holding office, but I was startled to see that the industry had apparently talked to each of the candidates already.
Meanwhile, a reader of this e-news-letter who also lives in the district tells me that one candidate, Anthony Woods, actually does favor reform of H-1B. She e-mailed me his message, which I'm enclosing below. Without sounding negative about the reader, which I do not intend, I must note here that I have not verified this message as coming from Woods. It is not on his campaign web page. But I believe it is genuine, and I assume a summary will soon be added to Woods' web page. (If so, I will send out an update message, in fairness to him.)
I must say that I'm disturbed to see that Woods' web site does say the following: "...we must reform our visa system to make it easier for talented minds from all over the world to contribute to American industries and research institutions". This is the "instant green card" idea, which is just as harmful as H-1B, as I've explained before. The reason I'm disturbed to see that is that someone seems to have "educated" Woods too -- probably the Democratic Party.
I feel the need to reiterate that I'm not endorsing Woods, either directly or by some nefarious scheme to endorse him on the sly by making a disclaimer to the contrary. :-) I don't know whom I'll vote for yet, though it's a safe bet that it won't be the one whose family member came to my door last Saturday. :-)
Norm
Woods' message:
There is an urgent need for Comprehensive Visa reform in this country. It is time to stop large corporations from discriminating against Americans and permanent residents to save money by hiring guest workers on H-1B Visas at a lower wage than existing workers.
Senate Bill 887, introduced by senator Richard Durbin, is a fine step toward solving these problems. This bill would require employers to make a good faith effort to hire Americans first, stop the practice of "H-1B Only" ads for potential employees, prevent H-1B and L-1 workers from exceeding 50% of an employer's labor force, and provide for auditing and accountability for all companies who participate in the H-1B program. I support this legislation and hope that it is a part of any comprehensive immigration reform package.
At a time when unemployment is soaring and our nation is facing the worst recession in decades, we must pass legislation like this to ensure that Americans have a chance to compete for American jobs, so that employers don't simply out-source on our own soil.
I hope you will join me in this campaign, so that I can work to bring common sense solutions like this to the United States Congress.
Sincerely,
Anthony Woods
---30---
2009-08-25
_Cumberland PA Sentinel_/_AP_
Average US SAT scores fell one point in writing
Mary Beth Merklein: USA Today/Gannett
Nancy Badertscher: Atlanta GA Journal-Constitution
Terrence Stutz: Dallas TX Morning News
Andy Gammill: Indianapolis IN Star
Anne Ryman: Arizona Republic
Cathy Grimes: Newport News Daily Press
WHIO TV
Grand Forks Herald
Bloomington IL Pantagraph
College Board
graphs
2009-08-25
_Billings MT Gazette_/_AP_
senator Mike Enzi gets an earful on congress' proposed health care perversion scams
Obamacare. It's shovel ready.
Celebrate Diversity
2009-08-25
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
From citizen to serf in 200 years
2009-08-25 (5769 Elul 05)
Steven Emerson _Jewish World Review_
More Obama advisers continue embracing terrorism's apologists
2009-08-25 (5769 Elul 05)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The Great Escape
"The great escape of our times is escape from personal responsibility for the consequences of one's own behavior. Differences in infant mortality rates provoke pious editorials on a need for more prenatal care to be provided by the government for those unable to afford it... While it is true that black mothers get less prenatal care than white mothers and have higher infant mortality rates, it is also true that women of Mexican ancestry also get less prenatal care than white women and yet have lower infant mortality rates than white women... Americans can have the best medical care in the world without having the best health or longevity because so many people choose to live in ways that shorten their lives."
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"At best, the responsible student may learn a new concept of human relationships that rejects the propriety of practicing human sacrifice." --- Nathaniel Branden 1994-03-?? _The 6 Pillars of Self-Esteem_ pg 225
| |
2009-08-26
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-26
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_ #2051
H-1Bs exempt from furloughs
Brittany Cofer: UGA Red And Black: Some UGA employees protected from furloughs by complications of complying with federal statutes
U of WI: Impact of Furloughs on Foreign Employees
U of WI
Salisbury University
U of Baltimore
South Carolina furlough FAQs
Fermi National Lab
"These workers fall under 2 broad categories -- the first being workers making less than $23,660 annually, which includes graduate assistants and student workers, and the second being those in the U.S.A. on an H-1B visa... 'There is a three-way contract [for those people] between the institution, the individual and the federal government.', John Millsaps, Board of Regents spokesman, said Friday in a telephone interview. 'The program brings over people from outside the country for special jobs. It can only be done after an employer has done an [exhaustive] search and certified that no Americans are available for that particular job.'"
