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updated: 2019-01-08
 

"Collectivism means the subjugation of the individual to a group -- whether to a race, class or state does not matter.   Collectivism holds that man must be chained to collective action and collective thought for the sake of what is called 'the common good'." --- Ayn Rand 1944 January "The Only Path to Tomorrow" _Reader's Digest_ pg 8 (quoted in Harry Binswanger 1988 _Ayn Rand Lexicon_ pg 74)

 
 

2010 November

U	M	T	W	R	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

 

"In 1788, Patrick Henry led the opposition to the new national Constitution, primarily on the grounds that [excessively] strong government of any sort was hostile to liberty: 'When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object.   We are descended from a people whose government was founded on liberty; our glorious forefathers of Great Britain made liberty the foundation of everything.   That country is become a great, mighty and splendid nation; not because their government is strong and energetic, but sir because literty is its direct end and foundation.   We drew the spirit of liberty from our British ancestors; by that spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty.   But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful empire...'" --- David Hackett Fischer 1989, 1991 _Albion's Seed_ pg780 (citing Jonathan Elliot 1836-1845 _Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution_ vol3 pp53-54)

 
 
 

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

2010-11-01: 1 day to USA elections

2010-11-01
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
the coming election
Relax, I'm not going to tell you how to vote.   :-)   Indeed, I should and do avoid endorsing anyone, though I do point out lies, misrepresentations and so on.   But for the record, I'm a long-time Democrat who often leaves his ballot blank for elected offices, due to lack of respect for both major party candidates.
 
But Pat Thibodeau of Computerworld had an interesting piece on October 28 titled, "What This Election Means for H-1B, Off-Shoring" and I definitely have comments.
 
Thibodeau is correct in noting that off-shoring has become a big election issue.   For instance, he cites the Senate race here in California between Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina, the Republican ex-CEO of HP.   Thibodeau reports the race is close in the polls, with Boxer having only a slight edge, but if you understand the dynamics of the polls as elections approach, I believe it has been clear for several weeks that Boxer will win.
 
And this is due in large part to the off-shoring issue, I believe.   In her first debate with Fiorina, Boxer really hammered home the point that Fiorina had off-shored tens of thousands of jobs while at HP.   This was followed by very powerful TV ads, with a clip of Fiorina saying, "China, India, Poland, I know exactly where those jobs have been going.", followed by the voice-over: "Of course she knows, because SHE sent them there."
 
Boxer is just as culpable, being one of the strongest supporters of H-1B in the Senate.   Meanwhile, the Democrats, who've been criticizing tax breaks for off-shoring ever since John Kerry ran for president (an issue cited by Thibodeau's article too), had a chance to enact legislation to curtail those breaks a few weeks ago, and they voted it down.   But the populace doesn't know these things, and Boxer's anti-off-shoring rhetoric does strike a nerve, for good reason.
 
Meanwhile former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is losing badly in her bid for California governor.   There are of course various factors at work, but the irony is striking:   Here Fiorina and Whitman, former CEOs who viewed themselves as having the business savvy to save California's jobs problems, are viewed as the problem rather than the solution.
 
Thibodeau also reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid may lose his seat, and Thibodeau speculates that "If the Democrats retain control of the Senate, the 2 most frequently mentioned replacements are senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), 2 law-makers who have sought major reforms of the H-1B program."   I regard that characterization as a bit off the mark.   Durbin, though he is cosponsor of the excellent Durbin/Grassley H-1B reform bill, has not shown the enthusiasm for it that Grassley has, to my knowledge; I can't remember Durbin ever speaking to the press about it, for instance.   Schumer is out and out pro-industry on H-1B, in my view, as I've explained before.
 
In many elections, there have been people running on H-1B reform platforms.   The most notable was Debbie Stabenow, who wrested away the Senate seat of H-1B expansion legislation architect Spencer Abraham in Michigan a few years ago.   This year, one I know of is Dave Chapman, an H-1B activist.
 
Thibodeau quotes professor Ron Hira as saying that it really won't matter which party controls either house, in terms of H-1B and off-shoring.   I agree with that, as I discussed above, but at the same time, the defeats of Fiorina and Whitman, especially Fiorina, will send quite a message.   Again, though the Republican leadership probably viewed these 2 as job creators early in the campaign, the populace views them, to borrow Rob Sanchez's phrase, as job destroyers.   That should be a wake-up call.
 
Norm
---30---

2010-11-01
Fred Bauer _Frum Forum_
US Middle Class Hits a Dead End
"One of the great undercurrents of contemporary politics is the growing sense of economic frustration or even despair among a broad swath of the American public.   Consider the perspective of many a worker.   Your factory closes down and the work is shipped to another nation, where the company can pay subsistence wages.   Suck it up; it's the free market.   You're a trades-person, whose wages have been radically cut by a massive influx of illegal immigrants.   Suck it up; it's the free market.   You're a customer service representative whose job is out-sourced.   Suck it up; it's the free market.   You're a tech worker whose wages have stagnated due to a persistent application of H-1B visa policies.   Suck it up; it's the free market.   (It is worth noting, of course, that many of these outcomes are not the result of the pure operations of the free market; many of them have occurred or at least been exacerbated due to selective government intervention in the market.)   But then, when a hedge fund or banking group risks faltering, the mantra from the same talking heads that ridiculed the economic difficulties of other workers suddenly changes.   No longer can the free market have winners and (sometimes massive) losers.   Now, it's a CRISIS.   Not giving bailed-out money managers multi-million dollars bonuses is now an affront to capitalism.   Our future depends upon funneling billions and billions of dollars to the very same people who almost caused a nuclear meltdown in our economy."

2001-11-01 07:39PDT (10:39EDT) (14:39GMT)
David Gewirtz _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
The Democratics deserve to lose, but do the Republicans deserve to win?

2010-11-01 06:34PDT (09:34EDT) (13:34GMT)
Paul Wiseman _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_/_Scripps_
Why GDP growth is not easing unemployment

2010-11-01
Manuel Valdes _Kansas City Star_
Warnings abound in enforcing immigration job rules, as enforcement remains lax
Rhinelander Daily News
Breitbart
National Socialist Radio
"The AP reviewed summaries of 430 audits conducted between 2009 July 1, and 2010 January 31.   During the 7-month period, ICE agents found 22K 'suspect' documents among the more than 86K I-9s reviewed..."

2010-11-01
William L. Anderson
Is the Recession Simply a Zero-Sum Game?

2010-11-01
Amol Sharma & Ben Worthen _Wall Street Journal_
Forthright objections continue over passing medical records around in-house and over-seas to those who lack a genuine need to know

2010-11-01
_Dice_
Dice Report: 72,673 job ads

2010 November
fastest computers LinPack bench-Mark

2010-11-01 (5771 Cheshvan 24)
Jeffrey Fleishman _Jewish World Review_
fractured Yemen frustrates U.S. efforts to weaken al-Qaeda there

2010-11-01 (5771 Cheshvan 24)
Jeffrey Fleishman _Jewish World Review_
A case of bombs and identity theft?

2010-11-01 (5771 Cheshvan 24)
Rabbi Doctor Asher Meir _Jewish World Review_
Tricking web users

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-02: USA Election Day

2010-11-01 21:10PDT (2010-11-02 00:10EDT) (2010-11-02 04:10GMT)
Brett Arends _MarketWatch_
On Wall Street the big guys are ripping off the little guys
"the Great Bond Caper... Major corporations are jumping on the bond mania to borrow billions of dollars from ordinary investors at pitifully low interest rates...   If you are invested in a mutual fund that owns bonds, including corporate bonds, there's a good chance some of the cash going into these issues is yours.   Good luck with that...   If inflation takes off, these bonds will tank.   The prices will slump and the coupons will lose their purchasing power...   Corporate America is using these bonds to shift millions of dollars of tax liabilities from their boardrooms into your living room.   You are going to be paying more of their taxes for them, so they'll pay less...   The interest payments on these bonds are tax-deductible for corporations; the money comes off the top.   So corporations save 35%, their typical marginal-tax rate.   Meanwhile, the bond coupons are fully taxable to the investors -- and not even at the lower tax rates applied to dividends or capital gains.   The bond coupons are taxable at ordinary income-tax rates."

2010-11-02
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Keynes Fails the Test
James R. Hagerty & Dana Mattioli: Wall Street Journal: profit up, sales shaky

2010-11-02
Catherine Rampell _NY Times_
Immigrant job gains, US native job losses

2010-11-02
Catherine Rampell _NY Times_
What we're reading: When you're most likely to get dumped

2010-11-02 15:15PDT (18:15EDT) (22:15GMT)
Jim Turner _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
representative William Snyder's proposal to reduce illegal immigration got GOP executive committee backing
"'Representative Snyder's bill is a positive step towards stemming this tide of illegal immigration, and should be an effective tool in addressing this problem in Florida.', said county Republican Chairman Mark Klingensmith.   'As such, we stand in support of representative Snyder in his efforts to allow local authorities the ability to help enforce federal law in a reasonable manner, consistent with other state and federal statutes, and in full compliance with the Constitution of the United States.'...   The proposed law differs from the Arizona law in that it would allow judges to consider immigration status when setting a bond.   [Illegal aliens] also would face stiffer criminal sentences than legal residents who committed the same crime.   Soliciting employment as an [illegal alien] would also become a crime, and Florida businesses would have to use the federal E-Verify program to confirm their employees' immigration status.   Snyder, a former major in the Martin county sheriff's office, announced his plans to present the bill in May."

2010-11-02
Rob Sanchez _V Dare_/_Job Destruction News-Letter_
Halloween and the election: Who got the goodies?
"In many cases they arrive in vans that park in inconspicuous places so that the kids can case neighborhoods en masse.   The kids are highly organized but nobody seems to know by whom.   Many internet blogs and forums throughout the country report this phenomenon.   Except for this Boston Globe article there is almost no mention of it in the press.   I have yet to find an article in a newspaper that talks about it."

2010-11-02
Barbara F. Hollingsworth _Washington DC Examiner_
Student and guest-work visa programs let terrorists hide in plain sight

2010-11-02
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Why leftists in academia love Obama

2010-11-02
Patrick J. Buchanan _Town Hall_
Broder's bellicose brain-storm

2010-11-02
Michelle Malkin _V Dare_
Take Your Disingenuous Olive Branch and Shove It
"Voters have had enough of big government meddlers 'getting things done'.   They are sending fresh blood to the nation's Capitol to get [those bad] things undone."

2010-11-02
Quin Hillyer _American Spectator_
Justice, Denied
"Under attorney general Eric Holder, the Obama Department of Justice (DoJ) is dangerously politicized, radically leftist, racialist, lawless, and at times corrupt.   The good news is that it's also often incompetent.   This means the Holderites can bungle their leftist lawlessness so badly that even the most reticent of judges are obliged to smack them down.   The abuses by the Holderites are legion.   They range from DoJ's infamous abandonment of the already-won voter-intimidation case against several New Black Panthers to multi-faceted assaults on traditional standards of voting rights and obligations; from a growing list of lawsuits deliberately destructive of border security and citizenship laws to outrageously race-based bullying tactics; from efforts to undermine military discipline and state sovereignty on homosexual-related issues to the dangerous obsession with terrorists' 'rights' to the detriment of national security; and, finally, to the selection of judges openly contemptuous of the existing law-all while dedicated to a vision of judge-imposed 'universal justice' based not on the text of American statutes but instead on the reigning cultural standards of coastal and international elites.   While doing all this, the Holderites operate the least transparent DoJ in decades, treat congressmen and independent agencies with contempt, and claim breathtakingly spurious 'privileges' against disclosure of public information.   This isn't law enforcement and it isn't justice, but instead is subversive of both."

2010-11-02 (5771 Cheshvan 25)
Frank J. Gaffney _Jewish World Review_
Saudi friends and foes: Duplicitous desert kingdom could turn U.S. weapons on us

2010-11-02 (5771 Cheshvan 25)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
The Age of Dissimulation

2010-11-02 (5771 Cheshvan 25)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Guess Who?
Town Hall
"Guess who said the following: 'We have tried spending money.   We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.'...   It was Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury under Franklin D. Roosevelt and one of FDR's closest advisers.   He added, 'after 8 years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started...   And an enormous debt to boot!'"

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-04 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 419,351 in the week ending Oct. 30, an increase of 10,881 from the previous week.   There were 482,612 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0% during the week ending Oct. 23, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,719,209, a decrease of 45,084 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.7% and the volume was 4,932,036.   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 16...   States reported 3,978,374 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Oct. 16, an increase of 198,579 from the prior week.   There were 3,496,960 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

2010-11-04 (5771 Cheshvan 27)
_KBOI_
High unemployment is here to stay
San Francisco Chronicle

2010-11-04 07:07PDT (10:07EDT) (14:07GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
Bernanke struggles to defend insane inflation/dollar devaluation/monetization of federal government debt

2010-11-04 07:47PDT (10:46EDT) (14:46GMT)
Jeffry Bartash _MarketWatch_
US productivity increased 1.9% in 2010Q3

2010-11-04 (5771 Cheshvan 27)
George Neumayr _American Spectator_
Left struggles with their own post-mortem

2010-11-04 (5771 Cheshvan 27)
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Keynesian vs. Austrian views of economic cycles

2010-11-04 (5771 Cheshvan 27)
Christopher Massie _Canada Free Press_
First order of business is to cancel or limit the Mumbai trip
"Today, I come to you with urgent news of a catastrophe in the making.   Barack Obama is heading to Mumbai on not only a mission to plunder literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of [tax-victim] dollars, but to also continue in his efforts to marginalize American jobs and businesses.   Research into Obama's planned itinerary, as offered in a publicly available interview with Ron Somers, the President of the United States-India Business Council -- who will lead the Business and Entrepreneurship Summit, key-noted by Obama -- has revealed disturbing plans of action on the part of Obama to be revealed at the upcoming event...   Ron Somers, when queried over Obama's positions and points of interest for the upcoming multi-day event in India, and I quote, had this to say, 'We must not be retreating into the confines of protectionism.'   That answer was offered by Somers' in response to the interviewer's request for input concerning the GOP’s very recent blocking of a Bill in Congress to raise visa fees on H-1B and L-1 visa holders.   This Bill only applies to companies with a total amount of visa carrying employees (specifically the H-1B and L-1 visas) equaling or exceeding 50%.   This Bill directly concerns the IT business, as the visas in question apply to software professionals.   Additionally, the extra fees acquired if the Bill passes are slated to fund $600M in spending for U.S. security at the border with Mexico...   The United States Labor Department clearly identified, and then published a list of, key commodities known to be the result of child labor.   Internationally—specifically from India—these items include bricks, cottonseed, embroidered textiles, garments, rice, and stones...   let us not forget the names Abramoff, Delay, and Saipan and the Northern Mariana Islands..."

