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- Everyone recognizes that having 12 million unauthorized migrants living and working in the U.S. is a problem. We need to fix that. Alternatives include amnesty for long-term residents, but that still means some of them must be deported because they do not meet the qualifications to be lawfully admitted -- such as their criminal history.
But what the corporations have done is to escalate this one issue into a demand for "comprehensive immigration reform," and cries that "the system is broken."
As a result, politicians in both parties are now insisting that we must give corporations the right to import unlimited numbers of foreign workers. More workers seeking fewer jobs (because of the depression) means higher unemployment, lower wages, more job insecurity.
What we should do is halt all immigration of anyone who plans to work in the U.S. until our own unemployment is lower than 3%. This is obvious. Stop importing foreign labor, stop sending our jobs to third world countries and allow products to be brought back here and sold, tariff free.
The only question that should be asked about immigration is this: What is in the best interests of American working people. We are the citizens, and no law or policy should ever be implemented unless there is a direct benefit to us, the people. There is no benefit to American working people in the proposed changes to the immigration law except to clear up the status of the 12 million unauthorized migrants.
As an aside, 12 million people who become citizens can bring here their spouses, parents, siblings, children. That 12 million could turn into 60 million new residents in 5 years. Is it in the best interest of this country to increase the population so radically in such a short period of time? No. Most of those people have little education, are semi-literate, have no real skills, and will earn very little money. Does it benefit the people of the U.S. to import poverty? The answer is no. Who benefits? Corporations and businesses who sell products. Who loses? Local communities which are overwhelmed in trying to meet the needs of large migrant populations.
- When people get a loan to buy a home, they only ask the following: (1) how much can I borrow and (2) how much will it cost me every month. At the beginning of the housing bubble, Greenspan slashed interest rates and congress eliminating banking restrictions on issuing mortgages (formerly people could only borrow 3x gross, and a maximum of 80% of the purchase price). The intended result was to create a housing bubble.
A house with a fair market value (fmv) of $250,000 would have required a buyer to put down $50,000 (20% of the purchase price); the buyer could only have borrowed $200,000 (80% of the sales price); and the buyer could only have borrowed $200,000 if they earned $66,000/year (maximum loan 3x gross). The monthly mortgage payment would have been about $1200 (interest at 6%, about $600 per $100,000 loan).
Once the rules were changed and interest rates hacked, the price of housing blew up because people could borrow a whole lot more. The house that sold a few years before for $250,000 blew up to $750,000. Buyers could borrow $750,000 because there were no restrictions on the amount of the loan based on income, which in any event did not have to be verified. No down payment. Teaster intro rates of 1.5% meant the buyers would pay less than the $1200/month.
The lenders knew these people could not afford the loans, and it was only a question of time before they defaulted. The borrowers usually did not understand. Wall Street knew the loans were bad, so when they bought the loans from the bankers they mushed them together so that people purchased a fraction of many different loans, and it was impossible for buyers to investigate the underlying loans. The banks and Wall Street knew the truth, and few other people did. Unfortunately, the politicians refused to indict and prosecute the people who were responsible, seize their assets, throw the banks into bankruptcy, and seek justice for the rest of us.
With our actual unemployment and reduced wages, most Americans can no longer afford to buy a house, and many owners are still underwater.
The government is spending $40-$50 billion a month buying bad mortgages from the banks to force the citizens to take the loss for the reckless behavior of the banks. Major hedge funds are buying up bundles of foreclosed properties around the country and using them as rental properties. This isn't a housing recovery -- it's a housing disaster, and it's far from being over.
- Over the past 30 years, taxes on businesses and the rich have been cut while services to the rest of us have been eliminated, jobs have been sent to other countries, products and food imported to the U.S. without tariffs. Through it all, the politicians kept saying "A rising tide raises all boats." Well, they got it slightly wrong. The fact is, a rising sea drowns all people, destroys all nations.
One community, on its own, cannot save itself from global warming. Build up sand dunes, put houses onto stilts, spend billions, it won't matter, the oceans will come, the vegetation and animal life will die, climate will change, new diseases thrive. This is not a problem subject to individual solutions. The politicians in this country have dedicated themselves to solely serve the rich, allow them to take more while the nation deteriorates. They have known about climate change for decades. But they ignore it because the oil corporations and Wall Street tell them to.