2009-08-26
_Sacramento CA Bee_
Hudson Highland Group (body shop) Europe CEO resigned
CNN
Seattle Times
Recruiter
2009-08-26 12:31PDT (15:31EDT) (19:31GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
Atlanta Fed's Dennis Lockhart says recovery will be frustratingly slow, dysfunctional job markets will continue
Breitbart/AFP
"'If my prognosis for the broad economy is correct, the pace of job restoration and growth through the medium term will be frustratingly slow.', Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Dennis Lockhart said in a speech to the Chamber of Commerce in Chattanooga, TN... Lockhart spent much of his career at [one of the forerunners] to Citigroup so his views on the banking sector carry some weight in Fed deliberations."
full speech
2009-08-26
Stephanie Overby _Computer World_/_IDG_
H-1B Reform Bill Will Hopefully Complicate Off-Shore Out-Sourcing and Cross-Border Body Shopping
CIO
Network World
InfoWorld
2009-08-26
Craig Wolf & Julie Moran Alterio _Lower Hudson_
Employee group claims Ill-Begotten Monstrosities dumped almost 10K workers in 2009
"The data come from written packages given by IBM to those who have been selected to lose their jobs."
2009-08-26 (5769 Elul 06)
Jonah Goldberg _Jewish World Review_
Obama and Faith
2009-08-26 (5769 Elul 06)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
What Will They Learn?
| |
"Creativity flourishes best in an environment where there's a relaxed spirit of playfulness. Being able to relax as you think stimulates creativity... Let your mind wander. Use your sense of humor. Avoid being too careful. Think of creative thinking as fun & you're more likely to come up with some seriously profitable ideas." --- Michael LeBoeuf 1996 _The Perfect Business_ pp 120-121
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2009-08-27
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-27 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 453,936 in the week ending August 22, a decrease of 4,049 from the previous week. There were 345,127 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.3% during the week ending August 15, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,673,467, a decrease of 135,105 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.4% and the volume was 3,175,006.
Extended benefits were available in
AL, AK, AZ,
AR, CA, CO, CT, DE,
DC, FL, GA, ID, IL,
IN, KS, KY, ME, MA, MI,
MN, MO, NV, NH, NJ, NY,
NC, OH, OR, PA, PR,
RI, SC, TN, TX, VT,
VA, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending August 8. [Note: The seasonal adjustment factors have been changed by DoL going back to at least the beginning of 2009.]"
graphs
more graphs
2009-08-27
_Daily Illini_
Legislators involved in influencing admissions to U of IL not facing any penalties
Alissa Groeninger: Daily Illini: 2 new trustees appointed
2009-08-27
Frosty Wooldridge _Official Wire_
Teddy Kennedy's mean-spirited, deadly legacy for America
Right Side News
2009-08-27 07:14PDT (10:14EDT) (14:14GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
GDP still falling in 2009Q2
2009-08-27
Erik Voorhees _Technology, Commerce, Society Daily_
The Poor Record of the Federal Reserve
Lew Rockwell
Erik Voorhees
"From 1776 to 1912 (136 years), the value of the dollar, relative to the Consumer Price Index, increased by 11%. A dollar could buy 11% more goods in 1912 than in 1776. Thus, if in 1776, you sat on your savings pile of $1,000,000 for 136 years, it would then be worth $1,110,000 in purchasing power (it will have appreciated in value by 11%). A loaf of bread for Thomas Jefferson cost the same as a loaf of bread for Lincoln 50 years later and again the same for J.P. Morgan 50 years after that."
2009-08-27 11:40PDT (14:40EDT) (18:40GMT)
Darrell DeLaMaide _MarketWatch_
What the founding fathers had in mind
2009-08-27
Chabakuk Elisha
Yichus - lineage, genealogy, heritage
2009-08-27 (5769 Elul 07)
David Seidermann _Jewish World Review_
Don't say "how tragic" -- do something
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"Study is like the light that illuminates the darkness of ignorance, & the resulting knowledge is the supreme possession because it cannot be taken by even the greatest of thieves. Study is the weapon that eliminates the enemy of ignorance. It is also the best friend to guide us through all our difficult times." --- Bstan-'dzin-ryga-mtsho Dalai Lama 1994 _The Way to Freedom_ pg 14
| |
2009-08-28
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-28
David Mercer _Daily Illini_/_AP_
U of IL faculty senate wants president and chancellor gone due to admissions influence scandal
2009-08-28
Tom Lutey _Billings MT Gazette_
Candy companies try "shortage" whining gambit: Farmers assure there's no shortage of US sugar
"The United States has an elaborate system of tariffs and quotas that assure that 85% of the country's sugar is American grown. Those regulations have driven sugar's price to a 28-year high, souring the mood of the nation's food companies... record imports from other countries this year, plus the size of the current sugar beet and cane crops, the USDA has increased its supply and demand estimates for sugar... Mathur said Western Sugar farmers in Montana should have a record harvest this year. The summer weather has been ideal for growing beets."
