2010 October

1st month of the 4th quarter of the 21st year of the Bush-Clinton-Shrub-Obummer economic depression

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updated: 2019-09-18
 

  "We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to high office." --- Aesop  

 
 
2010 October
UMTWRFS
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31            

 
  "I use throughout the term 'liberal' in the original, 19th-century sense in which it is still current in Britain.   In current American usage it often means very nearly the opposite of this.   It has been part of the camouflage of the leftist movements in this country, helped by the muddle-headedness of many who really believe in liberty, that 'liberal' has come [to many] to mean the advocacy of almost every kind of government control.   I am still puzzled why those in the United States who truly believe in liberty should not only have allowed the left to appropriate this almost indispensable term but should even have assisted by beginning to [abuse] it themselves as a term of opprobrium.   This seems to be particularly regrettable because of the consequent tendency of many true liberals to describe themselves as conservatives." --- Friedrich A. Hayek 1944, 1963 _The Road to Serfdom_ pg xi (forward)  

 
 

 

 


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

2010 October

1st month of the 4th quarter of the 11th year of the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama economic depression


 
 

2010-10-01

2010-10-01
CocoaHeads is an international Mac programmer's group.   Meetings are free and open to the public.   We specialize in Cocoa, but everything Mac programming related is welcome.
Canada, Ontario, TorontoTuesday, 2010 October 1218:30
France, BordeauxThursday, 2010 October 2818:00
Germany, HannoverTuesday, 2010 October 519:00
Sweden, StockholmMonday, 2010 October 419:00
USA, MI, Ann ArborThursday, 2010 October 1419:00
USA, MA, BostonThursday, 2010 October 1419:00
USA, CO, BoulderTuesday, 2010 October 1219:00
USA, IL, ChicagoTuesday, 2010 October 1219:00
USA, CO, Colorado SpringsThursday, 2010 October 1419:00
USA, TX, DallasThursday, 2010 October 1419:00
USA, CO, DenverTuesday, 2010 October 1219:00
USA, IA, Des MoinesThursday, 2010 October 1419:00
USA, MI, DetroitThursday, 2010 October 2819:00
USA, CA, Lake ForestWednesday, 2010 October 1319:00
USA, NY, NYWednesday, 2010 October 1318:00
USA, PA, PittsburghThursday, 2010 October 1419:30
Some chapters may have yet to post their meeting for next month.   Meeting times may change.   Locations and more information.
 
Also be sure to check for an NSCoder Night in your area.
---30---

2010-10-01
_Dice_
Dice Report: 70,798 job ads

Total70,798
UNIXNA
WindozeNA
JavaNA
C/C++/Objective-CNA
body shop32,413
full-time temp42,502
part-time temp1,551

 
graphs

2010-10-01
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Both government and household debt continue to be drags on the economy

2010-10-01 08:33PDT (11:33EDT) (15:33GMT)
Nadia van der Hoof _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
On-going economic depression shrinks average income on Treasure Coast
"Experience in coming years will demonstrate that nothing in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will have prevented the next speculative bubble in the financial or business communities.   The only preventive is compelling the Federal Reserve to abandon a definitive policy of promoting inflation.   Today the Fed's announced policy is to create 2% annual inflation, a rate that will, over a 35-year adult working life, steal half the value of your savings as a concealed tax to finance the socialist welfare state."

2010-10-01
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Even the NY Times occasionally recognizes some differences between reality and the radical leftist mythology

2010-10-01
William L. Anderson
Paul Krugman's Excellent Protectionist Adventure
Murray Sabrin: Lew Rockwell: My Encounter with Paul Krugman

2010-10-01
_Triangle Coalition for Science and Technology Education_
US House committee considers next round of executives' lobbying for more subsidies
What's needed is to put the USA's A+ students ahead of foreign A+ students, US A students ahead of foreign A students, US A- students ahead of foreign A- students, US B+ students ahead of foreign B+ students, US B students ahead of foreign B students; and for executives to retain and invest in able and willing US workers.

2010-10-01
DJIA10,829.68
S&P 5001,146.24
NASDAQ2,370.75
Nikkei9,404
10-year US T-Bond2.51
crude oil$81.58/barrel
gold$1,317.80/ounce
silver$22.06/ounce
platinum$1,675.90/ounce
palladium$574.90/ounce
copper$0.23065625/ounce
natgas$3.79/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline $2.0861/gal
heatingoil$2.2938/gal
soybeans$10.57/bushel
maize$4.6575/bushel
wheat$6.55/bushel
dollarindex78.05
yenperdollar84.18
dollarspereuro1.3784
dollarsperpound1.5835
swissfranksperdollar 0.9749
indianrupeesperdollar 44.48
mexicanpesosperdollar 12.525
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex583.93

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Like Jefferson's draft, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, written by George Mason and approved by the Virginia convention prior to adopting the constitution, provided for religious freedom, but Jefferson went further to strike at the established Anglian [Church of England/Episcopal Church] by proposing that no person 'be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious institution'.   Jefferson also drafted a provision to prohibit the importation of slaves into Virginia -- a proposal that the convention did not accept, though Jefferson's condemnation of George iii for allowing the slave rade to continue was retained in the preamble." --- Noble E. Cunningham 1987 _In Pursuit of Reason: The Life of Thomas Jefferson_ pg45 (citing Rutland _Papers of Jefferson_ vol1 pg298)  

 
 

2010-10-02

2010-10-02 13:18PDT (16:18EDT) (20:18GMT)
Conor O'Clery _Global Post_
The Irish government has finally revealed the full cost of the Celtic Tiger years
"On Thursday the government shocked a bewildered nation with the disclosure that the final cost of bailing out the Irish banks could rise to 50G euros ($69G).   This is much more than previously admitted, and the impact on the country and the population of nearly 5M has quickly became apparent.   The bail-out will cost every man, woman and child in the republic 10K euros.   Ireland will have to endure savage cuts in expenditure.   There will be hair-shirt budgets for at least 4 years.   And the Emerald Isle, warned the European Union, can now no longer remain a low-tax economy...   The cost of winding down Anglo Irish bank alone is estimated at 34G euros.   Its directors lent outrageous sums to developers to buy sites and acquire properties that in many cases have become entirely worthless.   Even more shocking for a country where the banks were seen as solid pillars of the national infrastructure, one of the two biggest financial institutions, Allied Irish Banks, was practically nationalized with an injection of 3G euros and the brusque removal of its chairman and managing director on Thursday.   Lenihan, who 2 years ago estimated that the Anglo Irish Bank bail-out would cost only 4.5G euros, claimed he was bringing closure to the 'nightmare the government has had to live with, the Irish people have had to live with, and I have had to live with, since 2008 September'.   Meanwhile, the deficit for this year will be 32% of gross domestic product, 10 times the limit set for member countries by the EU."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Karl Marx's _Capital_ was a classic example of an intellectually masterful elaboration of a fundamental misconception -- in this case, the notion that 'labor', the physical handling of the materials and instruments of production, is the real source of wealth.   Obviously, if this were true, countries with much labor and little technology or entrepreneurship would be more prosperous than countries with the reverse, when in fact it is blatantly obvious that the direct opposite is the case." --- Thomas Sowell 2010 _Intellectuals & Society_ pg 1  

 
 

2010-10-03

2010-10-03
_Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Clicker, yet another massive privacy violation device is big business for local firm: Makes massive lecture classes interactive at universities

2010-10-03
Lee Rood _Des Moines IA Register_
Biggest cost associated with immigration is educating children
"her first experiences with immigration began with a wave of southeast Asian children 16 years ago, followed by Sudanese, Liberians and Somalis.   Each fall for the past several years, Latino children have filled Willard's kindergarten classes to overflowing.   Unlike other groups that have ebbed over time, their numbers have only continued to grow.   Today, Latino children account for about half of the 166 students enrolled in the English-language-learner program at Willard...   Educating [illegal alien] students in Iowa has cost about $35.4M to $54.7M a year, according to a 2007 Iowa Policy Project study.   The study used a standard per-pupil cost for K-12 education of $6,497 and multiplied that times the estimated 5,445 to 8,415 [illegal alien] students ages 5 to 18 in Iowa.   Costs to enhance the English skills of immigrant children have grown in many Iowa districts.   Des Moines Public Schools, for example, has seen enrollment in its English-language-learner program rise to 4,525 this year, up from 2,669 a decade ago.   The program costs $7M a year -- $3.5M comes from state and federal grants, and $3.5M from the state's general fund...   52% of foreign-born Hispanics dropped out before they finished high school, according to a 2010 study by the Pew Hispanic Center.   Of all Hispanics, 37% ages 20 and older nationally do not have a high school diploma (39% in Iowa), vs. 23% of blacks and 14% of whites."

2010-10-03 00:01PDT (03:01EDT) (07:01GMT)
Mike Cassicy _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_
Desperate Sili Valley job-seekers attempt to network with G-d

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "When Houston, for example, added a hundred miles a year to its road network from 1986 to 1992, average delay per traveler at the rush hour peaks declined 21%.   But, when Houston drastically cut back on road building between 1993 and 2000, while its population was still growing, travel delays nearly doubled." --- Thomas Sowell 2008 _Economic Facts & Fallacies_ pg19 (Ted Balaker & Sam Staley 2006 _The Road More Traveled_ pg90)  

 
 

2010-10-04: Last day to be able to register to vote in the general election 2010-11-02 in Florida

2010-10-04
Mike Dennison _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Absentee ballots are being mailed out, today, in Montana

2010-10-04 10:02PDT (13:02EDT) (17:02GMT)
Eric Pfahler _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
Digital Domain to have tech job fair on Saturday 08:00 to 12:00EDT at 525 NW Peacock Blvd; Port St. Lucie, for digital artists and special effects workers
Digital Domain
"The announcement comes on the heels of Textor telling Port St. Lucie City Council the company plans to hire 200 people shortly.   Textor said Monday that the company expects to make those hires within the next six to nine months.   Digital Domain Holdings must hire 500 by 2014 in exchange for a $20M incentive deal from the state.   The 500 hires must make an average of $65K, though Textor said the average salary for the company's 54 employees is more than $100K.   Wages for jobs offered at the job fair were not released.   Port St. Lucie gave the company a $51.8M incentive package to build a 150K-square-foot studio in Tradition.   Textor said construction should be complete by 2011 December."

2010-10-04 10:54PDT (13:54EDT) (17:54GMT)
Daniel Indiviglio _Atlantic_
2,840 millionaires collected unemployment insurance
Ryan J. Donmoyer
Free Republic
Megan McArdle: Business Insider
"According to U.S. Internal Revenue Service data, 2,840 households reporting at least $1M in income on their tax returns that year also collected a total of $18.6M in jobless aid.   They included 806 [tax-victims] with incomes over $2M and 17 with incomes in excess of $10M.   In all, multi-millionaires reported receiving $5.2M in jobless benefits.   Those numbers are a minuscule fraction of the 9.5M [tax-victims] who reported receiving $43.7G from jobless benefits in 2008, up from 7.6M recipients reporting $29.4G in benefits in 2007.   Still, economists said they are surprised so many people with 7-figure incomes claimed benefits...   Nationally, benefits average about $300 per week...   In addition to the millionaires, 8,011 households reporting income between $500K and $1M in 2008 claimed jobless benefits totaling $52.8M, the IRS data show."

2010-10-04 11:32PDT (14:32EDT) (18:32GMT)
Bobby Eberle _Texas Insider_
Illegal Aliens: The USA should handle its own problems

2010-10-04 12:39PDT (15:39EDT) (19:39GMT)
Mort Zuckerman _Orange County CA Register_
American job machine is not functioning

2010-10-04
Dave Gibson _Examiner_
Our undefended border keeps Mexican unemployment low... while our own rises as the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama depression continues

2010-10-04
William L. Anderson
Are the Keynesians Correct?

2010-10-04 (5771 Tishrei 26)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
The line between informing and promoting

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "By the middle of the 19th century, most 'free persons of color' in the USA could read and write, and, half a century after emancipation, so could more than half the entire Negro population of the country...   The peoples of Yugoslavia, for example, achieved 52% literacy only in the 1920s and four-fifths of Albanians were still illiterate at that time.   India near the end of the 20th century had yet to reach the level of literacy achieved by black Americans at its beginning." --- Thomas Sowell 1998 _Conquests and Cultures_ pg170 (citing Robert Higgs 1977 _Competition and Coercion_ pg120; Joseph Rothschild 1992 _East Central Europe between the Two World Wars_ pp276,359)  

 
 

2010-10-05: 4 weeks (28 days) to USA elections

2010-10-05
James Gwartney _WFLA FM_
Recessions, Depressions, and Love of Economics (audio)

2010-10-05
_YouTube_
"One America" executive, Pramila Jayapal, pitched even more excessive non-immigration and immigration to MSFT

2010-10-05
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard _Lew Rockwell_
IMF Admits That the West Is Stuck in Near Depression

2010-10-05
_Lew Rockwell_
If it's the big outfits turning out the unwholesome foods, why is the government attacking the small guys?

2010-10-05
William L. Anderson
Robert Wenzel and Krugman's "Hang-Over Theory"

2010-10-05 11:39PDT (14:39EDT) (18:39GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
High unemployment could last a very long time

2010-10-05
_San Francisco CA Chronicle_/_Hearst_
Concord CA executive indicted on 11 counts of visa fraud
Contra Costa CA Times
ClayCord
San Jose CA Mercury "News"
"According to an indictment filed 2010 Sept. 30, Srinivasa Chennupati made false statements in applications to obtain high-technology worker visas for 11 applicants, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1546(a).   The Indictment alleges that Chennupati submitted immigration forms and supporting documentation to the government purporting to have job offers for 11 non-immigrant high-technology workers, when he had no jobs for the non-immigrant workers...   Chennupati was arrested today, and was released on a $25,000 bond.   His next scheduled court appearance is on Oct. 19 before the Honorable Donna M. Ryu.   The maximum statutory penalty for Visa Fraud, in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. § 1546 is 10 years in prison and a $250K fine."

2010-10-05 (5771 Tishrei 27)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Do Jews have civil rights?
"In the Jewish State, in large part due to American pressure, not only are laws being enforced with great prejudice to the benefit of the Palestinians, they are being enforced with great prejudice against the Jews."

2010-10-05 (5771 Tishrei 27)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Politicians Take Advantage of Economic Ignorance: Only Individuals Pay Taxes
Lew Rockwell
"One of President Obama's campaign promises was not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans.   So here's my question: If there's a corporate tax increase either in the form of 'cap and trade' or income tax, does it turn out to be a middle-class tax increase?   Most people would say no but let's look at it.   There's a whole subject area in economics known as tax incidence -- namely, who bears the burden of a tax?   The first thing that should be recognized is that the burden of a tax is not necessarily borne by the party upon whom it is levied.   That is, for example, if a sales tax is levied on gasoline retailers, they don't bear the full burden of the tax.   Part of it is shifted to customers in the form of higher gasoline prices.   Suppose your local politician tells you, as a home-owner, 'I'm not going to raise taxes on you! I'm going to raise taxes on your land.'   You'd probably tell him that he's an idiot because land does not pay taxes; only people pay taxes.   That means a tax on your land is a tax on you.   You say, 'Williams, that's pretty elementary, isn't it?'   Not quite.   What about the politician who tells us that he's not going to raise taxes on the middle class; instead, he's going to raise corporate income taxes as means to get rich corporations to pay their rightful share of government?   If a tax is levied on a corporation, and if it is to survive, it will have one of three responses, or some combination thereof.   One response is to raise the price of its product, so who bears the burden?   Another response is to lower dividends; again, who bears the burden?   Yet another response is to lay off workers.   In each case, it is people, not some legal fiction called a corporation, who bear the burden of the tax.   Because corporations have these responses to the imposition of a tax, they are merely government tax collectors.   They collect money from people and send it to Washington.   Therefore, you should tell that politician, who promises to tax corporations instead of you, that he's an idiot because corporations, like land, do not pay taxes.   Only people pay taxes."

2010-10-05 (5771 Tishrei 27)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Red Herring Politics part1

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Because economics is a study of cause and effect, it deals with incentives and their consequences." --- Thomas Sowell 2000 _Basic Economics_ pg44  

 
 

2010-10-06

2010-10-06
professor Gerald Boerner _Profile of the Day_
Chester Carlson and the Xerographic process

2010-10-06
Edith Honan _Fox_/_Reuters_
CGC: 37,151 planned lay-offs were announced in September
Mike Maynard: MarketWatch
Julie Haviv: Reuters
abc/Reuters
Jonathan Cheng: Wall Street Journal
Shobhana Chandra: Bloomberg
Annie Lowrey: Washington Independent
CNN
Overall, employers announced 411,272 job cuts so far this year, which was 36% of the 1,136,908 lay-offs announced by this point in 2009.
 
The government and non-profit sector, which announced 11,091 job cuts during the month, have continued to struggle.   The pharmaceutical sector, which has announced 43,334 cuts this year, including 6,069 in September, was responsible for the next biggest overall job cuts.
 
Texas led all states with 5,995 announced job cuts, while Illinois was second with 5,918.

