3rd month of the 3rd quarter of the 7th year of the Clinton-Bush economic depression
My 4*great uncle's (captain William Scott's) flag for the Republic of Texas.
2006 September
3nd month of the 3rd quarter of the 7th year of the Clinton-Bush economic depression
2006-09-01 (5766 Elul 08) - 67 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-01
_Dice_
Dice Report: 92,226 job ads
| Total | 92,226 |
| UNIX | 14,561 |
| Windoze | 14,965 |
| Java | NA |
| C/C++ | 16,982 |
| body shop | 36,645 |
| permanent | 61,827 |
2006-09-01 07:04PDT (10:04EDT) (14:04GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index changed from 84.7 in July to 78.7 in early August to 82.0
2006-09-01 07:29PDT (10:29EDT) (14:29GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
ISM factory index fell very slightly from 54.7% in July to 54.5% in August
"Employment jumped in the month, rising from 50.7 in the previous month to 54.0."
2006-09-01 08:51PDT (11:51EDT) (15:51GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
US construction spending fell 1.2% in July: Home-building down 2%
Pending home sales index down 7% for July: Down 16% in last 12 months
2006-09-01 08:57PDT (11:57EDT) (15:57GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
Establishment survey results in a seasonally adjusted 128K additional non-farm jobs
BLS report
2006-09-01 09:19PDT (12:19EDT) (16:19GMT)
Myra P. Saefong _MarketWatch_
Alliance between Venezuela and Red China is troubling in several ways
2006-09-01 11:02PDT (14:02EDT) (18:02GMT)
_MarketWatch_
GM to cut North American production by 12%
2006-09-01
Oscar Avila _Chicago Tribune_
Illegal immigrant demonstrations brought to you by Miller Brewing
"The brewer has paid more than $30K for a planning convention, materials and newspaper ads publicizing the event... But the presence of Miller at a welcoming reception the day before the August 12-13 planning convention raised eye-brows. The convention brought together labor unions, anti-war groups, immigrant service organizations and even socialist political candidates."
2006-09-01
_CBS_/_Christian Science Monitor_
More Work for Some, Less for Others
"In a labor force of 152M, 7.2M are officially unemployed and searching. Another 4.1M are working shorter hours than they want. Still another 4.9M would like to be working but aren't even counted in the labor force because they have stopped looking for a job."
2006-09-01
Hailey Lynne McKeefry _eWeek_
Keeping Employees Happy
"[blah blah blah body shops blah blah] Employees leave their jobs for a variety of reasons that range from feeling under-appreciated and over-worked to saying they cannot get proper training to advance their careers, according to employment and talent search companies. Some employees leave to find more money, while others are hoping to achieve better balance between their work and home lives... John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an out-placement company based in Chicago. 'Companies have to put retention strategies at the top of the list.' Turn-over rates, already high, keep rising. 91% of companies reported high or increasing turn-over rates in a February survey by TalentKeepers, a retention and search company in Orlando, FL. Only 9% of U.S. companies reported a decrease in turnover during the past year, the study found. An overwhelming 65% of those polled for compensation data and service provider Salary.com's 2005/2006 Employee Satisfaction and Retention Survey, published in January, said they planned to look for a new job within 3 months -- a 50% increase over 2004. It's not always about salary. in fact, many engineers put the opportunity to work with 'cool' technology at the top of their list of must-have job attributes... Engineers also want solid relationships with co-workers and managers... Friendly co-workers, along with good managers and a desirable commute, topped the list of items that create overall workplace happiness, according to Salary.com's 2005/2006 Employee Satisfaction and Retention Survey.. As important as time at work is, employees, for the most part, are not willing to sacrifice their personal lives for work; they want balance... While few employees say that salary makes them stay with an employer, many cite it as a reason for leaving their jobs... Employers should speak to staff members individually or conduct periodic employee surveys to find out what's on their minds, Challenger said... In fact, 63% of CIOs said professional development opportunities are their best strategy for retaining key employees, according to a March survey... 'Only about 20% of IT professionals get good, solid support for acquiring new skills and training.', said June Keszeg... One successful strategy is giving employees a tuition budget and allowing them to decide, with their supervisor, how to spend the money... Some companies provide tuition reimbursement or sponsorship for a university degree."
2006-09-01 11:08PDT (14:08EDT) (17:08GMT)
John Shinal _MarketWatch_
M$ and Apple prepare for digital music battle
2006-09-01 11:32PDT (14:32EDT) (18:32GMT)
Jeffry Bartash & Rex Crum _MarketWatch_
Intel considering up to 20K job cuts
2006-09-01
| DJIA | 11,464.15 |
| S&P 500 | 1,311.01 |
| NASDAQ | 2,193.16 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 4.73% |
| crude oil | 69.19 |
| gold | 632.60 |
| silver | 13.07 |
| platinum | 1,254.80 |
| palladium | 349.60 |
| copper | 0.21447 |
| natgas | $5.877/MBTU |
| unleadedgasoline | $1.7344/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.9674/gal |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
2006-09-02 (5766 Elul 09) - 66 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-02 05:56PDT (08:56EDT) (12:56GMT)
Jeanne Sahadi _CNN_/_Money_
Workers have lost traction over the last decade
"Between 1995 and 2005, productivity -- a measure of the quantity and quality of what workers produce per hour -- grew 33.4%. But hourly wages rose only 11%, with almost all of that increase coming during the late 1990s, according to EPI. Looking back even farther, the disparity is greater. Since 1979, productivity rose 67%, while wages rose only 8.9%... From 1973 to 2005, the median wage for women with a high school degree rose 7.4%. By contrast, the median wage for men with a high school degree fell nearly 14%. For men with college degrees, they're now earning 12.8% more than they did in 1973 while women with college degrees are taking home 26% more pay. Since 2001, however, the median wage for both genders with college educations remained essentially flat. And among young college graduates, their entry-level wages have fallen since 2000 -- 79 cents per hour for men and 33 cents per hour for women."
2006-09-02 09:31PDT (12:31EDT) (16:31GMT)
_Yahoo!_/_AFP_
Call center worker in india arrested for fraud
"Sulagna Ray, 23, was accused of obtaining the credit card information while selling US customers a television service as part of her job, the Times of India reported Saturday. Ray, an aspiring fashion designer, allegedly spent $4K (3,122 euros) using other people's credit cards to buy an air-conditioner, microwave, cosmetics, saris, jewellery and chocolate... Ray worked for Jaishree Infotech, an Indian company handling work for another US e-commerce web site... In June, police in the technology hub of Bangalore arrested an employee of global banking giant HSBC for allegedly taking 230K pounds sterling (333K euros, $418,500) from 16 bank accounts held by Britons."
2006-09-02
Erik Rush _Post Chronicle_
Is Corruption Inevitable?
"Of course, there have always been contrary examples of those in the entertainment industry (which I regularly excoriate without mercy, in case you've been living on a mountaintop) whose egos don't balloon beyond all reason despite the sycophants, the adulation, the money and opportunity for indulgence. Nevertheless, I began to postulate that perhaps this corruption might be all but inescapable for the vast majority who succeed in certain professions... There's Tom Tancredo, for example, the Colorado Congressman who's been putting it all on the line to alert America as to just how bad the problems on our southern border are and how bleak America's future shall be if decisive (and, in some sectors, very unpopular) action is not taken. There are politicians who've been as outspoken on other important issues, to be fair; the border/immigration issue just happens to be a main cultural and media focus right now. Joe Lieberman is an example of someone who spoke the truth (about the War on Terror, in this case) and paid a heavy price... Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his colleagues know what is at stake and are proceeding as best they can. Despite this, the same tired, feeble overtures continue to be bandied about by the US, the UN and European nations: 'Let's stop fighting for a bit and talk.'... Why? Regardless of the cries that our Iraq campaign is a futile one, the public knows that we once turned Japan and Germany into rubble -- accepting the 'horribly immoral' fact of collateral damage, and that democracies now exist in these countries. In the main, the public knows that Islamic fascists are men who serve evil; they're just hoping our government will do the right thing, whatever that is."
| |
"When taxes are too high, people go hungry. When the government is too intrusive, people lose their spirit. Act for the people's benefit. Trust them; leave them alone." -- Lao Tzu _Tao Te Ching_ (The Way of Changes)
| |
2006-09-03 (5766 Elul 10) - 65 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-03 07:00PDT (10:00EDT) (14:00GMT)
Arnie Alpert _Concord Monitor_
New Hampshire wages don't cover housing costs
"While the cost of living, especially fuel and housing, is going through the roof, wages are stagnant for most workers. And the ranks of workers in low-wage occupations will continue to expand. The occupation projected to add the most jobs, retail sales, pays a median wage of $9.70 an hour. At that rate, a full-time worker could afford $500 a month for housing. But the typical 1-bedroom apartment goes for almost $800 a month, and a typical 2-bedroom apartment rents for over $1K... Other fast-growing, low-paying jobs are those of teaching assistants, fast-food workers, nursing aides, cashiers, janitors and waiters."
2006-09-03
Joel Dresang _Milwaukee Journal Sentinel_
Union bows out of Labor Day parade citing those participants backing illegal aliens
"Local 75 of the Plumbers and Gas Fitters will break from tradition and not march in Milwaukee's Labor Day parade today because the union considers the inclusion of immigrant advocates a distraction from Labor Day. 'This is strictly a Labor Day celebration. Any other purpose of this parade would not do Labor Day any justice, in my opinion. It's designed to celebrate labor. Labor only.', said Harry Kreuser, Local 75 business manager. The 1,900-member union, covering 14 counties in southern Wisconsin, will participate in Labor Day celebrations in Janesville and Madison, Kreuser said, but it won't be an official entry in the hometown Milwaukee parade. He said individual members are free to march or not where they please... He said Local 75 simply opposes the idea of mixing messages in the Labor Day parade. 'There was conversation about bringing in the Hispanic community to participate in the parade, and it was a rally on their part for legalizing the illegal aliens in the Hispanic community. And we just felt that this parade should not be a political parade or a political statement as much as it is for Labor Day.', Kreuser said... Cochran said 5 or 6 other unions have joined Local 75 in citing the [illegal alien] march for sitting out the parade... Rogers, who said worker productivity has far out-stripped worker compensation over the last 30 years or so."