2010-11-04 (5771 Cheshvan 27)
"brewgeekNC" _MSFTNBC_
What's flaming radical left in the US House?
"Let's reduce the debt, incentivise national job creation, lower H-1b visas.   remove favored trade status from [Red China], and seal the borders and send the illegals packing.   Once we fix our own economy we can worry about helping our neighbors to the south.   But if you try to help everyone at once we'll just go bankrupt like the once great state of California."

2010-11-04 (5771 Cheshvan 27)
William L. Anderson
Hocus-Pocus Economics: The way to get out of a bad situation the Keynesians claim is to do what got you into it more enthusiastically

2010-11-04 (5771 Cheshvan 27)
Thomas H. Maugh ii _Jewish World Review_
Researchers discover areas in human genome that may help find causes of certain disorders
"Researchers have found more than 15M places in the human genome where the genetic code differs from person to person, providing a catalog of hotspots for genetic change that should speed the search for genetic causes of such complex disorders as diabetes, Alzheimer's and heart disease.   Only 10 years after scientists laboriously unraveled the first sequence of a human genome, an international team said Wednesday they have sequenced the bulk of the genomes from more than 800 people in the pilot stage of the so-called 1000 Genomes Project that aims to complete 2,500 sequences by the end of 2012 at a cost of $120M.   More than 99% of the human genome is identical in all of the earth's nearly 7G inhabitants; it is in that minuscule 1% left over that individual physical characteristics, such as eye color, height, and disease propensity lie hidden.   The research team reported that it has now identified 95% of the individual places in the genome where such information is stored and is well on their way to discovering all of them.   The key to this progress is the development of powerful new DNA-sequencing machines that enable researchers to accomplish in hours feats that used to require months or even years at a fraction of the cost.   'In the last 10 years, DNA sequencing technology has advanced dramatically so that it becomes feasible to systematically sequence many people to find genetic variants and build a catalog which we can use as a basis for investigations into disease genetics and which variants may be functional.', Dr. Richard Durbin of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England, co-chair of the project, said at a news conference...   But researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Nature that their pilot project now includes the entire genomes of 179 people of European, West African and East Asian ancestry as well as the gene-coding regions of another 697 people.   The resulting information on more than 4.5T bases of DNA sequences is enough to fill 400K books the size of the New York City telephone directory...   Among the individuals whose genomes were fully sequenced were two families of father, mother and daughter.   The team found that each daughter had about 60 genetic variants that were not inherited from either parent and apparently arose on their own.   The team also discovered that, on average, each person carries between 250 and 300 genetic changes that would cause a gene to stop working normally, and about 50 to 100 genetic variations that have already been associated with an inherited disease.   No person carries a perfect set of genes -- the fact that everyone has 2 copies of each gene prevents most of those variations from being problems."

2010-11-04 (5771 Cheshvan 27)
Warren Richey _Jewish World Review_
Religious schools, tax credits for private school donations? Supreme Court hears Arizona case
"The case before the high court was consolidated from 2 law-suits. They are Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn (09-987) and Garriott v. Winn (09-991)."

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-05

2010-11-05 06:32PDT (09:32EDT) (13:32GMT)
Rex Nutting _MarketWatch_
Population is still growing faster than jobs
graphs

20010-11-05 07:43PDT (10:43EDT) (14:43GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
2M to lose eligibility for unemployment insurance benefits in December

2010-11-05
"Washington Watcher" _V Dare_
Is John Boenher believable on immigration?

2010-11-05
Anthony Paletta _City Journal_
"Urban Renewal"'s Human Costs

2010-11-05
John Sinal _FINS_/_Wall Street Journal_
Austin TX area created only 17,300 jobs in the last year

2010-11-05 (5771 Cheshvan 28)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
We are not for sale
"Over the past week, it has been widely reported that the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government are conducting secret negotiations regarding future Israeli land surrenders to the Palestinians in the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem.   According to the reports, the Obama administration has presented Netanyahu with a plan whereby Israel will cede its rights to eastern Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians and then lease the areas from the Palestinians for a limited period."

2010-11-05 (5771 Cheshvan 28)
R' David Aaron _Jewish World Review_
Do Good, Feel Good; Do Bad, Feel Bad?: Re-thinking the notion of sin and redemption

2010-11-05

DJIA	11,444.01
S&P 500	1,225.85
NASDAQ	2,578.98
Nikkei	9,626
10-year US T-Bond	2.54
crude oil	$87.10/barrel
gold	$1,397.70/ounce
silver	$26.748/ounce
platinum	$1,768.90/ounce
palladium	$685.40/ounce
copper	$0.24678125/ounce
natgas	$3.937/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$2.18/gal
heatingoil	$2.3848/gal
soybeans	$12.84/bushel
maize	$5.8775/bushel
wheat	$7.2875/bushel
dollarindex	76.58
yenperdollar	81.32
dollarspereuro	1.4037
dollarsperpound	1.6193
swissfranksperdollar	0.96
indianrupeesperdollar	44.30
mexicanpesosperdollar	12.2240
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	642.98

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
 
 

2010-11-06

2010-11-06
Norm Matloff _H-1B/ L-1/ Off-Shoring News-Letter_
Obama calls India a creator, not poacher, of US jobs
Quite a bomb-shell from President Obama today, dismissing the claims that Americans are losing jobs to India (details below).   What a turnaround!
 
Just two weeks ago, Obama was railing against the tax breaks that U.S. firms get for goods and services they produce off-shore.   In his weekly radio address, he said:
 
There is no reason why our tax code should actively reward them for creating jobs over-seas.   Instead, we should be using our tax dollars to reward companies that create jobs and businesses within our borders.
 
He criticized Republicans who blocked a bill to plug those tax loop-holes.
 
See "Obama: End Tax Breaks To Stop Over-Seas Hiring" Huffington Post, 2010 October 16 (and a similar article in the WSJ, same day).
 
Yet today, he said that "the truth" (his wording) is that India creates American jobs, rather than destroying them.
 
Could "the truth" have changed that quickly?   Did Obama suddenly experience an economic revelation in the last two weeks?   Or, did the U.S. political equation change in the last 2 weeks, in fact the last 4 days?   I've praised Obama before for his openness, but it seems pretty clear that there no economic revelation transpired recently in the Oval Office, and the definition of "truth" is changing by the minute.
 
Trade is an extremely complicated topic, clearly, but I have maintained that much insight can be gained by some pretty simple "thought experiments".   Take one of pro-off-shoring writer Tom Friedman's favorite examples, which I've written about before, as follows:
 
...Tom Friedman's "Carrier air conditioners" argument actually shows the opposite of what the "World Is Flat" author claims.   Friedman, visiting offices in India in which software engineers were doing work off-shored from the U.S.A., noticed that the offices were cooled by Carrier air conditioners.   Friedman claims a net gain for the U.S. economy.
 
But while this is conceivably correct in terms of GDP, you have to ask who in the U.S.A. really benefits.   It won't be engineers who benefit, for instance.   Carrier sales may increase by, say, 20% due to Indian purchases, but Carrier won't have to hire more engineers to design the air conditioners.   After all, they'll be selling the same air conditioners as before.
 
In fact, Carrier probably wouldn't hire many new people in the U.S.A. at all.   Look at accountants, for instance.   Carrier might need a few more of them to handle the increased sales, but not very many.   In fact, Carrier might lay off its accountants and off-shore that work too.   So, Friedman's own poster example involves a net loss of jobs generally held by well-educated people; Carrier could off-shore its engineering, programming, accounting and other similar work, and not hire many new well-educated people, if any.
 
A couple of things I forgot to mention:
 
First, in my analysis of the true implications of Tom Friedman's Carrier Air Conditioner example, I noted that increased sales in India would probably not increase the need for the firm to hire engineers and programmers in the U.S.A.   What about manufacturing? Well, according to the information at Furnace Compare:
 
"Carrier's manufacturing processes are spread across 6 continents, including North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia Pacific region."   Presumably only part of an AC unit sold in the U.S.A. is manufactured domestically, so for units sold in India, the U.S.A. content is probably even less, with more content produced in a location closer to India.   So the benefit to American factory workers would not be large either.
 
And as I've pointed out before, sending engineering jobs to India in return for increased factory jobs is a lousy exchange, any way you slice it.
 
Second, what about "multiplier effects"?   You know the claim: Carrier's increased sales in India make Carrier, its CEO and its stock-holders richer, and they then spend on other goods and services, stimulating the economy.   Classical economics.
 
Well, of course the recent failures of this phenomenon have given stimulus programs a bad name.   But beyond that, if there is indeed an increase in spending, where does it go?   Carrier would probably reinvest the money abroad, say to build factories in India near the new market there.
 
And even if Carrier uses the money to buy, say, IT services from IBM [Ill-Begotten Monstrosities], well, you know where I'm going on that one, don't you?   IBM has been off-shoring more and more of its programming and engineering work off-shore too.
 
IOW, the 21st century has brought in a new type of multiplier: An increase in off-shoring by one firm causes an increase in off-shoring by other firms.
 
Again, this is just an over-simplified "thought experiment", but you can see that in most cases things probably won't work in the rosy way that Friedman envisions.
 
Third: One of Obama's close economic advisers is Diane Farrell, whom he appointed as a Deputy Director of his National Economic Council.   Farrell is a very prominent advocate of off-shoring.   Moreover, she came to the White House from McKinsey, a firm that provides consulting services on offshoring, and has NASSCOM, the Indian off-shoring firms' trade group, as a client.
 
As professor Ron Hira said in an op-ed back in 2009 February, "Farrell has done more to promote out-sourcing than nearly anyone else in America." has turned out to be strikingly prescient.   Here are excerpts:
 
The Obama Administration has been in office just a few weeks now, but we already know how it will address the off-shoring of engineering jobs.
 
It will promote it...
 
On the very same day he was meeting with "CEOs [who] out-source American jobs" -- a phrase he repeatedly and derisively used during his campaign, he named McKinsey's & Co.'s Diana Farrell to his National Economic Council, the inner circle of economic advisors in the White House.   Farrell has done more to promote out-sourcing than nearly anyone else in America.
 
Farrell was the lead author of the infamous "Off-Shoring: Is it a Win-Win Game?"   Now she'll be operating at the highest levels of the Obama administration.   Her phony "study" did more damage than any other in the debate over off-shoring.   And her propaganda was used to mislead the American public about the true impact of off-shoring.
 
Moreover, Farrell's firm made millions of dollars consulting with companies, advising them to accelerate their off-shoring.   And she publicly made the rounds to convince policy-makers and the public that off-shoring was good for them and the country.   It's also no coincidence that the IBM and Nasscom, the Indian IT out-sourcing industry association, were major McKinsey clients.   They benefited from McKinsey's lobbying as well as its consulting services.
 
When Farrell was appointed, I also commented, here in this e-news-letter, reviewing the Hira op-ed and a related Computerworld article.   I pointed out:
 
Farrell... cloaks her writings in terms dear to the hearts of the Democratic Party -- jobs training.   Yes, offshoring of tech work produces some American victims, Farrell concedes, but that can be handled via job retraining programs...   Farrell speaks exactly the language that the Obama people want to hear...
 
I went on to explain, as I have before, why retraining programs are not the solution.
 
And, prior to his election, I also raised questions about the true strength of Obama's opposition to off-shoring.
 
But obviously I lacked Hira's vision.   I never thought that Obama, even under Farrell's influence, would be publicly describing India as a jobs creator for the U.S.A., and dismissing concerns about off-shoring as "old stereotypes".   And I never thought such a turn-around would come within the short time span of 2 weeks -- and a time span bracketing an election.
 
Look, folks.   As I've pointed out before, much as I write about the adverse impacts of H-1B and off-shoring, they have no direct effect on my own economic well being.   But I have to say, I do feel betrayed by President Obama.
 
Given that Farrell has been with Obama from the beginning, his sudden sharp turn-around yesterday from his anti-off-shoring comments 2 weeks ago has to be viewed in the context of his close economic adviser Farrell.   Clearly, Obama didn't suddenly have an economic revelation within those 2 weeks.   On the contrary, it's hard for me to escape the conclusion that Obama had already planned his India speech at the time he made the contrary comments 2 weeks ago.
 
I voted for no one for president in 2008 November.   (I voted for Edwards in the primary.)   But as I wrote afterward, I was delighted by Obama's victory anyway, a giant mile-stone for race relations in the U.S.A.   And I've praised a remarkable openness in him, almost to the point of revealing vulnerability.   What a disappointing situation we now see, with one of the off-shoring industry's top spokespersons playing a key role in the Obama administration's policies.
 
To paraphrase the story from the old Chicago White Sox cheating scandal, "Say it ain't so, Barack."
 
Norm
Ben Feller: AP/Yahoo!: Obama calls India creator, not poacher, of US jobs

2010-11-06
Joel Bowman _Daily Reckoning_
Economic Recovery: The View from Bernanke's Helicopter

2010-11-06
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Declining Prices Are Often Good

2010-11-06
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Monetization of US government debt generating back-lash
Jeffrey Tucker: Ludwig von Mises: Whole world says US government are idiots
Reuters: Global anger swells at Fed actions

2010-11-06
_Time_
Mexico's top 10 drug lords

2010-11-06
Paul Nachman _V Dare_
Time to block Obama plan to step up refugee "family reunification"

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-07

2010-11-07
William L. Anderson
Krugman's Treasure Trove of Shibboleths

2010-11-07
Austin Hill _Town Hall_
Is the president learning economics by trial and error and error and error?