2010-10-06
Mae Anderson _Knoxville TN News_/_Scripps_/_AP_
Retail credit card purchases were up in September

2010-10-06
Bill Croke _American Spectator_
Obama as Diocletian

2010-10-06
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_/_V Dare_
representative Jane Harman getting bad press from husband's Harman-Kardan/JBL lay-offs and off-shoring
"After considerable research I have come to the conclusion that representative Harman is getting a bum rap -- but that doesn't mean she should be exonerated. Since at least 2008 Harman has been outsourcing segments of their manufacturing activities to China, India, Hungary, and Mexico. New foreign factories were being opened while at the same time U.S. facilities were being closed down. One of the plants to go was the Harman-Becker plant in Martinsville, Indiana that designed and manufactured sound systems for upscale cars. In the process hundreds of American workers lost their jobs. Once Harman/JBL gutted their U.S. manufacturing facilities the next to go was engineering. A letter from human resources director Sandra Buchanan of the JBL division of the Harman company is very blunt about who would lose their jobs and where those jobs would go... With a CEO like Dinesh Paliwal the Harman Company was reduced to a rotting carcass just waiting to be picked apart by the corporate vultures. That would have never happened when Sidney Harman was in control because he was a critic of off-shore out-sourcing. In 2004 Harman wrote a book called _Mind Your Own Business_ where he wrote a few things that seem like common sense to everyone but modern economists and politicians: 'When you manufacture off-shore in low-labor-rate countries, there are additional unpredictable but often-significant costs that arise from problems in the off-shore facility... And once you yield the manufacturing to others, you become dependent on them. I much prefer to roll my own. I am certain that in the mid-term and the long-term, it generates extra benefits for the company.'... Harman's record on immigration is dismal. According to the NumbersUSA report cards, she has a grade of D+ for her entire career, and an F- on work visas. Her website doesn't lend to her credibility either. The issues page is more important for what it doesn't have -- jobs, economy, and immigration."
Image of Layoff Notice at Harmon/JBL (pdf)
Dinesh Paliwal bio
NumbersUSA Immigration-Reduction Grades
Letter by Congresswoman Jane Harman concerning immigration (pdf)
Mattie Fein Campaign web-site
ComputerWorld claims Arizona H-1Bs Might Get Jailed, Thanks to SB1070
Saturday Evening Post: Harman International Industries Vs. Munro Shoes
representative Jane Harman web page, Issues
Dylan Stableford: The Wrap: As Expected, Lay-Offs Hit Newsweek

2010-10-06
William L. Anderson
Daniel Gross channeling his inner Krugman

2010-10-06
William L. Anderson
Krugman's government mass transit fantasy

2010-10-06
Don Lee _Los Angeles CA Times_
Jobs still being eliminated in USA and work shifted off-shore
"HP is laying off human resources employees in California and 9 other states and transferring their functions to Panama... evidence is growing that companies are moving more jobs than ever to China and other countries... For the 6 months that ended Sept. 30, workers at about 1,200 offices and plants nationwide were approved for federal Trade Adjustment Assistance. That's about 20% more approvals than in the same 6-month period last year, according to the U.S. Labor Department. In addition, the most recent Commerce Department data show that employment at the foreign subsidiaries and affiliates of U.S. multi-national firms grew by 729K in 2 years, to 11.9M in 2008 from 2006. Over that same period, domestic employment by such firms slipped by 500K jobs, to 21.1M... unemployment remains at current levels -- 9.6% nationally and 12.4% in California... Challenger agrees with that logic, but he also said that some companies continue to engage in 'pure labor arbitrage', moving over-seas simply for cost savings. That kind of rationale may do little for building long-term value in the company or its products and services."

2010-10-06 (5771 Tishei 28)
R' Avi Shafran _Jewish World Review_
Understanding Elena Kagan, and free exercise of religion

2010-10-06 (5771 Tishei 28)
Ron Grossman _Jewish World Review_
Rahm Emanuel hit with frigid blast from many Windy City Jews

2010-10-06 (5771 Tishei 28)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Red Herring Politics part2
"Some of the longest-serving members of congress, whose party has overwhelming majorities in both houses, are having far closer election races than they are used to.   These include Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, not to mention 18-year veteran Senator Barbara Boxer.   Despite their long records, they seem to want to talk about everything except their records.   They could tell us why they voted for ObummerDoesn'tCare and huge stimulus bills, without time enough to read them...   It should also be noted that the Democrats were in power in congress before president Obama got to the White House.   So 'the mess' that he constantly reminds us he 'inherited' includes runaway spending by congressional Democrats, of whom senator Barack Obama was one of the more prominent big spenders.   Usually, the incumbents can talk about their 'experience'.   But experience at what? Deception? Earmarks? Reckless spending?   Senator Harry Reid is playing the race card, saying that he can't see how any Hispanic can vote for Republicans.   But this is the same Harry Reid who in 1993, rejected 'those who ask us to wink at illegal immigration' and warned against having 'the social and cultural make-up' of the country 'radically altered' by these immigrants.   In 1993, Senator Reid introduced a bill— the Immigration Stabilization Act—to cut back on all immigration, both legal and illegal...   Today, of course, Senator Reid is singing an entirely different tune.   He has what Thorstein Veblen once called a 'versatility of convictions'.   So do a lot of 'experienced' politicians."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Involuntary labor is a less efficient way to allocate scarce resources which have alternative uses." --- Thomas Sowell 2004 _Applied Economics_ pg52  

 
 

2010-10-07

2010-10-07 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 371,004 in the week ending Oct. 2, a decrease of 1,532 from the previous week.   There were 451,860 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9% during the week ending Sept. 25, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,739,443, a decrease of 71,488 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.8% and the volume was 5,017,172.   Extended benefits were available in AL, AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA ID, IL, IN KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending September 18...   States reported 4,123,513 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Sept. 18, an increase of 157,735 from the prior week.   There were 3,358,689 claimants in the comparable week in 2009.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" changes
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03.]
graphs
more graphs

2010-10-07
Alan Caruba _Canada Free Press_
Faisal Shahzad gives us peek at twisted thinking of terrorists; Shows need for more conscientious visa handling
"Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to life in prison on October 6th for trying to kill a lot of innocent Americans in Times Square on 2010 May 1.   He was completely unrepentant and we need to understand the funhouse-mirror mentality of Muslims who believe that Allah, through the Koran, has granted them, not just the right, but the duty to kill infidels who offer any defense against their outrages...   Shahzad who was born in Pakistan in 1979 and, on 1998 December 22, was issued a student visa in Islamabad to come to America.   In a stunning article by Jessica Vaughan, 'Faisal Shahzad: So Easy, Anyone Can Do It', the author spells out why America, before and ever since 2001/09/11, has been allowing Middle Easterners to come here and plot to kill us.   Vaughan, a former U.S. consulate officer who dealt with the issuance and denial of visas, spelled out why Shahzad was a poor candidate for the bounties America would bestow upon him.   To begin with, he failed to demonstrate that he had the academic qualifications to study here.   'He was applying as a transfer student, and his transcript from his correspondence course with Southeastern University, a now defunct fourth-rate academic program, show a GPA of 2.78, including several D's and an F in basic statistics.'   Moreover, there has been no information released regarding how Shahzad claimed he would pay for his education, 'another common deal-buster for student visa application'.   Vaughn speculates that since Shahzad's father was 'supposedly a prominent military officer' the consulate did not want to deal with his or his government's complaints if his son was refused a visa.   Oddly, the visa was for four years when two would have sufficed for him to complete his degree requirements.   What emerged was a pattern of behavior that should have gotten Shahzad on the next plane home to Pakistan, but did not.   In 2001 he began working for a temporary staffing agency [bodyshop] even though his student visa did not include permission to work.   A year later he was issued a H-1B visa.   This particular visa is intended to bring in the best and the brightest to work here, not some middling, ordinary worker."

2010-10-07
Steve Ragan _Tech Herald_
Rajendrasinh Babubha Makwana found guilty for leaving logic bomb at Fannie Mae after he was fired
"The initial indictment raised several issues, including calls to examine the H1B Visa program...   The logic bomb was set to execute on 2009 January 31.   The first part of the malicious code would have halted Fannie Mae's network monitors, then stripped access to the servers.   After that was completed, its second stage would begin wiping data stored (OS and company related) on the servers -- 4K servers in total -- replacing it with zeros.   A third stage would then turn the systems off.   Makwana planted the malicious code after he was fired from his long-term contract job for altering system settings on UNIX servers without permission.   The only real saving grace for Fannie Mae was the fact that the logic bomb itself was faulty.   Fannie Mae's engineers uncovered the logic bomb one week after Makwana planted it, embedded within a script that runs on a CRON at 09:00 every morning."

2010-10-07
Jia Lynn Yang _Washington DC Post_
Nervous US executives of firms with large cash holdings buying back stocks rather than invest in employees or product improvements (with graph)

2010-10-07
Christopher Orlet _American Spectator_
Fair Trades

2010-10-07
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
U.S.A. Importing Poverty -- Despite The Great Recession
"immigration's impact is two-fold: direct—many immigrants are themselves poor, adding to the poverty population; and indirect—immigrants compete with and displace native-born Americans, driving them into poverty by bidding down their wages and taking their jobs.   This year, I focus on immigration’s direct impact.   The absolute number of immigrant poor rose by 9.6% in 2009, edging out the 9.4% expansion of native-born poor.   But because the immigrant population is growing faster, their poverty rate did not rise as rapidly as the native rate.   Nevertheless, in 2009 foreign-born residents were about 50% more likely to be poor than natives...   More than three-quarters of foreign-born poor are non-citizens, a group that includes temporary workers, recently-arrived legals, and illegal aliens.   Fully one-quarter of non-citizens lived in poverty last year.   As catastrophic as this seems, it masks the full impact of the recession.   Many aliens, but especially illegals, have left the country after losing their jobs.   By emigrating south they kept the U.S. poverty count from moving further north.   Fact is, naturalized citizens are the most rapidly growing slice of the immigrant poor.   Their poverty population rose 10.1% in 2009...   (The white poverty rate is just 9.4%.   Only about 4% of whites are immigrants.)...   33.9% of households headed by naturalized Mexican immigrants receive at least one major welfare program.   By contrast, only 14.9% of native households receive any welfare."

2010-10-07
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
We Already Have Inflation
"Inflation is over-expansion of the money supply; rising prices are the after-effect...   Environmentalists have, for more than 30 years, blocked construction of new oil refineries.   In the short run, at peak gasoline demand during good business conditions, gasoline demand exceeds supply, and prices go up.   The price-spike is augmented when, as now, the effects of money-supply inflation spook the commodity markets.   Oil companies have almost nothing to do with gasoline price increases, which are the effect of deliberate, bull-headed environmentalism.   In the background, [leftist] Keynesianism also plays a significant role in rising gasoline prices.   The Fed's deliberate targeting annual inflation of 2% or more steadily debases the dollar.   Most international transactions in petroleum are denominated in dollars.   Measured in ounces of gold, the price of oil has risen very little; measured in dollars, our oil import prices have soared, because of the Fed's inflationary policies...   all through the Nixon and Carter presidencies the Fed was pumping up the money supply.   After about five years, all hell broke loose as we moved into stagflation: high unemployment, decreased GDP, and double-digit inflation.   Keynesian economists on the President's Council of Economic Advisors were, until that time, being lauded for their mastery of Keynesian macroeconomics.   Today's pattern is distressingly congruent with the 1960s-70s one."

2010-10-07
William L. Anderson
Krugman tunnels under economic logic to defend another socialist boondoggle

2010-10-07
Bill Snyder _InfoWorld_/_IDG_
It's time to stop rewarding executives who send jobs over-seas

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Capitalism cannot work with slave labor...   What greater virtue can one ascribe to a social system than the fact that it leaves no possibility for any man to serve his own interests by enslaving other men?   What nobler system could be desired by anyone whose goal is man's well-being?" --- Ayn Rand "Theory and Practice" _Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal_ pg 136  

 
 

2010-10-08

2010-10-08
Joseph Lawler _American Spectator_
Job Numbers
graphs

2010-10-08 08:27PDT (11:27EDT) (15:27GMT)
Heather Boushey _MarketWatch_
Unemployed workers facing long, cold winter
graphs

2010-10-08 09:37PDT (12:37EDT) (16:37GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Bad jobs report means changes in DC, GOP gains, more inflation by Fed
graphs

2010-10-08
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
America's Third World Economy
Foreign Policy Journal
"Time after time I reported that there was no sign of the 'New Economy' jobs, but that the old economy jobs were disappearing.   The only net new jobs were in lowly paid domestic services such as waitresses and bar-tenders, retail clerks, health care and social assistance (mainly ambulatory health care services), and, before the bubble burst, construction.   The facts, issued monthly by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, had no impact on the 'New Economy' propaganda.   Economists continued to wax eloquently about how globalism was a boon for our future.   The millions of unemployed today are blamed on the popped real estate bubble and the subprime derivative financial crisis.   However, the US economy has been losing jobs for a decade.   As manufacturing, information technology, software engineering, research, development, and tradable professional services have been moved offshore, the American middle class has shriveled.   The ladders of upward mobility that made American an 'opportunity society' have been dismantled.   The wage and salary cost savings obtained by giving Americans' jobs to Chinese and Indians have enriched corporate CEOs, shareholders, and Wall Street at the expense of the middle class and America's consumer economy.   The loss of middle class jobs and incomes was covered up for years by the expansion of consumer debt to substitute for the lack of income growth.   Americans refinanced their homes and spent the equity, and they maxed out their credit cards.   Consumer debt expansion has run its course, and there is no possibility of continuing to drive the economy with additions to consumer debt.   Economists and policy-makers continue to ignore the fact that all employment in tradable goods and services can be moved offshore (or filled by foreigners brought in on H-1b and L-1 visas).   The only replacement jobs are in nontradable domestic services...   Even many of these jobs are now filed with foreigners brought in on [J and] R-1 type visas from Russia, Ukraine, Thailand, Romania, and elsewhere."

2010-10-08
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
September Jobs: American Worker Displacement At Record High
graphs

2010-10-08 (5771 Tishei 30)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Achmadinejad's target audience

2010-10-08
R' Pinchas Winston _Torah.org_
Choosing Sides

2010-10-08
DJIA11,006.48
S&P 5001,165.15
NASDAQ2,401.91
Nikkei9,589
10-year US T-Bond2.40
crude oil$82.66/barrel
gold$1,345.30/ounce
silver$22.06/ounce
platinum$1,708.70/ounce
palladium$587.60/ounce
copper$0.235625/ounce
natgas$3.65/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline $2.15/gal
heatingoil$2.28/gal
soybeans$11.35/bushel
maize$5.28/bushel
wheat$7.19/bushel
dollarindex77.18
yenperdollar81.90
dollarspereuro1.3940
dollarsperpound1.5963
swissfranksperdollar 0.9638
indianrupeesperdollar 44.43
mexicanpesosperdollar 12.56
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex592.01

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "The produce of mental labor, thoughts and sentiments, recorded and preserved by writing, became, as knowledge went onward and spread, and the culture of man's understanding advanced, a kind of property impossible to disregard, and the interference of modern legislation upon the subject, by the stat.   Anne, professing by its title to be 'For the encouragement of learning,' and using the words 'taken the liberty,' in the preamble, whether it operated in augmentation or dimunition of the private rights of authors, having left them to some extent untouched, it was found that the common law, in providing for the protection of property, provided for their security, at least before general publication by the writer's consent." < a href="http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/privacy/Privacy_brand_warr_fn.html ">Knight Bruce, V.C., in Prince Albert v. Strange, 2 DeGex & Sm. 652, 695 (1849). [p. 199 Note 5 in original.]  

 
 

2010-10-09

2010-10-09
Mike Dennison _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Outsiders have an advantage in election

2010-10-09
David Skolnick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Candidates debate trade in Ohio's 6th congressional district
"Bill Johnson, the Republican candidate in the 6th Congressional District race, says free trade for the United States 'only works' with countries that have 'similar economic concepts, goals and capabilities', such as Great Britain and Canada.   But Johnson's company -- Stoneridge Inc., in which he says he's a member of its 'executive leadership team' managing a 'multi-million-dollar departmental budget' -- closed a plant in Sarasota, FL, while expanding its presence in Mexico, China and Estonia.   Johnson said he is the Warren-based company's chief information officer [CIO] and 'not chief location scout so my goal is to ensure that manufacturing centers chosen by the company are equipped to serve our customers'.   But Democrats say Johnson is benefiting financially from his company's decision to expand to the other countries.   'Corporate executive Bill Johnson personally profited from his company shipping jobs to Mexico, [Red China] and Estonia, while 300 American workers were fired.', said Ryan Rudominer, spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.   'Bill Johnson puts his profits from [off-shoring] ahead of American jobs, and that's wrong for Ohio.'   Johnson earned $257,794 last year in salary from Stoneridge and owns between $50,001 and $100K of the company's stock, according to his financial disclosure statement with the Federal Election Commission.   Stoneridge, a designer and manufacturer of electrical systems for vehicles, closed a plant in Sarasota in 2008, laying off 300 workers.   The Bradenton Herald newspaper quoted George E. Strickler, Stoneridge's executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, in 2007 November as saying: 'With our [Red China] operation ramping up and our restructuring initiatives, we expect our sales from low-cost locations to grow as we relocate labor-intensive manufacturing over time.'"