2006-09-03
Michael Kinsman _San Diego Union-Tribune_
What 40-hour work-week?: Many employees, under pressure, put in 60 or 70 hours
"As with many other white-collar workers, Lin's workweek has expanded. It is no longer 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, but more like 12 hours a day and full 8-hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays. Lin, 37, recently spent 28 straight days on the job, hasn't had time for a relationship in years and last took a vacation 6 years ago... The 40-hour workweek is but a distant memory for many professionals on this Labor Day weekend... Challenger -- who was interviewed during a recent work/vacation in Monterey -- said there has been a clear cultural shift in recent years that is driving professionals to put in longer and longer hours. Some of the work is voluntary, but some is done out of fear of employer demands. The hours of work that salaried workers do at home or on vacation are not captured by most government statistics. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that the American workweek remained relatively stable between 1979 and 2004, while workweeks were shortened in many other industrial countries. The number of hours worked by Americans dropped 2% during that 25-year span, compared to an average 13.1% drop in 19 other primarily European industrial countries. With 1,824 average hours worked during the year, Americans ranked second only to New Zealanders in number of hours worked. New Zealand workers put in two more hours per year than Americans. The survey showed that Japanese workers shaved 15.9% off their workweek during that 25-year time span, Germans cut hours by 18.9%, and French work schedules were reduced by 17.9%... A recent survey by [body shop] Adecco found that 29% of workers report toiling longer today than a year ago, and 32% said they are experiencing more on-the-job stress... Ann Nichols Roulac [said] 'It is not uncommon to find people working 60 or 70 hours a week. When they work hours that long and those hours are intense, it just means they are not going to be functioning like they should. It's a major reason we see so much burnout among workers.'... The Economic Policy Institute, based in Washington, DC, reported that U.S. productivity increased 79% from 1979 to 2005, while the median hourly wage, adjusted for inflation, gained 8.9% during the same period... It is a cultural norm in some professions, such as law or accounting, to put in 70 hours a week... Roulac said that workers not only burn out in that environment, but they make mistakes along the way because they can't perform at a high level for 70 hours a week."
2006-09-04 (5766 Elul 11) - 64 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-03 18:10PDT (2006-09-03 21:10EDT) (2006-09-04 01:10GMT)
_CNN_
Voters are anti-incumbent and angry, new poll finds
"A majority of Americans surveyed -- and a higher percentage than recorded during the same time last year -- said things in the United States are going 'badly'. Among this year's respondents, 29% said 'pretty badly' and 25% -- up from 15% a month ago -- answered 'very badly'. By comparison, 37% described the way things are going as 'fairly well', and 9% answered 'very well'. Of these people, 76% said there was 'something' to be angry about in the country today. By comparison, 59% felt that way when polled in February. Only 21% said they were 'generally content' in the latest poll. 9% said they considered the economy to be 'very good', a number unchanged from a June CNN poll. But the number who considered conditions 'somewhat good' dropped from 42% to 35% over the same period. The number of respondents who consider the economy 'somewhat poor' rose from 31% to 34%, and the number who called the economy 'very poor' jumped from 16% to 22%. A majority -- 55% -- said they are more likely to back a challenger in races on this year's ballot. Such anti-incumbent sentiment is higher than the 48% recorded as 'pro-challenger' in a similar survey in 1994, when the GOP took control of both houses of Congress. None the less, 48% said that, if most of the present members of Congress were replaced with new members, there would be no difference. By contrast, 42% said such a scenario would change Congress for the better, and 7% said it would change Congress for the worse."
2006-09-04
Bob Moser _Daily Advertiser_
Louisiana Technical College students get hands-on career training
"Instructors at LTC are called daily by employers in carpentry, electrical wiring, and air-conditioning repair. They say entry-level salaries climbed in a hurry after the hurricanes, and continue to increase... It's part of a tuition-free job training program for health-care and construction trades through Louisiana Technical Colleges. The program is funded in part by an H-1B grant from president Bush's 'High Growth Job Training' initiative. The Louisiana Department of Labor has also put $15M toward job skills training at LTC... Enrollment in each construction trade class has gone up this semester... Roberta Williams, a retired school teacher from New Iberia, didn't enroll in carpentry class to help kick start a new career. Each week Williams will learn something new in class, and each Saturday she'll put it towards rebuilding homes throughout Vermilion Parish. Teams of volunteers from First United Methodist Church have gutted many homes in the parish, she said."
2006-09-04
Bill Cotterell _Tallahassee Demagogue_
Immigration case at DMS shocks state senator Nancy Argenziano
"First, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement busts 55 GBM [General Business Maintenance] employees working in state buildings. Then, DMS [Department of Management Services] responds like the police captain in 'Casablanca' -- 'shocked, shocked!' that out-sourcing of state jobs might lead to hiring of illegal immigrants. DMS warned GBM it was in violation of its contract and said the state demands that the work get done -- on time, on budget and by legal employees. Company president Hans Foraker wrote back, expressing 'deepest apologies for the inconvenience and the embarrassment'. And now, on top of everything else, DMS and GBM have senator Nancy Argenziano to contend with. ICE may seem warm by comparison. Argenziano chairs the Senate Governmental Oversight and Productivity Committee, and is famously unflinching in fights over privatization. She was the one, you'll recall, who held DMS and Convergys [formerly Cincinnati Bell Information Systems] accountable for leakage of state personnel data to a sub-contractor in India... State employees need security badges to work in there, but Argenziano said that after 5 p.m., just about anybody can push a cleaning cart through. She wants more state employees to contact her... if they have concerns about security. 'Not only did we take jobs away from Florida residents to save money - which we never know if we're really saving or not - but they gave the jobs to illegal aliens, some with criminal backgrounds.', she said. 'Don't call me if you just hate Jeb Bush. I want to know if there are possible security breaches in these offices, and I will make every best effort to protect employees' confidentiality.' Meanwhile, DMS said the ICE raids cut GBM's local work staff in half."
2006-09-04
Steven Greenhouse _NY Times_
Many Entry-Level Workers in USA Find a Rough Job Market
"This Labor Day, the 45M young people in the nation's work force face a choppy job market in which entry-level wages have often trailed inflation, making it hard for many to cope with high housing costs and rising college debt loads. Entry-level wages for college and high school graduates fell by more than 4% from 2001 to 2005, after factoring in inflation, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by the Economic Policy Institute. In addition, the percentage of college graduates receiving health and pension benefits in their entry-level jobs has dropped sharply. Some labor experts say wage stagnation and the sharp increase in housing costs over the past decade have delayed workers ages 20 to 35 from buying their first homes... Census Bureau data released last week underlined the difficulties for young workers, showing that median income for families with at least one parent age 25 to 34 fell $3,009 from 2000 to 2005, sliding to $48,405, a 5.9% drop, after having jumped 12% in the late 1990s... Even though the economy has grown strongly in recent years, wages for young workers, especially college graduates, have been depressed by several factors, including the end of the high-tech boom and the trend of sending jobs over-seas. From 2001 to 2005, entry-level wages for male college graduates fell by 7.3%, to $19.72 an hour, while wages for female graduates declined 3.5%, to $17.08, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group... The percentage of young adults who are working has dropped since 2000 largely because many have grown discouraged and stopped looking for work. This has happened even though the unemployment rate, which counts only people looking for work, has fallen to 4.4% for those ages 25 to 34. It is 8.2% for workers ages 20 to 24... In a steep drop over a short time, 64% of college graduates received health coverage in entry-level jobs in 2005, down from 71% five years earlier... For men with high school diplomas, entry-level pay fell by 3.3%, to $10.93, from 2001 to 2005, according to the Economic Policy Institute. For female high school graduates, entry-level pay fell by 4.9%, to $9.08 an hour. Labor Department officials voiced optimism for young workers, noting that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had projected that 18.9M net new jobs would be created by 2014... The wage gap between college-educated and high-school-educated workers has widened greatly, with college graduates earning 45% more than high school graduates, up from 23% in 1979."
2006-09-04
David Sirota _San Francisco Chronicle_
Left and Right Wage War on US Workers
"Bashing organized labor is a Republican [virtue]... Unions wield power [over as well as for] workers... According to an analysis of federal data by the Labor Research Association, average union members receive a quarter more in compensation than nonunion workers. 89% of union members have access to employer-sponsored health care, compared to just 67% of non-union workers. Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation than non0union workers... anti-union companies meet higher standards in order to prevent workers from becoming angry and organizing. For instance, Princeton researchers found in industries that are 25% unionized, average non-union workers get 7.5% more compensation specifically because of unionization's presence... Big Business claims union membership has declined because workers do not want to join unions -- a claim debunked by public-opinion data. In 2002, Harvard University and University of Wisconsin researchers found at least 42M workers want to be organized into a bargaining unit -- more than double the 16M unionized workers in America. A 2005 nationwide survey by respected pollster Peter Hart found 53% of non-union workers -- that's more than 50M people -- want to join a union, if given the choice. Increasingly, however, workers have no real choice. According to Cornell University experts, 1 in 4 employers illegally fires at least one worker during a union drive, 3 in 4 hire anti-union consultants, and 8 in 10 force workers to attend anti-union meetings. When workers petition the government to enforce laws protecting organizing rights, they are forced to go before the National Labor Relations Board, which is both run by anti-union presidential appointees, and chronically understaffed so as to slow down proceedings... David Sirota is [co-chair of a leftist states network.]"
2006-09-04 01:11PDT (04:11EDT) (08:11GMT)
Carla Bova _Marin Independent Journal_
Helping clear the hurdles to a good job in Marin county CA
2006-09-04
_Bangor Daily News_
Labor Day 2006
"In the mid-1990s, there were crippling strikes, such as at United Parcel Service, General Motors, Northwest Airlines and the Communication Workers of America. The turn of the century brought an acceleration in plant closings, massive lay-offs and formerly good jobs being shipped over-seas to become bad jobs. This year, the economy expanded without the unemployment falling as out-sourcing and off-shoring replaced corporate malfeasance and its devastating effect upon investments and pensions, as if the downward spiral afflicting workers inevitably had to draw in retired workers as well. Wages - for workers, anyway - creep along at a pace behind inflation and the once-contentious issue of wage parity, the extent to which hourly pay should keep pace with CEO salaries, now seems quaint. Workers no doubt would welcome a return to the days when their biggest complaint was that the boss made 100, or even 150, times more money that they did. And even as the economy grew last year, according to a recent Census report, income stagnated. The flat income figure arrived with the news that workers are more productive than ever."