2010-11-07
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
Big Lies, Little Lies
"After examining the government's report, statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) reported that the jobs were 'phantom jobs' created by 'concurrent seasonal factor adjustments'.   IOW, the 151K jobs cannot be found in the unadjusted underlying data.   The jobs were the product of seasonal adjustments concocted by the BLS."
graphs based on not seasonally adjusted data

2010-11-07
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
Pew confirms American worker displacement
ALIPAC/San Diego CA Union-Tribune

2010-11-07
William R. Hawkins _American Thinker_
Obama's trade concessions to India, Red China, and South Korea cannot solve unemployment in the USA

2010-11-07
Kevin Carey _Chronicle of Higher Education_/_Education Sector_
Decoding the Value of Computer Science

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-08

2010-11-07 20:19PST (2010-11-07 23:19EST) (2010-11-08 04:19GMT)
Chris Oliver _MarketWatch_
World Bank chief Robert Zoellick advocates international currency linked to gold

2010-11-08 (5771 Kislev 01)
Jillian Bandes _Town Hall_
Time to hold new GOP accountable

2010-11-08 04:38:23PST (07:38:23EST) (12:38:23GMT)
Mike Swift _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_
More STEM workers live in San Francisco, commute to Sili Valley
"San Francisco's population of computer workers has boomed in the past 4 years, a Mercury 'News' analysis of census data shows, with the city adding more resident computer workers even than much larger Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley.   Newly released data show that San Francisco gained about 8,600 computer workers from 2005 to 2009, a 51% jump, compared with a 7,300-person, or 12%, increase in computer workers living in Santa Clara county.   The data count workers where they live, not where they work.   With about one in 12 adult residents working in computer-related occupations, Santa Clara county has by far the highest concentration of computer workers in California, and among the highest in the nation."

2010-11-08 07:14PST (10:14EST) (15:14GMT)
Dana Blankenhorn _Ziff Davis_/_CBS_
Is the US patent office reducing rigor of requirements for software patents?

2010-11-08 08:01PST (11:01EST) (16:01GMT)
Paul B. Farrell _MarketWatch_
How hackers can save us from corrupt Wall Street and government
"Hackers could expose secret agreements between Wall Street's co-conspirators, back-room deals with politicians and bureaucrats, lobbying payments and illegal campaign contributions, especially from foreign governments, encrypted e-mails, side dealings with short-sellers on derivatives, quant trading algorithms, return on investment, fee and compensation schedules, marketing scams manipulating the public, and all unethical or criminal plans."

2010-11-08 08:08PST (11:08EST) (16:08GMT)
Jason Scott _Cumberland county PA Sentinel_/_Lee_
Job seekers flock to job fair
"Cumberland Valley Job Fair, an event organized by Cumberland County Economic Development's Employment Taskforce in coordination with the 4 county chambers of commerce...   'We were overwhelmed.', she said nearly halfway through as registration totaled 560 people at 10:45, noting job seekers from not only Cumberland County, but also Perry, Dauphin and even York counties...   Then there are the people who have a job in something outside their desired career path, because they have learned to adapt to market conditions. However, they still hope to put that degree to good use...   Participating businesses included the state Civil Service Commission, Foot Locker Corporate Services, Alacer Corp., Hershey Entertainment and Resorts, Volvo Construction Equipment, Beistle Company, Flight Systems Industrial Products, Carlisle Container, AFLAC and Dairy Farmers of America."

2010-11-08 (5771 Kislev 01)
_Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Canadian scientists Eva Szabo & Mickie Bhatia convert human skin cells into blood cells
Medical News Today
The Spec
National Post
"even cells that have differentiated into a particular type -- be it skin, heart or liver -- are not frozen in that state and can be directly reprogrammed to do other things...   And the process was not overly complex, said Dr. Cynthia Dunbar of the U.S. National Heart, Lung and Blood Instiute, '...a single transcription factor, a single molecular signal in the cell, is able to make that big a difference.'"

2010-11-08 12:07PST (15:07EST) (20:07GMT)
_WSB TV_
Tax-victim dollars funding luxury detention centers for illegal aliens
"Illegal immigration costs [tax-victims] an estimated $100G a year.   Georgia picks up nearly $2.5G of that bill...   Farmer visited a detention center near Florence, AZ, where illegal immigrants are treated well compared to most jails.   Only high-risk detainees are held in actual cells.   The rest live in dorm-like areas.   They are allowed to spend hours outside playing soccer.   Illegal detainees eat three meals a day.   They are provided with free dental and health care, including surgery, all at the [tax-victims'] expense...   E-mails obtained by the Houston Chronicle reveal that federal authorities have ordered the following changes at the holding centers for illegal immigrants: More variety in menus, fresh veggie bars, self-serve beverages, continental breakfast on weekends, movie nights, bingo, arts and crafts, dance and cooking classes, tutoring and computer training."

2010-11-08 (5771 Kislev 01)
Kimberly Dvorak _San Diego CA Examiner_
Illegal immigration and the new terrorism threat collide as USCIS stone-walls senator Grassley
"Various news reports cite that Ahmed obtained a degree in Computer Science from the College of Staten Island, which is a part of the City University of New York.   Later Ahmed worked in the telecommunications industry in Northern Virginia.   It is also alleged that in order to keep his legal status, Ahmed began pursuing an on-line graduate degree in risk management and data security from Aspen University."
More articles by Kimberly Dvorak

2010-11-08 (5771 Kislev 01)
Katy Abram _American Thinker_
More Radical Leftists Coming Out of the Closet

2010-11-08 (5771 Kislev 01)
Allan Wall _V Dare_
Mexican Politicians Are Not Happy About USA's 2010 Election!

2010-11-08 (5771 Kislev 01)
Richard Lyon _Fire Dog Lake_
Out-sourcing the presidency of the USA

2010-11-08
Don E. Sears _eWeek_
Financial firms beginning to do a little IT hiring

2010-11-08
Ryn Gargulinski _Tucson AZ Citizen_
One illegal alien deported after murder, andother after sexual assault

2010-11-08
John Shinal _FINS_/_Wall Street Journal_
SiliValley pay is beginning to recover

2010-11-08
Sam Williford _Economy in Crisis_
3 Decades of Errors

2010-11-08
William L. Anderson
"Painless" solutions to the economic depression

2010-11-08 (5771 Kislev 01)
Steven Emerson _Jewish World Review_
grant to National Socialist Radio raises coverage questions

2010-11-08 (5771 Kislev 01)
William Weir _Jewish World Review_
Break-through in Gaucher disease

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-09

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Michael Filozof _American Thinker_
Obama's perverse notions of international relations on full display in India

2010-11-09 08:42ST (11:42EST) (16:42GMT)
Omar Shute _Cumberland county PA Sentinel_/Cumberland Area Economic Development Council_
A college degree isn't enough

2010-11-09 09:45PST (12:45EST) (17:45GMT)
Christopher S. Rugaber _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_AP_/_Scripps_
Hiring remains slow
"The Labor Department said Tuesday that employers advertised 2.9M jobs at the end of September. That's a drop of 163K, or 5.3%, from the previous month...   There were 5 unemployed people, on average, for each available job in September."

2010-11-09 10:00PST (13:00EST) (18:00GMT)
Neil Downing _Providence RI Journal_
Unemployment insurance benefits to expire for thousands in RI

2010-11-09 10:00PST (13:00EST) (18:00GMT)
Gina Macris _Providence RI Journal_
College enrollments up, funding down in RI
"Near-record enrollment continues at the state's public college system, with fall 2010 figures showing 43,224 students at the University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island.   The overall proportion of minorities has risen to nearly one in five, a trend higher education officials say is encouraging in light of the system's mission to provide a quality education at an affordable price to Rhode Island residents.   But enrollment significantly out-paces public funding, which has fallen below the $144.9M level the state gave to higher education in 1998, when the system had 5,000 fewer students.   At that time, the state spent $5,835 a year per student.   The current figure is $4,453...   The board's budget proposal for the 2011-2012 fiscal year asks the state for an increase of $31.1M, or nearly 22% more than the current level of public funding of $141.8M. That expenditure represents slightly less than 25% of what it actually costs to run the higher education system -- $549M in the current budget year, according to higher education officials."

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Bob Weir _American Thinker_
Savages Among Us

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Christopher Chantrill _American Thinker_
Yes, We Can Repeal National Socialist Health Care Perversion/ObummerDoesn'tCare

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Janet Levy _American Thinker_
De Facto Sharia in the USA

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Bernanke's irrational faith in disproven Keynesianism
Alan Reynolds: Wall Street Journal: Ben Bernanke's Impossible Dream
Thomas E. Brewton: Germany confronts Fed on dollar devaluation

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
_My Central Jersey_
1.2M want jobs but have give up actively seeking them
"'What (unemployed workers) say is that they're not finding what they need, or they send in their resumes and don't get called.', said Kate Pandolpho, director of career, employment and counseling services at Ocean County College in Toms River.   'It's hard to keep up your enthusiasm and motivation week after week.   And even people who are called for interviews, they are competing with a lot of people.'...   Sean Snaith, economics professor at the University of Central Florida [UCF], predicts the nation will add 200K more jobs a month in the second half of next year, but the jobless rate will remain the same."
graphs

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Scott Creighton _Pacific Leftist Press_
Obama's "Dancing with Snakes" and "Pressure Red China" tour
"'India is the leading country for off-shore out-sourcing.   The off-shore out-sourcing industry started in India and it has be able to grow the IT and BPO export sector to $47G and capture more than half the offshore outsourcing industry...   The Americas and Europe are the largest customers for the Indian outsourcing industry and account for 60% and 31% respectively of IT and BPO exports.   The largest vertical sectors are financial services (41%), high-tech/ telecom (20%), manufacturing (17%) and retail (8%).   In 2009 the IT and BPO export industries employed about 2.2M people.'   Now it looks to me like we are comparing the 'creation' of 50K jobs here in the U.S.A. which already exist to the actual creation of 60% of 2.2M jobs, or 1.3M jobs out-sourced to India.   Seems to be operating at a bit of a jobs deficit if you ask me.   But what about jobs here in the U.S.A.?   Are those phantom 50K jobs really comparable to those lost via the business friendly H-1B 'specialty occupation' jobs handed over to temporary Indian workers in America?   Let's see... According to the 2008 numbers, 'Of all 409,619 temporary worker admissions under the H-1B specialty occupation visa in 2008, 37.8% (154,726) were from India alone (family members are not included in these figures).'   Well, apparently 154K temporary workers from India wasn't enough for Bill Gates back in 2008 so he put his big money behind a push for even more in 2009... and with the help of President Obama, he got what he wanted.   Suffice it to say, those 50K jobs that Obama is being praised for by the clueless 'progressives', even if they were new jobs, wouldn't hardly be a drop in the employment bucket.   Like Ross Perot said of NAFTA prior to the Clintons pushing that little trade deal, once Obama and the Clintonites get this new deal inked, that large sucking sound you will hear will undoubtably be even more U.S. jobs rushing over-seas, this time to India."

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Donald A. Collins _V Dare_
When will moveon.org and George Soros get the message that US citizens reject excessive immigration?
"When are we Democratics going to get the main message—that Open Borders, another amnesty and the annual importation of over 1M legal workers, are not good for American citizens?"

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Jed Babbin _American Spectator_
advice from a federalist governor
"[Bob McDonnell] said, 'They don't need a committee: they need action.   They need to have cuts...   I don't think the American people are going to wait 8 years to balance the budget...   It really is time for an honest and robust discussion about federalism.   What does the Tenth Amendment really mean? Part of the reason you've got this long-term deficit is you keep legislating in areas that you shouldn't be in...   Stick to what the federal government is supposed to do.   Do that well -- fund it well -- but then stay out of areas that are traditionally reserved for the states.'...   real cuts, real restraint of government spending and a concise plan that all of them can put into legislation that will pass the House in January.   Will Harry Reid try to block it? Of course.   Will Obama veto it if Reid can't? Naturally.   Which is all the more reason to do it."

2010-11-09
_Pew Research Center_
Americans Are of Two Minds on Trade: More Trade, Mostly Good; Free Trade Pacts, Not So

2010-11-09
William L. Anderson
Inflation
"inflation is a situation in which the value of money falls relative to the goods for which it is used to purchase.   IOW, inflation to us is a monetary phenomenon, not a price phenomenon.   Instead, increases in prices reflect inflation (the loss of value of money), as when money loses value relative to other goods, more money then is needed to fulfill transactions...   while money facilitates trade, it is not by itself wealth, only a measure of wealth.   Money is subject to the laws of economics...   we are going to muddle along until someone in power learns that one cannot subsidize an economy into prosperity."

2010-11-09
_NASA_
Fine aerosol particles

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Jeffrey Fleishman _Jewish World Review_
Do Yemenis live in a Bizarro World, or do we?

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Warren Richey _Jewish World Review_
White House battles ACLU in federal court over assassination of terrorists

2010-11-09 (5771 Kislev 02)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Political Judges
"Results of the recent elections showed that growing numbers of Americans are fed up with 'public servants' who act as if they are public masters... Whether these policies were good, bad or indifferent, the way they were imposed represented a more fundamental threat to the very principles of a self-governing people established by the Constitution of the United States. Arrogant politicians who do this are dismantling the Constitution piecemeal -- which is to say, they are dismantling America. The voters struck back, as they had to, if we are to keep the freedoms that define this country. The Constitution cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution, by getting rid of those who circumvent it or disregard it. The same thing applies to judges."