2010-10-09
Douglas A. Irwin _Wall Street Journal_
Free Trade, "Free" Trade, Mercantilism, Protectionism?
"A newly released Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 53% of the American public now believes that free-trade agreements have hurt the U.S.A., up from 46% three years ago and 32% in 1999...   In 1929, dutiable imports amounted to just 1.4% of GDP.   Smoot-Hawley increased the average tax on them from 38% to 45%.   A tax increase of this size on 1.4% of GDP is not enough, by itself, to generate an enormous economic contraction.   That said, the Smoot-Hawley tariff fully deserves its notoriety.   It was an ill-timed and ill-judged piece of legislation that back-fired spectacularly...   The defining moment for trade policy in the Depression era was not when president Herbert Hoover signed the ill-conceived tariff in 1930 June, but when several countries abandoned the gold standard and others did not in September 1931.   That divergence triggered a trade war, as countries that remained on the gold standard began restricting imports from countries that allowed their currencies to depreciate."

2010-10-09
_American Thinker_
projected vs. actual unemployment rates

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others." --- Alan F. Westin 1967 _Privacy and Freedom_  

 
 

2010-10-10

2010-10-10
Bob Jackson _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Comic book artists and writers hold less expensive Lawn-Con
"'The comic-book industry is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.   The public can't find comics any more.', he said.   'It's getting more and more expensive.   It's no longer an easy hobby, and somebody had to make a statement.'   The idea behind Lawn-Con 2010 was to strip away the hassles generally involved in a typical comic convention and give the public easy and open access to the people behind the comic creations...   'This is a grass-roots effort to get comic-book creators and fans of their work together in one place without having to jump through all the hoops and bells and whistles that are usually involved in a convention.', Broderick said."

2010-10-10
Chelsea Krotzer _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Reps say: If you want jobs, fire Pelosi

2010-10-10
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Leftism is a religion of ignorance and superstition
Allan H. Meltzer: Wall Street Journal: Fed compounds its mistakes: Talk of increasing inflation to reduce unemployment is dangerous and unnecessary
"The market's response to the talk about renewed bond purchases includes a 12% or 13% decline in the value of the dollar against the euro.   This depreciation occurred despite a weak euro, beset by potential crises in Ireland, Greece and Spain.   The dollar's decline is a strong market vote of no confidence in the proposed policy."

2010-10-10
Marc Parry _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Students set their own academic calendar with on-line courses
"One student, desperate to graduate, knocked off 113 quizzes and 6 writing assignments for a humanities course in 46 sleepless hours...   no one is turned away because of a full section, missed dead-line, or canceled class...   Administrative software struggles to handle them.   Professors who offer them sacrifice normal vacations; Mr. Johnson has taught a theater-appreciation course continuously for more than 1K days...   Learn Anytime professors aren't compensated per class.   They're compensated per student -- $65 a head...   VAS praises his responsiveness and doesn't mind solitary study.   Her view typifies the just-get-it-done attitude of many self-paced students."

2010-10-10
Stephen Dinan _Washington Times_
Environmental extremism hindering Border Patrol
Michael Cutler: Border Fire Report
"So while various government agencies including the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service impede the critically important work of the Border Patrol -- apparently smugglers and their illegal aliens cliental including criminals and, no doubt, terrorists, either never got the memo or never bothered to read it!   Border Patrol agents are not provided with ready access to large tracts of land contained in national parks, but of course smugglers don't have such problems -- they don't ask,'May I?' before running our borders or driving through those same areas that are off limits to Border Patrol vehicles!...   The imbeciles behind this madness should be given the MVP award by the smugglers, the Mexican drug cartels and most significantly by al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations!   Finally, the color green is also the color of money -- the campaign contributions that are made by individuals, organizations and corporations that are more concerned with their agendas than they are with the lives of people.   These people are so greedy and so covet political power that they are also willing to bet our lives- or perhaps even see our lives forfeited to a terrorist attack or acts of violence committed by transnational criminals from the four corners of the world.   All that they want is for our nation's borders to be left open in the name of 'Free Trade'.   Our government is failing at its most fundamental responsibilities of securing our nation's borders and seeking to prevent the entry of criminals and terrorists whose goals include the slaughter of large numbers of our civilian population and the ultimate destruction of our nation and our way of life.   We the People, throughout this nation must seek opportunities to make it clear to our political 'representatives' that we understand their game plan and won't tolerate it!   I believe our nation's is greatly benefited by the rich diversity of our people which is why I could never imagine living anywhere except New York City, arguably the most diverse city in our nation if not, in fact, the world.   However, my idea of diversity most certainly does not include members of MS-13, the Mexican drug cartels and members of al-Qaeda!"

2010-10-10
Audrey Williams June _Chronicle of Higher Education_
For students nearing PhDs, there is scant hope in job markets

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "We must program the programmers while there is still some personal liberty left." --- Barry Goldwater (quoted in Legislative History, PL 93-579, Privacy Act of 1974, _Congressional Record_ vol 120, Senate Report #93-1183 pg 6925)  

 
 

2010-10-11: Columbus Day

2010-10-11
Sumeet Kak _Top News_/_Core Adviser_/_Hindu Business Line_/_Silicon India_/_Bangalore IT People Too Step_/_HamaraGuru_/_Indian Stock Market_/_MyIris_
Infosys
"Infosys Technologies will hire more laterals in the US than elsewhere and expects no cut-backs on tech spending there even as stimulus funding tapers off.   At present, there are around 13K people based in the US with 88%-90% of them on H1-B or L-1 visas. Lateral hiring."

2010-10-11
Brett Arends _MarketWatch_
USA still hemorrhaging jobs
The "time lag" excuse expired 6-12 months ago...jgo

2010-10-11 09:36:54PDT (12:36:54EDT) (16:36:54GMT)
Christopher S. Rugaber _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_/_AP_
Unemployed find requirements to be hired have ratcheted up
"A company might have had 3 back-office jobs before the recession, Altig said.   Only one of those jobs might have required computer skills.   Now, he said, 'one person is doing all 3 of those jobs -- and every job you fill has to have computer skills'."

2010-10-11
Jan LaRue _American Thinker_
Illegal Aliens Stump Napolitano

2010-10-11
Doug W. MacKenzie _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
The Impossiblity of Having a Fully Informed Electorate

2010-10-11
Robert P. Murphy _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Never Accept an Interventionist Premise

2010-10-11
Benjamin Parish _Daily Nexus_
Illegal aliens

2010-10-11
William L. Anderson
We are in the dark ages of economics

2010-10-11
Mark Whitehouse _Wall Street Journal_
Unfilled Job Openings Have Been Frustrating the Unemployed for Decades (with graphs)
WPS Analytic Searches
Jobless Hope
Italian Ministry of Economics and Finance
Fred Yager: Consumer Affairs
Washington U (pdf)
"Employers are being pickier, or not trying as hard as they usually do to fill the openings they have...   Some companies complain that when they do try to hire, they have a hard time finding the right people...   But job seekers say some of the blame should be placed on the companies -- either they're not trying very hard, or they're waiting for the perfect employee...   John Meline, a 39-year-old patent attorney who was laid off from a major law firm in October of last year, says he's seen some positions in his area of specialization advertised for as long as 6 months.   When he sends in his resume, he gets no response despite his 6 years of applicable experience.   'It tells me that they're not really serious about filling the job, or they're going to be hyper-selective.', he says.   'They're just blowing us off.'   A recent study by 3 economists -- [Steven J. Davis] of [the U of Chicago, Booth B-School], R. Jason Faberman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland -- suggests the job seekers have a point.   Using Labor Department data, the economists constructed an estimate of 'recruiting intensity', which encompasses various factors that influence how fast employers fill open jobs, such as advertising, pay and the rigor of their screening process.   As of August, the recruiting intensity index stood 14% below the average for the 7 years leading up to the recession.   The economists estimate that the lack of intensity accounts for about a quarter of the short-fall in hires compared with openings."
2008-06-13: Steven J. Davis, R. Jason Faberman, John C. Haltiwanger & Ian Rucker: American Enterprise Institute: Adjusted Estimates of Worker Flows and Job Openings in JOLTS (pdf)
2008-06-13: R. Jason Faberman & Eva Natypal: Philadelphia Fed: Quits, Worker Recruitment, and Firm Growth: Theory and Evidence (pdf)
2005-06-04: Steven J. Davis, R. Jason Faberman & John Haltiwanter: NBER: The Flow Approach to Labor Markets: New Data Sources, Micro-Macro Links and the Recent Down-Turn (pdf)
2006 Summer: Steven J. Davis, R. Jason Faberman & John Haltiwanter: U of MD/_Journal of Economic Perspectives vol20#3 pp3-26: The Flow Approach to Labor Markets: New Data Sources and Micro-Macro Links (pdf)
Federal Reserve Board (pdf)
2010-10-06 13:55PDT (16:55EDT) (20:55GMT): Mike Konczal: FavStocks: Last Redoubt of Structural Unemployment Is Policy Uncertainty (with graph)
2010-10-06: RortyBomb: Last Redoubt of Structural Unemployment Is Policy Uncertainty (with several graphs)
2010 August: Steven J. Davis, R. Jason Faberman & John C. Haltiwanger: NBER: The Establishment-Level Behavior of Vacancies and Hiring

2010-10-11
Robert P. Murphy _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Never Accept an Interventionist Premise

2010-10-11
Fred Bauer _Frum Forum_
Is it time to limit or end birth-right citizenship?

2010-10-11
Brody Mulilns, Tom McGinty & Jason Zweig _Wall Street Journal_
Congress-critters and their staffers reap gains from insider trading under special exemption (with graphs)
The Economic Collapse
Peter Gorenstein: Veterans Today/Tech Ticker
Peter Gorenstein: Yahoo!
"Erin": Right Soup
Robert Wenzel: Economic Policy Journal
Kyle Smith: Forbes
Peter Lattman: Wall Street Journal
Stephen Bainbridge
Mike Lillis: Washington Independent
Stuart P. Green: Pro/Con
Richard Rahn: News Max
Securities Docket
Ann Woolner: Bloomberg
Peter Cohan: AOL
Justin Rohrlich: Minyanville
Razib Khan: Gene Expression

2010-10-11 (5771 Cheshvan 02)
Michael Feldberg _Jewish World Review_
Mordecai Manuel Noah and how Buffalo almost became the gateway to the Promised Land
"Noah was subsequently appointed as consul to Riga and then Tunis.   Later, Noah was elected sheriff of New York City, appointed surveyor of the city's port and made a judge of its Court of General Sessions.   His position as editor of 6 different secular New York newspapers over the years assured him of a platform."

2010-10-11 (5771 Cheshvan 02)
Andrew Silow-Carroll _Jewish World Review_
Don't know much about divinity...
"According to the survey, 'large numbers of Americans are uninformed about the tenets, practices, history, and leading figures of major faith traditions -- including their own'."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "We all declare for liberty; but in using the same *word* we do not all mean the same *thing*.   With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor.   Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name.   And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names -- liberty and tyranny." --- Abraham Lincoln  

 
 

2010-10-12: 3 weeks (21 days) to USA elections

2010-10-12
Rob Rogers _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Job skills class gets national recognition as best in the nation from the Jobs for America's Graduates program

2010-10-12
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Obama's Socialism

2010-10-12
William L. Anderson
On costs and public works projects

2010-10-12
Amelia Foxwell _Human Events_
US citizens unite against illegal alien invaders

2010-10-12
Bob Siegel _Washington Times_
PC terms that hinder honest speech

2010-10-12
Paul Joseph Watson _Prison Planet_
Federal Government Prepares to Seize Private Pensions
2010-03-08: Dakin Campbell: Failed Banks May Get Pension-Fund Backing as FDIC Seeks Cash
2010-10-07: US senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
2007 October: Mark R. Levin interview of Teresa Ghilarducci (mp3)

2010-10-12
Laurie Merrill & Kate Jacobs _Arizona Republic_
Illegal aliens suspected in murder and beheading of another illegal alien in Chandler, AZ

2010-10-12
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
More reasons to oppose Fed's inflation

2010-10-12 (5771 Cheshvan 04)
Dennis Prager _Jewish World Review_
The Almighty, Leftists and Liberty
"America's anomalous religiosity is very much worth celebrating — not because it leads to affluence, but because it is indispensible to liberty.   Had Blow made a liberty chart rather than an affluence chart, he might have noted that the freest country in the world -- for 234 years -- the United States of America, has also been the most G0d-centered.   Yes, I know that the Islamic world has also been G0d-based and that it has not been free.   But that is because Allah is not regarded as the source of liberty, as the America's Judeo-Christian G0d has been, but as the object of submission ('Islam' means 'submission').   Since the inception of the United States (and, indeed, before it in colonial America), liberty, i.e., personal freedom, has been linked to G0d.   America was founded on the belief that G0d is the source of liberty.   That is why the inscription on the Liberty Bell is from the Hebrew Bible (Leviticus/Va Yiqra 25): 'Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.'   The Declaration of Independence also asserts this link: All men 'are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'.   Because the Creator of the world is the source of our freedom, no state, no human being, no government may take it away.   If the state were the source of liberty, then obviously the state could take it away."

2010-10-12 (5771 Cheshvan 04)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Feingold versus Johnson
Redding Record Search-Light
Patriot Post
"This is in fact the dirty little secret about [Socialist Insecurity]. In all the years when the money coming into [Socialist Insecurity] exceeded the money being paid out in pensions, Congress simply spent the difference on everything from junkets to earmarks [a.k.a. pork]. The fiction of a [Socialist Insecurity] 'trust fund' was maintained by giving government bonds in exchange for the money taken. But these bonds changed nothing, since they were just claims on future [tax-victims]."

2010-10-12 (5771 Cheshvan 04)
Wendy McElroy _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
de-criminalize the average USA citizen

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "One of the fundamental laws of PA required that taxes could be imposed only by consent of the governed, and that all tax laws expired automatically after 12 months.   These rules expressed the Quaker principle of reciprocal liberty, and their libertarian application of the golden rule, in the idea that no taxes should be levied upon the people except those which they were willing to impose upon themselves." --- David Hackett Fischer 1989, 1991 _Albion's Seed_ pg600 (citing William Penn 1670 _The People's Ancient and Just Liberties Asserted_; William Penn "Injustice Detected..." _Papers of William Penn_ vol1 pp194-204; Mary Maples Dunn 1967 _William Penn: Politics and Conscience_ pp13-19; Edwin B. Bronner 1962 _William Penn's "Holy Experiment": The Founding of Pennsylvania 1681-1701_ pp267-268)  

 
 

2010-10-13: 20 days to USA elections

2010-10-13 03:41PDT (06:41EDT) (10:41GMT)
Henry A. Stephens _Treasure Coast FL Palm_/_Scripps_
Indian River county FL looking at more out-sourcing
"They did a good job, he said, and the customers were happy.   But the pay-roll out-weighed anything the snack bar collected.   'We had 3 full-time employees with benefits.', Komarinetz said...   Records show the Sandridge snack bar cost the county $15K more than it took in during the 2006-2007 budget year.   The County Commission agreed to out-source the snack bar, however, and the next year it rebounded with $45K in profits [so, they cut pay and benefits by about $60K].   The recession since then has eroded that peak, Komarinetz said, but stressed he's still in the black with $22K in profits from the 2009-2010 budget year.   Prior to the snack bar, the county had out-sourced the golf course maintenance in 1996 and the parole and custodial services in 2003."

2010-10-13 07:09PDT (10:09EDT) (14:09GMT)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
job fair October 20 at Pellissippi State campus

2010-10-13
Gene C. Gant _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Institutions that will hire an ABD in the kind of market we now have are likely to be offering positions that will be back-breakers that all but guarantee that the dissertation will never be completed

2010-10-13
Lisa Fabrizio _American Spectator_
Cafeteria Constitutionalists
"I will not rehash the grievances of these Catholics-In-Name-Only, but suffice to say that they involve the Church's failure to have evolved sufficiently enough to approve of the current proclivities toward the sins they wish to commit.   They would seek to contravene the immutable truths of our Founder who said, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.'   They favor modern mores over timeless truths...   And so must we deal with those who lay claim to an America that in many ways would be unrecognizable to those who crafted the greatest founding document in the history of world governance.   The scandal of their perversion of that document is surpassed only by their phony allegiance to it when convenient."

2010-10-13
Robert Stacy McCain _American Spectator_
Barney Frank interrupted

2010-10-13
Peter Ferrara _American Spectator_
Obama is so much worse than Carter

2010-10-13
Ryan Young _American Spectator_
Why trade and war are different

2010-10-13
Rob Rogers _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Mikayla Nelson shows US citizens can do science and engineering
"As a science student, Nelson started drawing attention early.   In sixth grade, she built a 12-inch Popsicle stick bridge that held 606.5 pounds, still the standing record at Will James.   It probably could have held more, but the judges ran out of weights.   Last year she was team captain of the Will James Middle School squad that competed in the National Science Bowl.   She's also comfortably talked mechanical engineering with Frank Borman, the first man to circle the moon, and she designed her own super-light mini race car, something else that won her and her peers attention at the National Science Bowl in April.   Nelson shows the solar-powered car she helped design and build that won the top design award at the National Science Bowl."