2006-09-05 (5766 Elul 12) - 63 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-05
"Mathias Thurman" _CIO_
Out of sight not out of mind: Off-shoring generages grief
2006-09-05 10:07PDT (13:07EDT) (17:07GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
House prices increasing more slowly
Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Over-Sight
2006-09-05 12:33PDT (15:33EDT) (19:33GMT)
Jim Jelter _MarketWatch_
Chevron-led group finds huge potential in deep-water Gulf of Mexico well
2006-09-05 13:23PDT (16:23EDT) (20:23GMT)
Rex Crum _MarketWatch_
Intel to cut 10,500 jobs -- about 10% -- by mid-2007
longer article
2006-09-05 13:34PDT (16:34EDT) (20:34GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
August lay-off announcements reached 65,278
CNN/Money
"Job-cut announcements rose to 65,278 in August from a 6-year low of 37,178 in July, 'in what may signal an early start to year-end down-sizing', Challenger said. Announcements totaled 67,176 in June and have averaged 67,375 this year... So far in 2006, employers have announced 538,914 job cuts, 24% fewer than this time last year, Challenger said. Annual job cuts are on pace to finish below 1M for the first time since 2000. In August, computer companies led the way with 17,371 job cuts. The auto industry announced 7,639 reductions, bringing the annual total to 77,897... In June, for instance, a total of 1.51M workers were discharged from their jobs involuntarily, according to the latest data from the Labor Department."
2006-09-05
Thomas Ginsberg _Philadelphia Inquirer_
Wyeth to eliminate some jobs in Chester county
Daily Local News/Z Wire
"Wyeth confirmed yesterday that it was eliminating or contracting out an undetermined number of jobs in Chester County, part of a cost-cutting effort. The drug-maker employs about 5K people in Chester and Montgomery Counties, with its global pharmaceutical division based in Collegeville. It has about 52K employees worldwide, and has its head-quarters in Madison, NJ. Christopher Garland, a Wyeth spokesman, called the job cuts 'limited in scope', but said the exact number to be eliminated or out-sourced was not yet known. He described the buyout package as 'generous'. The cuts, implemented on the advice of the consulting firm Accenture [formerly Andersen Consulting before being caught in the Enron accounting fraud], are part of a campaign announced in 2005 June that also involved cutting or out-sourcing about 15% - or roughly 750 - of sales jobs. The latest cuts affect people in accounting/finance, information services, human resources and procurement departments, Garland said, adding the staffing changes would continue."
2006-09-05
Steve Ranger _ZD Net_
Tech work-force has been shrinking due to off-shoring
Computer Weekly
"The 'success' of off-shore out-sourcing is causing the number of UK-based tech staff to decline. Research by analysts Ovum predicts a 6% fall in the number of UK-based software and IT services staff by the end of 2008 — the equivalent of losing 5K on-shore positions each year. The bulk of the job reductions will be in programming, lower-level technical roles, call centres, helpdesks and back-office administration. In contrast, within 3 years there will be 130K off-shore workers delivering software and IT services for UK organisations — double the number currently, according to the research... Ovum senior analyst Phil Codling said in a statement: 'We will see the UK-based S/ITS workforce shrink in size under the effect of off-shoring.'"
2006-09-06 (5766 Elul 13) - 62 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-06 04:00PDT (07:00EDT) (11:00GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Mortgage applications rose 1.8%
2006-09-06
Ann All _IT Business Edge_
No Off-Shoring Slow-Down in Sight
"As reported on CIO Update, an IDC analyst called off-shore growth rates 'quite astounding'. They are perhaps even more astounding, considering that he and other observers had expected a slow-down in the market by now... Even though they are faced with recruitment and infrastructure issues, top Indian out-sourcing providers are growing their revenues by 30% a year, the analyst says. How are they doing it? By signing bigger contracts, forging strategic relationships with [unethical] companies like SAP and M$, offering new services such as software testing, and expanding beyond their own shores into [Red China], Latin America and other areas."
2006-09-06 08:01PDT (11:01EDT) (15:01GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
ISM services index increased from 54.8 in July to 57
ISM report
"The employment index, which has tracked trends in employment growth pretty well, fell from 54.5% in [July] to 51.4% in August."
2006-09-06 10:01PDT (13:01EDT) (17:01GMT)
Christian Zappone _CNN_/_Money_
Arduous road to huge guest-worker program expansions
2006-09-06
Marianne Kolbasuk McGee _Information Week_
Time Is Running Out for H-1B Visa Cap to Be Cut -- Or Is It?
Dr. Dobb's Journal
"'Sometimes we think these things are dead, and then someone slips something through at 5 PM on a Friday.', says Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild, an American IT worker advocacy group that [favors decreasing] the H-1B cap. 'I'm worried they'll stick these provisions onto another bill without a hearing.', he says... Indeed, it's still possible that Congress will pass provisions as part of another bill or as separate legislation to raise the H-1B cap during a lame duck session before new members are sworn in next January, depending on the outcome of the elections, says [M$ staff lobbyist] Jack Krumholtz... recent lay-offs in the tech industry -- including Intel's announcement this week that it's eliminating 10,500 jobs..."
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
Likelihood of H-1B legislation this year
"Given that the huge general immigration reform bill passed by the Senate earlier this year now seems stalled, the industry lobbyists have gotten Congress to pull out the H-1B-related provisions into a separate bill, called the SKIL Act. One of the lobbyists is quoted here as saying that this bill may be tacked on to an omnibus budget bill -- a favorite tactic that has always worked in the past -- or passed in the 'lame duck' session in December, when no one is looking. I too think that it is quite likely that one of those 2 events will occur. The lobbyists have been going full-bore on this for a year now, getting a string of supporting editorials from newspaper editors, etc. And most significantly virtually no one in either party in Congress has spoken out against it. Readers, please note that this is more than just about H-1B. It's also about greatly liberalizing the employment-based green card program, which most H-1Bs aspire to. As with the H-1B provisions, the reforms on green card law in the bill also are geared to make it easier to hire foreign nationals and have them stay, and thus would have a very negative impact on U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It's again disappointing to see that M$ gets a free ride when they make claims to need H-1Bs. WashTech has shown several times that M$'s public claims about H-1Bs and off-shoring fly in the face of their private actions.
Guide to Selected Portions of the SKIL Act
Note that the word "section" in the phrasing below refers to sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which can be found in Chapter 12 of Title 8 of the United States Code (U.S.C., i.e. federal law). You can find the actual laws in Subchapters I (1101-1106) and II (Part I, 1151-1161 and Part II, 1181-1189)
Sec. 101:
In General- Section 214(g)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(g)(5)) is amended...
The main thrust here is to remove anyone who has a Master's degree or higher (in any field) from a U.S. university from the H-1B cap, thus effectively raising the cap beyond even the huge increase in Sec. 102 below.
Sec. 102:
Section 214(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(g)) is amended...
Here the general yearly H-1B cap is raised from [85,000] to [135,000], with a 20% yearly increase after that if the cap is reached.
Sec. 201:
(a): Would exempt from green card caps:
(F) Aliens who have earned a master's or higher degree from an accredited United States university.
The effect of this provision would be as follows. The current procedure is that the foreign national must first find an employer to sponsor him for a green card, then undergo labor certification (which consists of the employer showing that no American is available for the job), then wait for the availability of a green card. Under the provision here, that last stage would be eliminated.
That should speed up green card processing, thus shortening the time during which an H-1B is a de facto indentured servant, thus making foreign nationals less attractive to employers. But note that the first stage can take a while. The employer could stall even submitting a green card application for the worker, even more so since the bill would increase the time for the Optional Practical Training (OPT) phase of a student visa from one year to two. Or, the foreign national could bounce around several employers as an H-1B until he finds one who is willing to sponsor him for a green card, all the while being at the mercy of these employers.
Note that there would be no restriction on field of study. Apparently the authors believe that people with Master's degrees in, say, Greek mythology, are in short supply.
(H) Aliens who will perform labor in shortage occupations designated by the Secretary of Labor for blanket certification under section 212(a)(5)(A) as lacking sufficient United States workers able, willing, qualified, and available for such occupations and for which the employment of aliens will not adversely affect the terms and conditions of similarly employed United States workers.
The section cited, 8 USC 1182(a)(5)(C), is an occupation-wide exemption from labor certification. It was used for programmers back in the early 1990s, but then DoL took the programmer category off their list after SoftPAC howled.
(I) Aliens who have earned a master's degree or higher in science, technology, engineering, or math and have been working in a related field in the United States in a non-immigrant status during the 3-year period preceding their application for an immigrant visa under section 203(b).
The section cited, 8 U.S.C. 1153(b), is the part of the code relating to employment-based immigration. By exempting these people from the cap, the thrust of this provision would be that a foreign national with a technical graduate degree who is sponsored for a green card by an employer would have to wait for no more than 3 years to get the green card, as opposed to the 6+ years often needed today.
Note that the three-year period need not be all with the same employer, and that only the current employer need sponsor the worker for a green card.
Also, the non-immigrant visas could be not only H-1B but also other non-immigrant visas, as discussed above.
All these considerations would somewhat temper the problems I put in my scenario above. But the bottom line is that the foreign nationals would still be de facto indentured servants for three full years. Moreover, even after getting green cards and thus winning their freedom, they still would be young, thus cheaper than the average American. The legislation, by in effect focusing on new graduates, would swell the young segment of the labor market, thus exacerbating the problem we already have, of employers preferring to hire 25-year-olds to 40-year-olds.
(J) Aliens described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of section 203(b)(1) or who have received a national interest waiver under section 203(b)(2)(B).
These are 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(1) and 8 U.S.C. 1153(b)(2), which basically deal with people of outstanding ability. They would now be exempted from the cap. I've pretty much supported giving special treatment to 'the best and the brightest' (though I've also pointed out that they comprise a very small proportion of the H-1Bs), so I am OK with this provision.