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-10

2010-11-09 20:21EST (2010-11-09 23:21EST) (2010-11-10 04:21GMT)
Richard Duncan _MarketWatch_
Latest round of monetization of federal government debt threatens the world
"On Nov. 3, the Fed announced it will create $600G new dollars over the next 8 months and use the money to buy U.S. government bonds.   The media has dubbed this latest round of easing 'Quantitative Easing 2', but it is really the third such massive round of money creation, and this time, it may prove especially dangerous for the world economy...   It was this round of money creation, QE 1, along with the U.S. trade deficit that caused the global economic bubble that imploded in 2008.   The second and third rounds of money creation were made necessary by the crisis provoked by the first.   The second major round -- the real QE 2 -- began when the U.S. bubble popped and was carried out by the Fed, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the International Monetary Fund, creating the equivalent of trillions of dollars.   This time, the money was created to prevent the bankruptcy of the world's largest banks and the collapse of the global financial system.   The money created during QE 1, when lent to the U.S.A., U.K., Spain, Greece and other countries with trade deficits, inflated such large asset-price bubbles that the banking intermediaries were mortally threatened when they popped...   Higher stock prices will give Americans more money to spend.   U.S. consumption will pull in imports from the rest of the world and thereby boost the global economy.   Everyone will be happy for another year or so.   But this policy will do nothing to correct the real cause of this crisis, which is the utter lack of global competitiveness of the U.S. economy.   Instead, as time goes by, what's left of the U.S. manufacturing sector will be shipped abroad to countries where factory workers are glad to earn $5 per day.   QE 3 will not cure, but rather prolong and exacerbate all the dangerous economic imbalances around the world...   As much more money is created, surging land prices could push the price of food to levels that become unaffordable for the 2G people on this planet who live on less than $2 a day.   It will be ironic -- and terribly tragic -- if too much money causes starvation."

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Julian Switala _Minnesota Daily_
Undermining of STEM professions threatens future of aerospace industry
"In a paradoxical twist, increases in the H1B visa have been part of the reason why the U.S.A. is experiencing this 'shortage' in 'qualified' U.S. students.   Increases in this visa have caused students to reassess their career prospects and degree choices, since companies are more likely to hire a cheap, expendable foreign worker than invest in developing the skills of domestic engineers.   U.S. Army colonel Kevin Degnan despises the H-1B visa since it makes U.S. companies vulnerable to intelligence espionage.   According to Degnan, H-1B visa employee hires learn only bits and pieces, but collectively 'they pass the information back to their home country,and it paints a telling picture of our country's defense initiatives'."

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Roger Harris _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
Regal investing in another 16 to 25 Imax screens

2010-11-10 03:00PST (06:00ET) (11:00GMT)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Obama makes nice to India, Malaysia, South Korea

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Tim Greene _IT World Canada_/_IDG_
Regulations have not made patient records safer
"A survey of 65 health-care organizations based on interviews with multiple employees in different fields at those organizations found that 71% don't think that new federal regulations have significantly changed how patient records are managed, according to 'Benchmark Study on Patient Privacy and Data Security'.   A nearly equal number, 70%, say that protecting patient data is not a top priority despite passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in 1996 and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in 2009, both of which were designed to better guard personal health information...   61% [of data breaches] involve 1 to 100 records."

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Damon W. Root _Reason_
Stop Smearing Federalism

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Mike Trupo & Lina Garcia _DoL ETA_
Trade Adjustment Assistance application, program data now available online from US Department of Labor"
View the online application and TAA data

2010-11-10 11:10PST (14:10EST) (19:10GMT)
Wallace Witkowski _MarketWatch_
Lou Dobbs to have daily show on Fox Business

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Kyle Olson _Big Government_
United States following in Greece's recent errant foot-steps
"Buffalo Public Schools revealed recently that it spent $9M last year alone on elective surgery for employees.   Coverage for such an extravagance, by its very nature taking funds away from the education of children, was due to the collective bargaining agreement.   In Milwaukee, the school district pays nearly $24K per employee for health insurance because such lavish benefits are demanded by the union.   In Cincinnati, the collective bargaining agreement stipulates 15 sick days per year, so not only is the school district paying employees when they're not working, but the district must also cover the cost of a substitute teacher.   The result? Cincinnati Public Schools shelled out $7.5M on sick leave last year."

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Edwin S. Rubenstein _V Dare_
New federal data confirms V Dare American Worker Displacement Index: Displacement is surging

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Rob Sanchez _Job Destruction News-Letter_/_V Dare_
Farooque Ahmed: Legal Immigrant, Naturalized Citizen, Suspected Terrorist, and H-1B recipient

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Paul Craig Roberts _V Dare_
America's devolution into dictatorship

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Larry Thornberry _American Spectator_
Marco Rubio knows where he's going
"After the election Rubio said his first priorities would be to cut federal spending, to see that the Bush tax cuts are made permanent, and to repeal and replace ObummerDoesn'tCare...   'nothing less than the identity of our country and what kind of future we will leave our children is at stake.'...   'This is our second chance to get this right.   To make the right decisions and the tough calls and to leave our children what they deserve -- the freest and most exceptional society in all of human history.'"

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Mark Krikorian _National Review_
Paying illegal aliens to go home

2010-11-10 Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
The Dismal Truth about "Green Energy": Tax-victims are being ripped off to make environmental extremists feel good

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Christi Parsons & Paul Richter _Jewish World Review_
Netanyahu stands firm against ceding Israeli territory
"'Jerusalem is not a settlement.   It is the capital of the state of Israel.', Netanyahu said in a statement.   'Israel sees no connection between the diplomatic process and the planning and building policy in Jerusalem.'...   Israel also is moving ahead with 800 units in the West Bank settlement of Ariel, Israeli media reported on Tuesday."

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Jane Arraf _Jewish World Review_
In Iraq, as bomb attacks continue, Christians fear they could be wiped out -- like Jews before them

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Michelle Malkin _Jewish World Review_
No Illegal Alien Pilot Left Behind
V Dare
Michelle Malkin

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Worry Over Trade Deficits
"One is called the current account, which consists of goods and services exchanged between Americans and foreigners.   That's the account where we have a large trade deficit.   Americans buy more goods and services from foreigners than they buy from us.   There's another account called the capital account.   It consists of foreign direct investment in the U.S.A. such as the purchase or construction of machinery, buildings or even whole manufacturing plants plus foreign purchases of stocks, bonds and currencies.   For example, Toyota might sell me a Lexus, manufactured in Tahara, Japan for $70K but not purchase any American goods such as wheat, cotton or steel.   That means there is a $70K trade deficit with the Japanese.   What will the Toyota seller do with the $70K? It would be wonderful if Toyota and other foreign producers just treasured dollars and simply stored them.   We'd be on easy street having a few Americans printing up dollars whilst the rest of the world sends us cars, computers, coffee and other goods in exchange for them.   It doesn't work out that way.   In our example, instead of purchasing American goods with the $70K, Toyota might put the money toward building a Toyota plant, as it has already done, in Huntsville, AL, that employs nearly 800 Americans.   As a result of that current account deficit of $70K, we have a capital account surplus (net inflow of capital into the U.S.A.) of $70K.   Here's my question to you: Have Americans been made worse off because of the $70K current account trade deficit? I'd answer no."

2010-11-10 (5771 Kislev 03)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
The "grid-lock" bogeyman
"many people fail to realize that the republic existed for nearly twice that long before the federal government intervened to get the economy out of a recession or depression.   During all that time, no depression ever lasted even half as long as the Great Depression of the 1930s, when first President Hoover and then President Roosevelt intervened.   For most of the history of this country, there was no Federal Reserve System, which was established in 1914 to prevent bank failures and the bad effects of large expansions or contractions of the supply of money and credit.   But bank failures in the 1930s exceeded anything ever seen before the Fed was established.   So did the contraction of money and credit during the Great Depression."

2010-11-10
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Fed-induced speculation

2010-11-10
John Shinal _FINS_/_Wall Street Journal_
Tech salary gains of 1.3% to 5.3% in Seattle in 2009

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-11: Veteran's Day

2010-11-11 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 449,905 in the week ending Nov. 6, an increase of 28,808 from the previous week.   There were 531,743 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0% during the week ending Oct. 30, unchanged from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,745,901, a decrease of 13,638 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.8% and the volume was 4,961,610.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Oct. 23 was 8,624,679...   Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 44,461, a decrease of 14,445 from the prior week.   States reported 3,815,914 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Oct. 23, a decrease of 162,460 from the prior week.   There were 3,520,253 claimants in the comparable week in 2009.   EUC weekly claims include first, second, third, and fourth tier activity.   The highest 'insured unemployment rates' in the week ending Oct. 23 were in Puerto Rico (6.1%), Alaska (5.2%), California (4.1%), Oregon (4.1%), Pennsylvania (4.0%), Nevada (3.9%), New Jersey (3.9%), Connecticut (3.6%), Arkansas (3.5%), South Carolina (3.5%), and Wisconsin (3.5%).   The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Oct. 30 were in California (+6,387), Kentucky (+2,901), Wisconsin (+2,644), Oregon (+2,296), and Indiana (+1,920), while the largest decreases were in Florida (-3,450), South Carolina (-2,401), Illinois (-997), Georgia (-923), and Pennsylvania (-897).   [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.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2010-11-11
Peter H. Milliken _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Ohio likely to lose a congressional seat as result of census and redistricting

2010-11-11
Greg Gross _Cumberland county PA Sentinel_
Power-mad Carlisle government thugs to violate everyone's privacy but assure us they won't violate everyone's privacy
"Borough council approved a project Wednesday night for five surveillance cameras and eight radio antennas in the Memorial Park area...   The cameras won't impede on residents' rights to privacy, officials have said...   The system, she continued, will allow officers to have eyes in the Memorial Park area 24 hours a day, seven days a week...   Funding for the project, not to exceed $73,245.41, will come from Carlisle's Community Development Block Grant.   That cost will also include the required server, software, peripheral equipment, IT work and installation...   The borough had previously received $200K in federal funding for a downtown surveillance system.   Ten cameras are expected to be in place as part of that system sometime in the future."

2010-11-11
Brenda Walker _V Dare_
California's socio-/psycho-pathology showed up on election day
"It has had among the country's worst unemployment levels for a while, over 12% since 2009 September.   (See the Sacramento Bee's interactive map that shows joblessness by county over time.)   People like to gloss over the structural problems here by saying California has the 8th largest economy in the world.   But that Silicon Valley shine does fade when outstanding bills are considered—like the $70G in general obligation debt for starters, which does not include the astronomical looming pensions.   In addition, the state is currently borrowing $40M per day to pay for its unemployment insurance and is already $8.6G in debt to the feds just for that tab.   [Calif borrows $40M a day to pay unemployment, 2010 November 7]"
Some of Illegal Immigration's Human Costs

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-12

2010-11-11 21:01PST (2010-11-12 00:01EST) (2010-11-12 05:01GMT)
Simon Kennedy _MarketWatch_
Irish emigrating in search of opportunities

2010-11-12 02:22PST (05:22EST) (10:22GMT)
_WDTN_
Finger-prints help catch illegal aliens

2010-11-12
W. James Antle iii _American Spectator_
Is Mitch Daniel up to taming federal budget? or will he wimp out?
"The Republicans have seldom been equal to the task.   Party leaders have made a serious effort to reduce federal spending exactly 3 times since World War II: the 'Do Nothing' Congress of 1947-1948, the Congress that came in with Ronald Reagan in 1981-1982, and the Gingrich Congress of 1995-1996.   In the last 2 cases, the results were short-lived.   In the first, the Republicans were promptly relieved of their majority by the voters in the next election...   Members of the Republican spending-cutters hall of fame include such flinty Ohioans as Robert Taft and John Kasich...   Eli Lilly & Co. plucked Daniels from the nonprofit sector and put him into the private sector in 1990, hiring him to head its corporate affairs division.   He worked his way up the ranks, eventually running the company's North American operations.   But government beckoned again, prompting Daniels to leave Lilly to become President Bush's budget director.   In an administration known for its fiscal tomfoolery, Daniels was called 'the Blade'...   When Commentary's Jennifer Rubin invited Daniels to take a whack at the Obama administration's fecklessness on foreign policy, the governor praised peace through strength and then promised to 'ask questions about the extent of our commitments' over-seas.   'If we go broke', Daniels argued, 'no one will follow a pauper'."

2010-11-12 07:49PST (10:49EST) (15:49GMT)
Steve Goldstein _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index increased from 67.7 in October to 69.3 in early November (with graph)

2010-11-12 13:56PST (16:56EST) (21:56GMT)
John Shinal _MarketWatch_
Tech Jobs
"Five days a week, we talk to the CEOs and human resource VPs who are doing the hiring and firing at tech companies, large and small.   We talk to the recruiters and head-hunters who get paid to know -- before anyone else -- which companies have workers with one eye on their work and another on the exit door...   Tech salaries grew so fast in the Seattle region last year that nobody in the industry there noticed a recession...   And 2009 salaries in Silicon Valley, which after 2 years is once again a net creator of jobs, grew even faster.   Even so, a growing number of Silicon Valley companies are looking outside the region to hire."

2010-11-12
Carol Robidoux _NH Union Leader_
Unconstitutional federal government home heating aid cut in half
"According to Joanne Morin, director of the state Office of Energy Planning, the proposed federal budget that funds New Hampshire's share of the Low Income Housing Energy Assistance Block Grant was [reduced] this year by nearly $2G, down from $5.1G for the previous winter...   'We're looking at getting about $19.7M for the program, which will provide an average of $703 to about 25K households.'   That's compared with last year when the state received $40.8M, providing an average of $925 to about 47K households.   Morin explained that LIHEAP helps families with incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level.   For a family of four, that would mean an annual income of less than $44,100.   There are an estimated 188K New Hampshire homes that fall into that income category.   As of Nov. 4 there were 14,419 families signed up to receive fuel assistance, Morin said.   'We should reach the 25K household limit by December 1, which means anyone applying for assistance after that would have to go on a waiting list.'...   heating oil [prices are] up by about 30 cents per gallon over this time last winter..."

2010-11-12
Joshua Rhett Miller _Fox_
corrupt Obummer/Holder DoJ gave tens of millions of dollars to illegal alien sanctuaries
"'Subsidizing Sanctuaries: The State Criminal Alien Assistance Program', a report from the Center for Immigration Studies, found that the federal grant program commonly known as SCAAP allocated $62.2M -- more than 15% of its $400M total -- to 27 jurisdictions that are widely considered to be 'sanctuary communities'.   Some of those jurisdictions -- including San Francisco, Chicago and California's Santa Clara County -- are even trying to opt-out of Secure Communities, a program that automatically alerts Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials when criminal illegal immigrants are booked into jail, according to the report...   $14.2M to Los Angeles county, $13.4M to New York City and $88M to the state of California."