2010-10-13
_Border Fire Report_
judge dismissed parts of 5 suits against Arizona's SB1070
"[Cochise AZ county sheriff Larry Dever] stated, 'In this law-suit, the ACLU and its allies have cried foul about hypothetical, potential, and speculative misbehavior by Arizona law enforcement. At the same time, the plaintiffs have managed to ignore the Obama administration's actual, quantifiable and inexcusable refusal to enforce its own laws and secure the border. I look forward to exposing both the fiction of the ACLU's claims and the reality of the federal government's refusal to act.'"

2010-10-13
Fred Yager _Consumer Affairs_
Maybe Unemployment Remains High Because Companies Aren't Filling the Jobs They keep Posting

2010-10-13
Ted Nugent _Washington Post_
_Trickle Up Poverty_ is a Savage display of intellectual firepower

2010-10-13 (5771 Cheshvan 05)
Edward Klein & Richard Z. Chesnoff _Jewish World Review_
American Jews and president Obama part1

2010-10-13 (5771 Cheshvan 05)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Invisible Victims
"The FDA's 10-year delay in approving alprenolol, a beta-blocker, sold for 3 years in Europe, cost more than 10K lives per year.   The 3-year delay in the approval of misoprostol, a drug for the treatment of gastric bleeding that cost between 8K and 15K lives per year.   The lag in the approval of streptokinase for the treatment of occluded coronary arteries cost more than 10K lives per year.   Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) represents Congress' way to force manufacturers to produce more fuel-efficient cars.   Manufacturers meet CAFE standards by producing lighter weight and hence less crash-worthy cars.   According to a Brookings Institution study, a 500-lb weight reduction of the average car increased annual highway fatalities by 2,200-3,900 and serious injuries by 11,000 and 19,500 per year.   A National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration study demonstrated that reducing a vehicle's weight by only 100 pounds increased the fatality rate by as much as 5.63% for light cars, 4.70% for heavier cars and 3.06% for light trucks.   These rates translated into additional traffic fatalities of 13,608 for light cars, 10,884 for heavier cars and 14,705 for light trucks between 1996 and 1999."

2010-10-13 (5771 Cheshvan 05)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Government Greed
Post Chronicle
Patriot Post

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Nature, [Antonio R.] Damasio observes, 'with its tinkerish knack for economy, did not select independent mechanisms for expressing primary & secondary emotions.   It simply allowed secondary emotions to be expressed by the same channel already prepared to convey primary emotions'." --- Edward O. Wilson 1999 April _Consilience_ pg 125  

 
 

2010-10-14: 19 days to USA elections

1962-10-14: US surveillance plane detected Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba

2010-10-13 18:02:25 (2010-10-13 21:02:25EDT) (2010-10-14 01:02:25GMT)
Scott Duke Harris _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_
Off-shoring is a factor in high US unemployment rates
"More than 785K [foreign] contractors are registered on [oDesk]...   The data storage service Box.net, for example, wasn't founded by hard-core techies, but a couple of college students who used eLance to outsource their geekiest early work to software engineers from Siberia who didn't demand anything close to Silicon Valley wages.   And RockYou, a leading app developer on Facebook and MySpace, bolstered its local production capabilities with Romanian and Japanese software coders, enabling the company to operate on a 24/7 pace...   In addition to 38 full-time employees, mostly at its Redwood City head-quarters, oDesk has the equivalent of 106 other full-time jobs dispersed across the globe."

2010-10-14 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 449,568 in the week ending Oct. 9, an increase of 75,914 from the previous week.   There were 508,659 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9% during the week ending Oct. 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 3,668,851, a decrease of 111,184 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.8% and the volume was 4,953,947.   Extended benefits were available in AL, AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA ID, IL, IN KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending September 25...   States reported 3,888,001 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Sept. 25, a decrease of 235,512 from the prior week.   There were 3,387,838 claimants in the comparable week in 2009.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" changes
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25.]
graphs
more graphs

2010-10-14
_STG News_
Ahfaz Ahmed sentenced to 1 month in prison and 5 months of home detention for visa fraud operation

2010-10-14
Lance Whitney _CNET_/_Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Foreign firms increasing presence in USA
"IBM found that 45% of companies in India plan to increase their head-count in North America, while 44% will expand in Western Europe.   And 33% of businesses in [Red China] are looking to add staff in North America, while 14% will boost head-count in Western Europe.   [but no word on what percentages of those bodies in the USA will be US citizens]"

2010-10-14
George Neumayr _American Spectator_
The limits of leftist demagoguery

2010-10-14
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Federal Reserve fosters decline in value of the US dollar
Andrew J. Johnson & Robert Flint: Wall Street Journal

2010-10-14
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
The Purposes of Government
Leftism and Public Works: Entitlement politics leaves little money for roads and tunnels

2010-10-14
Arnold Kling _Library of Economics and Liberty_
Thoughts on Unemployment

2010-10-14
Ron Hira _Economic Policy Institute_
H-1B and L-1 visa programs are out of control

2010-10-14 (5771 Cheshvan 06)
Edward Klein & Richard Z. Chesnoff _Jewish World Review_
American Jews and president Obama part2

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive.   And then go & do that.   Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." --- Harold Whitman (quoted in Rich Fettke 2002 _Extreme Success_ pg 96)  

 
 

2010-10-15: 18 days to USA elections: early voting begins in Illinois

2010-10-15
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
on-going Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama depression is tragedy for both the young and the almost-old as long-term unemployment has longer-term negative effects

2010-10-16
Chis Zappone _Sydney Australia Morning Herald_
Australian and US dollars reach parity

2010-10-15
Philip Klein _American Spectator_
Tearing out the supposed third rail

2010-10-15
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_Scripps_
Kelly King of BB&T says US economy needs a new congress
"Speaking at the inaugural Knoxville Economics Forum breakfast, King said he doesn't care if voters choose Republicans or Democrats but the 'fundamentally socialist' attitude that now controls Congress must be changed.   Gridlock would be preferable to the status quo...   A change in Congress would bring an immediate 'boost of confidence' for businesses who are uncertain about the future and still feeling the pain of recession, said King, who also is a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond."

2010-10-15
Michael Cutler _News Blaze_
Why is the US government actively ignoring the excessive immigration component of the economic crisis>
"'If jobs are created or returned to America, does it make a damned bit of difference if American citizens don't get those jobs?'   Certainly the out-sourcing of jobs is of critical importance but it is only one half of the equation.   The other half of the equation that few are willing to address is Immigration and the impact of the failures to secure our nation's borders or create an immigration system that has real integrity has on almost every significant challenge that confronts our nation today... Pelosi has often decried the arrest of illegal aliens in the United States as being 'un-American' and had the chutzpah to make a speech in Mexico City back in 2003 October in which she said that when ICE had arrested some 250 illegal aliens who were working at Wal-Mart on 2003 October 23, that the workers had been 'terrorized' by being arrested!   It would seem that while Pelosi wants to ship jobs back to America, she couldn't care less if those jobs are ultimately taken by illegal aliens still leaving all too many Americans and lawful immigrants on the unemployment lines!   I recall that many years ago, when I was an INS special agent, we would often raid sweat-shops in New York City and often found that no less than the labor unions would provide attorneys to represent the illegal aliens we arrested!...   at present, virtually nothing is done by the federal government to make certain that foreign workers actually report to work on jobs they are admitted to do and/or make certain that they leave when their authorized period of admission is up.   According to a recent news report, ICE, (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has all of 272 special agents assigned to investigate and locate aliens who violate the terms of their admission into the United States.   Estimates as to how many aliens are present in the United States who have, in one way or another violated the terms of their admission range from four and a half million to five and a half million.   It is believed that 40% of the illegal alien population living in the United States did not run our nation's borders but actually entered our nation via the inspections process -- either securing visas and seeking admission into the United States or by entering the United States under the aegis of the Visa Waiver Program.   However, since US VISIT, the program that is supposed to track the arrival and departure of aliens has never been completely implemented even after well over one billion dollars has been spent on this program, there are no accurate statistics and, there may well be far more than five million such visa violators present in the United States.   This is particularly egregious since the 2001/09/11 Commission established the creation of an effective and efficient means of tracking the arrival and departure of nonimmigrant aliens a major priority because of concerns about national security.   Meanwhile the freight forwarders such as Fed-Ex and DHL are easily able to track packages they move around the world with extreme accuracy and reliability!...   even 'legal' immigration is fraught with fraud and abuses."

2010-10-15 13:21PDT (16:21EDT) (20:21GMT)
George Franco _Fox_
GA legislator agrees troops patrolling borders should be armed and authorized to shoot invaders
"John Yates focused on the border and National Guard stationed there to help secure it.   'They ought to be armed and if warned leaflets dropped all over Mexico says that we will shoot to kill if anybody crosses and be serious about this and if they do that then there won't be anybody killed.', Yates said during the forum...   Representative Yates, a WWII veteran in office more than 20 years, represents parts of Douglas, Fayette and Spalding Counties.   'If they come over here, on these raids killing ranchers and everything, you got to stop them some way.', said Yates.   Yates likened illegal immigrants to enemies of the country.   'Stopping Hitler was worth the price.', Yates said.   'It's our border, they're invading us.'"

2010-10-15
_leagle_
Watson vs. USDoL, Bank of India, EDS, Ill-Begotten Monstrosities, USDHS, USDoS
"In 2003, Watson filed a complaint with the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor ('WHD'), alleging that Electronic Data Systems Corp. ('EDS'), his former employer, terminated his employment and hired an H1-B foreign worker in his place in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act ('INA'). See 8 U.S.C. § 1182(n).   Watson also filed complaints against [Bank of India], N.A. ('BOI') and IBM Corp. [Ill-Begotten Monstrosities], alleging that they had unlawfully hired H-1B foreign workers to fill positions for which he had applied.   WHD declined to investigate Watson's complaints...   On 2009 June 22, Watson filed this law-suit in the Eastern District of Texas, claiming that EDS, BOI, and IBM had violated the INA and that various federal agencies, including the Department of Labor, had wrongfully failed to investigate his complaints.1 According to Watson, this law-suit is 'an appeal of a final agency action (a.k.a. application for writ of mandamus) filed in the district court under the jurisdictional authority of 28 U.S.C. § 1361 [the federal mandamus statute] pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 701 through 5 U.S.C. § 706 [the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)].'...   Under the APA, there is no judicial review of agency action when that 'agency action is committed to agency discretion by law'. 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2).   The H-1B provisions of the INA instruct the Secretary of Labor (or her designee) to 'conduct an investigation' into complaints that an employer has failed to abide by the H-1B provisions regarding the displacement of U.S. workers with H-1B foreign workers 'if there is reasonable cause to believe that such a failure... has occurred.' 8 U.S.C. § 1182(n)(2)(A).   By the terms of the INA, therefore, only the Secretary is empowered to make this reasonable-cause assessment.   IOW, WHD's determination that there was no reasonable cause to investigate Watson's allegations, and the Board's affirmance of that determination, are decisions that are committed to the discretion of a federal agency under the statute and, therefore, are unreviewable.   See Heckler v. Chaney,470 U.S. 821, 832 (1985) ('[A]n agency's decision not to prosecute or enforce... is a decision generally committed to an agency's absolute discretion.' (citations omitted)); 20 C.F.R. § 655.806(a)(1) (providing that under § 1182(n)(2), '[n]o hearing or appeal... shall be available where the Administrator [of WHD] determines that an investigation on a complaint is not warranted.').   Moreover, as we have pointed out in our previous opinions regarding Watson's claims, § 1182(n) does not create a private cause of action on behalf of an employee who was allegedly fired or not hired in favor of an H-1B foreign worker.   See Watson, 196 F. App'x at 307—08; Watson, 191 F. App'x at *1; Venkatraman v. REI Sys., Inc.,417 F.3d 418, 422—24 (4th Cir. 2005); Shah v. Wilco Sys., Inc.,126 F.Supp.2d 641, 647 (S.D.N.Y. 2000) (all holding that there is no private right of action under § 1182)."

2010-10-15 (5771 Cheshvan 07)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Now it's the Israeli left fearing the destruction of the USA-Israel bond
"Crowley's unwillingness to state flat out that the US recognizes Israel as a Jewish state and expects Israel's supposed Palestinian peace partners to do so as well means that the Obama administration's basic hostility to Israel is so salient that no amount of appeasing on any specific issue will alter its position."

2010-10-15 (5771 Cheshvan 07)
R' Dov Fischer _Jewish World Review_
On gin joints and Divine destiny
"At G-d's direction, he is abandoning everything he knows, the anchor of his security.   And he is proceeding, with only G-d as his GPS guide, to encounter his destiny.   Abram soon will plant new roots in the Promised Land, but he never will assimilate the locals or their culture.   Although they will deem him a great man -- the Canaanite Hittites will call him 'a Prince of G-d in our midst' (Genesis/Brashith 23:6)   Abra[ha]m ultimately will insist, years later, that he wants his son Isaac to marry a girl from the Old Country, back across the river, and definitely not a Canaanite.   When he will send his manservant and major domo, Eliezer the Damascene, decades later to find a wife for Isaac, Abra[ha]m will instruct him: '[S]wear that... you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I dwell.   Rather, travel to my land and to my place of birth [to] take a wife for my son Isaac.' (24:3-8)   And yet G-d set Abra[ha]m's destiny in Canaan, the Promised Land.   Abra[ha]m's experience is not unique.   Throughout our generations, the Divine leads people on journeys that just-so-happen to bring them frontally facing their destiny...   In fiction and film, we recall Humphrey Bogart's great movie tag-line, as Rick Blaine in 'Casablanca' contemplates the unexpected return of Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa Lund into his life: 'Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.'   But the Torah is real life.   And so is yours."

2010-10-15
DJIA11,062.78
S&P 5001,176.19
NASDAQ2,468.77
Nikkei9,500
10-year US T-Bond2.57
crude oil$81.40/barrel
gold$1,371.00/ounce
silver$24.86/ounce
platinum$1,698.20/ounce
palladium$589.20/ounce
copper$0.24/ounce
natgas$3.535/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline $2.14/gal
heatingoil$2.2357/gal
soybeans$11.85/bushel
maize$5.63/bushel
wheat$7.045/bushel
dollarindex76.99
yenperdollar81.41
dollarspereuro1.3975
dollarsperpound1.5983
swissfranksperdollar 0.9590
indianrupeesperdollar 44.04
mexicanpesosperdollar 12.34
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex611.43

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "People critical of the business often have good ideas on how to make it better." --- Jane Wood & Denise Silver 1995 _Joint Application Development_ pg 182  

 
 

2010-10-16: 17 days to USA elections

2010-10-16
Jackie Headapohl _Michigan Live_
Guest-worker visa programs need an over-haul to stop displacement of American workers

2010-10-16
Ben Wolfgang _Pottsville PA Republican Herald_
PA has enacted law to fight illegal immigration
"The manager or owner of a construction company could be charged with a third-degree misdemeanor for knowingly classifying an illegal immigrant as an independent contractor, while doing so accidentally would be a summary offense.   Seip said Friday the construction industry is the sector most likely to violate immigration laws by using independent contractors, avoiding paying benefits, unemployment compensation, contributing to Social Security and other costs that come with hiring full-time employees.   Avoiding those costs and the records associated with them makes it less likely the company will be caught using illegal labor, according to supporters of the bill.   Seip said a 2005 November incident at Highridge Business Park -- in which 120 illegal immigrants were rounded up by federal and local authorities while working a construction project -- spurred the legislation."

2010-10-16 _Fox_/_AP_
Obama Presses Congress to End Tax Breaks which Encourage Over-Seas Hiring

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "White had a technique for dealing with hard cases and decisions.   He would set the matter aside for a while and then take it up again, weeks or months later.   The important factors often sorted out over time.   'You may think you are not thinking about it, but maybe you are.', he once said." --- Bob Woodward & Scott Armstrong 1979 _The Brethren_ pg 235  

 
 

2010-10-17: 16 days to USA elections

2010-10-17
Linda Halstead-Acharya _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Japanese wind-turbine firm to open R&D center in Billings
"Shibagaki is president of Taisei Techno, a Japanese firm that recently entered the wind turbine business.   According to Masahiro Sano, a consultant for Taisei Techno, Shibagaki was so taken by the friendly people he met on his stroll that he was convinced he'd made the right choice.   He'd selected Billings, and more specifically Montana State University Billings College of Technology, as the premiere site for the company's wind turbine venture in the United States."

2010-10-17
Stephanie Stanley _Chillicothe OH Gazette_/_Gannett_
Circleville Pumpkin Festival to begin Thursday

2010-10-17
Jerry Seper _Washington Times_
Mexican hit-men operating in USA
"Drug-smuggling gangs in Mexico have sent well-armed assassins, or 'sicarios' [from the Hebrew word for dagger], into Arizona to locate and kill bandits who are ambushing and stealing loads of cocaine, marijuana and heroin headed to buyers in the U.S.A., the Department of Homeland Security has warned Arizona law enforcement authorities.   In a memo first sent in May but widely circulated since, the department said a group of '15, very well-equipped and armed' assassins complete with body armor had been sent into the state to identify, locate and kill the drug thieves, who are thought to be independent operators...   Pinal County sheriff Paul Babeu, whose county includes the valley, told The Washington Times earlier this month that Mexican drug cartels have posted scouts on the high points around the valley to control movement in the area.   He said they have radios, optics and 'night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has'.   'This is going on here in Arizona... 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States.', he said.   The sheriff said he asked the Obama administration for 3K National Guard soldiers to patrol the border, but got 15 signs along Interstate 8 instead...   The Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center, in its 2010 drug-threat assessment report... said assaults [are] up 46% against U.S. Border Patrol agents alone."