2009-08-28 06:57PDT (09:57EDT) (13:57GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Consumer spending still out-racing incomes
BEA
"Real disposable incomes are up 0.7% since bottoming in March, but are down 3.5% from the peak in 2008 May, when taxes were cut. Real consumer spending has risen 0.3% from the bottom in April, but is down 1.6% since the recession began in 2007 December. Incomes and spending were revised higher in May and June. Incomes dropped 1.1% in June, not the 1.3% originally reported. Real spending rose 0.1% in June, rather than falling 0.1% as initially reported. Incomes from private-sector wages and salaries increased 0.1% in July, the first such rise since 2008 August. Private-sector wage and salary incomes are down 7% in the past 12 months -- the worst year-over-year decline on record, dating back to 1948. Incomes from small businesses rose 0.6% in July. Income from financial assets fell 1%. Income from transfer payments fell 0.2%."
2009-08-28 07:58PDT (10:58EDT) (14:58GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index changed from 66.0 in July to 63.2 in early August to 65.7 in late August
"Just 16% of all consumers reported that their finances had improved in August, the smallest proportion since the question was first asked in 1946."
2009-08-28
Jeremiah Marquez _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Apple to sell iPhones in Red China through Unicom, an arm of the government
"Unicom, one of three major state-owned carriers, would be the first [Red Chinese] phone company to formally support the iPhone, though thousands of unlocked iPhones brought in from other markets are in use in [Red China]. It is the only company in [Red China] that supports the network standard needed for the iPhone, known as WCDMA. [Red China's] mobile market trails the United States, Japan and some others in financial size but it has 650M mobile phone accounts and is seen as a major prize for foreign firms... Many Chinese already own smuggled iPhones purchased on the country's thriving gray market. There are well over 1.5M of the devices in China, according to estimates by BDA China Ltd., a Beijing technology research firm... Unicom says it had 133 million accounts as of Dec. 31, while China Mobile, the world's biggest phone company by subscribers, says it has more than 450M. The third competitor is China Telecom Ltd., with a small mobile unit. Beijing rearranged its state-owned phone companies into those 3 groups last year to revive competition. They were awarded third-generation mobile licenses in January."
WCDMA
"In the late 1990's, W-CDMA was developed by NTT DoCoMo as the air interface for their 3G network FOMA. Later NTT DoCoMo submitted the specification to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as a candidate for the international 3G standard known as IMT-2000. The ITU eventually accepted W-CDMA as part of the IMT-2000 family of 3G standards, as an alternative to CDMA2000, EDGE, and the short range DECT system. Later, W-CDMA was selected as an air interface for UMTS... development of cell-phone networks based on CDMA was dominated by Qualcomm..."
2009-08-28
Eric Chevlen, MD _First Things_
Confessions of a Health Care Rationer
2009-08-28
Zimu Yang _Technique_
State orders budget cuts and furloughs on Institute
"Those earning less than $23,660 each year, research and teaching assistants, non-resident aliens on an H-1B visa, those critical to life and safety and those on sponsorship money will be exempt from furloughs, causing some controversy."
2009-08-28
Michael Eden _Start Thinking Right_
Obama's use of Cloward-Piven strategy to establish radical leftism via collapse
2009-08-28
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
Newspapers ask politicians to rescue them from the public/markets
2009-08-28
Joe Guzzardi _V Dare_
senator Specter (TurnCoat-PA) marches on... or maybe not!
2009-08-28 (5769 Elul 08)
Rabbi Yonason Goldson _Jewish World Review_
Darwin's Appendix
"Contemporary biologists have identified the appendix as a store-house for good bacteria and white blood cells that replenish the body's immune system more quickly whenever it becomes depleted by fighting disease."