2010-11-12
William L. Anderson
Hijacked Sense
"These people -- who helped create the very conditions that we now face -- solemnly have told us that we need to pay higher taxes, cut spending, and live within our means.   Obviously, even that (as phony as it might be) is financially and morally intolerable...   On the one side, we have an 'economist' who hasn't a clue about capital or factors of production in general, who has no idea as to what entrepreneurship is, and really believes money is nothing more than a quantity variable to be placed within a mathematical algorithm.   On the other side, we have an Apostle of 'National Greatness'...   How does one 'reform' a Ponzi scheme?...   any notion that what Congress passed earlier this year will cut anything but the quality and supply of medical care is ludicrous."

2010-11-12
Paige Chapman _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Student twits earn higher grades in class-room experiment

2010-11-12 (5771 Kislev 05)
Wesley Pruden _Jewish World Review_
Obama's grim pursuit of Muslim romance

2010-11-12 (5771 Kislev 05)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Empowering our home-grown enemies
"Disturbingly, the establishments in the 2 countries most actively targeted by the global jihad -- the USA and Israel -- remain in deep denial about the challenges of homegrown jihadist fifth columnists.   The USA remains in denial even though the majority of recent jihadist attacks and attempted attacks against the USA were carried out by American citizens.   This week we learned that Nazareth is an al Qaida hub.   Sheikh Nazem Abu Salim Sahfe, the Israeli imam of the Shihab al-Din mosque in Nazareth was indicted on Sunday for promoting and recruiting for the global jihad and calling on his followers to harm non-Muslims.   Among the other plots borne of Sahfe's sermons was the murder of cab driver Yefim Weinstein last November.   Sahfe's followers also plotted to assassinate Pope Benedict XVI during his trip to Israel last year.   They torched Christian tour buses.   They abducted and stabbed a pizza delivery man.   Two of his disciples were arrested in Kenya en route to joining the al Qaida forces in Somalia.   With his indictment, Sahfe joins a growing list of jihadists born and bred in Israel and in free societies around the world who have rejected their societies and embraced the cause of Islamic global domination.   In the USA the most prominent member of this group today is the American born Al Qaida leader Anwar Al-Awlaki.   US authorities describe Awlaki as the world's most dangerous man.   His jihadist track record is staggering.   It seems that there has been no major attack in the US or Britain -- including the 2001 Sept. 11 attacks and the July 7 attacks in London -- in which Awlaki has not played a role.   Sahfe and Awlaki, like nearly all the prominent jihadists in the West are men of privilege.   Their personal histories are a refutation of the popular Western tale that jihad is born of frustration, poverty and ignorance.   Both men, like almost every prominent Western jihadist are university graduates."

2010-11-12 (5771 Kislev 05)
R' Hllel Goldberg _Jewish World Review_
Can a single word make a difference?

2010-11-12

DJIA	11,192.58
S&P 500(SPX)	1,199.21
NASDAQ(COMP)	2,518.21
Nikkei	9,725
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	2.79
crude oil(CLZ10)	$84.88/barrel
gold(GCZ10)	$1,365.50/ounce
silver(SIZ10)	$25.94/ounce
platinum(PLF11)	$1,684.60/ounce
palladium(PAZ10)	$673.65/ounce
copper(HGZ10)	$0.243125/ounce
natgas	$3.80/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline	$2.21/gal
heatingoil	$2.36/gal
soybeans	$12.84/bushel
maize	$5.8775/bushel
wheat	$7.2875/bushel
dollarindex(DXY)	77.894
yenperdollar(USDYEN)	82.49
dollarspereuro(EURUSD)	1.3696
dollarsperpound(GBPUSD)	1.6143
swissfranksperdollar	0.9807
indianrupeesperdollar	44.73
mexicanpesosperdollar(MXN)	12.3360
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	628.53

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
 
 

2010-11-13

2010-11-12 16:16PST (2010-11-12 19:16EST) (2010-11-13 00:16GMT) Norm Alster _Investor's Business Daily_
Federal Reserve continues inflation, punishing savers

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-14

2010-11-14
Randy Alcorn _Santa Maria CA Times_
Coming to grips with the "new normal" economy
Santa Barbara CA NoozHawk
"Since World War II, normal has meant increasing affluence for most Americans, but corporate greed, globalization and goofy government policies may have disrupted that...   One irony here is that most of those Asians got their educations at American universities where academia's own brand of greed welcomes the astronomic tuitions foreign students pay.   Labor is like most commodities, the greater the supply the less the cost.   Globalization has opened up vast new labor supplies to salivating American corporations all too eager to relocate operations overseas, where they can pay slave wages, and be free of insatiable labor unions and bothersome government regulations.   Even corporations remaining in the U.S. can benefit from low-priced foreign labor by convincing government to issue more H-1B visas, or by hiring illegal aliens.   The economic paradox that threatens America's return to normal is population.   The argument that a robust economy requires an increasing population is not only fallacious, it can actually be antithetically fallacious.   By decreasing the cost of labor and increasing the numbers of under and unemployed, over-population can weaken an economy, rather than improve it.   What good is a growing market if there is little disposable income?"

2010-11-14
Esther J. Cepeda _Seattle Times_/_Washington DC Post_/_Chicago Sun-Times_
Asians and other ethnic blocs in the debate over excessive immigration
"Compared with the 9% of eligible voters who are Latino, Narasaki estimated the Asian vote represents about 5% of eligible voters...   Indians -- a [low-skilled] sub-group of Asians who tend to come into the U.S.A. on H-1B visas -- are, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the fastest-growing group of [illegal aliens].   But if they lose a job, they have a limited window, sometimes [months], in which to find another before losing their legal status.   In such a difficult housing market, home-owning Indians and their U.S.-born [anchor-babies] are choosing to stay illegally...   Census and other studies have put the number of all illegal immigrants in the U.S.A. at approximately 12M.   About 1.5M are Asians -- representing 12% of the total Asian population [in the USA] -- with 23% estimated to be Chinese, 17% Filipino, 14% Indian, 11% Koreans and the balance from a variety of smaller countries, all with different issues."
index of articles by same author

2010-11-14
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
The shift from personal experience and judgement to computer models in lending

2010-11-14
Grace Wyle _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Land-owners trying to educate themselves about rights as hydro-carbon interest grows
"'We are trying to address the issues from the standpoint of how we can best protect ourselves.', Rea said.   'These are capitalists, and they want to make money.   The way you make money is you buy low and you sell high -- there is nothing wrong with what they're doing; it just feels wrong when you are on the low side.'...   The Associated Landowners of the Ohio Valley, as the group is now known, represents more than 200 land-owners in Columbiana county, who together own about 20K acres of unleased land...   The county recorded 556 leases in the first 10 months of 2010, compared with 196 leases signed in the same period last year, according to the Columbiana County recorder's office.   Every day more than 20 leasing agents duke it out over the office's 2 microfilm machines, said deputy recorder Diana Reiter...   Mineral-rights leases are now worth upwards of $2K per acre, up from about $750 per acre earlier this year...   Drillers were initially drawn to the region by the Marcellus Shale, a massive natural-gas formation that stretches across New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and parts of Ohio.   Marcellus wells are thought to be more productive in the northeastern part of the formation, where the shale is thickest.   But leasing and drilling activity has been moving west across the Appalachian Basin, Funderberg said.   While a moratorium on shale drilling in New York could play a minor role in the westward shift, geology is usually the primary decision-making factor in the oil and gas industry, he said.   Producers are likely looking at the Utica Shale, an Ordivinian formation below the Marcellus, Funderberg said.   The Utica is thought to contain oil as well as natural gas."

2010-11-14
Jan Falstad _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Foreclosures, Refies, Repos, and Wrecks

2010-11-14
Benard Potter _Neue Zuercher Zeitung_/_Global Warming Policy Foundation_
IPCC Official: "Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World's Wealth"

2010-11-14
William L. Anderson
Krugman keeps changing position on death panels

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-15

2010-11-15 08:35PST (11:35EST) (16:35GMT)
Jeffry Bartash _MarketWatch_
US retail sales rose 1.2% in October

2010-11-15
Travis Kaya _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Policy Agendas Project tries to track debates
Policy Agendas

2010-11-15
Kay Brookshire _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
TVA promoting closed manufacturing sites for tech firms
"'We don't have a lot of choices for data centers, versus Atlanta, where you could throw a rock and hit one.'   Among the initial data center sites identified by TVA are Lenoir City's Creekwood Park, a mixed-use development with 200 acres available adjacent to I-75 in Loudon County, and Partnership Park South Industrial Park in Maryville, a 210-acre site on U.S. 321 in Blount County.   A 90-acre site in the Athens-McMinn Interstate Industrial Park-North, between Knoxville and Chattanooga, is also a candidate.   Other sites are in Bristol, Fayetteville, Jackson, Murfreesboro and Tullahoma, TN; Duffield, VA; Guntersville and Hartselle, AK; and Olive Branch, MS.   TVA says it's targeting data centers that would house computer, telecommunication and data storage systems for Internet search engine companies, financial transaction processors and other high-tech industries...   Gartner, an IT research and advisory firm, indicates that 1 in 5 businesses will own no IT assets by 2012."

2010-11-15
Esther J. Cepeda _Chicago IL Sun-Times_
Medical tech leaps language barrier
"Imagine you're a family member of a recent immigrant or a deaf person who communicates only by sign language...   This happens all the time.   Our medical centers are challenged by increasing numbers of patients whose English is not as good as their native language and by a shortage of trained medical interpreters...   Over the years, health-care providers have had to learn to handle patient issues with increased privacy and proper respect, but those efforts often sputter when there is no affordable professional available to translate.   Technology is stepping in, providing medical centers with highly trained medical interpreters 24 hours a day through the Video Interpreter Network, a national program being piloted in Chicago hospitals.   Medical interpreters can be dialed up on a computer monitor to speak face to face with a patient and his doctor...   'We estimate that nationally 10% of patients have low English proficiency.   In Chicago it's about 15%, and you can imagine how difficult it is for health-care providers to deliver services in a compassionate, efficient way.', Wahl told me."

2010-11-15
Michelle Malkin _Fox_
Obama's Lying Energy Czar, Carol Browner Must Go

2010-11-15
Joseph Calhoun _Real Clear Markets_
On-going economic depression is a result of bad policies, not rhetoric

2010-11-15
_Hartford CT Courant_
US government tries to rationalize insane decision to purchase and deploy Russian helicopters in Afghanistan

2010-11-15
Jed Babbin _American Spectator_
Just stay home until the groping and other TSA abuses end
"The 2001/09/11 attacks were aimed at crippling our economy by hampering our ability to conduct air commerce.   We recovered from it because we are innovative and because we know that air commerce has to continue if our economy is to thrive again."

2010-11-15
Michelle Malkin
Soros group "One America Votes" failed to register as a political committee

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-16

2010-11-15 22:00PST (2010-11-16 01:00EST) (2010-11-16 06:00GMT)
Richard C. Dujardin _Providence RI Journal_
RI privacy/public access laws out of whack... and other constitutional rights discussed by Gregory V. Sullivan

2010-11-16 05:06PST (08:06EST) (13:06GMT)
Gina Macris _Providence RI Journal_
3 RI university presidents paid over $800K
"It is no surprise that Simmons, who runs an Ivy League research institution [Brown], remains the highest-paid college president in Rhode Island, despite the fact that she has taken 2 voluntary cuts in base pay over the last few years.   Her total compensation -- including the value of housing and other non-taxable benefits -- was $884,771 in the calendar year 2008, making her 20th among the chief executives of comparable institutions.   The highest-paid college president still in office in any category made a total of $2,774,000 in 2008.   He is R. Gerald Turner of Southern Methodist University."
Chronicle of Higher Education compensation survey

2010-11-16 05:38PST (08:38EST) (13:38GMT)
_Cumberland county PA Sentinel_/_AP_
Debt-ridden Harrisburg PA gets $3.8M from profitable operations of "authority" which also has debts but can't use these funds to pay them

2010-11-16 06:00PST (09:00EST) (14:00GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
net $81G of US assets were purchased by foreigners in September

2010-11-16 06:42PST (09:42EST) (14:42GMT)
Greg Robb _MarketWatch_
US industrial output flat in october, utility output fell

2010-11-16 09:17PST (12:17EST) (17:17GMT)
Alan Zibel _MarketWatch_
Foreclosure troubles may continue to threaten financial system

2010-11-16
_Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Wesley Snipes asks for new trial vs. federal extortionists

2010-11-16 12:34:22PST (15:34:22EST) (20:34:22GMT)
Leanne Italie _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_/_AP_
Commercial at sign -- "@" -- has many nicknames around the world
"Tomlinson didn't have the world's many 'ats' on his mind when he developed his e-mail protocol using a nearly forgotten key on a Model 33 Teletype machine for use on ARPANET, one of the networks that became the global Internet."

2010-11-16
_Cumberland county PA Sentinel_
Disk drive containing personal info on 43K students, alumni and prospective students is missing from a central Pennsylvania college

2010-11-16
Rob Rogers _Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Annual career fair
"The four are taking welding classes at the Career Center and used the job fair to ask questions about what job opportunities will await them when they graduate next year.   One thing of which they're sure -- they all want to make sure they end up in 'high-paying jobs', they said.   Justin Grantham from Yellowstone Valley Electrical Cooperative spoke to students about how to become linemen or find other jobs in the field.   The company is not hiring, he said.   Still, he sees the career fair as an effective way to educate students on jobs in the field of electricity production and a good way to recruit Billings talent for later."

2010-11-16 (5771 Kislev 08)
Paul Richter _Jewish World Review_
Left and Right confounded over White House's Saudi arms deal

2010-11-16 (5771 Kislev 08)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
What the Palestinian Authority buys with your tax dollars
"The US responded to the Hamas takeover in Gaza by massively increasing its military assistance to Fatah.   According to the CRS, between 2007 and August 2010, US assistance to the Palestinian Authority security services totaled $400M.   They received $100M in 2010 and are set to receive $150M in 2011.   This assistance has paid for the training and outfitting of 400 Presidential Guards and 2,700 soldiers in the National Security Forces.   The US plans to train 5 additional 500-man NSF battalions."

