chad98036's Open Salon Blog

The Myth of the Jobs Americans Won't Do

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:02:25 -0500

During the Immigration Wars of 2006 I was one of those on the "wrong side" I supported the McCain / Kennedy bill and President Bush's efforts. My reasoning was simple. If you make it economically unviable for companies to hire illegals then they won't. Without work illegals will return home. The combination of legalization and enforcement that the Bush efforts and the McCain / Kennedy bill brought about accomplished that. Essentially it followed my idea for a plan which was this:

Secure The Border
Workplace Enforcement
Deport The Criminals
Legalization
Assimilation (Including English as the official language)

I was pretty roundly attacked. Those on the open borders side claimed that there was work that Americans just wouldn't do and those on the round 'em all up side believed that once here illegals would never leave. Over the past couple years I have posted a number of incidents that disprove the second claim (most recently Sept. of last year) but today I stumbled across an article that addresses the first:

Following a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid that nabbed 300 undocumented workers at a Columbia Farms processing plant in Columbia, S.C., a spooked House of Raeford quietly began replacing immigrants with native-born labor at all of its plants. Less than a year later, House of Raeford’s flagship production line in Raeford, N.C., had been transformed, going from more than 80 percent Latino to 70 percent African-American, according to a report by the Charlotte Observer.

...

Despite President Fox’s assertion, of the Pew Hispanic Center’s top six occupational sectors for undocumented immigrants (farming, maintenance, construction, food service, production and material moving), all six employed hundreds of thousands of blacks in 2008. That year, almost 15 percent of meat-processing workers were black, as were more than 18 percent of janitors. And although blacks on the whole aren’t involved in agriculture at anywhere near the rates of illegal immigrants—a quarter of whom work in farming—about 14 percent of fruit and vegetable sorters are African-American.

For their efforts, African Americans were paid a median household income of $32,000 in 2007. In the same year, the median household income for illegal immigrants was $37,000.

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This article was obviously dealing mainly with African Americans, but it kind of puts the kibosh on the idea that Americans won't do the work. Not only will they do it they will do it for less. So once again I return to the argument that illegal immigration is an economic issue and the best way to handle it is economically.

Jim Cramer - Obama's plan is wrong

Thu, 5 Mar 2009 09:03:22 -0500

Jim Cramer who describes himself as an Obama supporter:

I also made it clear in a New York magazine article that I favored Obama over McCain because I thought Obama to be a middle-of-the-road Democrat, exactly the kind I have supported all my adult life, although I will admit to being far more left-wing during my teenage years and early 20s.

To be totally out of the closet, I actually embrace every part of Obama's agenda, right down to the increase on personal taxes and the mortgagededuction. I am a fierce environmentalist who has donated multiple acres to the state of New Jersey to keep forever wild. I believe in cap and trade. I favor playing hardball with drug companies that hold up the U.S. government with me-too products.

believes that President Obama's agenda is driving the increasingly steep downward slide in the stockmarket:

...

Look at the incredible decline in the stock market, in all indices, since the inauguration of the president, with the drop accelerating when the budget plan came to light because of the massive fear and indecision the document sowed: Raising taxes on the eve of what could be a second Great Depression, destroying the profits in healthcare companies (one of the few areas still robust in the economy), tinkering with the mortgage deduction at a time when U.S. house price depreciation is behind much of the world's morass and certainly the devastation affecting our banks, and pushing an aggressive cap and trade program that could raise the price of energy for millions of people.

The market's the effect; much of what the president is fighting for is the cause. The market's signal can't be ignored. It's too palpable, too predictive to be ignored, despite the prattle that the market's predicted far more recessions than we have.

I don't know if Obama's agenda will turn out to be right for the country in the long run or not. My belief is NO! I do know that until some kind of certainty can be restored to the economic system we are going to continue to see wealth evaporate. So far, and I know it is early in his tenure, the President's team has not offered that hint of stability. That has to change.

Cramer is right, get things working again first then you can try and push through an agenda.

Rush Limbaugh Challenges President Obama To Debate

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 18:03:02 -0500

From his show today:

RUSH: It is on the record -- thanks to Politico.com -- since last fall, the White House, led by Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff to Barack Obama, has been targeting me, your host, your harmless, lovable little fuzzball. Their standard operating procedure: they need a demon to distract and divert from what their agenda is. They need a demon about whom they can lie so as to persuade average Americans that they're the good guys, the benevolent good guys, and the mean SOBs are their enemies trying to stop this great young little president from doing miraculous and wonderful things.

...

But I have an idea. If these guys are so impressed with themselves, and if they are so sure of their correctness, why doesn't President Obama come on my show? We will do a one-on-one debate of ideas and policies. Now, his people in this Politico story, it's on the record. They're claiming they wanted me all along. They wanted me to be the focus of attention. So let's have the debate! I am offering President Obama to come on this program -- without staffers, without a teleprompter, without note cards -- to debate me on the issues. Let's talk about free markets versus government control. Let's talk about nationalizing health care and raising taxes on small business.