2009-08-28 (5769 Elul 08)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
The Rigged Game
"What the Guardian account shows is an Obama administration looking to blame Israel for the failure of its policy of attempting to appease the likes of Iranian dictator Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
2009-08-28
| DJIA | 9,544.20 |
| S&P 500 | 1,028.93 |
| NASDAQ | 2,028.77 |
| Nikkei | 10,534 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 3.44% |
| crude oil | $72.74/barrel |
| gold | $958.80/ounce |
| silver | $14.784/ounce |
| platinum | $1,245.90/ounce |
| palladium | $290.60 /ounce |
| copper | $0.1826875/ounce |
| natgas | $3.054/MBTU |
| reformulatedgasoline |
$2.0703/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.8625/gal |
| dollarindex | 78.30 |
| yenperdollar | 93.64 |
| dollarspereuro | 1.4299 |
| dollarsperpound | 1.6260 |
| swissfranksperdollar | 1.0607 |
| indianrupeesperdollar | 48.65 |
| mexicanpesosperdollar | 13.1378 |
| MorganStanleyHighTechIndex | 509.34 |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
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"I am not impressed with what people own. But I'm impressed with what they achieve. I'm proud to be a physician. Always strive to be the best in your field... Don't chase money. If you are the best in your field, money will find you." --- anonymous millionaire physician (quoted in Thomas J. Stanley & William D. Danko 1996 _The Millionaire Next Door_ pg 207)
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2009-08-29
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-29
Rob Preston _Information Week_
Out-Sourcing's Next Big Thing: out-come based contracts
"The IT out-sourcing (especially off-shoring) movement has been mostly about what Forrester analyst Bill Martorelli calls 'staff augmentation' -- contracting for the cheapest people to hack code, monitor data centers, man help desks, and do other basic but essential IT work. Customers have grown accustomed to managing out-sourcing resources, not business outcomes, he notes."
2009-08-29
Dancho Danchev _Ziff Davis_/_CNET_/_CBS_
Inside India's CAPTCHA solving economy: Throwing cheap labor at
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"The average net income for the more than 15M sole proprietorships in America is only $6.2K! About 25% of sole proprietorships do not make 1 cent of profit during a typical year. It's even worse for partnerships. 42%, on average, make no profits in a year... Only 55% [of corporations] have any taxable income during a typical 12-month period." --- Thomas J. Stanley & William D. Danko 1996 _The Millionaire Next Door_ pg 232
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2009-08-30
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
2009-08-30
Rosemary Powers _Daily Illini_
U of IL at Urbana-Champaign faculty senate to hear statements from president White, chancellor Herman, and vote on admissions reform
2009-08-30
Steve Sailer _V Dare_
Alyssa Katz' _Our Lot_: A Leftist Perspective On How Political Pressure To Boost Minority Homeownership Helped Blow Up The Economy
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"Never negatively criticizing someone's attempt is enormously important, because when someone gets put down, it's very hard for them to go on. What our team would suggest instead, if someone didn't do their assignment, or it didn't work, was that it was the wrong assignment. It wasn't that the person was wrong. We had to find an assign ment that they were more comfortable with. That's an instinctive attitude which is pure genius! Adapting your tasks to suit who you really are at any given time looks like coddling to the Spartans or Puritans among us, but in fact, it is the most efficient method of getting the best out of people. Respecting who you are, not who you ought to be, & adapting plans to that reality, requires a view-point that is more deeply philosophical & ethical than you might imagine... it teaches both modesty & realism that come from understanding your limits." --- Barbara Sher & Annie Gottlieb 1989 _TeamWorks!_ pp 127-128 (quoting Virginia C. in part)
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2009-08-31
++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
senator Chuck Schumer has threatened to introduce Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion bill within 7 days.
2009-08-31
Pete Carey _San Jose CA Mercury News_
Empty office buildings dot Silicon Valley
"The credit crunch was followed by rising unemployment, which hit 11.8% in the valley in July, with 108,900 people actively looking for work... The valley's 20.5% office vacancy rate is the highest since 2003, according to CB Richard Ellis, and has hit 53.4% in Sunnyvale. An 18.9% vacancy rate for research and development space -- the largest commercial real estate category in the valley -- is the highest since early 2006. At the moment, there are 29.1M square feet of vacant research and development space and 12.6M square feet of empty office space in the valley; that includes 277 completely vacant R&D buildings and 39 completely vacant office buildings, according to CB Richard Ellis, which has an office in San Jose."
2009-08-31
Joseph Cress _Cumberland PA Sentinel_
Dickinson college students sign on to tradition of learning
2009-08-31
_Taragana_
Vuthy Sim sentenced to nearly 3 years for visa fraud scheme involving Cambodian sham marriages
2009-08-31
Frosty Wooldridge _News with Views_
Ted Kennedy's deadly legacy for America
2009-08-31
Roy Mark _eWeek_
NASSCOM proposes expanding guest-work visas by creating new category
Like the original H-1B visa, the new program would not allow dual-intent, but be strictly a temporary guest-work visa.