2010-10-17
Susan Carroll _Houston TX Chronicle_
Immigration cases being tossed by the hundreds: Docket review shows Homeland Security's active resistance to enforcement of the law
Rudi Stettner: Indy Posted
"In the month after Homeland Security officials started a review of Houston's immigration court docket, immigration judges dismissed more than 200 cases, an increase of more than 700% from the prior month, new data shows.   The number of dismissals in Houston courts reached 217 in August -- up from just 27 in July, according to data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which administers the nation's immigration court system.   In September, judges dismissed 174 pending cases -- the vast majority involving immigrants who already were out on bond and had cases pending on Houston's crowded downtown court docket, where hearings are now being scheduled into 2012.   Roughly 45% of the 350 cases decided in that court in September resulted in dismissals, the records show.   The EOIR data offer the first glimpse into Homeland Security's largely secretive review of pending cases on the local immigration court docket.   In early August, federal attorneys in Houston started filing unsolicited motions to dismiss cases involving suspected illegal immigrants who have lived in the country for years without committing serious crimes.   News of the dismissals, first reported in the Houston Chronicle in late August, caused a national controversy amid allegations that the Obama administration was implementing a kind of 'back-door amnesty' -- a charge officials strongly denied.   In recent weeks, some immigration attorneys reported the dismissals have slowed somewhat, while others reported they now have to ask ICE trial attorneys to exercise prosecutorial discretion in order to have their cases dismissed.   Others, however, said they are still being approached by government attorneys seeking to file joint motions for case dismissal...   the system's staggering back-log, which hit an all-time high this year.   In June, the number of pending immigration cases nationally reached 247,922, including 7,444 in Houston...   'When you have this kind of mass dismissal, it sends a very clear message to illegal immigrants, and to society at large, that the government is not serious about enforcing the laws.', said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that advocates for stricter border controls [and reduced immigration]."

2010-10-17
Martin Lazerson _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Academia as Industrial Business
"By the last decades of the 20th century, colleges had achieved a monopoly as the licensing agencies for Americans who wanted to improve their employment prospects...   When endowments at the richest universities dropped by 25% to 30%, gifts declined, and states faced bankruptcies, the costs of business as usual became too great.   All the obvious steps have been taking place: cutting staff and programs, canceling capital investments and delaying maintenance projects, renegotiating debt, holding back increases in salaries and financial-aid packages."

2010-10-17
Don Troop _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Here's your sys admin degree; now here's your mop

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "from the point of view of fundamental human liberties there is little to choose between communism, socialism and national socialism.   They all are examples of the collectivist or totalitarian state... in its essentials not only is completed socialism the same as communism but it hardly differs from fascism." --- Ivor Thomas 1949 _The Socialist Tragedy_ pp241, 242 (quoted in Friedrich A. Hayek 1944, 1963 _The Road to Serfdom_ pg xviii (forward))  

 
 

2010-10-18: 15 days to USA elections: early voting begins in Florida

2010-10-17 21:00:01PDT (2010-10-18 00:00:01EDT) (2010-10-18 04:00:01GMT)
Laura Litvan _Bloomberg_
Mariott and other executives in search of increases in already excessive guest-work and immigration visas increase campaign donations
"Marriott and other companies including Intel Corp., Hilton Worldwide and Texas Instruments Inc. are seeking a boost in the number of legal immigrant workers they are allowed to hire...   some of the party's leading law-makers say their focus will be on border security, not the immigrant-worker changes the businesses are seeking.   'You have to secure the border before you do anything else.', said Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican in line to become House Judiciary Committee chairman if his party wins the chamber.   The [executives'] viewpoint was pressed Sept. 30 by News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, who urged House Judiciary subcommittee members to work on a bipartisan overhaul of immigration policy that includes 'an end to the arbitrary immigration and visa quotas'.   Republicans on the panel, including Smith, voiced skepticism, saying lower-skilled U.S. employees could see their wages fall if more legal foreign workers are allowed in...   The business agenda calls for increases in worker visas for skilled and unskilled labor, and more employment-based 'green cards' -- proof of permanent residency in the U.S. that can allow for a lifetime career.   Technology companies such as eBay Inc. and Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. are among those urging Congress to lift the cap on H-1b visas for skilled workers.   The annual limit has been [over 85K and effectively over 110K when open-ended exemptions are taken into account*] since 2004, after expiration of a temporary increase from 2001-2003 that raised the cap to 195K.   In fiscal 2010, the cap was reached in 9 months [though all possible H-1B visas under the flexible limits were not claimed].   Companies also want to [increase] the limit on employment-based green cards, now set at 140K...   Marriott's PAC so far this cycle has given $171,300 to federal candidates, with 50% going to Republicans and 48% going to Democrats.   Hilton's PAC donated $69,260, with 51% given to Democrats and 40% to Republicans.   Santa Clara, California-based Intel's committee gave $279,300 to candidates, 57% to Democrats and 43% to Republicans.   And Texas Instruments' committee donated $48,130 to candidates, with Republicans getting 52% and Democrats 48%."
* According to State Department annual reports, 80,547 H-1B visas were issued through consular offices in FY1997, 91,360 in FY1998, 116,513 H-1B visas were issued in FY1999, 133,290 in FY2000, 161,643 in FY2001, 118,352 in FY2002, 107,196 in FY2003, 139,037 H-1B visas were issued in FY2004, 124,374 in FY2005, 135,861 in FY2006, 154,692 in FY2007, 130,183 in FY2008, 110,988 in FY2009, 117,828 in FY2010, 129,552 in FY2011, 135,991 in FY2012...jgo

2010-10-18
Dan Eggen _Washington Post_
PACs linked to foreign firms inject millions into political campaigns
"Political action committees connected to foreign-based corporations have donated nearly $60M to candidates and parties over the past decade, including $12M since the start of 2009, federal contribution records show.   Top donors in this election cycle include PACs tied to British drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, which together account for about $1M; Belgium's Anheuser-Busch InBev, at nearly $650K; and Credit Suisse Securities, at over $350K.   The donations must come from U.S. citizens or residents, and they make up a small fraction of overall political giving...   [A] bill, blocked by Senate Republicans, would have classified more multinationals as foreign entities and, in early drafts, could have prevented them from having PACs.   More than a dozen foreign-connected companies, including subsidiaries of Germany's BASF Corp. and Switzerland's UBS Americas, registered to lobby against the legislation, records show...   One of the leading contributors to federal candidates among U.S. subsidiaries is BAE Systems, the Arlington County-based arm of the British defense and aerospace company.   Records show BAE's PAC has given nearly $600K to candidates in this cycle, with 55% going to Democrats.   Top recipients include senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), whose state includes many BAE employees, and senator Richard Burr (R-NC), a member of the intelligence, armed services and veteran affairs committees...   Major global health-care companies are well represented at the top of the contributions list, including Novartis Corp. of Switzerland, Bayer Corp. of Germany and several British companies.   Defense and energy companies such as Rolls-Royce, Siemens and EADS, the maker of Airbus jets, also rank high...   Foreign-based companies employ more than 5M Americans in a range of areas such as health care, defense and finance, including tens of thousands of Chrysler employees who now work for Italian auto-maker Fiat, according to federal data...   'The bottom line is that those individuals are likely to be much more interested in the health of [their take from] the global economy than in the guy who just lost his job in Zanesville, Ohio.', said David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch, which favors a public financing system for elections."

2010-10-18 03:00PDT (06:00EDT) (10:00GMT)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Indian off-shoring giant Infosys says they're increasing US hiring
Kevin Fogarty: IT world
"Infosys Technologies says it will hire 1K U.S. workers [citizens and green card holders] to increase its ability to provide consulting and management services to its clients, an area of increasing importance for the India-based off-shoring giant.   Infosys on Friday reported $1.5G in revenue for the quarter, an increase of nearly 30% from the same quarter last year.   North America accounts for nearly 66% of its revenue.   Ashok Vemuri, SVP and global head of banking and capital markets, said that most of the growth is from existing clients, although it added 13 new accounts in the American market in the most recent quarter, including two Fortune 500 firms...   The company has somewhere in the range of 14K to 15K workers in the U.S.A., but it does not break out the number of workers in this total by either citizens and permanent residents or those on a temporary work visa.   Infosys is one of the largest users of H-1B visas.   Infosys operates on a model whereby roughly 30% of the client services are delivered on-site and the balance off-shore.   The goal of hiring 1K U.S. workers was set at the start of the fiscal year in April...   Infosys employs about 122,500 worldwide.   It increased its work-force by 7,650 employers in the most revenue quarter."

2010-10-18
Amy Nolan _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
entertainment media distributor Anderson News CEO Charlie Anderson ponders shift to network sales and distribution
"Anderson says the magazine distribution business continued to get tougher, with competitors dropping out as retail floor space became more expensive and fought after.   Little margin, he says, was left for profit...   According to the Magazine Publishers Association, single-copy sales have dropped 8 out of the last 10 years, from nearly 45M sold in 1999 to slightly more than 23M in 2009.   Anderson hedged a little by purchasing magazines.com -- a web-site that sells subscriptions.   Publishers have enjoyed relative success with verified and paid circulation, which has declined just 1.6% over the past 10 years...   Anderson is again hedging his bets, having purchased in 2003 Liquid Audio, which had been formed in 1996 to provide recording labels, artists and retailers an Internet platform from which to sell music downloads.   Now Liquid Digital Media, the company powers Walmart's digital media sales and also fulfills online orders for CDs and DVDs.   Anderson doesn't believe that's a long-term fix for the industry.   'I do not see a music industry supported by 99-cents single down-loads.', he says.   'That may still be around, but that will just be one revenue stream.   We have to come up with many more.'"

2010-10-18
Toni Bowers _TechRepublic_
Stupid job titles have to go

2010-10-18
Mark Whitehouse _Wall Street Journal_
Soros doesn't like what economics tells us after over 225 years of scientific progress; spends $50M to get reports more to his pleasing
Soros Institute for New Economic Thinking

2010-10-18
Robert P. Murphy _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
Putting Austrian economic cycle theory to the test

2010-10-18 15:16PDT (18:16EDT) (22:16GMT)
Thomas Sowell _Investor's Business Daily_
Barney Frank is anything but frank on housing part1
Jewish World Review
"His powerful position on the House of Representatives' Committee on Financial Services gave him leverage to force through legislation and policies that pressured banks and other lenders to grant mortgage loans to people who would not qualify under the standards which had long prevailed, and had long made mortgage loans among the safest investments around."

2010-10-18 (5771 Cheshvan 10)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Buying stolen goods

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, 'You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle." --- Abraham Lincoln 1858-10-15 Seventh and Last Debate with Stephen A. Douglas (quoted by James Fulford)  

 
 

2010-10-19: 2 weeks (14 days) to USA elections

2010-10-18 18:19:01PDT (2010-10-18 21:19:01EDT) (2010-10-19 01:19:01GMT)
Mike Swift _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_
Tech job candidates object to head-spinning trivial pursuit questions
"Why are manhole covers round?   How would you figure out the number of kilowatt-hours required to boil a container of water?   For a randomly ordered bucket of numbers 1 through 3K with one number missing, how would you detect which number is missing?   For thousands of Silicon Valley high-tech job seekers, it's no bad dream.   Those questions are actual queries fielded by candidates who recently applied for jobs at Cisco Systems, Google and Facebook, respectively, according to Glassdoor.com, the Sausalito-based website that collects feedback on salaries, interviews and company culture from more than 95K companies.   In a recently updated analysis on the hiring process at big tech companies, Glassdoor found that while employees at Google and Facebook rate both companies as good places to work -- and not just because of the free food -- they, along with Yahoo!, also had the highest share of job candidates rating the hiring process as negative.   Google and Amazon candidates fielded the most knee-buckling interview questions...   Candidates at Apple and IBM were the most likely to rate the hiring process as positive, with 60% of Apple candidates giving a thumbs-up response, compared with just 32% at Facebook, the company with the lowest share of positive ratings and, after Google, the second-highest share of negative ratings.   But, Hohman said, 'if you compare this to the company reviews of Facebook (by employees), it is a very highly rated company.   Mark Zuckerberg has a 96% CEO approval rating.   It's one of those things where if you can get in, it's a great place to work, and the same with Google', where CEO Eric Schmidt also has a 96% approval rating."

2010-10-19
Ashley Luthern _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Solving the mysteries of a family's history can be addicting
"'The fun thing is that one question leads to an answer, which just leads to another question.', she said...   'People believe they'll sit down an hour and find their family tree.', she said.   'But it's a process and takes a while.'   After 20 years of research and finding much of her family tree, Burns is still searching for definitive answers about the engraved horn's owner."

2010-10-19
Kristine Gill _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
"Power of 32" aims to revitalize the region

2010-10-19
David Pitt _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_
Continuing economic depression still has grip on workers
"More than 80% of workers believe they will need at least three years to rebuild their retirement savings as a result of the recession.   That's a dramatic increase over the 64% who responded to the survey a year ago.   Some 20% of workers believe they will never get their savings back to pre-recession levels, the survey revealed...   14% of respondents are very confident in [the Socialist Insecurity abomination], down from 22%; 16% are very confident in Medicare, down from 20%; and 22% are very confident in receiving medical benefits from an employer, down from 25%."

2010-10-19
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Big government nannies think they know better than local citizens regarding transportation

2010-10-19 15:11PDT (18:11EDT) (22:11GMT)
Thomas Sowell _Investor's Business Daily_
The Cynically Ruthless Barney Frank, Enabler Of The Mortgage Melt-Down

2010-10-19 (5771 Cheshvan 11)
Edmund Sanders _Jewish World Review_
Arabs decide Jericho is 10K years old, throw it a birthday party and nobody bothers to show
"Nobody really knows the exact anniversary, but Palestinians thought 10-10-10 had a good ring to it."

2010-10-19 (5771 Cheshvan 11)
Paul Johnson _Jewish World Review_
Are Universities Worth It?
"What ought universities to be doing? And are they doing it?...   So universities, and the education they provide, do not necessarily impart wisdom.   What they do convey, in general terms, is not so easily defined...   The quality of higher education received seems to bear no relation to the success or failure of most Presidents.   The two greatest, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, had to learn the hard way.   OTOH, another distinguished President, Woodrow Wilson, first attracted notice as president of Princeton.   It is striking how much or how little great inventors and scientists learned at university...   Indeed, the study of universities and the great men and women who have attended them leads me to think that the best of these schools are characterized not so much by what they teach and how they teach it but by the extent they provide opportunities and encouragement for students to teach themselves.   The best also help to instill certain intellectual virtues in young minds, including respect for the indispensable foundation of democracy, the rule of law; the need to back up opinions with clear arguments, empirical evidence and hard work; the varying importance of resolute conviction and friendly compromise, when appropriate; open-mindedness at all times; and the perpetual need for courage in the pursuit of truth.   These are essentially moral qualities, which must form the basis of any university education.   College presidents and trustees must satisfy themselves that this is precisely what their institutions are providing, as must corporate and individual benefactors.   In the long run this is the only way we can ensure that universities justify the resources and time they consume."

2010-10-19 (5771 Cheshvan 11)
R' Shlomo Einhorn _Jewish World Review_
Lessons from Chilean mine: Concealment and Discovery

2010-10-19 (5771 Cheshvan 11)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The Multi-Cultural Cult part1
Orange County CA Register
Jacksonville FL Times-Union
Patriot Post
"The absorption of millions of immigrants from Europe into American society may be cited as an example of the success of multi-culturalism.   But, in fact, they were absorbed in ways that were the direct opposite of what the multicultural cult is recommending today.   Before these immigrants were culturally assimilated to the norms of American society, they were by no means scattered at random among the population at large.   On New York's lower east side, Hungarian Jews lived clustered together in different neighborhoods from Romanian Jews or Polish Jews -- and German Jews lived away from the lower east side."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life." --- John F. Kennedy  

 
 

2010-10-20: 13 days to USA elections

2010-10-20
David Skolnick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Elsass, Johnson, Cadle vs. the incumbent in Ohio's 6th congressional district

2010-10-20 09:50PDT (12:50EDT) (16:50GMT)
_WBAL Baltimore MD_/_Hearst_/_CNN_
Candidates for Maryland's 8th congressional district positions on "Stimulus"

2010-10-20
_Indian Express_
India will admit only highly-skilled, highly paid foreign workers
"In an attempt to prevent foreigners filling non-technical jobs, India has made it clear that they would be taken in only for highly-skilled work and provided they draw a salary of not less than USD 25K a year.   In an order, the Home Ministry nullified a Labour Ministry circular that capped foreign work-force to one per cent of the total strength in any project, with a minimum of 5 and maximum of 20 people.   The nullification of restriction on numbers would help power and steel projects in particular...   Besides, the ministry made it clear that employment visa shall not be granted for jobs for which qualified Indians are available and also for routine, ordinary or secretarial/ clerical jobs."

2010-10-20
Arnold Kling _Library of Economics and Liberty_
Why is college expensive?