2010-11-16 (5771 Kislev 08)
Dennis Prager _Jewish World Review_
Must the Leftist Mind reject sad facts?
Town Hall
"In a life-time of teaching and writing on Judaism, I have never encountered a single normative statement in 3K years of Jewish writing that asserted that man is basically good...   I did not write that man is inherently evil.   I wrote that he is not basically good...   leftism is often predicated on avoiding pain.   That is a major reason why the left dislikes capitalism and free markets.   Free markets create winners and losers, and the left does not like the fact that some people lose and some win.   This antipathy to having losers expresses itself on the micro level as well.   Many [leftists] oppose children playing in competitive sports because they can lose -- sometimes by a big score...   Second, the left lives by theories and dogmas into which the facts of life must fit.   That is why left-wing ideas are usually wishful thinking.   Though either explanation suffices, the 2 explanations reinforce each other.   Here are 4 descriptive statements rejected by the left for these 2 mutually reinforcing reasons.   1. People are not basically good...   2. Men and women are inherently different...   3. Black males disproportionately commit violent crime in America...   4. The United Nations is a moral wasteland...   That the U.N. has turned out to be an abettor more than a preventer of violence is a fact that the left finds too painful to acknowledge.   And it violates the left-wing belief that nationalism is evil and internationalism is the solution."

2010-11-16 (5771 Kislev 08)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Deficit Reduction
Town Hall
"My own recommendation for dealing with deficits would include stopping the appointment of deficit reduction commissions.   It is not the amount of money that these commissions cost that is the issue.   It is the escape hatch that they provide for big-spending politicians...   People behave differently when tax rates are high as compared to when they are low.   With low tax rates, they take their money out of tax shelters and put it to work in the economy, benefitting themselves, the economy and government, which collects more money in taxes because incomes rise."

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-17

2010-11-16 22:00PST (2010-11-17 01:00EST) (2010-11-17 06:00GMT)
Kate Bramsom _Providence RI Journal_
RI's "knowledge economy"
"The knowledge economy refers to the health-care, life-sciences, research and green-technology sectors and to the idea that work, jobs and wealth are created with innovative brain power...   William Hatfield, [Bank of India's] market president for Rhode Island, who is the chairman of the board for the chamber and co-chairman for the Implementation Council.   Hatfield said he wanted to talk about the successes of the past year, but also where the knowledge economy is going in the future.   'And then, he put out there the creation of 100 jobs.', Hatfield said of Tear.   'Talk about a stake in the ground.'   Hatfield shared details about grant-funding in Rhode Island for the kind of research that fuels the knowledge economy.   In 2009, Lifespan Hospitals successfully sought $49.2M in competitive grants from the National Institutes of Health, he said.   Brown University pulled in $180M in research grants for the 2009-2010 school year, a 37% increase over the previous year, Hatfield said.   And the University of Rhode Island got $105M in grants, 60% more than 3 years earlier, he said...   Although the chamber and council have begun tracking that number, there is no comprehensive list of how many people are employed in the knowledge economy, said Janet Raymond, senior vice president of operations and economic development for the chamber.   Gathering complete numbers of how many are employed in these sectors is a goal for the council to pursue in the coming year, she said.   But the chamber has started counting.   Hospitals and universities around the state employed about 58,334 people in 2009, according to chamber data."

2010-11-16 22:00PST (2010-11-17 01:00EST) (2010-11-17 06:00GMT)
Randal Edgar _Providence RI Journal_
RI heading to $4.7M state budget deficit at end of year: $290M deficit expected in 2012

2010-11-16 22:00PST (2010-11-17 01:00EST) (2010-11-17 06:00GMT)
Jennifer D. Jordan _Providence RI Journal_
RI considering 3-tiered diploma based on math and English language skills

2010-11-17 03:00PST (06:00EST) (11:00GMT)
Tracy Mayor _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
H-1B: The voices behind the visa:   The H-1B visa is such a heated topic, its impact on individual high-tech workers often gets lost in the debate.   Here, 5 people tell their H-1B stories in their own words.

2010-11-17 03:00PST (06:00EST) (11:00GMT)
Patrick Thibodeau _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
H-1B at 20: How the "tech worker visa" is destroying IT in the USA

2010-11-17 03:00PST (06:00EST) (11:00GMT)
Sharon Machlis _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
H-1B visa data: maps, interactive tools

2010-11-17 03:49PST (06:49EST) (11:49GMT)
Jonathan Adams & Kathleen E. McLaughlin _Global Post_
Silicon Sweat-Shops

2010-11-17 09:14:03PST (12:14:03EST) (17:14:03GMT)
Frank Michael Russell _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_
former Northrop Grumman CEO Ronald Sugar appointed to Apple board
Hugo Miller & Adam Satariano: Bloomberg
Los Angeles CA Times

2010-11-17 06:19PST (09:19EST) (14:19GMT)
Neil Downing _Providence RI Journal_
Boston Fed chief Eric S. Rosengren says economy has been bad in RI

2010-11-17 09:03PST (12:03EST) (17:03GMT)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
Representative Duncan blasts TSA's groping and body scans in floor speech (with poll)
Ashley Halsey iii: Washington DC Post
Dallas TX Morning News
MarketWatch
USA Today/Gannett
Ziff Davis/CBS
"on Tuesday a [great American hero] who passed through one of the new scanners in Indianapolis International Airport was arrested for punching a TSA agent."

2010-11-17
John Cummings _Big Fat Finance Web Log_
Bipartisan Plan Would Slash the Corporate Income Extortion

2010-11-17
Ron Paul _Lew Rockwell_
Introducing HR 6416, the American Traveler Dignity Act
"Americans should never give up our rights in order to travel.   As our Declaration of Independence states, our rights are inalienable.   This TSA version of our rights looks more like the 'rights' granted in the old Soviet Constitutions, where freedoms were granted to Soviet citizens -- right up to the moment the state decided to remove those freedoms."
+++++ HR6416; Paul; American Traveler Dignity Act
111th congress proposed bills

2010-11-17
Ann Reilly Dowd _Fiscal Times_
Mad Money: Global chain reaction to Fed's QE2

2010-11-17
Michelle Malkin
Stop the bail-out of illegal alien students

2010-11-17 (5771 Kislev 09)
Martin M. Bodek _Jewish World Review_
The Name Maven: Tony's Son, Son of a Squirrel, and Sunny Mountain

2010-11-17 (5771 Kislev 09)
Michelle Malkin _Jewish World Review_
Dude, where's my ObummerDoesn'tCare waiver?
Investor's Business Daily
Town Hall

2010-11-17 (5771 Kislev 09)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
How To Control Congress
Town Hall
"Let's assume that each of our 535 congressmen cares about the destructive impact of deficits and debt on the future of our country.   Regardless of party, congressmen face enormous lobbying pressures and awards to spend more and little or no pressure and awards to spend less.   The nation's founders would be horrified by today's congressional spending that consumes 25% of our GDP.   Contrast that to the years 1787 to the 1920s when federal government spending never exceeded 4% of our GDP except in wartime.   Today, federal, state and local government consumes 43% of what Americans produce each year.   The Washington, DC-based Tax Foundation computes that the average [tax-victim] is forced to work from Jan. 1 to mid-April to pay federal, state and local taxes.   If he were taxed enough to pay the $1.5T federal deficit, he'd be forced to work until mid-May.   Tax revenue is not the problem.   The federal government has collected just about 20% of the nation's GDP almost every year since 1960.   Federal spending has exceeded revenue for most of that period and has taken an unprecedented leap since 2008 to produce today's massive deficit.   Since federal spending is the problem, that's where our focus should be."

++ 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
 
 

2010-11-18

2010-11-18 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 407,468 in the week ending Nov. 13, a decrease of 45,189 from the previous week.   There were 475,701 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.9% during the week ending Nov. 6, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,710,605, a decrease of 72,487 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.7% and the volume was 4,883,657.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Oct. 30 was 8,854,206.   Extended benefits were available in AL, AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, ME, MA, MI, MN, MS, NV, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WA, WV, and WI, during the week ending October 30.   [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.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2010-11-18
Denise Dick _Youngstown OH Vindicator_
Tuition hike likely at Youngstown State U, along with 8.5% budget cut

2010-11-18
George Neumayr _American Spectator_
Leftists' Final Solutions: Death panels, tax hikes, and TSA gropings

2010-11-18
Charles Grassley _Iowa Politics_
Adequate funding and commitment by executive departments and agencies for border security
"Senators Chuck Grassley, Jim Inhofe, Tom Coburn and David Vitter are questioning the Department of State's commitment to collecting new fees on certain foreign visa applications in order to secure funding for additional border security.   The emergency spending bill passed by Congress in August that authorized additional border security initiatives was funded by fees imposed on certain employers who petition for H-1B and L visa workers.   The Department of State has yet to write rules or provide guidance to consular officers to require them to impose additional fees on applicants, despite the mandate that the fees be collected immediately on the date of the enactment bill.   'We're concerned that your lack of action could leave a drastic gap in funding, leaving taxpayers on the hook when Congress intended to fully pay for necessary border improvements.', the senators wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton."

2010-11-18
_Fox_
America's 3rd front: Texas strikes back
"'I never thought that we'd be in this paramilitary type of engagement.   It's a war on the border.', said Captain Stacy Holland with the Texas Department of Public Safety.   Holland leads a fleet of 16 state-of-the-art helicopters that make up the aviation assets used by the Texas DPS to fight Mexican drug cartels."

2010-11-18
Michelle Malkin
Stop the NIGHTMARE act

2010-11-18
Noel Sheppard _News Busters_
UN IPCC official admitted "We redistribute world's wealth by climate policy"

2010-11-18
William L. Anderson
Krugman's thinking from the "Economic Dark Ages"

2010-11-18 (5771 Kislev 11)
Tony Pugh _Jewish World Review_
Alternative to ionizing radiation
"The Woburn, MA, firm that manufacturers the system, L-3 Communications Security & Detection Systems, claims on its website that the radio waves are '10K times lower than other commonly used radio-frequency devices'.   If the software identifies a passenger carrying explosives, an outline of the problem body area is displayed on a generic mannequin figure instead of on the actual image of the passenger's body...   The 'automatic threat detection' system, dubbed 'ProVision ATD', sells for $40K to $150K and doesn't use ionizing radiation or X-rays...   This week, the Rutherford Institute, a conservative civil liberties group, filed a federal lawsuit against Napolitano, DHS and Pistole, on behalf of two airline pilots who refused to undergo the whole-body screening.   The suit seeks to ban DHS and TSA from 'continuing to unlawfully use' the imaging technology and [groping]."
 
 

2010-11-19

2010-11-19
Philip Klein _American Spectator_
Has Israel inserted a worm in the control computers of Iran's nuclear materials centrifuges?: One can hope

2010-11-19
Michelle Malkin
NIGHTMARE act: 2.1M illegal aliens get to vote in USA

2010-11-19
Stephen Hudak _Orlando FL Sentinel_
Corrupt federal judge denies re-trial, orders innocent Wesley Snipes to 3 years in prison: Meanwhile, multiple offender Rangel gets a mere reprimand

2010-11-19
Marc Schenker _Vancouver Examiner_
Obama orders Jindal to stop criticisms

2010-11-19 03:53PST (06:53EST) (11:53GMT)
_Investor's Business Daily_
Is GM recovering or not?

2010-11-19
William L. Anderson
Why people oppose QE2, and why Krugman is still wrong

2010-11-19
Hans Labohm _Town Hall_
Warmist hysteria no longer panicking Europeans

2010-11-19 (5771 Kislev 12)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Facing our fears
"Clinton's demand was, 'not one more brick' for Jews, meaning, no Jew will be allowed to lay even one more brick on a home he is lawfully building even as the US funds massive Palestinian construction projects.   The magnitude of this discriminatory infringement on the property rights of law abiding citizens is breathtaking.   The 90 day freeze is supposed to usher in a period of intense negotiations between Israel and Fatah.   But those negotiations will not get off the ground because PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas has no interest in talking, and will never accept any peace offer made by Israel.   But the Obama administration doesn't care.   They aren't worried about the Palestinians accepting a deal.   What they want are more Israeli land surrenders."

2010-11-19

DJIA	11,203.55
S&P 500(SPX)	1,199.73
NASDAQ(COMP)	2,518.12
Nikkei	10,022
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	2.87
crude oil(CLZ10)	$81.65/barrel
gold(GCZ10)	$1,354.44/ounce
silver(SIZ10)	$27.34/ounce
platinum(PLF11)	$1,669.77/ounce
palladium(PAZ10)	$702.70/ounce
copper(HGZ10)	$0.23940625/ounce
natgas(NGZ10)	$4.17/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline(RBZ10)	$2.23/gal
heatingoil	$2.27/gal
soybeans	$12.84/bushel
maize	$5.8775/bushel
wheat	$7.2875/bushel
dollarindex(DXY)	78.44
yenperdollar(USDYEN)	83.45
dollarspereuro(EURUSD)	1.3683
dollarsperpound(GBPUSD)	1.5984
swissfranksperdollar	0.9915
indianrupeesperdollar	45.3
mexicanpesosperdollar(MXN)	12.3050
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	635.59

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 
 
 

2010-11-20

2010-11-20
Chad Bray _Wall Street Journal_
Societe Generale trader Samarth Agrawal convicted of code theft
BusinessWeek
Reuters
Vancouver Sun
CourtHouse News
NY FBI
Culture Clash
ComputerWorld UK/IDG
"Agrawal was convicted of theft of trade secrets and transporting stolen property in interstate commerce...   Sergey Aleynikov, who worked as a programmer at Goldman Sachs from 2007 May through 2009 June, is accused of copying hundreds of thousands of lines of computer source code related to the firm's high-frequency trading business on his last day of work.   Aleynikov told federal investigators that he intended only to copy 'open source' code not owned by Goldman Sachs, according to the prosecutors.   The case is U.S. v. Agrawal, 10-cr-00417, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).   The Aleynikov case is U.S. v. Aleynikov, 10-00096, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan.)"