(K) The spouse and minor children of an alien who is admitted as an employment-based immigrant under section 203(b).
So, the family members of the employers-sponsored immigrants would no longer count in the cap. The effect would be to greatly expand the cap, thus doing even greater harm to American workers.
(b): Labor Certifications- Section 212(a)(5)(A)(ii) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(5)(A)(ii)) is amended...
This basically adds people with Master's degrees to the 'Subject to Special Rule' clause in the above law, which allows those covered by the clause to be subject to a different kind of labor certification than other types of workers. At present, this means that during labor certification, the employer must merely demonstrate that he could not find Americans who are equally qualified as the alien, instead of demonstrating that he could not find Americans qualified for the job itself. The net effect would be to make it even easier than at present (which is already plenty easy) for the employer to claim that no American is available for the job that the employer wants to hire a foreign Master's holder for.
Sec. 203:
(a) In General- Section 101(a)(15)(F) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(F)) is amended to read as follows...
At present, all holders of the F-1 student visa must attest that they plan to eventually return to their home countries. This provision would exempt those studying a program in 'mathematics, engineering, technology, or the sciences leading to a bachelors or graduate degree' from this requirement. As the restriction was never a real problem (some students would have to try several times to get a visa, but they'd eventually get it), the impact of this part of this provision would be minimal.
However, this provision also would extend OPT from 1 year to 2. The practical effect would be to give the foreign national more time in which to find an employer willing to sponsor him for a green card, and thus have the effect of adding even more people into the job market to compete with Americans.
(b) Admission- Section 214(b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1184(b)) is amended by inserting `(F)(i),' before `(L) or (V)'.
Changes consular officials' duties to conform with (a) above, i.e. they don't have to ask 'Will you go home?'."
M$ claims belied
M$ claims belied again
M$ lobbying
Frist's S2454
Specter's S2611
Hagel's S2612
Cornyn's S2691
Tancredo's HR1325
Tancredo's HR1450
Tancredo's HR1587
Nancy L. Johnson's HR3322
Tancredo's HR3333
Tancredo's HR3700
Pascrell's HR4378
Sensenbrenner's HR4437
Hyde's HR4844
DHS appropriations HR5441
Shadegg's HR5744
King's HR6061
2006-09-06
Chris McManes _IEEE-USA_
Reports shatter myth that H-1B visa-holders are paid prevailing compensation rates
"Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Vice President Phiroz Vandrevala even admitted that his company enjoys a competitive advantage because of its extensive use of foreign workers in the United States on H-1B and L-1 visas. 'Our wage per employee is 20%-25% lesser than US wage for a similar employee.', Vandrevala said. 'Typically, for a TCS employee with 5 years experience, the annual cost to the company is $60K-$70K, while a local American employee might cost $80K-$100K. This (labour arbitrage) is a fact of doing work onsite. It's a fact that Indian IT companies have an advantage here and there's nothing wrong in that... The issue is that of getting workers in the US on wages far lower than local wage rate.' ('US visas are not a TCS-specific issue' Businessworld (India) magazine, 2003 June) IEEE-USA President Ralph W. Wyndrum, Jr. said proposals now before Congress to raise the H-1B visa cap should be scrapped until significant work-force protections for U.S. and H-1B employees are instituted..."
Norman Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring e-News-Letter_
comments
"There is a problem with the phrase, 'similarly qualified' here. That is what I call the Type I category of labor cost reduction via hiring H-1Bs. I also define Type II salary savings, in which employers hire younger (thus cheaper) H-1Bs instead of older (thus more expensive) Americans. The latter are presumably better qualified, since they are more experienced, but employers tend not to look at it that way. They simply want to hire cheaper workers. The result is the same, of course -- employers hire the H-1Bs instead of the Americans -- but to me it's crucial to state (and understand) everything precisely. Yes, I know, the press and Congress don't care about subtleties, but I do, and my problem is that this document does not distinguish between Types I and II. Furthermore, it's really not a subtlety, as there are important implications. For example, the Intels and M$s rely heavily on Type II... [Firms large and small, US-based, Red China-based, and Indian based abuse H-1B visas.] IEEE-USA is to be commended for focusing on the loop-holes in H-1B law, rather than presenting it as [only] an enforcement issue [it is problem of both loop-holes and lack of enforcement]. However, its list of sample loop-holes is not quite accurate... prevailing wage is defined according to the job, not the worker. If one hires an experienced worker for an entry level job, the law says that prevailing wage will be entry level... Similarly, if an employer hires an H-1B worker with a Master's degree for a job that only requires a Bachelor's, the law says that the employer can legally pay the H-1B only Bachelor's-level wages -- something that the free market would not allow the employer to do with a worker who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident..."
2006-09-06
Melissa Allison, Kristi Heim & Dominic Gates _Seattle Times_
Alan Mulally jumps from Boeing to Ford
"But Mulally did not convince everyone, especially among the ranks of Boeing machinists who were decimated under his leadership. Mark Blondin, president of local 751 of the International Association of Machinists, blamed Mulally for off-shoring and out-sourcing work. 'Keeping that work in-house could have mitigated the damage of 2001/09/11.', said Blondin. He was also bitter that Mulally chose not to meet with him since a one-month strike last fall. 'They just can't get over it.', he said. Perhaps because he was an engineer himself, Mulally managed to maintain better relations with Boeing's engineers union at a time of severe cut-backs. Charles Bofferding, executive director of the white-collar union, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), said Mulally 'appreciated the technical community'. 'Alan was very popular with the engineering community.', he said. 'He'd come to our council meetings... at least once a year.' He doesn't even hold the massive lay-offs against Mulally. 'Could the company have survived if all those people had still been employed? There certainly was an industry down-turn not unique to the Boeing company. And there are financial realities.', Bofferding said. 'He certainly believed that one of the keys to survival is laying off people when you must [or even when you just felt like it]. At that time, he felt he had to and so he did.'"
2006-09-06
_Federal Reserve Board_
Beige Book
- Summary
- Reports on the service sector varied by industry and by district: some found the trucking and information technology industries to be relatively strong, but others provided mixed reports on air transportation and health care... A number of other Districts reported sharp wage increases or wage pressures for such workers in occupations that are in short supply or for workers in particular industries, such as [TEMPORARY] information technology (Boston), trucking (Cleveland), retail trade (Chicago), and financial and health services (San Francisco).
- Boston
- Most manufacturers report that their U.S. head-counts are stable or increasing slightly. Base pay increases typically remain in the range of 3% to 4%. However, tight markets for finance, information technology, engineering, and scientific personnel are leading to an acceleration in salary increases, large signing bonuses, or higher turn-over. Domestic capital spending plans for 2006 are mixed, but more manufacturers expect to increase than decrease their expenditures compared to a year earlier... Body Shops Business appears to be growing steadily at software and IT services companies in the First District, with the majority of firms reporting double digit year-over-year revenue increases in the most recent quarter. Contacts state that the market is competitive, so most have kept prices unchanged. Contacted companies are adding technology workers and sales staff, with companies serving the healthcare sector indicating they are hiring aggressively in order to keep pace with demand. All responding firms with plans to hire report tightening in the labor market, especially for specialized technical positions; several firms note that they feel some upward wage pressures for those positions. Respondents report annual wage increases for most employees between 3% and 7%, while wages for highly-skilled technical positions are up by as much as 15%. Several software and IT services contacts indicate they are increasing capital and technology spending to expand facilities and upgrade equipment. First District software and information technology firms expect steady growth for their companies in the second half of the year, with the exception of firms serving the manufacturing sector, who say they expect demand to decline. Reports on business conditions in the New England staffing industry are mixed this quarter, with the only unifying theme among contacts being that things are not going as expected. Firms that are usually very busy in the summer months have had a weak quarter through mid-August, while firms that typically have a slow third quarter have been experiencing high growth rates. For one Connecticut firm, 'this has certainly not been a banner year'; the firm lost money during the first half of the year and only recently started to see a slight turnaround. Another contact reports, 'Nobody's booming... everybody's hustling. Things are off a bit.' By contrast, an information technology [body shop] is experiencing year-over-year revenue growth between 25% and 30%, while a professional and technical [body shop] reports that its billing and cash receipts are up almost 100% from a year ago. Currently, demand for labor is strongest in the information technology, financial, and health-care sectors. Some respondents still report that tight labor supply in these areas is forcing them to increase their expenditures on recruiting and is putting pressure on wages. When asked about their expectations for the remainder of the year, contacts are ambiguous. Overall, however, respondents reporting growth expect more of the same, while those reporting poor results express uncertainty.
- New York
- A major New York City employment agency, specializing in office jobs, reports that there has been no discernible change in the job market since the last report, though August is a quiet month and difficult to use as a gauge. More broadly, non-manufacturing firms in the District report they have stepped up hiring activity in August, despite some reported slowing in overall business activity.
- Philadelphia
- Employers in many industries reported that labor markets remain tight for both skilled and unskilled workers. In service industries, firms report rising turnover among information technology, finance, and managerial occupations. In contrast, some residential construction companies have laid off workers as demand for new homes has declined. Wages are generally reported to be rising slightly faster now than at this time last year, but salaries offered for positions that are difficult to fill have increased substantially. Firms in all industries continue to report increases in health care costs.
- Cleveland
- Most producers reported idle capacity and only a few planned to increase their investment spending. None of the contacts reported increasing employment in the past 6 weeks and only two said they plan to hire in the near future... Three of the larger builders laid off workers over the past several months; otherwise, direct employment was relatively unchanged.
- Richmond
- Manufacturers told us that shipments declined, while new orders increased modestly and employment moved higher. Among industries, producers of apparel, fabricated metals, food, furniture, and lumber recorded declines in output from mid July through late August. A machinery manufacturer in North Carolina reported stronger orders, though a residential door producer in the state said that his orders had softened. A number of respondents indicated that while raw materials prices were increasing less rapidly, they could no longer pass through those increases... [Body shoppers] reported generally strong demand for workers since our last report. In Richmond, VA, an agent was optimistic that demand would remain solid as companies were increasingly relying on temporary workers. An agent in Raleigh, NC, reported on-going demand for full-time workers, but added that skilled workers remained hard to find. In contrast, some softening in demand for temporary workers was reported by an agent in the Washington, DC, area. Employees with skills in computers, sales, production, warehouse, and life sciences were highly sought by employers. Increasingly, employers also were looking for bilingual employees.