2010-10-20
David R. Butcher _Industry Market Trends ThomasNet_
4 Fundamental Flaws in H-1B Visa Program
"1. Neither program requires a labor market test...   2. Wage requirements [for H-1B visas are too low], and they are non-existent for L-1...   3. Visas are held by employers rather than workers...   4. Program oversight and enforcement is deficient."
Ron Hira: The H-1B and L-1 Visa programs: Out of Control
Read Briefing Paper #280 (pdf)

2010-10-20
Jessica Heslam _Boston MA Herald_
Boston College law student is asking for money back
"In an open letter to BC Law's Interim Dean George Brown posted on EagleiOnline -- an on-line student-run newspaper at BC's law school -- the anonymous dissatisfied customer said soon-to-be grads are about to enter 'one of the worst job markets in the history of our profession' and an 'overwhelming majority' of them can't find jobs...   The student offered to leave law school without a degree at the end of the semester in exchange for a full tuition refund..."

2010-10-20 (5771 Cheshvan 12)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Leftists, Regressives and Socialists
"I caught a glimpse of the Oct. 2 'One Nation' march on Washington.   The participants proudly marched with banners, signs and placards reading 'Socialists', 'Ohio U Democratic Socialists', 'International Socialists Organization', 'Socialist Party USA', 'Build A Socialist Alternative' and other signs expressing support for socialism and communism.   They had stands where they sold booklets under the titles of 'Marxism and the State', 'Communist Manifesto', 'Four Marxist Classics', 'The Road to Socialism' and similar titles.   The gathering had the support of the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, stalwarts of the Democratic Party such as Al Sharpton and organizations such as the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, Green for All, the Sierra Club, and the Children's Defense Fund.   What goes unappreciated is that socialists and communists have produced the greatest evil in mankind's history...   The most authoritative tally of history's most murderous regimes is in a book by University of Hawaii's professor Rudolph J. Rummel, _Death by Government_.   A wealth of information is provided at his web-site...   While America's leftists, socialists and communists condemn Hitler, they give the world's most horrible murderers a pass.   First, they make a false distinction between fascism, communism and socialism but more importantly, they sympathize with the socioeconomic goals of communism and socialism.   The primary goal of communism and socialism is government ownership or control over the means of production.   In the U.S.A., only a few people call for outright government ownership of the means of production.   They might have learned that government ownership would mess things up.   Instead, they've increasingly called for quasi-ownership through various forms of government regulation, oversight, taxation and subsidies.   After all, if someone has the power to tell you how you may use your property, it's tantamount to his owing it.   I believe most Americans find the ideals and principles of socialism, communism and progressivism repugnant, but by our sanctioning greater government centralization and its control over our lives, we become their dupes or, as Lenin said, 'useful idiots'."

2010-10-20 (5771 Cheshvan 12)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The Multi-Cultural Cult part2
New American
Oklahoman

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "If defeated everywhere else, I will make my stand for liberty, among the Scots-Irish in my native Virginia" --- general George Washington (Ulster Nationalist)  

 
 

2010-10-21: 12 days to USA elections

2010-10-21 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 391,737 in the week ending Oct. 16, a decrease of 71,303 from the previous week.   There were 460,269 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9% during the week ending Oct. 9, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,686,287, a decrease of 25,353 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.7% and the volume was 4,916,574.   Extended benefits were available in AL, AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA ID, IL, IN KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending October 2...   States reported 4,040,113 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Oct. 2, an increase of 152,112 from the prior week.   There were 3,428,585 claimants in the comparable week in 2009.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" changes
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25.]
graphs
more graphs

2010-10-21 07:53PDT (10:53EDT) (14:53GMT)
Steve Goldstein _MarketWatch_
Leading economic index up 0.3%
"The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the U.S. increased 0.3% in September to 110.4 (2004 = 100), following a 0.1% increase in August, and a 0.2% increase in July...   The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index® (CEI) for the U.S. was unchanged in September, remaining at 101.4 (2004 = 100), following no change in August and a 0.1% increase in July.   The Conference Board Lagging Economic Index® (LAG) increased 0.4% in September to 108.4 (2004 = 100), following a 0.1% increase in August, and a 0.4% increase in July."

2010-10-21
Elise Foley _Washington Independent_
Looking for a way forward on visa reform

2010-10-21
Philip Klein _American Spectator_
Carter embraces Hamas -- literally
"Jimmy Carter traveled to Syria to meet with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, declared that Palestinians are 'living in a cage', and insisted that the terrorist group dedicated to destroying Israel should be included in peace talks. Here's a sickening photo of the former U.S. President embracing a mass murderer of innocent civilians."

2010-10-21 08:18PDT (11:18EDT) (15:18GMT)
Roger Harris _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_Scripps_
Remotec subsidiary of Northrup Grumman won AF contract to upgrade Andros HD-1 robots

2010-10-21
Matthew Vadum _American Spectator_
Soros-Backed Documentary Embraces Leftist Terrorists Who Wanted To Kill Republicans

2010-10-21 11:28:32PDT (14:28:32EDT) (18:28:32GMT)
Melissa Eddy _San Jose CA Mercury "News_/_AP_
244K Germans say no to StreetView

2010-10-21
_DNA India_
Bodyshop/off-shorer employment in India will triple this year
"The sector at large is expected to treble the intake of professionals this year compared with the hiring of 50K-60K people last year, Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan said.   About 130K to 150K IT jobs would be created this year, thanks mainly to economic recovery, he said...   Infosys is also working on ramping up its Chinese operations.   The company is planning to immediately increase its head-count in [Red China] from the current 2,850 to 4K.   It is also in talks with the Chinese government for allocation of land to set up a campus.   Once it comes up, the company would look at hiring about 20K people in [Red China]."

2010-10-21
Bradley Honan & Chris Nichols _Strategy One_
Just over half of Americans believe they are living the American Dream
"Despite the 'official' end of the recession more than a year ago, life remains drab for a large portion of the population: Nearly half of the people in the U.S.A. aren't living what they would call the 'American Dream', according to a new survey out this week.   StrategyOne, part of the Daniel J. Edelman public relations firm, surveyed 1,008 Americans and found 48% of those polled answered 'no' when asked: 'Are you living the American Dream today?'   In households earning between $40K and $50K a year, just 41% answered the question affirmatively.   However, for higher earning households -- those at or above $75K annually -- 71% of respondents said they were living the American Dream.   That supports the notion that money might not be everything, but it helps.   The survey also suggests a lack of faith in the possibility of upward mobility: Of the 48% who said they aren't living the American Dream, more than half said they didn't think they ever would."

2010-10-21
William L. Anderson
The Austerity Bogey

2010-10-21 (5771 Cheshvan 13)
John Rosemond _Jewish World Review_
"Gifted" children who don't succeed
2010-09-27: Colin Fernandez: Daily Mail: Why gifted children are just as likely to fail in life

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "The Scots-Irish were the first to pro-claim for freedom in these United States; even before Lexington Scots-Irish blood had been shed for American freedom. In the forefront of every battle was seen their burnished mail and in the retreat was heard their voice of constancy." --- president William McKinley (Ulster Nationalist)  

 
 

2010-10-22: 11 days to USA elections

2010-10-22
Joe Weisenthal _Business Insider_
AFSCME gave $87.5M to campaigns of Democratics
Gordon Deal: Wall Street Journal
Brody Mullins & John D. McKinnon: Wall Street Journal
News Max
Fox

2010-10-21 22:00PDT (2010-10-22 01:00EDT) (2010-10-22 05:00GMT)
Jennifer D. Jordan _Providence RI Journal_
Some RI teachers can't speak, read or write English intelligibly
"There may be teachers currently working in Rhode Island schools who do not speak, read or write English intelligibly enough to be in a classroom, say state education officials...   Officials of Providence schools, the state’s largest district, acknowledged the problem, but indicated it has been difficult for the district to gather concrete information or take action.   'We have some number of teachers with limited English proficiency.', said district spokeswoman Christina O'Reilly in an e-mail.   'It's not easily quantifiable, but, anecdotally, we know this to be true.   In the past, we have employed various strategies, including encouraging individuals to take a leave of absence in order to seek adult education classes in English.'   The state Department of Education is proposing that all new teachers pass an English competency exam as part of their teacher-training program before becoming certified...   the issue of educator fluency comes up more frequently at colleges and universities, where foreign-born graduate students often teach under-graduate classes and may have accents that are hard to understand...   According to the Boston Globe, a Middlesex Superior Court judge ruled that a first-grade teacher from Cambodia who had failed 2 types of fluency tests should be fired from her job.   That decision was overturned in May by the state Supreme Judicial Court, which said the judge did not have the right to over-turn an earlier decision by an arbitrator.   At the time, the teacher had 4 state teaching licenses and had taught in Lowell schools for 10 years."

2010-10-21 22:00PDT (2010-10-22 01:00EDT) (2010-10-22 05:00GMT)
Thomas J. Morgan _Providence RI Journal_
Moon impact experiment turned up water, silver, and other goodies
"The discovery of water had previously been made public, though it was disclosed Thursday that the amount found was actually about 41 gallons...   'In addition to water, we found different compounds of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and even some sulfur in there.', Schulz reported...   The discovery of silver is important, he said, 'because it's one of those elements, as anyone who works in jewelry knows, that melts easily, vaporizes easily.   It acts as a tracer element.   It tells us atom by atom that these heavy atoms of silver were transported to the poles of the moon and got trapped because it's so cold.'"

2010-10-22
_Information Age_
Maintaining profits "a big challenge" for India's cross-border bodyshops and off-shorers
"The chief financial officer of India's largest IT services exporter has warned that the company will struggle to maintain profit margins as the value of the Indian rupee increases...   In October, the Indian currency hit a 25-month high against the US dollar.   Rupee inflation is an issue facing all Indian IT out-sourcers, many of whom derive most of their revenues from the USA.   Last week, BG Srinivas, head of manufacturing and products at TCS competitor Infosys told Information Age that the company uses several mechanisms to offset currency fluctuation and wage inflation, including raising prices.   'Partly it's been offset by productivity improvements, and partly by price increases.', he said.   The CFO of Infosys, V Balakrishnan, called on the Reserve Bank of India to devalue the rupee, a tactic occasionally used in [Red China] to maintain demand for the country's exports."
Fiber to Fashion: Rakesh Vaid, President, Garments Exporters Association, concerned at steep appreciation of Indian Rupee by over 7% within 2 months

2010-10-22 10:23PDT (13:23EDT) (17:23GMT)
Paul Ivice _Treasure Coast FL Palm_/_Scripps_
Treasure Coast unemployment down from last month, up from last year

2010-10-22
Cindy Uken _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
More people are asking for help at "Crisis Center"
"With more than 2 months of 2010 remaining, the Community Crisis Center is on pace to serve nearly twice as many people as it did just 3 years ago...   In 2007, the center recorded 2,884 visits; to date this year, the center has already recorded 3,812 visits with November and December remaining."

2010-10-22
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
National Socalist Radio continues to show its leftist stripes

2010-10-22
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Even George Soros distrusts Obamanomics

2010-10-22
Jerry Markon & Krssah Thompson _Washington Post_
prosecution of New Black Panthers for voter intimidation dropped by Obummer/Holder activists in DoJ
Jennifer Rubin: Commentary
"After the Obama administration took over, high-level political appointees relayed their thoughts on the case in a stream of internal e-mails in the days leading to the dismissal.   That decision to pull back the law-suit caused conflicts so heated that trial team members at times threw memos in anger or cursed at supervisors."

2010-10-22 16:13PDT (19:13EDT) (23:13GMT)
_Investor's Business Daily_
as facets of National Socialist Health Care Perversion (ObummerDoesn'tCare) go into effect, intention to eliminate private care and insurance is becoming clearer

2010-10-22
Llewellyn H. Rockwell ii _Ludwig von Mises Institute_
The Killing and Reviving of the American Dream
"Economics isn't just about trade statistics, retail sales, or GDP.   It is the very pith of life...   Long term, our living standards have been eroded in fundamental ways that have a profound cultural effect.   The American family once lived well on one income.   Now, two incomes is the expected reality.   That shift took place following the great inflation of the late 1970s.   Many people saw this as the great news that the workplace was being opened up to women.   More likely it was not a sign of liberation...   Such adjustments are on-going.   The hidden tax of inflation, combined with the growing regulation of labor markets, makes maintaining the illusion of high living standards ever more difficult...   The classroom is no substitute for the workforce.   Russia under communism had the highest percentage of PhDs per capita in the world, and this contributed nothing to the productivity of the nation...   The first type is corporate socialism that puts large banks and corporations in the driver's seat of public policy, leading to bail-outs for the most well-heeled firms out there...   A second type of American socialism comes in the form of a gargantuan military-industrial complex that plows through more than a trillion [tax-victim] dollars each year to sustain the American empire around the world -- and be enriched, of course.   Yet a third type is that which provides social security and medical benefits for older Americans, people who believe that because they have paid into these systems their entire lives, they are entitled to receive back as much as possible.   These 3 systems of socialism are a main cause of the American bankruptcy.   They are absolutely unsustainable."

2010-10-22
Eric Peters _V Dare_
Too Much Traffic -- Too Many People
"Once population gets to a certain density, it's game over—for liberty.   I mean, for real-deal, live and let live, do-what-you-want-to (provided you're not physically harming anyone else) liberty...   In a frontier-type, low-density environment, people are independent-minded and self-sufficient.   To a great extent they self-police—and are happy.   They earn their own keep and expect to be left alone in return.   Because people are not constantly rubbing up against one another, there is much less social friction.   People can go around one another.   You don't like your neighbor? Well, you almost never see him anyway and it's easy to avoid having to deal with him.   He goes his way, you go yours.   Resources abound; useful work is easy to get.   People are largely free to do what they want, within reasonable bounds—and to enjoy their lives."

2010-10-22 (5771 Cheshvan 14)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Barney Frank is not frank part2
"Having been a key figure in promoting the risky mortgage lending practices imposed by the federal government on lenders, and on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy these risky mortgages from the lenders, Barney Frank blamed the resulting collapse of financial markets and the economy on everybody except Barney Frank."

2010-10-22
DJIA11,132.56
S&P 5001,183.08
NASDAQ2,479.39
Nikkei9,427
10-year US T-Bond2.56
crude oil$81.69/barrel
gold$1,325.10/ounce
silver$23.118/ounce
platinum$1,675.10/ounce
palladium$591.10/ounce
copper$0.2380625/ounce
natgas$3.33/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline $2.06/gal
heatingoil$2.25/gal
soybeans$12.115/bushel
maize$5.60/bushel
wheat$6.7075/bushel
dollarindex77.41
yenperdollar81.35
dollarspereuro1.397
dollarsperpound1.5714
swissfranksperdollar 0.9774
indianrupeesperdollar 44.59
mexicanpesosperdollar 12.3780
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex618.01

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "it is doubtful if we fully realized the part played by this stern and virile people. They formed the kernel of that American stock who were the pioneers of our People in the march westwards. They were bold and hardy people who pushed beyond the settled regions of America and plunged into the wilderness as the leaders of the white advance. The Presbyterians were the first and last set of immigrants to do this: all others have merely followed in the wake of their pre-decessors." --- president Theodore Roosevelt (Ulster Nationalist)  

 
 

2010-10-23: 10 days to USA elections

2010-10-23
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Federal Reserve targets non-existent problem
Robert P. Murphy: Ludwig von Mises Institute: QE2 and the Alleged Deflation Threat

2010-10-23
Stuart Pfeifer _Los Angeles CA Times_
Scammers target desperate job seekers: Schemes that ask for money to set up clients in jobs that never materialize are proliferating

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "The Scots-Irish had a system of religious faith and worship which has ever borne an inflexible front to illusion and mendacity, and has preferred rather to be ground to powder like flint than to bend before violence or melt under enervating temptation." --- J.A. Froude (Ulster Nationalist)  

 
 

2010-10-24: 9 days to USA elections

2010-10-24
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Woodrow Wilson's detestable policies
Jillian Kay Melchior: Commentary: Don't Tell Me Why I Hate Woodrow Wilson

2010-10-24
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Leftists want everyone in USA dependent on government

2010-10-24
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
George Soros wages war against non-leftist media
Investor's Business Daily

2010-10-24
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Kalifornia: Poster child for leftism

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "We were apprehensive from the Northern Indians. I therefore thought it might be prudent to plant a settlement of such men as those who formerly had so bravely defended Londonderry and Inniskillen as a frontier in case of any disturbance." --- James Logan, secretary of state of PA who was, himself an immigrant from Ulster (Ulster Nationalist)  

 
 

2010-10-25: 8 days to USA elections

2010-10-25 01:35PDT (04:35EDT) (08:35GMT)
David Cay Johnston _Tax.com_
Scary New Wage Data
"Every 34th wage earner in America in 2008 went all of 2009 without earning a single dollar, new data from the [Socialist Insecurity Abomination] show.   Total wages, median wages, and average wages all declined, but at the very top, salaries grew more than 5-fold."

2010-10-25 08:53:17PDT (11:53:17EDT) (15:53:17GMT)
Malcolm Foster _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_/_AP_
India and Japan ink agreement on trade and investment; Japan gets cheated
"An India-Japan nuclear agreement is crucial for international nuclear power companies to do business with India.   While U.S.-based firms GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy and Westinghouse Electric, a subsidiary of Japan's Toshiba Corp., are waiting to set up plants in India, some key components for the plants are supplied by Japanese companies...   Under the economic partnership agreement, or EPA, Tokyo will remove tariffs on 97% of Indian imports, with India eliminating tariffs on 90% of goods imported from Japan."