Let's talk about the New Deal versus Reaganomics. Let's talk about closing Guantanamo Bay, and let's talk about sending $900 million to Hamas. Let's talk about illegal immigration and the lawlessness on the borders. Let's talk about massive deficits and the destroying of opportunities of future generations. Let's talk about ACORN, community agitators, and the unions that represent the government employees which pour millions of dollars into your campaign, President Obama. Let's talk about your elimination of school choice for minority students in the District of Columbia. Let's talk about your efforts to further reduce domestic drilling and refining of oil. Let's talk about your stock market. By the way, Mr. President, I want to help. Yesterday you said you looked at the stock market as no different than a tracking poll that goes up and down.

There's no "up and down" here. We have a plunge. The president yesterday suggested "we're getting to the point where profits and earnings ratios are approaching that point where you want to invest." Uh, Mr. President? There is no "profits and earnings" ratio. It's "price and earnings" ratio. He's the president of the United States. He doesn't know anything about the stock market. He's admitted it before. Let's talk about it anyway. You want to maintain it's a tracking poll? I'd love to talk to you about that. Let's talk about all of these things, Mr. President. Let's go ahead and have a debate on this show. No limits. Now that your handlers are praising themselves for promoting me as the head of a political party -- they think that's a great thing -- then it should be a no-brainer for you to further advance this strategy by debating me on the issues and on the merits, and wipe me out once and for all!

Just come on this program. Let's have a little debate. You tell me how wrong I am and you can convince the rest of the Americans that don't agree with you how wrong we all are. You're a smart guy, Mr. President. You don't need these hacks to front for you. You've debated the best! You've debated Hillary Clinton. You've debated John Edwards. You've debated Joe Biden. You've debated Dennis Kucinich. You've debated the best out there. You are one of the most gifted public speakers of our age. I would think, Mr. President, you would jump at this opportunity. Don't send lightweights like Begala and Carville to do your bidding -- and forget about the ballerina, Emanuel. He's got things to do in his office. These people, compared to you, Mr. President, are rhetorical chum.

I would rather have an intelligent, open discussion with you where you lay out your philosophy and policies and I lay out mine -- and we can question each other, in a real debate. Any time here at the EIB Network studios. If you're too busy partying or flying around giving speeches and so forth, then send Vice President Biden. I'm sure he would be very capable of articulating your vision for America -- and if he won't work, send Geithner, and we can talk about the tax code. And if that won't work, go get Bob Rubin. I don't care. Send whoever you want if you can't make it. You don't need to be leaking stories to Politico like this thing that's published today. You don't need to have your allies writing op-eds and all the rest. If you can win at this, then come here and beat me at my own game, and get rid of me once and for all, and show all the people of America that I am wrong.

The chances of the President accepting are essentially nil but I see the potential for a lot of entertainment value here. As Ed Driscoll said Rush can hire a chickne mascot to appear at Obama rallies. He can do a countdown on air of how many days since he made his offer, he can even go on the cable shows and lament the fact that the President won't debate him and since the White House has elevated him to the position of leader of the GOP hethe President will look weaker for it.

Feds announce mortgage modification plan

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 10:03:16 -0500

The Obama administration laid out the guidelines for it's highly anticipated mortgage modification plan today.

As I read it this plan will force banks to take a loss on performing loans:

The Home Affordable Refinance program will be available to 4 to 5 million homeowners who have a solid payment history on an existing mortgage owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.

Later it goes on to define eligible mortgages as those in imminent danger of default, which is rather ambiguous, up to 60 days in arrears, which doesn't seem to meet the "solid payment history" outlined above.

What is immediate danger of default? Leaving a term that ambiguously defined just seems rife with danger. It's not like no one has ever crawled through a loophole before.

Not to worry though - in order to insure there is no fraud / mismanagement Freddie Mac will be monitoring compliance. Hello Kettle, this is Pot. You're black.

Seriously wasn't Freddie Mac just taken over by the government because of massive mismanagement?

Personally I think banks would be smart to modify mortgages that are going into default. As I understand it they never really recover value on a foreclosed house but why should the government be forcing this on them? Especially when the majority of people who have had loan terms modified after defaulting on a mortgage default again. This just seems to be throwing good money after bad.

Montana attacks the Interstate Commerce Clause

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:02:14 -0500

Using a Made in Montana stamp and the Heller decision some Montana legislators have decided to go after the interstate commerce clause in the U.S. Constitution. Their plan is to force a confrontation with the ATF and take the case to the Supreme Court.

Personally I don't think their plan has much of a chance. Despite some rollbacks in the Rehnquist years the Supremes have been pretty friendly to the commerce clause since the 1930's. So assuming this law gets past the Montana Supreme Court, which is more liberal than most people realize, it will probably be struck down by the 9 wise guys in Washington.

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