2010-11-20
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Collectivism vs. Liberty

2010-11-20
Josh Keller _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Former student sues U of Hawaii for privacy violations
 
 

2010-11-21

2010-11-21
_Security Week_
Malaysian national allegedly hacked Federal Reserve Bank, DoD Contractor and more
Mathew J. Schwartz: Information Week
Thom Weidlich: BusinessWeek
Data Breaches
"After arriving at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport in late October, Lin Mun Poo, a 32 year-old resident of Malaysia traveling to the US on a business trip was greeted by Secret Service Agents who arrested him and seized his lap-top computer...   After being been held in custody since his arrest on 2010 October 21, a federal grand jury charged Lin Mun Poo last week with hacking into a computer network of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and holding over 400K stolen credit and debit card numbers... FedComp, a data processor for federal credit unions, enabling him to access the data of various federal credit unions, including the Firemen's Association of the State of New York and the Mercer County New Jersey Teachers."
Slash Dot
 
 

2010-11-22

2010-11-22
William L. Anderson
There Will Be Hypocrisy: Death Panels

2010-11-22
John Harrington _Independent Record_/_Billings MT Gazette_/_Lee_
Boeing bought Summit Aeronautics Group of Helena
"Summit currently machines 747-8 fail-safe bars, which allow the flaps to move on the wings of the jumbo jets; 787 edge frames that fit around the main doors of the model that's expected to begin carrying passengers next year; and 767 main-landing-gear beams.   Boeing says that once the acquisition is complete, Summit will continue its work on these parts as well as additional parts of the 787."

2010-11-22 (5771 Kislev 15)
Jonathan Rosenblum _Jewish World Review_
Obama and Palestine
 
 

2010-11-23

2010-11-23
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Leftists want impoverished client class

2010-11-23
Steve Ragan _Tech Herald_
Xiang Dong Yu (aka Mike Yu), of Beijing pled guilty of stealing $50M-$100M in trade secrets from Ford: Sentence likely to be less than 6.5 years
John Leyden: London Register
What Is the Trend
Matthew Dolan: Wall Street Journal
Reuters
Heritage Newspapers Press & Guide
Slash Dot

2012-11-23
Robert McMillan _ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
McCloskey admits aiding VisionTech Components of Clearwater FL in selling knock-off chips from Red China to USA government
"The fake chips were sold to many companies, including sub-contractors working with big defense suppliers such as Raytheon Missile Systems, BAE Systems, and Northrop Grumman.   They were often destined for use in sensitive areas such as missile programs, radiation detectors, and non-military systems such as high-speed trains, the Department of Justice (DoJ) said in court filings.   Many of the chips were used in situations where a system failure would be disastrous.   In 2009 December, for example, an unnamed New York company fulfilling a Northrop Grumman contract allegedly bought 350 fake Cypress Semiconductor chips for use in the development of missile defense systems for the USA Navy.   They were for an antenna beam steering system used by the USA Navy..."

2010-11-23 09:37PST (12:37EST) (17:37GMT)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
6 firms awarded training grants
"Olin Corp., Chlor-Alkali Products Division, in Bradley County, John Deere Power Products and Jarden Zinc Products, both in Greene County and 3 Hamilton County companies: Alstom Power Turbomachines LLC, W.R. Grace & Co. and Wrigley Manufacturing LLC.   Each of the East Tennessee companies received grants of $25K.   The money is intended to assist employers with upgrading skills and avoiding lay-offs for their employees."

2010-11-23
_Tech Dirt_
H-1B visas aren't being used for the best & brightest

2010-11-23
John Ribeiro & Patrick Thibodeau _Network World_/_ComputerWorld_/_IDG_
Obama repeated excessive visa, out-sourcing and off-shoring position in India

2010-11-23 11:10PST (14:10EST) (19:10GMT)
Steve Goldstein _MarketWatch_
Fed governors say employment recovery could take 6 years or more
"Next year, they see the economy accelerating to 3% to 3.6% growth, followed by 3.6% to 4.5% growth in 2011 and 3.5% to 4.6% growth in 2013.   The 2011 forecast is notably slower than the 3.5% to 4.2% prediction they made in June.   And this muted growth won't do much to alter the unemployment rate.   The Fed members see the jobless rate between 9.5% and 9.7% this year, 8.9% to 9.1% in 2011, 7.7% to 8.2% in 2012, and a still-elevated 6.9% to 7.4% in 2013.   That compares to June projections of 9.2% to 9.5% unemployment in 2010, an 8.3% to 8.7% unemployment rate in 2011 and a 7.1% to 7.5% projection for 2012.   As recently as 2008 April, the jobless rate was 5%...   Somewhat more than half said it would take 5 or 6 years for the economy to converge to its longer-term averages for output growth (2.5% to 2.8%), unemployment rate (5% to 6%) and inflation (1.6% to 2% for PCE inflation).   And others thought it would take longer."

2010-11-23
Baker Hostetler _Lexology_
After all these years USCIS form I-129 finally requires attestation of compliance with export restrictions
Mintz Levin: JD Supra

2010-11-23
Patrick J. Buhanan _Town Hall_
Obama, GOP and nuclear arms
"Barack Obama's treaty reduces strategic warheads by 450, leaving each side 1,550...   Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona is holding up the treaty until he gets more assurances that the administration will do the tests and upgrades necessary to maintain the reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons.   He should receive those assurances...   The best way, the only credible way to secure the freedom and independence of former Soviet republics like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine and Georgia is not by threatening Russia with war, but by bringing Russia in from the cold and giving Russia a growing stake in aligning with the West."

2010-11-23
Tanya Hutchins _NBC 4i_
Concept charter schools under scrutiny
"'Concept Schools' runs 25 schools in 5 different states, serving 7K students.   In Columbus, the schools are known as Horizon Science Academies.   Horizon's High School is ranked Excellent on its latest state report card.   Horizon Middle School is rated in Continuous Improvement and Horizon Elementary is in Academic Watch.   Two NBC 4 viewers contacted the station, asking us to look into allegations that Ohio taxpayer money was being used to recruit teachers overseas, specifically Turkey.   The Ohio Federation of Teachers showed NBC 4 a lease for a Horizon School in Dayton, whose landlord has a Turkish mailing address.   The President of the Ohio Federation of Teachers wants to know if the rent money is actually going to Turkey.   She also wants to know why Turkish teachers are employed by Horizon.   'At a time of high unemployment in Ohio, when teachers have been laid off, teachers coming out of college can't find jobs.   Why would we be importing teachers and administrators from Turkey when Ohioans don't have jobs?', questioned Sue Taylor, President of the Ohio Federation of Teachers...   About 10% of teachers who work for Concept Schools are international.   The Vice President says [tax-victim] money is not used to recruit teachers over-seas.   'That does not make it a Turkish school, nor an Islamic school.   These are public schools serving students who need those services the most.', said Salim Ucan...   Concept Schools is based in Chicago.   The Ohio Attorney General's Office has no record of complaints against the company or Horizon Science Academies."
More on Sonoran Science Academy and the Gülen (Guelen) movement
Bill Gates is funding the Gülen (Guelen) movement to restore the Ottoman empire
Gülen (Guelen) movement engulfing Lone Star State
Gülen (Guelen) schools and their many aliases and booming H-1B visa applications
Gülen (Guelen) schools importing English teachers from Turkey
web log on Magnolia Science Academy
Gülen (Guelen) charter schools USA web log
Charter school scandals web log
Charter school watch-dog web log

2010-11-23 (5771 Kislev 16)
Steven Emerson _Jewish World Review_
federal judge acknowledges tie between CAIR and Hamas
"'The government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA, NAIT, with NAIT, the Islamic Association for Palestine, and with Hamas', USA district court judge Jorge Solis said in the 2009 July 1, ruling.   CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) had protested to Solis that they were incorrectly named as unindicted co-conspirators in the 2008 trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.   Among the allegations, HLF was accused of having provided more than $12M to Hamas.   After a 2007 mistrial, 5 former HLF officials convictedon 108 counts, ranging from money laundering to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists."
Investigative Project: CAIR-Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood links
Discover the Networks: Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
anti-CAIR
Discover the Networks: Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
Clarion Project: Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
Discover the Networks: Muslim Brotherhood (MB)

2010-11-23 (5771 Kislev 16)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Scans and gropings show government's contempt for Americans
"'Security' may be the excuse being offered for the outrageous things being done to American air travelers, but the heavy-handed arrogance and contempt for ordinary people that is the hallmark of this administration in other areas is all too painfully apparent in these new and invasive airport procedures...   If anything good comes out of the airport 'security' outrages, it may be in opening the eyes of more people to the utter contempt that this administration has for the American people.   Those who made excuses for all of candidate Barack Obama's long years of alliances with people who expressed their contempt for this country, and when as president he appointed people with a record of antipathy to American interests and values, may finally get it when they feel some stranger's hand in their crotch.   As for the excuse of 'security', this is one of the least security-minded administrations we have had.   When hundreds of illegal immigrants from terrorist-sponsoring countries were captured crossing the border from Mexico -- and then released on their own recognizance within the U.S.A., that tells you all you need to know about this administration's concern for security.   When captured terrorists who are not covered by either the Geneva Convention or the U.S. Constitution are nevertheless put on trial in American civilian courts by the Obama Justice Department, that too tells you all you need to know about how concerned they are about national security."
 
 

2010-11-24

2010-11-24 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 462,027 in the week ending Nov. 20, an increase of 52,490 from the previous week.   There were 542,492 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.   The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.1% during the week ending Nov. 13, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.   The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,839,033, an increase of 103,105 from the preceding week.   A year earlier, the rate was 3.9% and the volume was 5,081,961.   The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Nov. 6 was 8,532,502.   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 November 6.   States reported 3,801,294 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending Nov. 6, a decrease of 160,191 from the prior week.   There were 3,583,412 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.]
EUC (Excel)
EB
graphs
more graphs

2010-11-24
Laura Feer, Pate McMichael & Angelina Belelbuono _Morgan County GA Citizen_
Escape from Zimbabwe to US citizenship
"'Attaining citizenship completes a journey and gives a sense of permanence, a sense of belonging, and a sense of patriotism.', said David Smith."

2010-11-24
_Forbes_
How the CIA perfects its "social networking" monitoring methods

2010-11-24
Mike Schaffner _Forbes_
Sarbanes-Oxley: myths vs. reality

2010-11-24
Harry Oldfield _Discount Vouchers_
England cutting student visas to reduce excessive immigration
"Following David Cameron's pledge to dramatically reduce immigration the number of foreign student visas will be cut to 120K.   Home Secretary, Theresa May, unveiled plans yesterday to limit that number of skilled non-European workers allowed to enter Britain to 21,700.   Staff with transfer jobs under the same employer in England will be excluded.   This allows for a total of between 35K and 40K skilled workers to enter Britain."

2010-11-24
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
TN unemployment rate stayed at 9.4%
"Tennessee's unemployment rate for October was 9.4%, unchanged from September's rate, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported Wednesday.   The U.S. unemployment rate for October was 9.6%, also unchanged from September.   Knox County had the state's lowest major metropolitan rate of 7%, down from 7.1% in September.   Lincoln County registered the state's lowest county unemployment rate at 6.1%, up from the September rate of 6%.   Scott County had the state's highest unemployment rate at 19%, down from 19.8% in the previous month."

2010-11-24
Liz Peek _Fiscal Times_
Unions under fire as pensions and other benefits put strain on budgets

2010-11-24 07:05PST (10:05EST) (15:05GMT)
William L. Watts _MarketWatch_
UMich consumer sentiment index rose from 67.7 in October to 71.6 in November

2010-11-24 07:16PST (10:16EST) (15:16GMT)
Maggie McNeil _MarketWatch_
FHFA house price index down 0.7% in September

2010-11-24 08:09PST (11:09EST) (16:09GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
US durable-goods orders were down 3.3% in October

2010-11-24 08:18PST (11:18EST) (16:18GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
US new-home sales down 81%; prices down 14%

2010-11-24 08:54PST (11:54EST) (16:54GMT)
Ruth Mantell _MarketWatch_
US core inflation continues to climb at 0.9% rate in October
"For September, the year-over-year rate for core personal consumption expenditures, which exclude food and energy, gained 1.2%...   The Commerce Department also reported Wednesday that personal income rose 0.5% in October...   In September, personal income did not change.   Consumers' spending gained 0.4% in October...   For September, spending increased 0.3%.   In September, real disposable income fell 0.2%.   Real disposable income rose 0.3% in October.   The personal consumption expenditure price index rose 0.2% in October, after a gain of 0.1% gain in September.   This inflation gauge is up 1.3% in the past year."

2010-11-24
"Rafe Pilgrim" _Op Ed News_
The REAL America is already lost

2010-11-24
Paige Chapman _Chronicle of Higher Education_
seven graduate students at Stanford U and Finland's Aalto U designed easily dissassemblable, recyclable lap-top

2010-11-24
_NASA_
Seasonal changes in aerosols over India

2010-11-24 (5771 Kislev 17)
Meredith Cohn _Jewish World Review_
Method to erase traumatic memories may be on the horizon
"proteins can be removed from the brain's fear center [amygdala] to erase memories forever...   Paul Root Wolpe, director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University in Atlanta, says permanently erasing memories in humans, if it can be done, wouldn't be a lot different ethically than such behavior modification.   Both are memory manipulation.   But he said erasing memories is fraught with many more potential pit-falls."

2010-11-24 (5771 Kislev 17)
Walter E. Williams _Jewish World Review_
Health Tyrants
 
 

2010-11-25

2010-11-25 01:05PST (04:05EST) (09:05GMT)
Kenric Ward _Sunshine State News_
America's shrinking middle class waits for record corporate profits to trickle down

2010-11-25
Karin Zeitvogel _ABS CBN Filipino Worldwide_/_Agence France-Presse_
In USA's wealthiest county, thousands need charitable assistance
"Around 3% of Loudoun County's 300K residents live in poverty -- less than 22K dollars a year for a family of 4, according to the US Census Bureau. The national poverty rate in the United States is 14.3%, the highest it's been since 1994 [but well within the 12% to 15.5% range that's prevailed since 1960]."