2009-08-31 12:07:24PDT (15:07:24EDT) (19:07:24GMT)
Anick Jesdanun _San Jose CA Mercury News_/_AP_
Internet nears 40: barriers threaten growth
"Few were paying attention back on 1969 Sept. 2, when about 20 people gathered in Kleinrock's lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, to watch as two bulky computers passed meaningless test data through a 15-foot gray cable."
2009-08-31
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
Plotkin on senator Ted Kennedy
Let me first make my usual disclaimer that I am a lifelong Democrat. I'll add that whatever errors Ted Kennedy may have committed in his earlier life, he did evolve into someone who had a deep, genuine desire for social justice.
Having said that, the op-ed enclosed below confirms my longheld suspicions that even Kennedy felt that the "greater good" demanded that he cave in to the moneyed, powerful special interests on the H-1B work visa -- the tech industry lobbyists, the American Immigration Lawyers Association [AILA], the universities and so on.
To many of us, H-1B serves as an exemplar of the loss of our democracy. I've mentioned before, for instance, public statements by senator Bob Bennett and representative Tom Davis explicitly stating that Congress enacted expansions to the H-1B program because of industry campaign money.
Joyce Plotkin, the author of the [linked] opinion piece, is certainly in a position to know about the politics of H-1B. She served with a Massachusetts tech industry trade group for 22 years, according to one article I read, before she retired this year. I recall being on a panel with her in 1995.
Ms. Plotkin portrays the situation as one in which senator Kennedy formulated fair comprises between industry and labor on the H-1B issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. On the contrary, one AFL-CIO official told me in 2004 that Kennedy's aides literally laughed in her face, saying (I'm paraphrasing), "You [unions] don't count." Soon afterward, this labor official was so discouraged that she decided to seek another job.
And note that this occurred during the dot-com bust, a time when Kennedy should have been even more concerned about the impact of H-1B on U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Instead, Congress enacted a 20K-visa increase to H-1B, by creating a special new category for foreign students at U.S. universities, and even more significantly, expanded the loopholes which enable employers to legally pay H-1Bs below-market wages.
Over the years, Kennedy would from time to time pay lip service to the fact that H-1B is used by employers as a vehicle for cheap labor, etc. But he always supported H-1B expansion when it came to authoring and voting for legislation. He played a key role in the bill expanding H-1B in 2000, in spite of the release of a GAO report that was highly critical of the visa, a month before the legislation was passed. And of course he co-authored the [Reprehensible Immigration Law Perversion] bill in 2007 that would have been devastating to U.S. citizen and permanent resident programmers and engineers.
Plotkin makes a big point of the retraining funds in the 1998 bill, ostensibly designed to reduce H-1B usage. But as we critics pointed out at the time, this was a purely cosmetic action that would not -- and could not -- impact H-1B usage. This was confirmed by a Department of Commerce report a few years later, and most tellingly, by a public admission by Sun Microsystems that the training funds were never intended to reduce H-1B usage. Sun, of course, had been one of the leading lobbyists pushing that 1998 bill.
Plotkin's remarks below don't match the blunt remarks of Bennett and Davis I cited above -- Davis said, "This is not a popular bill with the public. It's popular with the CEOs... This is a very important issue for the high-tech executives who give the money" -- but they give us yet another look at the role of money politics in H-1B, very sad.
Norm
Joyce L. Plotkin: Ted Kennedy
2009-08-31
Dariel A. Colella _View from 1776_
Obama's flaming radical leftist agenda is no surprise to those with ears to hear
2009-08-31 (5769 Elul 11)
Steven Emerson _Jewish World Review_
American/ UK aid convoy to Gaza serves Hamas' objectives
2009-08-31 (5769 Elul 11)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Are some people paid too much?
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"We can all tolerate a certain amount of discomfort on the way to something we really want, & that's fortunate, since the road to any goal will always have some rough stretches on it. But don't allow things you dislike any permanent place in your goal... While it can be a good stretch to occasionally try out activities you don't like, your strongest talents will only show themselves when you're doing what you want to do. Far from being self-indulgent, putting your best efforts behind activities you enjoy is as smart as planting your crops in rich rathe than stony soil... make a list of the 20 things you hate most -- then cut this list until it hurts." --- Barbara Sher & Barbara Smith 1994 _I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was_ pg 205
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Congressional candidate fund-raising, expenditures, and debt
USA Over-Population Clock
World + USA Over-Population Clocks
Jimbo Wales's WikiPedia on World Over-Population
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"Medical schools get roughly 21% of their revenue from federal research grants, 42% from treating patients, & just 4% from tuition & fees." --- John Hood 1994-04-?? "All in the Family Practice: ClintonCare's Medical-Specialty Quotas" _Reason_ pg 32
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