Just importing products and foods, by itself, significantly adds to climate change. We need to make, grow, use, recycle locally and get our country out of the multinational industry empire. Wage peace and plant peace gardens. Invest in green energy and public mass transportation, and ban cars from all downtown or shopping areas.
We need mass solutions for this problem, and the politicians will not do it unless the rest of us begin to engage in widespread civil disobedience. We need a national plan, citizen power to demand its implementation. Just think: all those third world countries that we and Europe invaded, turned into little factories, would be much better off undeveloped, living closer to the land. Look what we have done.
- Much of what happens on a visit to the doctor is unrelated to the patient or any desire to treat the patient. Instead, doctors go through lengthy checklists simply so they can bill the insurance company for having done so. The insurance companies pay a certain amount for a doctor getting the patient's family history; getting the patient's history; getting the history of the current problem (onset, symptoms). It's a shame, but the fact is that doctors rush through check-lists so they can make more money.
If a young doctor goes to work in an established doctor's practice, the young doctor is told they must see a certain number of patients per hour, and must bill a certain amount per month in order to continue to be employed. It's all a treadmill, about getting more and more money, and it has very little to do with patient care.
- All issues about immigration should be evaluated based on one question only: how will this affect the citizens of the U.S. During a time of high unemployment and frozen wages, no immigration should be allowed except in circumstances in which the immigrant will not be working (i.e. they're the spouse of a citizen, who will be supported by the citizen).
The unfortunate truth is that all the sad stories about unauthorized migrants are being used by corporations to call for "comprehensive immigration reform," with liberals chiming in that our system is "broken." No it's not, and we don't need comprehensive reform. Even the U.S. Congressional Hispanic caucus is getting in on the corporate agenda, demanding immigration reform to allow more h1b visas for tech workers -- tech workers largely from India. Not a lot of hispanics in India.
Each immigrant with less than high school education costs the local and state communities $80,000 over their lifetime. They don't earn enough to pay much in taxes, yet they have children who use our schools, and the whole family uses all our community resources.
It's a shame that this entire issue is so cloaked in emotional nonsense that nobody will look at the underlying truth. More workers (imported) chasing the same or fewer jobs (U.S. recession) means lower wages and more unemployment for American workers. We should set up an amnesty program for long term (over 10 years) unauthorized migrants. But the likely "comprehensive" reform will include giving businesses the right to import more foreign labor, increasing unemployment. Once they're here, corporations will finalize their push to eliminate minimum wage and overtime pay. We should be smart enough to see what's coming. Just read the business lobby groups websites. It's all set out clearly.
- I saw him briefly on Good Morning America today. He was trying to retract his decision to call Obamacare fascism. He said maybe he used the wrong word. But actually (according to him), when the government runs businesses and tells them what to do, that is fascism. No, actually, he's wrong about that too. Fascism is when corporations run the government and tell them what to do. Then he went on to say that he thinks employers and employees should be free to negotiate with each other over wages and benefits. Hahahaha. No, he really did say that. So the minimum wage employees who are kept at 30 hours and poor supposedly can negotiate with the multi-billionaire business owner. This guy should do stand-up.
- I'm not sure "war" on women accurately addresses the fact that the use of women as slaves is part of the foundation of our country (and most nations). Women continue to be paid less than men, 20-30% less, which means most women cannot support themselves and their children on their own. They must be married if they want to have even a modest standard of living, be safe from constant violence and threat of violence, and all the other problems associated with poverty.
Since women must be married in order to have basic food and shelter, that menas marriage is not a consensual arrangement. For women, it is obligatory, much like holding a job. When men demand that women do all the work at home, and make themselves available for sex when the man feels like it (regardless of what the woman wants), this simply reinforces the reality that women are slaves and have almost no rights in a marriage.
Violence against women, including rape, is simply one of the means of punishing slaves who get out of line. Public ridicule, deprivation of money, affection, esteem, are also part of the discipline system.
Men are not along in the family in enforcing the institution. Churches affirm that men are completely within their rights to order women around and limit their freedom to even leave the house without permission. Men should decide how many children a woman has, which is why she should be denied access to birth control or abortion.
The government reinforces men in their enslavement of women. That is why our politicians publicly state that women don't need healthcare, do not need mammograms, that it's okay if women die from breast cancer because once women are past their reproductive years, and are too old or sick to be good servants, their usefulness is gone and they might as well die.