2010-10-25
Julie Bort _Network World_/_IDG_
Congress mulling multiple bills to reform/pervert H-1B and L-1 visa programs
some proposed bills of interest

2010-10-25
C.J. Hughes _Architectural Record_
Exactly how many architects in the USA are unemployed?
Architectural Record: Recession & Recovery

2010-10-25
William L. Anderson
Falling into Economic Illiteracy

2010-10-25
Matthew Vadum _American Spectator_
How ACORN survives and thrives while continuing in its corruption

2010-10-25
Charles Campbell _Baltimore Sun_
"Free" trade has failed the USA

2010-10-25 (5771 Cheshvan 17)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Equal partners who are not
"Who could have known, when Apple Computer was founded by two friends that in the future being a brilliant programmer and engineer like Stephen Wozniak would become virtually a standardized input, whereas being able to imagine the future of the market would become the main source of profitability?"

2010-10-25 (5771 Cheshvan 17)
Ricki Hollander _Jewish World Review_
60 Minutes is the latest "respectable" outlet to join Arab Propaganda Bandwagon

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "A 'no' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a 'yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble." --- Mahatma Ghandi (Ulster Nationalist)  

 
 

2010-10-26: 1 week (7 days) to USA elections

2010-10-26
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
60 Minutes piece
Sunday night 60 Minutes ran a piece on extended unemployment, with the unusual twist that the story focused on Silicon Valley.   The gloomy status that reporter Scott Pelley found there would be no surprise to many readers of this e-news-letter, but Pelley himself seemed to be genuinely shocked.
 
The interviewees included a former fiber optics engineering manager who is just about to start a job at Target for $9.25/hr -- and even then, only part-time.   A former head of HR who made $200K per year in the good old days now has spent most of his savings, and in desperation bought an air duct cleaning franchise -- only to find that in the depressed economy, not many can afford his service.
 
Pelley seemed to be particularly taken aback by the high level of education of the group of unemployed he interviewed.   He called for a show of hands, and I think about half had a master's degree, and several were PhDs.
 
The people in the press, like those in the government, just don't seem to get it.   The government continues to cite education as the way out of our economic doldrums, an attitude that must infuriate those well-educated people Pelley talked to.
 
Just last week, Tim Geithner gave a talk in Palo Alto, right in the interviewees' back yard, saying that solution is "educate more engineers".   Clueless, just sadly clueless.
 
The 60 Minutes report did acknowledge half of the globalization equation, citing "high-tech engineering that went over-seas".   But no mention at all about H-1B, though, which is sadly consistent with 60 Minutes' attitude in recent years.   Though 60 Minutes ran one of the earliest expose's of the H-1B scam [in the 1990s, they seem to have changed sides before the end of 2002].
 
The irony in last night's segment, of course, involves that former head of HR, Doug Francone.   A quick web search reveals that he worked at Chevron, ADP, CSAA and so on.   He probably oversaw the processing of H-1B cases, in which those working for him found in the myriad H-1B and green card rules loop-holes to legally pay bottom dollar to the visa workers, and for the green cards, finding legal ways to claim that no qualified Americans were available for the jobs in question.   (Also ironically, his new duct cleaning business is in the suburb next to mine.)
 
The 60 Minutes video.
 
Sorry I haven't had much time to post here lately.   I do want to critique the latest paper by Tambe and Hitt; some here may recall their earlier paper on H-1B, which I analyzed.
 
I hope to post something on their latest paper in a few days.
 
Norm
---30---

2010-10-25 20:53PST (2010-10-25 23:53EST) (2010-10-26 04:53GMT) (2010-10-26 06:53 Jerusalem)
Dan Nystedt _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Intel has opened its first chip fab, Tuesday, in Dalian, Red China
"The $2.5G chip factory is producing chips on 12-inch (300mm) silicon wafers, mainly chip-sets to be used in desk-top computers, lap-tops and servers, Intel said...   The manufacturing facility is using 65-nanometer production technology.   Using 65nm technology, Intel can etch transistors onto chips that are 1,400 times thinner than a human hair...   The company is currently deploying 22nm technology in the U.S.A...   The completion of the Dalian factory raises Intel's investment in [Red China] to $4.7G."

2010-10-26 07:25PDT (10:25EDT) (14:25GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
Conference Board: consumer confidence index rose to 50.2 in October
"Consumers' appraisal of current conditions was somewhat mixed in October.   Those claiming business conditions are 'bad' decreased to 41.9% from 46.0%, while those claiming business conditions are 'good' edged up to 8.5% from 8.2%.   Consumers' assessment of the labor market, however, was less favorable in October.   Those claiming jobs are 'hard to get' rose to 46.1% from 45.8%, while those stating jobs are 'plentiful' decreased to 3.5% from 3.8%."

2010-10-26
Kail Padgitt _Tax Foundation_
2011 State Index of Extortion of Businesses
2011 State Index of Extortion of Businesses (Eighth Edition; PDF, 699.1KB)

2010-10-26 07:00PDT (10:00EDT) (14:00GMT)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_
TN shows 15K job decline in goods production

2010-10-26
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Doubts about QE2

2010-10-26
Marc Parry _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Out-sourcing of education

2010-10-26
Michelle Malkin _V Dare_
The left's attempt to white-wash voting fraud
NY Magazine
One News Now

2010-10-26
Kathleen E. McLaughlin _Global Post_
Red China's 14K mile borders patrolled by fully-armed troops

2010-10-26 (5771 Cheshvan 18)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Brass Oldies part 1
"It certainly takes a lot of brass to keep repeating fallacies that were refuted long ago.   One of these brass oldies is a phrase that has been a perennial favorite of the left, 'tax cuts for the rich'.   How long ago was this refuted? More than 80 years ago, the 'tax cuts for the rich' argument was refuted, both in theory and in practice, by Andrew Mellon, who was Secretary of the Treasury in the 1920s.   When Mellon took office, there was a large national debt, the economy was stagnating, and tax rates were high, though the tax revenues were still not enough to cover government expenditures.   What was Mellon's prescription for getting out of this mess? A series of major cuts in the tax rates!   Then as now, there were people who failed to make the distinction between tax rates and tax revenues.   Mellon said, 'It seems difficult for some to understand that high rates of taxation do not necessarily mean large revenue for the government, and that more revenue may often be obtained by lower rates.'...   Between 1921 and 1929, tax rates in the top brackets were cut from 73% to 24%.   In other words, these were what the left likes to call 'tax cuts for the rich'.   What happened to federal revenues from income taxes over this same span of time? Income tax revenues rose by more than 30%...   John Maynard Keynes pointed out in 1933 that lowering the tax rates can increase tax revenues, if the tax rates are so high as to discourage economic activity.   President John F. Kennedy made the same argument in the 1960s -- and tax revenues increased after the tax rates were cut during his administration.   The same thing happened under Ronald Reagan during the 1980s.   And it happened again under George W. Bush, whose tax rate cuts are scheduled to expire next January.   The rich actually paid more total taxes, and a higher percentage of all taxes, after the Bush tax rate cuts, because their incomes were rising with the rising economy."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "There is a point at which the law becomes immoral and unethical. That point is reached when it becomes a cloak for the cowardice that dares not stand up against blatant violations of justice. A state that supresses all freedom of speech, and which by imposing the most terrible punishments, treats each and every attempt at criticism, however morally justified, and every suggestion for improvement as plotting to high treason, is a state that breaks an unwritten law." --- Kurt Huber (Ulster Nationalist)  

 
 

2010-10-27: 6 days to USA elections

2010-10-27
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
USA's job losses are permanent
Free Republic

2010-10-27
Michelle Malkin _Harrisburg VA Daily News Record_
Defund State-Sponsored Media
V Dare
Patrick J. Buchanan: V Dare

2010-10-27 13:14PDT (16:14EDT) (20:14GMT)
Annie Lowrey _Slate_
Law students decry glut of competition in the field

2010-10-27 (5771 Cheshvan 19)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Our Contemptible Congress

2010-10-27 (5771 Cheshvan 19)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Brass Oldies part2
"brass has often been mistaken for gold by people who don't look closely enough.   One of these brass oldies is the idea that the government can and must reduce unemployment by 'creating jobs'...   unemployment never hit 25% until after -- repeat, AFTER -- the federal government intervened in the economy.   What was unemployment like when the federal government first intervened in the economy after the stock market crash of 1929? It was 6.3% when that first intervention took place in 1930 June -- down from a peak of 9% in 1929 December, 2 months after the stock market crash."

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Among detailed occupations, a worker's probability of having a flexible daily schedule is increased significantly if the worker is employed in a few particular occupations: mathematics and computer science professional; freight, stock, and material handler; and farm worker...   the greater flexibility enjoyed by both mathematical and computer scientists (and perhaps weakly by those in secretarial positions) is attributable at least in part to the industry distribution of these jobs." --- Lonnie Golden 2001 March "Flexible work schedules: what are we trading off to get them?" _Monthly Labor Review_ pg 59  

 
 

2010-10-28: 5 days to USA elections

2010-10-28 03:01PDT (06:01EDT) (10:01GMT)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
What this election means for the H-1B visa program and off-shoring
"If Reid loses this election, who would replace him as the Senate majority leader? If the Democrats retain control of the Senate, the two most frequently mentioned replacements are senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), 2 law-makers who have sought [minor] reforms [and perversions] of the H-1B program.   What happens if the Democrats lose the Senate? Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), one of the sharpest critics in Congress of the visa program, would likely gain prominence...   The tech lobby might get help from Republican senate candidate Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, if she wins her race against Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer in California...   In a Republican-controlled House, representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) will be the person to watch on the House Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over immigration issues.   He might become chair of the committee if the GOP prevails on Tuesday.   In 2008, Smith favored raising the H-1B cap to 195K for 2008 and 2009."

2010-10-28 05:30PDT (08:30EDT) (12:30GMT)
Scott Gibbons & Tony Sznoluch _DoL ETA_
un-employment insurance weekly claims report
DoL home page
DoL OPA press releases
historical data
"The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 405,639 in the week ending Oct. 23, an increase of 11,678 from the previous week.   There were 494,476 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0% during the week ending Oct. 16, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,742,003, an increase of 25,405 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.8% and the volume was 4,984,950.   Extended benefits were available in AL, AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA ID, IL, IN KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV, and WI during the week ending October 9...   States reported 3,782,011 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Oct. 9, a decrease of 258,102 from the prior week.   There were 3,407,257 claimants in the comparable week in 2009.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   [Note that the population used for calculating the "insured unemployment rate" changes
to 132,623,886 beginning 2007-10-06;
to 133,010,953 beginning 2008-01-05;
to 133,382,559 beginning 2008-04-05;
to 133,690,617 beginning 2008-07-05;
to 133,902,387 beginning 2008-10-04;
to 133,886,830 beginning 2009-01-03;
to 133,683,433 beginning 2009-04-04;
to 133,078,480 beginning 2009-07-04;
to 133,823,421 beginning 2009-10-03;
to 131,823,421 beginning 2009-10-17;
to 130,128,328 beginning 2010-01-02;
to 128,298,468 beginning 2010-04-03;
to 126,763,245 beginning 2010-07-03
to 125,845,577 beginning 2010-09-25.]
graphs
more graphs

2010-10-28
Eric Peters _American Spectator_
A big part of what makes driving enjoyable is the freedom and control it gives you, the individual
"A big part of what makes driving enjoyable is the freedom and control it gives you, the individual.   It is your car and you are in charge of directing its course, of deciding how to get there.   You can choose your route and proceed at whatever speed seems reasonable to you.   If you like, you can stop for a cup of coffee.   Or to admire a scenic view.   You control your destiny.   You are a driver.   If cars drive themselves, then you become a passenger.   A passive pound of flesh transported by the intelligence of and under the direction of someone (or something) else.   You get there when someone else decides you get there.   You travel at the speed someone else (or a machine) determines to be the 'right' or 'safe' speed.   There will be no stopping along the way; no taking the scenic route just because.   The only difference between an automated car and taking the bus is that you don't have some stranger sitting beside you coughing his flu all over your face.   But the essential thing is identical.   You have surrendered your autonomy; for the duration of the trip, your fate is out of your control.   You are now a member of the Mass.   One of Many, another sardine to be fileted and packaged and sent on its way."

2010-10-28
Ben Faulk _Tulsa OK Beacon_
visa, immigration and border security problems
"You can emigrate to the United States as a lawful permanent resident, as a temporary entrant (non-immigrants) or as an illegal alien.   There are several sub categories included in the 'lawful permanent residents' and the 'temporary entrants'.   For illegal entrants, there are 'entered without inspection' (e.g. cross into us via southern border) and 'visa overstay'.   The former is about 60% of the illegal entrants.   The number of illegals that actually stay in the United States is about 500K per year.   There are several sub categories under 'Lawful Permanent Resident': family based immigrants, visa lottery winners, and humanitarian immigrants and amnestied aliens.   There are about 28 sub categories under the three main headings.   The most important in terms of numbers is family-based immigration.   This category amounts to more than half of the 1.2M legal immigrants yearly.   Under this provision, once you are a legal citizen you can bring in various relatives to become U.S. citizens.   There is no limit for this category.   This category in effect puts control of our legal immigration in the hands of the immigrant, and is clearly another aspect of our out-of-control legal immigration.   Under the temporary entrants' category, one of the most used visas by U.S. business [executives] is the H-1B.   The cap on the visas is about 85K but varies, and there can be unlimited exceptions.   H-1B visas are to be utilized only when there is a shortage of particular skills, and the visa holder is supposed to be paid prevailing U.S. wages.   This enlarged labor pool of skilled workers brought into the United States of course reduces the wages of such skilled workers and makes it more difficult to find a good job for U.S. college graduates.   And there is the L-1 visa, which allows corporations to transfer low-paid workers from their branches overseas to the United States.   In many cases, the United States worker must train his replacement before being fired.   The United States also allows an unlimited number of refugees to enter.   I believe it averages about 40K to 50K a year.   And of course there's amnesty waiting in the wings.   The 300K anchor babies born in U.S. hospitals each year should not be left out.   There's the visa lottery at 50K per year, priority workers at 40K per year, the H-2A agricultural workers -- no limit, H-2B for temporary or seasonal workers, and on, and on.   This is a limited picture of America's immigration system.   This system coincides with 10% unemployment, 8M illegal aliens holding American jobs, a wide open southern border and our central government does little, other than sue Arizona."

2010-10-28
Frosty Wooldridge _News with Views_
Some Indians want the USA dragged down to poverty

2010-10-28
Stephen Dinan _Washington DC Times_
No increase in discrimination against Hispanics, but their expressed fears of it are

2010-10-28
Michael Cutler _News Blaze_
ICE trained 24 Mexican customs officials
"Let me begin by making it clear that there are certainly members of the Mexican government, including law enforcement officials who desperately want to end the violence that is threatening to turn Mexico into a 'failed state'.   Many valiant citizens of Mexico have tried to do whatever they could to end the violence and the tyranny visited upon that beleaguered country by the extremely pernicious and violent Mexican drug cartels.   All too many of these heroes paid for their gallantry with their lives and, in fact, many of their family members were similarly assassinated.   Having made this important point I want to remind you that 'Los Zetas' started out as members of Mexico's military and law enforcement who were trained by the United States in an effort to help Mexico combat the drug trafficking organizations and then defected and began working for the cartels they were supposed to investigate and shut down.   They became the 'enforcers' for those cartels and eventually many of them decided that rather than work for the cartels, they supplanted the cartels and are now among the most violent thugs who are now carrying out horrific murders in Mexico!   I would remind you that since Felipe Calderon took office as the President of Mexico, there have been more than 28K murders committed in Mexico!"
more Michael Cutler columns in News with Views

2010-10-28
Michael Alison Chandler _Global Post_
South Korea tries to introduce fun into rote math classes
"Their first assignment: to determine the biological father of a child, using genetic evidence.   The 10th graders solved the mystery by pushing their text books aside and huddling together to analyze DNA patterns printed on strips of paper.   During the next class they would test their skills again in a simulated crime scene of their own design.   'I think they liked it.', said teacher SooJin Lim, as the students filed out still laughing.   They are are usually quiet, she said.   'But today it was kind of loud.'   Making class time fun is a recent aspiration for South Korean schools, better known for their emphasis on drill and memorization.   The education system, built from scratch out of the rubble of the Korean war, catapulted the nation to the 13th largest economy in the world and gave Korean students elite standing on international academic tests.   But success has come with an emotional price: In a 2007Trends in International Mathematics and Science survey, only 38 percent said they actually enjoyed learning science and 33 percent said they liked math (compared to 54% and 41 percent of Americans respectively, who rank much lower in skills)."

2010-10-28
William L. Anderson
Sinking the QE2 and the False Monetary Policy-Fiscal Policy Divide

2010-10-28
Shelby Steele _Wall Street Journal_
A Referendum on the False "Redeemer"
Thomas E. Brewton

2010-10-28
Caroline Espinosa _Numbers USA_
9th Circus was wrong to reverse Arizona's requirement for voters to provide evidence of citizenship
"registering and voting in U.S. elections when you are not a citizen is a felony under federal law.   18 U.S.C. § 1015(f) makes it illegal to claim you are a U.S. citizen in order to register to vote for any election, punishable by up to five years in prison."