- Atlanta
- Contacts continued to report labor shortages in some industries and locations. Staffing the re-opened casinos along Mississippi's Gulf Coast remained a problem for casino operators because of the lack of housing, and hospitality workers remained in short supply in New Orleans. Builders noted a shortage of qualified workers in many parts of the District with the most acute shortages reported along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
- Chicago
- Overall labor market conditions were little changed, with small gains in employment on net... Overall labor market conditions were little changed, with small gains in employment on net. Factory employment ticked up, led by growth at toolmakers, while employment at retailers, hotels, and banks was little changed. A local internet job posting business said that growth in listings remained positive and it had seen no signs of slowing. Shortages of skilled manufacturing workers persisted, and there were continued reports of difficulty in filling engineering job openings. A temporary help services provider [i.e. body shop] said that demand growth in the District moderated; while orders from large firms remained steady, demand from smaller businesses was softer.
- Minneapolis
- Since the last report, employment increased and wage growth accelerated slightly... Labor markets tightened slightly since the last report. Non-farm employment in District states was up 1.9% in July compared with a year ago. Employers in the Upper Peninsula reported a severe shortage of available workers for jobs involving electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical systems. A survey of online recruiting sites showed that Minneapolis-St. Paul area job postings in July remained unchanged from June, but at relatively strong levels; postings for science and education were up, while those for health care were down. In contrast, a light truck manufacturer recently announced plans to reduce shifts from two to one by the end of the year, which will affect 700 jobs. An airline with service to North Dakota airports will lay off 85 ground workers by the end of the year. Overall wage growth accelerated slightly. Wages paid by farm operators to hired workers in Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin increased more than 5% in July compared with a year earlier. Wages for manufacturing workers in District states increased 2.6% in July compared with a year ago. In 2005 July, wages increased 1.9% from a year earlier.
2006-09-07 (5766 Elul 14) - 61 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-07 05:30PDT (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 257,595 in the week ending Sept. 2, an increase of 6,073 from the previous week. There were 271,613 initial claims in the comparable week in 2005. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.7% during the week ending Aug. 26, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,250,625, a decrease of 18,352 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 1.8% and the volume was 2,323,719."
2006-09-07 05:20PDT (08:20EDT) (12:20GMT)
Lou Dobbs _CNN_
Voters won't tolerate "axis of amnesty"
"Our do-nothing Congress and our do-nothing-right president aren't exactly wildly popular to begin with. And the Congressional Republican leadership has figured out that in closely contested races, any legislation approximating amnesty for as many as 20M illegal aliens in this country will amount to wholesale defeat at the polls on November 7. Even the pro-illegal alien and open borders lobby has finally arrived at the conclusion that the American people won't tolerate an illegal alien population demanding the same rights as American citizens. And the in-your-face enthusiasm of illegal aliens and their amnesty-advocate supporters has waned as the public understanding of the facts has risen... The leaders of the nation's principal labor unions are obviously confused. They're now caught between trying to bolster their membership rolls by backing the Rove-Bush-Reid-McCain-Kennedy amnesty legislation and explaining to their existing members what they're doing to preserve the jobs and wage levels of American citizens. Add national labor leaders to the list of those simply out of touch with the will of the American people."
2006-09-07 05:42PDT (08:42EDT) (12:42GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Continuing unemployment insurance claims rose to a seasonally adjusted 6-month high
"Long-term unemployment has been stubbornly high during [the continuing Clinton-Bush depression]. In August, about a third of the 7.1M official unemployed had been out of work longer than 15 weeks, while 18.4% had been out of work longer than 27 weeks. The median duration of unemployment was 8.5 weeks, while the average was 17.4 weeks. Typically, unemployment benefits run out after 26 weeks for those who are eligible."
see more employment data
2006-09-07
_GAO_
Off-Shoring: U.S. Semiconductor and Software Industries Increasingly Produce in Red China and India (GAO-06-423 pdf)
"The U.S. semiconductor industry began off-shoring labor-intensive manufacturing operations in the 1960s, followed in the 1970s and 1980s by increasingly complex operations, including wafer fabrication and some research and development (R&D) and design work. Semiconductor assembly and testing was the first to move to Asia, followed by fabrication and, more recently, by some design operations. Software services off-shoring began in the 1990s after Internet communications made it possible to trade services such as software programming and software design. The year 2000 change-over hastened this off-shoring trend related to software services because programmers knowledgeable in the appropriate [defunct] programming languages were available, primarily in India. In the 2000s, firms further expanded their off-shoring operations, based on the low-cost and high-quality work from the off-shored services undertaken in the late 1990s... Foreign government policies in Taiwan and [Red China] created favorable investment conditions for U.S. semiconductor firms. India changed its emphasis from state-owned enterprises in the 1970s to an environment more amenable to private enterprise by the mid-1980s. Although its restrictions on foreign investment constrained the software services industry's overall development, India established software technology parks in 1990 to give domestic firms preferential access to the infrastructure essential for off-shored operations."
alternate link (pdf)
2006-09-08 (5766 Elul 15) - 60 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-08 12:51PDT (15:51EDT) (19:51GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
Consumer credit rose by $14.1G in June, $5.5G in July in USA
2006-09-08
_Cincinnati Enquirer_
Fairfield, OH, buffet owner indicted for employing illegal aliens
2006-09-08 15:00PDT (18:00EDT) (22:00GMT)
Lou Dobbs & Bill Tucker _CNN_
US Senate Immigration Proposals Would Decimate USA's Technology Work-force
"Bill Tucker: Under the Senate's immigration reform bill, known as S2611, the door would be open to flood the market with foreign high-tech workers. A new study done by Georgetown University (pdf) shows that it could devastate the job market for American citizens. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a need for 1.25M more computing and engineering workers over the next decade. The Georgetown estimate of how many new high-tech visas that would be created by the Senate bill in that time, is almost 2M.
Lindsay Lowell of Georgetown University: What is really troublesome, potentially, is we could really bring in many more that strict demand suggests we need. And when you do that, you set in play, potentially, a lot of consequences you don't want to see.
Bill Tucker: The most obvious consequence when supply exceeds demand is cheaper labor. But while that may be good for business, it's not necessarily good for America.
Carl Mack of the National Society of Black Engineers: A country [that] was built on technology, you know, that's how we became a world super power. Our solution to this shortage of engineers is to now bring in foreign-born talent versus to grow our own? I cannot for the life of me understand that.
Bill Tucker: Students weighing career choices do understand exactly what's at stake. And at a time when the president is promoting careers in science and technology, the Senate is sending those students a clear message.
Vin O'Neill of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers USA: Students are watching the job markets and are watching compensation, and engineering is a pretty tough row to hoe, so in many cases, bright kids, seeing what's going on might elect to go into business or medicine or law as an alternative to engineering...
Bill Tucker: the engineering group is opposed to the Senate's so-called Immigration Reform Bill, because they say it contains no significant job protections for American workers.
Lou Dobbs: I think the U.S. Senate and the Republican leadership of the U.S. Senate have a lot of explaining to do to the American people. Every senator who voted for that bill, Republican and Democrat, should be held accountable, in my estimation, at the polls. Because it is absolutely the most, to me, absolutely negligent disregard of the interests of American workers and their families, that's ever been put forward. Senator Kennedy, Senator McCain, should definitely be held responsible."
2006-09-08
| DJIA | 11,392.11 |
| S&P 500 | 1,298.92 |
| NASDAQ | 2,165.79 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 4.77% |
| crude oil | 66.25 |
| gold | 617.30 |
| silver | 12.09 |
| platinum | 1,229.50 |
| palladium | 333.60 |
| copper | 0.2230 |
| natgas | $5.675/MBTU |
| unleadedgasoline | $1.6091/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.8432/gal |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
2006-09-09 (5766 Elul 16) - 59 Days Until Congressional Election
| |
"You should keep the promises you make to your workers. If you offer a private pension plan to your employees, you have a duty to set aside enough money now so your workers will get what they've been promised when they retire." --- George W. Bush said at a White House signing ceremony 2006-08-17
| |
2006-09-10 (5766 Elul 17) - 58 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-09 20:55PDT (2006-09-09 23:55EDT) (2006-09-10 03:55GMT)
Anita Hassan _Houston Chronicle_
Illegal aliens are threat to USA
"'People need to know illegal immigration is a problem and it's a threat to the sovereignty and freedom of the United States.', said U.S. Border Watch President Curtis Collier... illegal immigration is holding down wages in the U.S. for working people. 'Illegal immigrants coming over here and taking the jobs for less and less.', he said. 'The pay scales will just continue to drop. I just hope everybody else sees it and stands up for themselves.'... gang violence... However, President of Texans for Immigration Reform, Louise Whiteford, who also attended the rally against illegal immigration, said those who come to the country illegally may be confused about what they are getting themselves into. 'The people that are coming over here think they are coming over for the American dream.', said Whiteford, 76. 'But they are just going to become a part of the cheap-labor corps.'"
2006-09-09 22:00PDT (2006-09-10 01:00EDT) (2006-09-10 05:00GMT)
_World Net Daily_
Illegal aliens tried in gang rapes
Illegal aliens linked to wave of gang rape
2006-09-10
_Washington Times_
Congressman Eric Cantor supports Culpeper, VA crack-down on illegal immigration
"Town Council member Steve Jenkins began an effort to target landlords and employers who house or hire illegal aliens... A meeting recently called by Mr. Jenkins on the topic drew more than 200 people and became contentious when some exchanged angry words. At the same time, about 100 people sympathetic to immigrants marched downtown. Such supporters also have sent a letter to the Town Council urging its members to reject measures that target illegal aliens."