I wouldn't call it a war. It's more like a siege.
- The U.S. is allied with rich powerful oil-rich nations and the despots who control them (i.e. Saudi Arabia) and with Israel. The former makes sense in terms of access to oil; the latter makes no strategic sense. With respect to many other nations, of course, the U.S. is waging war against them to obtain total control and domination so U.S. corporations can steal the resources.
The attacks in Libya are blowback. The U.S. staged a coup in that country, and at least some of the people know it and are reacting.
The U.S. relationship with Israel is nothing more than a criminal enterprise. Congress votes to send billions to Israel; Israel takes a chunk off the top, launders it back into the U.S., and uses it to pay kick-backs and bribes to the same politicians who voted to send the money to Israel in the first place. Israel also uses the money to buy spokespeople (i.e. academics, journalists) to perpetuate the false hysterical claim that Israel is under siege, send money. The politicians in both nations are stealing our money and disguising it as a moral issue.
What should be the relationship of the U.S.? Independent, cordial, with negotiated agreements on a nation by nation basis, to the extent agreements can be reached which will benefit our country. We should not be over there trying to militarily dominate them. We should withdraw and begin to act like a civil law-abiding nation, as opposed to being the world's bully and thug.
- Unfortunately, our society and world are so oppressive for the majority of people that it's impossible to attribute success or failure to brain chemistry. A poor child born in a war-ravaged nation will not receive the basic nutrition required for their brain to develop properly, so we'll never know that child's potential, assuming they even live past the age of five. In the U.S., there is no dispute that the majority of people (women and non-whites) are routinely and violently excluded from opportunity, promotion, and decent pay.
Beyond that, the individual family unit plays a critical role. Studies have shown that when children are abused, ridiculed, demeaned, they never develop the confidence to use their own talents in the world. Females are known to fear success, not irrationally but because they are actually attacked by most of society when they succeed, and that price is simply too much to bear.
Probably the greatest gift any parent can give their child is to tell them that if they do not succeed, do not take it personally. Remain objective. Evaluate the possible reasons for the failure, adjust your approach, and keep at it. If that does not work, consider alternatives. If you personalize failure, see it as a reflection of your own inadequacies, that will likely doom your efforts not to mention your life.
- 1. No immigrants should be allowed to enter the U.S. if our national unemployment exceeds 6%. Immigration should only be allowed if it is reasonably certain the immigrants can be absorbed into the economy without forcing down wages, benefits, working conditions, or increasing unemployment of Americans. It is not liberal to give your neighbor's job away.
2. No h1b visa workers (engineers, tech workers, nurses) should be allowed into the U.S.. If we need more nurses, build more nursing schools. When foreign workers are imported, it always has the effect of pushing down wages, benefits, working conditions. Nurses' incomes are stagnant precisely because nurses are imported en masse from third world countries. Doctors, hospitals, drug companies incomes have skyrocketed. Let them their cut their income and pay nurses more, and you will have an endless supply of Americans rushing to get a nursing degree. Same with tech workers, engineers.
3. All unauthorized migrants are, and should be, subject to deportation. Long-term residents should qualify for amnesty if they meet certain criteria such as no felony convictions, and a history of employment. Short-term residents have no equitable or other grounds to claim special treatment, and should be deported. All children who were under 14 when they were brought here should become lawful temporary residents, with 5 years after receiving the status or after the age of 18 to become a citizen if they want to. If they don't want to, they should be deported.
4. Employers should be required to use an e-verify or similar system for all employees. Employees with legal status should be able to get cards with fingerprints which can be confirmed electronically to avoid fraud. Any employer who fails to comply should be fined $10,000 for each such employee. Per day.
5. Obviously, we need strict border control. The influx of unauthorized migrants is not a good thing for our country. We allow more immigrants than any other country in the world. Immigration should always be limited to the number of people that can reasonably be absorbed into the country without causing major disruption to any community. The rights of our citizens should always come first.
6. It is also important to keep in mind that a non-citizen has no right to come to the U.S. The only rights are those of the citizens of this country. An immigrant is a person that we invite to join us, but the decision of how many to invite must be based solely on the best interests of the citizens of this country.
7. Refugees are always treated differently. Every nation has a duty to accept a certain number of refugees (people fleeing well-founded fear of persecution in their own country), separate from the issue of immigration of other people.
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