2010-10-28 (5771 Cheshvan 20)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Brass Oldies part3

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "Islam, on the whole, was often a factor of constructive transformation.   'On the whole', however; there were many exceptions.   Islam also led to forms of oligarchical despotism which had not existed before, to the introduction of slave labour and to the extension of the overland slave trade." --- Basil Davidson 1991 _Africa in History_ pp 310-311  

 
 

2010-10-29: 4 days to USA elections

2010-10-29 08:25PDT (11:25EDT) (15:25GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index fell from 68.2 in September to 67.7 in October
Reuters
Bloomberg

2010-10-29 11:08PDT (14:08EDT) (18:08GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
GDP rose 2% in 2010Q3; consumer spending up 2.6% (providing 1.8% of the GDP increase)
"As a result of the bump in spending, the savings rate fell to 5.5% from 5.9% in the second quarter.   Real disposable income rose 0.5%.   Business investments rose at a 9.7% annual rate in the third quarter, down sharply from a 17.2% rate in the second quarter.   Investments in structures rose 3.9%, and investments in equipment and software increased at a 12% pace.   Business fixed investment added 0.1 of a percentage point to growth.   Inventories increased by $115G.   The change in inventories added 1.4 percentage points to growth...   Exports rose 5.0%, while imports jumped 17.4%.   Net exports subtracted two percentage points from growth as the trade gap widened.   Final sales to domestic purchasers -- a measure of domestic demand -- rose 3.3%, slowing from a 4.4% increase in the second quarter.   Government spending rose at a 3.4% annual pace, only slightly weaker than the 3.9% rate in the second quarter.   Although spending by state and local governments fell 0.2%, federal spending increased 8.8%, including an 8.5% rise in the volatile defense spending category.   Government spending added 0.7 of a percentage point to growth.   Consumer prices rose 1%, while core consumer prices, which exclude volatile food and energy inputs, grew by 0.8%."
BEA

2010-10-29
Morgan Lee _San Diego CA Union-Tribune_
Pew reports that foreign-born workers gained 656K jobs while native workers lost 1.198M jobs since 2009 June
"Native-born workers fared far worse, shedding 1.5M jobs, according to an analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Labor data.   Foreign-born workers picked up 656K jobs over the 12-month period, driving down that population's unemployment rate half a point to 8.7%.   Immigrant workers make up 15.7% of the labor force.   The gains, however, were not nearly enough to make up for 1.1M jobs lost among immigrants from second-quarter 2008 through second-quarter 2009.   And immigrants experienced a sharp decline in median weekly earnings -- down 4.5%., compared to a loss of less than 1% for the native born."
Rakesh Kochhar, C. Soledad Espinoza & Rebecca Hinze-Pifer: After the Great Recession: Foreign Born Gain Jobs; Native Born Lose Jobs

2010-10-29
David Evans _Chronicle of Higher Education_
BodyShopping in Academia: Share Job Data
"I would never deny that, in general, American higher education is misusing a large portion of its labor force, and this misuse has negative effects not just on the labor force itself but also on the quality of college and university instruction."
Coalition on the Academic Work-Force

2010-10-29
Alex Tabarrok _Marginal Revolution_
Popularizing Dead-Weight Loss

2010-10-29 (5771 Cheshvan 21)
_WikiPedia_
NTT Data Corporation, a partially-owned subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone established in 1967 & spun out in 1990, acquired international "IT" services bodyshop Keane Inc.

2010-10-29 (5771 Cheshvan 21)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
A Cross-Roads Election
"this election is a cross-roads election, one that can decide what path this country will take for many years to come.   Runaway 'stimulus' spending, high unemployment and ObummerDoesn'tCare are all legitimate and important issues.   It is just that freedom and survival are more important.   For all its sweeping and scary provisions, ObummerDoesn'tCare is not nearly as important as the way it was passed.   If legislation can become laws passed without either the public or the congress knowing what is in those laws, then the fundamental principle of a free, self-governing people is completely undermined.   Some members of congress who voted for ObummerDoesn'tCare, and who are now telling us that they realize this legislation has flaws which they intend to correct, are missing the point.   The very reason for holding hearings on pending legislation, listening to witnesses on all sides of the issue, and having Congressional debates that will be reported and commented on in the media, is so that problems can be explored and alternatives considered before the legislation is voted into law."

2010-10-29
DJIA11,118.49
S&P 5001,183.26
NASDAQ2,507.41
Nikkei9,202
10-year US T-Bond2.60
crude oil$81.46/barrel
gold$1.357.60/ounce
silver$24.20/ounce
platinum$1,703.30/ounce
palladium$638.80/ounce
copper$0.233125/ounce
natgas$4.04/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline $2.06/gal
heatingoil$2.24/gal
soybeans$12.36/bushel
maize$5.82/bushel
wheat$7.1725/bushel
dollarindex77.04
yenperdollar80.39
dollarspereuro1.3908
dollarsperpound1.60038
swissfranksperdollar 0.9835
indianrupeesperdollar 45.00
mexicanpesosperdollar 12.3610
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex627.61

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "self-possessed repose is the characteristic of native power; complaint is the language of weakness." --- Charles Campbell 1860 _History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia_ pg 525 (526 in pdf)  

 
 

2010-10-30: 3 days to USA elections: early voting ends in Florida

2010-10-30
Grace Wyler _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
call center employs 600, plans to hire 700 more, but...
"The company, which employs nearly 600 workers on the building's fourth floor, plans to hire up to 700 workers to fill its additional capacity, John Alaburda, regional vice president of operations, said at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday.   The expansion is a $2.7M investment, the bulk of which was paid for with a $2M loan from the city.   The city also provided $650K in cash and utility improvements as an incentive for the project.   The loan must be paid back within 12 months at an interest rate of 0.25%...   the city gave VXI $600K to launch its initial operations last year.   The company also received more than $700K from the state's job-creation tax credit for the $4M project...   Hourly pay starts between $9 and $10."

2010-10-30
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
John T. Flynn

2010-10-30
Fred Barnes _Weekly Standard_
Coercing people out of their cars

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "[T]o ignore the names of individual films & film-makers -- would greatly distort our sense of film history, which is very much a matter of individuals, & individual efforts." --- James Monaco 1981 _How to Read a Film_ pg 235  

 
 

2010-10-31: 2 days to USA elections

"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe, as published 1845-01-29 in the NY Evening Mirror
Literature Page
Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, MD as published in American Review 1845 February
Jimbo Wales's wikiPedia

2010-10-30 21:03PDT (2010-10-31 00:03EDT) (2010-10-31 04:03GMT)
Eric Wieffering _Minneapolis MN Star Tribune_
It's new and expanding businesses that create jobs, not necessarily small businesses
"A 2009 survey by the Kaufmann Foundation found that firms that were less than a decade old generated 64% of all U.S. jobs created in 2007.   Likewise, Maryland economist John Haltwinger reviewed more than a dozen years of data and found that companies less than 10 years old, and start-ups in particular, made substantial contributions to new job growth.   Otherwise, he found no systematic link between the size of a firm and net job growth rates.   That's not news to Dan Carr, CEO and founder of the Collaborative, which provides networking and other services for venture capital-backed companies in Minnesota.   The Collaborative likes to work with and on behalf of companies that are small, but that want to grow fast.   The problem right now: Venture capital investment is shrinking.   The impact on the number of start-ups is unclear at this point, though the number of companies that attended the most recent annual meeting of the Collaborative slipped this year, to 375."

2010-10-31
David Skolnick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Ohio counties predict 50% to 60% voter turn-out

2010-10-31
Charles S. Johnson _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
MT secretary of state mum on voter turn-out expectations
"The last time it occurred was in the 1998 general election, when the turn-out was 53%, a plunge from the 70.6% turn-out in 1996 and less than the 59.9% in the next election in 2000. Montana's turn-out in 2008 hit 74.5%, boosted by wide interest in the presidential and state races. The state's chief election official, Secretary of State Linda McCulloch, declined to make a turn-out prediction for next Tuesday's election."
MT election results site

2010-10-31
_Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Historical merit-badges brought back as part of centennial celebration of Boy Scouts
2010 Historical Merit Badge program

2010-10-31
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
Red China's super-computer
I've gotten quite a bit of mail on [Red China's] new super-computer, "the fastest in the world".   The 28 NYT article [linked] below provides the details.
 
This "news" will undoubtedly be used for lobbying by everyone from the immigration lawyers ("We need to give foreign students instant green cards to prevent them from going home and competing with us") to universities (demanding more money for computing research) to the industry lobbyists (more H-1Bs, generous tax breaks for research).
 
Well, anytime you hear about some "super" this or that, you should become skeptical.   For that matter, anytime you hear from the above parties -- immigration lawyers, universities and industry lobbyists -- you should be deeply suspicious.   :-)   Add in the fact that this case here is about China, a nation whose actions, both positive and negative, are magnified to the point of caricature these days by politicians and the press, and you have the ultimate hype machine ready to go.
 
Parallel processing happens to be one of my computer science research areas, and this new machine is just not a big deal.   It sounds like its interconnect, which they've named, Arch, might be interesting, but overall, it's quite analogous to building the world's tallest sky-scraper -- if you really want such bragging rights, you can get them if you spend enough money and devote enough engineers to it.   In spite of what the NYT says, your Pringles are safe.   :-)
 
Actually, this NYT piece is one of the most carefully researched articles I've seen on technology in the popular press for some time.   First, the reporter does question the hype, making the same "throw enough money at it" point that I do above,
 
Second, in the same vein the reporter quotes Wallach, whom I don't know, but who correctly not only downplays the hype but also shows keen insight into current [Red Chinese] government psychology:
 
"They want to show they are No. 1 in the world, no matter what it is.", Mr. Wallach said.   "I don't blame them."
 
I've mentioned before that this obsession for visibility has caused the [Red Chinese] government to take various technology-related actions that I believe are not in its best interests, notably in the universities.   Though Chinese culture (not just educational structure) generally produces uncreative plodders, in a nation of 1G there ARE some extremely innovative people.   China has to do much more to DEVELOP -- rather than suppress -- its really creative thinkers, but sadly it is going in the opposite direction.   It's encouraging the academics to publish a lot of little papers that make, at most, incremental advances.   Unfortunately, just when Chinese academia had really begun to make progress a few years ago, suddenly the government decided to reward "quantity instead of quality".
 
Thus though there are indeed some genuinely good results here and there, there is also a tremendous opportunity cost in this for [Red China], in that the best minds are often encouraged to produce poor results in the name of quantity.   This tragic waste was also noted in the Washington DC Post article that I'm [linking] below, which among other things remarks that "China is also the leading source of what are known as 'junk' patents."
 
I suppose U.S. policy-makers might read my comments above and say, "OK, maybe that super-computer is not anything to worry about after all, but isn't it important that China is investing so heavily in technology?"   This may well be true, but the solution is not to spend more dollars ourselves.
 
Dollars are always welcome, of course, but instead, we should stop U.S. policies that force our own talented engineers out of the field, through importing foreign workers to compete with them and rewarding off-shoring with tax breaks.   And should end the absolutely disgraceful policies that virtually force U.S. science bachelor's graduates NOT to pursue PhDs.   We have a huge advantage over our biggest "competitors", India and [Red China], in the form of our creativity and knack for innovation.   But instead, our policies are pushing OUR best and brightest into pursuing MBAs and law degrees instead of doctorates in science and engineering.   That this is the height of stupidity ought to be obvious to our policy-makers -- so why don't they see it?
 
Norm
2010-10-28: Ashlee Vance: NY Times: Red China Wrests Super-Computer Title From U.S.A.
2010-10-28: San Jose CA Mercury "News"
2010-10-28: Charlotte NC Observer
2010-10-28: Sarasota FL Herald-Tribune
2010-10-29: Bend OR Bulletin
2010-06-28: John Pomfret: Washington Post: China pushing the envelope on science, and sometimes ethics
2010-06-29: Seattle Times
2010-07-01: U of WI
2010-07-04: Boston MA Globe
2010-07-09: Sydney Morning Herald
2010-07-31: Richmond VA Times-Dispatch

2010-10-31
Nicholas Wade _NY Times_
Researchers conclude Europe's plagues came from China
"And in separate research, a team of biologists reported conclusively this month that the causative agent of the most deadly plague, the Black Death, was the bacterium known as Yersinia pestis.   This agent had always been the favored cause, but a vigorous minority of biologists and historians have argued the Black Death differed from modern cases of plague studied in India, and therefore must have had a different cause.   The Black Death began in Europe in 1347 and carried off an estimated 30% or more of the population of Europe.   For centuries the epidemic continued to strike every 10 years or so, its last major outbreak being the Great Plague of London from 1665 to 1666...   Mark Achtman of University College Cork in Ireland.   By looking at genetic variations in living strains of Yersinia pestis, Dr. Achtman's team has reconstructed a family tree of the bacterium...   Plague would have reached Europe across the Silk Road, they say.   An epidemic of plague that reached East Africa was probably spread by the voyages of the Chinese admiral Zheng He who led a fleet of 300 ships to Africa in 1409."

2010-10-31
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Dollar's Plunge Anticipate Further Fumbling Fed Inflation
James Turk: Free Gold Money Report

2010-10-31
"Federale" _V Dare_
Will A GOP Congress Block Obama's Ongoing Administrative Amnesty for Illegal Aliens?

++ S887; Durbin, Grassley; H-1B and L-1 visa program reform
Status of S877
+++ S2804; Sanders; Employ Americans: prohibit firms who lay off large numbers of capable US citizens from making use of guest-work visas
---- HR5658; Shadegg; STEM Job Destruction Act
++ S3816; Durbin; Creating US Jobs and Ending Off-Shoring
more of what congress-critters are up to
 
 

  "A study of British records (1773-1776) finds that 61% of emigrants from northern England traveled in family groups.   From the border counties of Scotland, 73% also did so.   From northern Ireland 91% of 405 Ulster emigrants who came to the Shenandoah Valley of Virgina during the year 1740, arrived in families.   Only 37 traveled as individuals.   [in note] Of these 405 immigrants, 379 (93.5%) were from northern Ireland ; 20 (4.9%) were from Great Britain or Ireland; and 6 (1.5%) were from Germany...   O fthe 379 from northern Ireland, 93% had taken ship to Philadelphia, and traveled overland to the back-country.   The rest arrived in VA ports.   The majority reported that they had traveled at their own expense. [end note] Many of these emigrants were women and girls.   The sex ratio of those who left Scotland in the 1770s was 149 males for every 100 females -- an unusually even-handed distribution in an emigrant population.   The mix of genders was less equal than in New England's great migration, but more so than in the movement to the Chesapeake colonies... 25% were children under 15, and nearly 40% were over 25." --- David Hackett Fischer 1989, 1991 _Albion's Seed_ pg610 (citing Robert David Mitchell 1969 "The Upper Shenandoah Valley of Virginia during the 18th Century: A Study of Historical Geography" U of VA thesis pg68; Bernard Bailyn 1986 _Voyagers to the West_ pp128-134)  

 
 

2010 October
Philip Klein _American Spectator_
Is It Time for a Constitutional Convention?

2010 October
W. James Antle iii _American Spectator_
No Confidence
"In June, a union representing 7,600 employees in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) -- affiliated with both the American Federation of Government Employees and the AFL-CIO -- issued a unanimous vote of 'no confidence' against the political appointees the White House chose to oversee immigration law enforcement.   The National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council specifically named ICE director John Morton and assistant director Phyllis Coven, accusing them of having 'abandoned the agency's core mission of enforcing United States Immigration Laws' and 'campaigning for programs and policies related to amnesty'.   The union leaders further charged the Obama administration with the 'creation of a special detention system for foreign nationals that exceeds the care and services provided to most United States citizens similarly incarcerated'.   Organizations representing border patrol agents had already slammed their upper management at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE.   The AFL-CIO-affiliated National Border Patrol Council issued its no-confidence vote last year.   The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) concurred.   'The U.S.A. has reached a critical crossroads in dealing with the illegal alien problem.', NAFBPO founder Buck Brandemuehl said in a statement.   'This problem must be addressed now, as it is strangling our democracy and threatening our national security.'   At the same time the Obama administration was requesting funding for 1K additional border patrol agents, the National Border Patrol Council complained that it was clandestinely reducing the number of agents along the U.S.-Mexico border by cutting the overtime hours they can work...   According to one report, through May administrative arrests were down 81% from 2008, criminal arrests down 67%, indictments down 73%, and convictions down 75%."




Proposed Bills 2010


Congressional candidate fund-raising, expenditures, and debt
 

USA Over-Population Clock
World + USA Over-Population Clocks
Jimbo Wales's WikiPedia on World Over-Population
 

  "In earlier times, when black workers were poorer than today and most lived in rural aeas where public transportation was seldom available, black labor force participation rates were at least as high as the labor force participation rates of whites from the late 19th century on into the early decades of the 20th century.   The change to today's situation, in which blacks have lower LFPRs than whites, cannot be explained by changing costs of transportation to work in either time or money...   What is crucial is that employers have a demand for such labor at a price at which such labor is available." --- Thomas Sowell 2008 _Economic Facts & Fallacies_ pp22-23 (census bureau _Historical Statistics of the US: Colonial Times to 1957_ pg72)  

Movies Coming Soon
 

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