2006-09-10
Michael Rubinkam _AP_/_Philadelphia Inquirer_
Hazleton's law on illegal immigration revised
"Like the version it replaces, the new ordinance given tentative approval Friday would punish businesses that employ illegal immigrants and landlords who rent to them. But the new measure would go about enforcement in a completely different way, putting the burden of verifying immigration status on the city, giving landlords and businesses time to correct violations before imposing sanctions, and softening penalties... The city has assembled a legal team to defend the measure, including Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri law professor and immigration adviser under former Attorney General John Ashcroft. [Mountain States Legal Foundation and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) are also backing the Hazleton council.]... Last week, officials in the city of 31K residents agreed not to enforce the original ordinance after the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] and Latino groups sued in federal court to overturn it. In return, the plaintiffs agreed not to seek an injunction against the city. Under the agreement, Hazleton must give the plaintiffs at least 20 days' notice before it begins enforcing the replacement ordinance - enough time for the ACLU to head back to court to try to stop it."
2006-09-10 04:14PDT (07:14EST) (11:14GMT)
Jim Kouri _Conservative Voice_
Feds Captured 90 Alien Criminals in Twin Cities in Operation Return to Sender
"Of the 90 individuals arrested in the Twin Cities metropolitan area during this latest operation, 48 are fugitive aliens with final orders of deportation, and 42 are immigration violators. Ten of those arrested also have convictions for such crimes as: criminal sexual conduct, aggravated assault, felony re-entry after deportation, possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, drunk driving and fraud... Of the more than 52K illegal aliens apprehended by ICE Fugitive Operations teams since the first teams were created in 2003, roughly 22,669 had criminal convictions."
2006-09-10
Kathy Shann _Morris County NJ Daily Record_
Why delay? Send illegal aliens back.
"I read yet another article in the paper on illegal aliens. How a local mayor is getting opposition with not wanting employers or landlords to allow them. I just don't understand why everyone is so concerned. They are in this country illegally. They shouldn't get anything. They all need to go back to their country and enter this country legally. Just like everyone else. This country really needs to secure our borders, and send the people who get through back. No questions. Treat them like what they are -- illegal."
2006-09-10
Jesse James DeConto _News & Observer_
More fear of arrest for illegal aliens
"Five years later, many unauthorized Latino workers say they live in fear of losing their jobs or being deported... In fiscal 2001, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service visited work sites and arrested 19 illegal workers on criminal charges throughout the United States. Between 2005 October 1, and May 31, the renamed agency -- Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- made 382 such arrests. And those arrests were only of immigrants who never had valid visas. The number of actions against foreign workers who overstay their visas has gone from about 57 a month to more than 300. Over the same period, ICE's annual budget has grown by $1G to a total of $3.8G. ICE has about 3K agents to police an estimated 11M illegal immigrants. It does not release statistics by state... Nearly 40% of the arrests nationwide in 2006 have occurred at Fort Bragg near Fayetteville and at Cree Inc., a defense contractor in Durham... Michael Cutler, a former INS agent, is a current fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington research group that favors stricter enforcement. He says recent arrests are soothing public anxiety without actually making a dent in the problem. 'It's like putting a new coat of paint on rotted wood.', he said. Greensboro resident Reagan Sugg is working to create a state chapter of the Minuteman Project to report employers of illegal immigrants. He said prosecuting employees of military contractors is only scratching the surface. 'When is it going to be politically correct to visit some of the major industries in the state who employ almost exclusively illegal aliens?', Sugg asked."
2006-09-10 12:33PDT (15:33EDT) (19:33GMT)
William J. Dobson _Dallas Morning News_
Little has changed in USA since 2001-09-11
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"The global economy offered the first sign that a new, darker day hadn't dawned. [After having peaked 2001 March 10, by] Sept. 10, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9,605.51. Once markets reopened on Sept. 17, it took only 40 days for the market to close above that level again. The value of the United States' monthly exports has continued to rise steadily from $60G to more than $75G between 2001 and 2005. The value of global trade dipped slightly in 2001 from $8T to $7.8T. Then, once markets found their footing, they came racing back, increasing every subsequent year, topping $12T in 2005... University presidents, CEOs and, of course, those seeking to immigrate for work or study have complained loudly that the United States has fallen into a 'Fortress America' mentality... For example, the United States granted far more worker visas in 2005 than in 1998, the heyday of America's triumphant, open-for-business dot-com boom. Last year, 255,993 student visas were handed out -- only 541 fewer than in 2002. Also in 2005, the United States rejected fewer foreigners for H-1B visas -- the work permit given to those who have a special occupational expertise in, say, medicine, engineering or science -- than in 2001; in fact, last year was the lowest refusal rate of the past 5 years. The number of people becoming American citizens is also on the rise. More foreigners were naturalized in 2005 than in 1998, and the number of naturalizations leapt 12% from 2004 to 2005."
2006-09-11 (5766 Elul 18) - 57 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-11
Marv Balousek _Wisconsin State Journal_
It's too easy to import talent
"A researcher at UW-Madison's department of nutritional sciences, she came here legally from Macedonia, and she and her husband overcame several hurdles to stay and become U.S. citizens. 'I do feel it's not fair that some illegals come here.', she said. 'It's not fair to me and my husband. We never attempted to stay without valid visas.'... "
2006-09-11
Chotu Singh _Techgoss, the tech grape-vine_
Indian Body Shoppers vs. US citizen of Indian descent
2006-09-11 16:46PDT (19:46EDT) (23:46GMT)
Liz Sidoti _AP_/_Yahoo!_
Non-partisan anti-incumbent sentiment is widespread
"Dissatisfied with Congress, voters would probably hang a 'Help Wanted' sign on the U.S. Capitol if given the chance. 'They're not doing their job.'... The factory worker had harsh words for congressional Republicans and Democrats as he helped close his sister's New Castle deli one recent evening. 'You need people that care. They don't care.' Such angry sentiments echo up and down the Ohio River Valley as it cuts through Republican-held congressional districts in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio — politically pivotal House seats... At lunch counters, post offices, city parks and downtown streets, voters in this region and nationally are quick to voice their frustration... KB, an independent, knows precisely what he's looking for in a congressman. 'Somebody who cares for the working man.', the super-market employee, 66, says before picking up his mail at the PeeWee Valley, KY, post office... 'Maybe the Democrats do, or maybe they don't.'... An Associated Press-Ipsos poll in August found that only 29% of the public approve of the job Congress is doing. A CNN poll earlier this month found that 55% of Americans are more likely to vote for the challenger in any election this Fall. And an ABC News/Washington Post poll in August found that 53% of Americans call themselves 'anti-incumbent'... House and Senate members rarely lose their re-election bids. Nevertheless, 4 incumbents -- including a governor and a senator -- have lost primaries so far this year, providing some evidence that voters want fresh blood in positions of power. Neither political party may be immune... Voters outside the capital clearly aren't happy with their elected officials of either political party... Many law-makers have 'been there a little too long' and have 'lost touch with the problems we're facing now', said PW, a surgical assistant who talked politics after finishing a hospital shift in Madison, IN. 'They're out of reality.'... law-makers in Washington never come through. 'They all promise you the world and then when they get in there. They're all the same.', he complained, climbing into his car after buying a few supplies at a Dollar General... 'These people make it their life jobs' and because of that 'Congress is so out of touch', said the Cincinnati symphony violist as she stretched after a brisk walk around a park in Springfield Township."
2006-09-12 (5766 Elul 19) - 56 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-12 (5766 Elul 19)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Cheap shot journalism
2006-09-12 07:09PDT (10:09EDT) (14:09GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
Oil imports led to record $68G trade deficit in July
BEA press releases
2006-09-12
Jim Downing _Lakeland Ledger_
No Labor Shortages in California
"All year, California farm groups have complained that congressional inaction on overhauling immigration laws, coupled with tightening border controls, would lead to a critical shortage of labor. With harvest time having arrived, state agricultural leaders are preparing to join their counterparts from around the country this week for a major lobbying push in Washington. They have been gathering anecdotes describing what they say is a damaging labor crisis in the state... So far, however, state surveys show no discernible drop in total farm employment for May, June and July, though an up-tick in farm wages suggests a tighter labor supply... And finally, in anticipation of a tighter labor market, many of the state's farmers have been keeping more staff on the farm yearround and replacing hired hands with machines where they can... He noted that average farm wages began to rise last summer and that, by March of this year, stood at $9.93 an hour, 6.5% higher than at the same point in 2005 [in a state where the income of grocery check-out clerks can average $32 or more at it did in San Diego in 2000]... Even taking into account the capital cost of $250K, a mechanized harvester can pick grapes for about $270 an acre, just over half the price of manual laborers, Manna said."
2006-09-12
Sara A. Carter _San Bernardino Sun_
USCIS employees were given incentives to push visa applications through rapidly
Inland Daily Bulletin
"U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service employees were offered financial incentives to push immigration applications through the system quickly and eliminate a backlog of nearly 4M such applications in time to meet a presidential dead-line. Employees and internal documents obtained by The Sun's sister newspaper, the Ontario-based Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, also reveal that the back-log is not actually gone, but that millions of applications in process have been reclassified to fall outside the backlog definition and help the agency meet an October dead-line set by President Bush in 2003. The pressure to reduce the back-log, combined with the promise of bonuses for faster work, led to application short-cuts that might have compromised the immigrant-screening process, according to current and former agency employees and at least one congressman. USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez announced last week that the agency has reduced backlogged applications for green cards, work permits and other immigration benefits from 3.98M to fewer than 140K... A USCIS memo reveals that monetary incentives totaling up to $5M were promised to USCIS employees nationwide for meeting 'production challenges' designed to eliminate the application backlog. The funds are to be disbursed by the end of the fiscal year in the form of $500 bonuses for employees, and to pay for office parties. USCIS officials made the memo public Monday. A USCIS employee said Sunday that the rush to meet the October deadline, and earn bonus pay, led to mistakes and oversights in processing immigration applications... 'They told us not to check for aliases because it slows down production.', said another adjudicator, from USCIS' central region. 'Other employees just wanted to process applications as fast as possible to get the incentives... The back-log-reduction awards made people careless because they had to move through so many applications per month.'... USCIS has more than 15K employees nationwide. The chairman of the House Subcommittee on Terrorism and Nonproliferation criticized the incentives, saying USCIS' priorities are skewed and that [tax-victim] money is being misspent. 'I thought USCIS got the message (during April committee hearings) to put national security over expediency.', said representative Ed Royce, R-Fullerton. 'I do not want production goals to take priority over fraud prevention.'... Michael Maxwell, former director of internal affairs for USCIS, who testified before Royce's subcommittee earlier this year about security failures within USCIS... Word about the bonuses program follows last week's call by Royce for a congressional investigation and hearing about screening lapses on applicants for green cards, work permits and other immigration documents at the National Benefits Center in Lee's Summit, MO. Those lapses were first reported by The Sun and Daily Bulletin on August 23. Gonzalez's claim that the backlog sits at only 140K applications also has been challenged by USCIS employees, outside immigration experts and Royce... USCIS documents obtained by the Daily Bulletin show the difference between the pending case-load and the official back-log lies in the definition of 'back-log', which USCIS officials have changed at least two times since the president set the elimination dead-line. Under the current definition, the official backlog excludes all pending applications filed within the previous six months; all pending applications that are awaiting action by a third party anything from a security check by the FBI to verification of a Mexican birth certificate; and all pending applications for benefits that are not immediately available (for example, if the annual limit on green cards has already been reached). Royce said USCIS still has an enormous back-log, and that the agency is doing whatever it takes to show a reduction to lend credence to a Senate proposal that offers [two additional new] guest-worker [programs] and a path to amnesty... 'By one estimate, the Senate bill will bring in over 62M people over the next decade.', Royce said. 'USCIS will be faced with a challenge of widespread document fraud. We saw it in the (1986) amnesty bill, and we will see it on a much bigger scale this time around.'"
2006-09-12
Representative Ron Paul, MD _Lew Rockwell_
Immigration Reform in 2006?
"The American people want something done about illegal immigration now -- not next year... I truly believe border security is the most important issue for millions of Americans... But real national security cannot be achieved unless and until our borders are physically secured."
2006-09-12 15:38PDT (18:38EDT) (22:38GMT)
Gabriel Madway _MarketWatch_
Ford to seek 30% cut in non-executive, salaried employees' compensation
more extensive coverage
2006-09-13 (5766 Elul 20) - 55 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-13 08:28PDT (11:28EDT) (15:28GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Mortgage Bankers Association says applications up 3.2% last week
2006-09-13 12:37PDT (15:37EDT) (19:37GMT)
Greg Robb & William L. Watts _MarketWatch_
Federal deficit increased to $64.6G in August: CBO expects FY2006 total to be about $260G
2006-09-13 (5766 Elul 20)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Constitution Day
"Each year since 2004, on September 17, we commemorate the 1787 signing of the U.S. Constitution by 39 American statesmen... I cannot think of a piece of legislation that makes greater mockery of the Constitution, or a more constitutionally odious person to father it — senator. Byrd, a person who is known as, and proudly wears the label, 'King of Pork'. The only reason that Constitution Day hasn't become a laughingstock is because most Americans are totally ignorant of, or have contempt for, the letter and spirit of our Constitution. Let's examine just a few statements by the framers to see just how much faith and allegiance today's Americans give to the U.S. Constitution. James Madison is the acknowledged father of the Constitution. In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15K for relief for French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo (now Haiti) to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison said disapprovingly, 'I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.' Today, at least two-thirds of a $2.5T federal budget is spent on 'objects of benevolence'. That includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, aid to higher education, farm and business subsidies, welfare, etc., ad nauseam. James Madison's vision was later expressed by representative William Giles of Virginia, who condemned a relief measure for fire victims. Giles insisted that it was neither the purpose nor a right of Congress to 'attend to what generosity and humanity require, but to what the Constitution and their duty require'. Some presidents had similar constitutional respect. In 1854, President Franklin Pierce vetoed a bill to help the mentally ill, saying, 'I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity.', adding that to approve the measure 'would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded'."
2006-09-13
Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman & Edward W. Felten _Princeton University_
Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine
"many computer scientists doubt that paperless DREs [Direct Recording Electronic systems] can be made reliable and secure, and they expect that any failures of such systems would likely go undetected... The main findings of our study are:
- Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal votes with little if any risk of detection. The malicious software can modify all of the records, audit logs, and counters kept by the voting machine, so that even careful forensic examination of these records will find nothing amiss. We have constructed demonstration software that carries out this vote-stealing attack.
- Anyone who has physical access to a voting machine, or to a memory card that will later be inserted into a machine, can install said malicious software using a simple method that takes as little as one minute. In practice, poll workers and others often have unsupervised access to the machines.
- AccuVote-TS machines are susceptible to voting-machine viruses—computer viruses that can spread malicious software automatically and invisibly from machine to machine during normal pre- and post-election activity. We have constructed a demonstration virus that spreads in this way, installing our demonstration vote-stealing program on every machine it infects.
- While some of these problems can be eliminated by improving Diebold's software, others cannot be remedied without replacing the machines' hardware. Changes to election procedures would also be required to ensure security...
Given our findings, we believe urgent action is needed to address these problems. We discuss potential mitigation strategies in more detail below..."
2006-09-13
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
On Illegal Alien Crime
"95% of all outstanding homicide warrants in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens. Buchanan cited an article by the Manhattan Institute's Heather Mac Donald. [The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave City Journal 2004 Winter]... why doesn't the LAPD, and American government in general, collect information on the immigrant status of criminals? (Answer: because it doesn't want to know.)... &nbnsp; Here's some perspective: Non-citizens account for 7.2% of the total U.S. population, according to a 2003 Census survey. Their share of the incarcerated population that year was 12.9% -- more than half again as large. 7nbsp; Approximately 27% of all prisoners in Federal custody are criminal aliens. The majority (63%) are citizens of Mexico. [GAO, Letter to Representative John Hostettler, 2005 April 7 ( PDF)]"
2006-09-14 (5766 Elul 21) - 54 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-13 21:39PDT (2006-09-14 00:39EDT) (2006-09-14 04:39GMT)
Ilya Garger _MarketWatch_
Red China suspends outsiders' bids to participate in brokering
2006-09-14 05:30PDT (08:30EST) (13:30GMT)
Subri Raman & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
current press release
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 238,134 in the week ending Sept. 9, a decrease of 21,502 from the previous week. There were 322,387 initial claims in the comparable week in 2005. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.6% during the week ending Sept. 2, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 2,141,215, a decrease of 99,317 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 1.7% and the volume was 2,216,756."
2006-09-14
Meredith Courtemanche _Surface Mount Technology_
Out-Sourcing Practices and Ethics Scrutinized
"The Technology Forecasters, Inc. (TFI) quarterly forum taking place in Boston this week will address such out-sourcing-related questions. Corporate social responsibility (CSR), implications for unfair treatment of factory workers, and the definition of sweatshop conditions will take center stage in a panel on the labor practices within electronics manufacturing facilities over-seas. OEMs and EMS providers realize that CSR is not simply a public relations issue. The business rationale for out-sourcing manufacturing in search of lower costs must be qualified against meaningful ethnical guidelines, explained Bruce Rayner, director of research and consulting at TFI. The panel will focus on CSR programs, and whether or not they provide sufficient governance and regulatory power to ensure fair labor practices. Topics up for debate will include if current investments in CSR programs are creating effective solutions, if labor standards should be global or adjusted according to geographical region, efficient modes of enforcing compliance to an ethics program, and more. Considering Wu's analysis of the divergent methods of manufacturing in various sectors, the most controversial issues for the panel may be how a diverse industry defines such standards. Company size, location, percent of assembly out-sourced, and other variations may all affect the stringency of regulations imposed. TFI's panelist will also question the relevance of individual corporate labor codes — in comparison to industry-wide programs such as the Electronics Industry Code of Conduct. The group will focus a due amount on the external perception of corporate social responsibility — allegations of sweatshop conditions, whether true or not, can create a consumer backlash strong enough to decimate cost-savings that were originally generated through out-sourcing practices."
2006-09-14 06:21PDT (09:21EDT) (13:21GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
US import prices up 0.8% in August
BLS import-export price indices
2006-09-14 06:32PDT (09:32EDT) (13:32GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Retail sales rose 0.2% in August
census bureau retail sales data release
2006-09-14 08:00PDT (11:00EDT) (15:00GMT)
_Yahoo!_/_PR News Wire_
PA governor Edward Rendell signed Contractor Social Responsibility executive order, urges service providers to enlist domestic labor in state contracts
"Attracted by lower costs abroad, sending jobs over-seas has become a growing trend for private sector companies. Some estimates have put the loss of U.S. manufacturing and service-sector jobs because of this practice between 2.5M and 3M over the last 3 years alone. Forrester Research expects that another 3.3M domestic positions will be moved abroad in the next 15 years... Under governor Rendell's executive order, 'Contractor Social Responsibility and Off-Shore Services', businesses must disclose where they intend to have the work done. Those companies that agree to keep work within the U.S.A. will receive extra consideration."
2006-09-15 (5766 Elul 22) - 53 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-15 07:25PDT (10:25EDT) (14:25GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index rose from 82.0 in August to 84.4
2006-09-15 10:00PDT (13:00EDT) (17:00GMT)
Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
US industrial output fell 0.1% in August
Federal Reserve Board statistics
2006-09-15 12:25PDT (15:25EDT) (19:25GMT)
_CNN_
Low pay makes a ghost town in Georgia
"Trailer parks lie abandoned. The poultry plant is scrambling to replace more than half its workforce. Business has dried up at stores... This Georgia community of about 1K people has become little more than a ghost town since September 1, when federal agents began rounding up illegal [aliens]... Other than the Crider plant, there isn't much in Stillmore. Four small stores, a coin laundry and a Baptist church share downtown with City Hall, the fire department and a post office. 'We're poor but proud.', Mayor Marilyn Slater said, as if that is the town motto... Since the mid-1990s, Stillmore has grown dependent on the paychecks of Mexican workers who originally came for seasonal farm labor, picking the area's famous Vidalia onions. Many then took year-round jobs at the Crider plant, with a work-force of about 900... Crider increased its starting wages by $1 an hour to help recruit new workers. Stacie Bell, 23, started work canning chicken at Crider a week ago. She said the pay, $7.75 an hour, led her to leave her $5.60-an-hour job as a Wal-Mart cashier in nearby Statesboro."
2006-09-15 12:04PDT (15:04EDT) (19:04GMT)
Parija B. Kavilanz _CNN_/_Money_
4 US firms that fought off Red China
"Six years after John Baker first heard the term '[Red China] price', his plastic injection molding business has lost two-thirds of its work force, 60% of its revenue and more than half of its big American corporate clientele. But unlike the 40K small- to mid-size American manufacturers that have vanished since the late 1990s, Baker's 60-year-old family-run Diamond Tool and Die company based in Dayton, Ohio, is still around... [Red China's] entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1999 spurred a rapid exodus of manufacturing from the United States into [Red China] -- and the loss of about 2.6M jobs, according to government figures. The U.S. Business and Industry Council (USBIC), a trade group that represents 1,500 small- and mid-size manufacturers, estimates there are nearly 300K manufacturing companies in the United States... 'Our members are squeezed from both sides.', Tonelson said, noting they have to focus on quality but also need to keep reinvesting in their businesses. 'But the [Red China] Price isn't allowing them to get the profit margins they need.'"
2006-09-15
Marisa Taylor _San Jose Mercury News_
US government still in the dark on locations of foreigners in USA
"After spending $900M to set up a data-base to track foreign travelers arriving in America, the government still doesn't know how many of them stay in the country illegally because the system is incomplete and snarled by controversy. The US-VISIT system screens up to 2M foreigners a month as they arrive at all international airports and seaports and at most border crossings. Visitors' personal information, finger-prints and photographs are logged electronically into a computer database and their names are checked against criminal records and terrorist watch lists... Since US-VISIT launched three years ago, authorities have recorded 64M visits in their database. They credit the new screening process with helping them to detect and turn back more than 1,300 criminals. But Congress never set a deadline for a check-out system. The agency has spent $900M so far, mostly on setting up new finger-printing machines for arriving foreigners... But experts said the only reliable way to know how many people over-stayed their visas and remained in the country illegally would be to require visa-holders to check out."
2006-09-15
| DJIA | 11,560.77 |
| S&P 500 | 1,319.87 |
| NASDAQ | 2,235.59 |
| 10-year US T-Bond | 4.80% |
| crude oil | 63.33 |
| gold | 583.00 |
| silver | 10.875 |
| platinum | 1,163.70 |
| palladium | 314.80 |
| copper | 0.20697 |
| natgas | $4.98/MBTU |
| unleadedgasoline | $1.575/gal |
| heatingoil | $1.7023/gal |
I usually get this info from MarketWatch, which gets them from BigCharts.
2006-09-16 (5766 Elul 23) - 52 Days Until Congressional Election
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"If you don't fail regularly you are not trying hard enough things." --- Ivan Sutherland
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2006-09-17 (5766 Elul 24) - 51 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-17
Les Phillips _Clarion-Ledger_
Illegal aliens, guest-workers, and foreign students distort congressional districts
"Non-citizens -- including illegal immigrants, guest-workers and foreign students in the United States -- are counted in the U.S. Census every 10 years and their numbers are used to determine how many seats each state will have in the U.S. House of Representatives and how many votes each state will have in the Electoral College, which elects the president... Michigan's U.S. representative Candice Miller introduced HR5451 and HJResolution 53 in the House and Montana's senator Conrad Burns introduced S2693 in the Senate proposing that illegal immigrants not be counted in determining how many seats each state will get in the House."
2006-09-17
_San Diego Union-Tribune_
217,340 H-1B visas issued or renewed in 2003
"An August 27 story incorrectly reported that there were 217,340 people working in the United States under the H-1B visa program in 2003. That number is the total of H-1B visa permits issued that year for people working in highly skilled technology jobs, education and specialty occupations. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said it does not have a comprehensive figure for all people working in the country under H-1B visas during that period. The story also incorrectly reported the number of master's and doctoral degrees earned by foreign students in 2004. In the fields of math, computer science and engineering, more than 40% of all the master's degrees and more than 50% of all the doctoral degrees were awarded to foreign students."
2006-09-18 (5766 Elul 25) - 50 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-18 08:10PDT (11:10EDT) (15:10GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
US current account deficit $218.4G
BEA press release
2006-09-18 09:02PDT (12:02EDT) (16:02GMT)
Greg Robb & Robert Schroeder _MarketWatch_
US capital inflows fell sharply to $32.9G in July
US Treasury press release
2006-09-18 11:15PDT (14:15EDT) (18:15GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Home builders' confidence fell again in September (with graph)
2006-09-18
Joel Millman _Pittsburgh Post-Gazette_
Guest-worker programs -- both proposed and existing -- are all about cheap labor
"Union officials complain bitterly that competition from Mexico is driving down wages, and there is evidence to back them up. Roberto Cantu's Pueblo pay stub shows he earned $14 an hour for a 45-hour week, and $21 for every additional hour. Pete Mustacchio, business manager of Cement Masons Local 577 in Denver, says Colorado's union pourers earn twice that, including an hourly wage of $23.40, plus health-insurance and pension benefits valued at another $9 an hour. Over-time starts at $35.10 an hour. Figures compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate wages in concrete work fell 16.5% in 2005 from 2000 -- to $508 a week from $604, adjusted for inflation -- despite a soaring demand for workers. Meanwhile, the proportion of cement workers described as 'foreign-born Hispanic' has risen to almost 55% from around 35% in the late 1990s. Statistics suggest many are replacing African-Americans, whose employment in concrete work declined to 9K in 2005, from 18K six years ago. David Card, a University of California at Berkeley economist, says the decline in earnings is part of a long-term trend of non-union construction workers replacing a unionized work force. Other factors are at play besides the subidos. Illegal-immigrant labor drives down wages even more than do legal subidos, and technology has reduced the need for some skilled workers. An expanded guest-worker program probably would deepen the wage squeeze, says Harvard University immigration economist George Borjas. 'I find a 10% rise in worker supply results in a 3% decline in wages' locally. Earl Agan, business manager of Cement Masons local 51 in Des Moines, says ethanol-plant construction should be a reason to hire more union workers, not fewer. He has 260 members qualified to pour silos, at least 50 of whom are presently without work. 'Contractors have my guys traveling all over the country.', Mr. Agan says, arguing that remote work sites shouldn't justify importing workers. His conclusion: Contractors want a bigger share of the profit and won't employ union labor if they don't have to."
2006-09-19 (5766 Elul 26) - 49 Days Until Congressional Election
2006-09-19 07:49PDT (10:49EDT) (14:49GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
PPI down 0.4%: 2 months down
BLS data
2006-09-19 08:27PDT (11:27EDT) (15:27GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Housing starts fell 6% to 1.665M in August
census bureau press release
2006-09-19 10:04PDT (13:04EDT) (17:04GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Household net worth up 0.1% in 2006 Q2
Federal Reserve Board flow of funds press release
2006-09-19
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
Bad news for American students & workers -- massive H-1b increases may rise from dead in "SKIL Bill"
"The SKIL bill would exempt foreign students with degrees from U.S. universities from the cap, effectively doubling the number of foreign-born MAs and PhDs permitted to remain in the country. Implication: By 2016 the high tech labor-force could be swelled by as many as 640K foreign-born workers each year. Even at 65K annually [let alone the current level of over 85K], the H-1b influx represents an overwhelming share of high-tech employment growth in the U.S.A. For example, according to AeA, the trade association representing the high-tech [executives], total high-tech employment rose by 61K positions last year -- or 4K [less than the base number of 65K, and 24K less than the essential limit, and well below the 90K to 110K new H-1b visas actually isseud each year]... Data compiled by AeA show real wages are still below levels reached during the bubble years. The decline is especially pronounced in the software industry, which employs about half of all H-1bs admitted... As the editors of The Ethics and Public Policy Center's The New Atlantis reported recently: 'Two University of Pennsylvania researchers recently aggregated scores from a number of cross-national studies and found that white students in the United States, taken alone, consistently outperform the predominantly white student populations of several other leading industrial nations. ''There is compelling evidence,'' they write, ''that the low scores of [black and Hispanic students] were major factors in reducing the comparative standing of the U.S.A. in international surveys of achievement. If these minority students were to perform at the same level as white students, the U.S.A... would lead the Western G5 nations in mathematics and science, though it would still trail Japan.''' [Is the United States Really Losing the International Horse Race in Academic Achievement? Erling E. Boe & Sujie Shin, 2005] Americans can do these jobs."
2006-09-19
Drew deSilver _Seattle Times_
Low-paid illegal alien labor force does little to hold down prices (with graphs)
2006-09-19
Barb Heller _Arizona Republic_
Senate must face facts on border
"Americans have made clear to the Senate their contempt for their May passage of Senate Bill 2611, the McCain-Kennedy illegal alien amnesty bill. Senators would be well advised to not squander their opportunity to redeem themselves from earlier support of illegal-alien amnesty, and we expect senator Bill Frist, R-TN, and Mitch McConnell, R-KY, to step up to the plate and show leadership in passing such legislation without giveaways that pander to illegal aliens or those who profit from illegal immigration. For those senators still experiencing "disconnect," what Americans want is:
* Mandatory use by employers of the workplace verification system for all employees, new and current.
* No hidden giveaways like the huge increase in H-1B visas demanded by Bill Gates and the rest of the high-tech industry in the SKIL (Securing Knowledge, Innovation and Leadership) bill.
* No guest-worker amnesty plans that allowing 20-million-plus illegal aliens to obtain legal status to work in the United States.
* Rapid increase of personnel, detention space and fencing on the border. (Use Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's 'Tent City' method.)
* Withhold federal money from any state or city continuing 'illegal-alien sanctuary' policies.
Senators who vote against the American people and continue their support for illegal immigration can be confident that they are being watched. Someday soon, when you need our votes, your voting record will return to haunt you. Whether that senator runs for president in 2008 or re-election to the Senate, we won't forget."
2006-09-19
Representative Ron Paul, MD _Lew Rockwell_
Amnesty for illegal aliens, and the welfare state
"While the American people are demanding real immigration reform, many in Washington lack the political will to do what is required. That's why I've joined my colleagues in the House Immigration Reform caucus in demanding legislation this year that focuses on securing physical control of our borders while rejecting amnesty in any form. Congress has taken notice, and took an important first step last week by passing the Secure Fence Act of 2006 -- legislation that provides physical security by lengthening border walls and creating a virtual border fence that extends thousa