2010-11-25 11:15PST (14:15EST) (19:15GMT)
Nadia van der Hoof _Treasure Coast FL Palm_
Unemployment insurance benefits expire for thousands on Treasure Coast
"Roughly 604K Floridians are on unemployment.   Once the program expires, approximately 100,633 will not receive benefits starting Dec. 4, with 40,800 following each week after that, Cunningham said.   The jobless in Florida could previously collect unemployment for up to 99 weeks with federal unemployment checks kicking in after the state's 26 weeks were exhausted.   Now, the jobless are only guaranteed the state's benefits -- 26 weeks at a maximum of $275 per week...   'We don't want another extension of our unemployment.   We want to work.   We want jobs.   But there's just none out there.' &nbp; She said she's considered going to food banks and other social services agencies for assistance, but the feeling of shame has stopped her."

2010-11-25
Olin Tezcatlipoca _YouTube_
Olin Tezcatlipoca, founder of the Mexcia Movement, spews hate
 
 

2010-11-26

2010-11-26 10:28PST (13:28EST) (18:28GMT)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
U of TN medical center, after violating patients' privacy, failed to delete records

2010-11-26
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Servility vs. Morality

2010-11-26 14:59PST (17:59EST) (22:59GMT)
John Shinal _MarketWatch_
Still a glut of highly skilled tech talent in Sili Valley

2010-11-26
William L. Anderson
Causality and the Irish financial crisis

2010-11-26
Ryan Mauro _Right Side News_
Mexico's War on America's Borders

2010-11-26 (5771 Kislev 19)
Caroline B. Glick _Jewish World Review_
Rocking Obama's world
"Crises are exploding throughout the world.   And the leader of the free world is making things worse.   On the Korean peninsula, North Korea just upended 8 years of State Department obfuscation by showing a team of US nuclear scientists its collection of thousands of state of the art centrifuges installed in their Yongbyon nuclear reactor.   And just to top off the show, as Stephen Bosworth, US President Barack Obama's point man on North Korea was busily arguing that this revelation is not a crisis, the North fired an unprovoked artillery barrage at South Korea, demonstrating that actually, it is a crisis."

2010-11-26

DJIA	11,092.22
S&P 500(SPX)	1,189.40
NASDAQ(COMP)	2534.56
Nikkei	10,040
10-year US T-Bond(UST10Y)	2.87
crude oil(CLF11)	$83.87/barrel
gold(GCZ10)	$1,364.40/ounce
silver(SIZ10)	$26.70/ounce
platinum(PLF11)	$1,643.70/ounce
palladium(PAZ10)	$676.50/ounce
copper(HGZ10)	$0.235/ounce
natgas(NGF11)	$4.41/MBTU
reformulatedgasoline(RBF11)	$2.17/gal
heatingoil	$2.32/gal
soybeans	$12.385/bushel
maize	$5.53/bushel
wheat	$6.485/bushel
dollarindex(DXY)	80.36
yenperdollar(USDYEN)	84.03
dollarspereuro(EURUSD)	1.3241
dollarsperpound(GBPUSD)	1.5599
swissfranksperdollar	1.0030
indianrupeesperdollar	45.84
mexicanpesosperdollar(MXN)	12.4615
MorganStanleyHighTechIndex	638.35

I usually get this info from MarketWatch.
 
 
 

2010-11-27
 
 

2010-11-28

2010-11-28
Ann Blair _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Information Over-Load Forever
"Ecclesiastes 12:12 ('Of making books there is no end', probably from the fourth or third century BC) and Seneca's 'distringit librorum multitudo' ('the abundance of books is distraction', first century CE).   But we also find enthusiasm for accumulation—of papyri at the Library of Alexandria (founded in the early third century BCE) or of the 20K 'facts' that Pliny the Elder accumulated in Historia naturalis (completed in AD 77)...   (160 papyrus rolls bequeathed by Pliny the Elder to his nephew)..."

2010-11-28
Robin Wilson _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Where grads have gone

2010-11-28
Jeffrey R. Young _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Singapore's Newest University Is an Education Lab for Technology: With vital input from MIT & Red China an unorthodox idea takes shape, with implications beyond the city-state's borders
"In their junior and senior years, students will choose one of 4 'pillars': architecture, engineering product development, engineering systems, or information systems...   Government officials would not reveal the venture's exact price tag, but Chong Tow Chong, the provost, says the government is spending at least one billion Singapore dollars -- about $771M -- to build the campus and hire professors from around the world.   Singapore chose MIT to collaborate in the new university after reviewing bids from several major institutions in the United States and Europe.   For MIT, the draw was to upgrade its own curriculum, says Sanjay Emani Sarma, an MIT professor of mechanical engineering who directs its role in the collaboration."
 
 

2010-11-29

2010-11-28 18:51PST (2010-11-28 21:51EST) (2010-11-29 02:51GMT)
Erica Dolson _Cumberland county PA Sentinel_/_Lee_
Historical Society to host holiday events

2010-11-29
Frosty Wooldridge _News with Views_
Many Americans are trying to avoid reality and the necessity for personal responsibility
"Legal immigrant mothers birth 900K new-borns annually within the United States.   Additionally, figures show that an average of 350K to 400K illegal alien un-wed women and pregnant visa over-stayers also land on welfare rolls—paid for by U.S. [tax-victims].   U.S. citizens must pay for assisted housing, medical care, breakfasts and lunches, food stamps, K-12 education and more.   17% of Asians, 29% of whites, 53% of Hispanics and 66% of Native Americans were born to unwed mothers in 2008. (Source: David Salano, KIAH TV Houston, 2010 November 7)...   42M Americans and non-citizens that cannot read, write or perform simple math.   Another 50M American citizens cannot read past the 4th grade level...   As the U.S. economy adds 95K jobs monthly, our Congress adds another 200K immigrants every 30 days."

2010-11-29 00:15PST (03:15EST) (08:15GMT)
Pete Carey _San Jose CA Mercury "News"_
Tiny $25K Triac 3-wheeled electric car with 100 mile range between charges to come off the Salinas, CA line soon
"It's supposed to do 80 on the freeway, but I stayed in town and kept it under 35 mph.   The 100-mile range is due to its light weight and powerful lithium-ion battery, made by Leyden Energy in Fremont.   The 2 companies have California Energy Commission grants totaling $5M to make the batteries and vehicles in California.   Leyden says the battery can operate at up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit without degradation of the cells, eliminating the need for a battery cooling system...   The vehicles are expected to begin rolling off the assembly line at the end of next year at a rate of 2K a year...   has room for the driver and one passenger...   weight 2K pounds."

2010-11-29 06:00PST (09:00EST) (14:00GMT)
Stephanie Weaver _Cumberland county PA Sentinel_/_Lee_
Shippensburg family keeps father's love of restoring and preserving Model Ts alive
"That collection grew to include 3 more Model Ts and a restored 1936 Hahn fire truck...   Jason Arnold received his father's first Model T, a burgundy 1914 model...   In addition to fixing up his Model T collection, Jack Arnold served as a dedicated board member of the Blue and Grey Model T Club of Hagerstown, MD, and a member of The Model T Ford Club of America...   He said his brother was trying to go up a mountain, but the car was fighting gravity and could not make it up the steep slope since the gas tank on a Model T is higher than the carburetor."

2010-11-29 11:42PST (14:42EST) (19:42GMT)
_Knoxville TN News Sentinel_
Johnson City TN company, Heartland Payment Systems, slashing 140 jobs, expanding elsewhere
"Company spokeswoman Leanne Scott Brown said on Monday that Heartland plans to lay off 140 of the 160 workers at the center in phases from 2011 Jan. 5 through 2011 April 15...   Heartland, which is one of the country’s biggest processors of credit and debit card payments, has operated the Johnson City service center since 2008.   The reductions in Johnson City come at a time Heartland Payment Systems, based in Princeton, NJ, is otherwise seeking to grow.   In May, the company announced it would hire more than 1K new salespeople in an effort to penetrate new markets, although Brown said this campaign has been scaled back some since.   The company has a staff of about 3,400 people serving 250K clients nationwide."

2010-11-29
Thomas E. Brewton _View from 1776_
Leftist road-map

2010-11-29 14:36PST (17:36EST) (22:36GMT)
Benjamin Pimentel _MarketWatch_
Seagate negotiations to go private stalled as maker of some of the best disk drives in the world shores up
"Meanwhile, Seagate announced that its board has approved a plan to buy back $2G of the company's outstanding common shares.   Seagate said that for its fiscal second-quarter it expects revenue 'to be at least $2.7G'.   Analysts current expect the company to report sales of $2.73M, according to a consensus survey by FactSet Research."

2010-11-29
Jason B. Jones _Chronicle of Higher Education_
Soliciting test questions from students

2010-11-29
Robert Nolin _FL Sun Sentinel_
FL government sued over sale of drivers' personal private information which it should not have been able to extort in the first place
Miami FL Herald/AP
"The suit claims the state, specifically the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles [a.k.a. the Department of Motorist Extortion and Privacy Violation], improperly [extorted and then] sold personal information gleaned from about 31M driver's license records to Shadowsoft Inc., an Irving, Texas-based Internet marketer.   Shadowsoft then sold the information to other firms that target consumers.   The records sales, which a lawyer in the case said brought in a large yet unspecified amount of money to the state, took place between 2005 through 2009.   Such sales, however, violate [both a state AND] a federal statute banning the disclosure of personal information from driver's licenses, said Howard Bushman, an attorney with the Miami law firm representing the affected drivers.   The information released included addresses, dates of birth and possibly [Socialist Insecurity numbers, SINs], Bushman said."

2010-11-29
William L. Anderson
Inflation Prisoner

2010-11-29 (5771 Kislev 22)
Steven Emerson _Jewish World Review_
Wikileaks Docs Grant Unfiltered Look at Secret Middle East "Peace Efforts"

2010-11-29 (5771 Kislev 22)
Paul Johnson _Jewish World Review_
Wanted: Someone to Trust
 
 

2010-11-30

2010-11-29 21:01PST (2010-11-30 00:01EST) (2010-11-30 05:01GMT)
David Weidner _MarketWatch_
10 questions we should be asking bank executives

2010-11-29 22:00PST (2010-11-30 01:00EST) (2010-11-30 06:00GMT)
Neil Downing _Providence RI Journal_
As some benefits end, unemployed continue searching for work

2010-11-29 22:00PST (2010-11-30 01:00EST) (2010-11-30 06:00GMT)
Edward Achorn _Providence RI Journal_
Failing states have Americans voting with their feet
"It found that states likely to gain U.S. House seats this decade through growing population and congressional reapportionment -- TX, FL, AZ, GA, NV, SC, UT and WA -- have significantly lower taxes, less government spending and greater employment freedom than those losing power at the federal level.   The biggest losers are expected to be NY and OH (shedding 2 seats each) and MA, IL, IA, LA, MI, MO, NJ and PA.   (RI, though on a downward slope, seems poised to hang onto its 2 seats for another decade.)   States that lose congressional seats also lose clout in presidential elections...   The per-capita state and local tax burden in the gainers is $3,519, compared with $4,534 in the losers.   Per-capita government spending in the gainers is $4,008, compared with $5,117 in the losers."

2010-11-29 22:00PST (2010-11-30 01:00EST) (2010-11-30 06:00GMT)
Paul Edward Parker _Providence RI Journal_
RI house sales plummet, prices rise

2010-11-30 06:19PST (09:16EST) (14:16GMT)
Randall Higgins _Knoxville TN News Sentinel_/_Scripps_
Bradley county commissioner wants TVA to rethink $3M raise for CEO
Chattanooga TN Times Free Press
"Now is not the time for the Tennessee Valley Authority's chief to receive a raise that triples his annual salary to more than $3M, according to a Bradley County commissioner.   TVA Chief Executive Officer Tom Kilgore was paid $3.6M for the federal fiscal year ending in September...   In the Cleveland Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Bradley and Polk counties, the October jobless rates were 8.8% for Cleveland, 8.5% for Bradley County and 11% for Polk County, according to the state."

2010-11-30 08:28PST (11:28EST) (16:28GMT)
Karen Lee Ziner _Providence RI Journal_
ACLU whines that RI police don't make enough concessions to those, including illegal aliens, who don't understand English
"Governor Carcieri's executive order on illegal immigration directed state police to pursue 287(g).   Governor-elect Lincoln D. Chafee has said he intends to revoke the order.   State police legal counsel Lisa S. Holley questioned the timing of the complaint, a year after the department responded to the records request, and called it 'an affront' to the department, which 'has prided itself on community outreach, building bridges in the community and gauging minority populations'...   Brown said the timing was coincidental, and that the complaint stemmed directly from concerns over 287(g).   'Given the state police interest in, and enthusiasm for participating in the 287(g) program, in light [of their] interest of expanding their role in having contact with people with limited English proficiency, we thought it was worth examining how well they were complying with federal requirements dealing with services to [limited-English-speaking] individuals.'...   some troopers are bilingual, 'and [there are] translation services at the touch of a phone'."

2010-11-30 08:28PST (11:28EST) (16:28GMT)
Katherine Gregg _Providence RI Journal_
RI state employees to get 3% raises in January and another 3% in June

2010-11-30
Andrew Cline _American Spectator_
Pay Freeze? Oh, please
"No one's pay will even be cut.   It simply won't rise for two years.   And the people whose pay is being frozen have, on average, seen substantially larger pay increases than their private-sector counterparts in recent years.   USA Today reported last year that in the first 18 months of the recession, federal employee pay rose 6.6%, while private-sector pay rose 3.9%.   More recently, this month USA Today reported that the number of federal workers who earn at least $150K a year has doubled since President Obama took office...   At $5G, Obama's proposed pay freeze is a grain of sand in the ocean that is the $1.3T federal deficit."

2010-11-30
W. James Antle iii _American Spectator_
NIGHTMAREs are made of this

2010-11-30 (5771 Kislev 23)
Joshua Mitnick _Jewish World Review_
Israel greets WikiLeaks cables as vindication of its Iran policy

2010-11-30 (5771 Kislev 23)
Thomas Sowell _Jewish World Review_
Can Republicans talk? part1
"The biggest battle in the lame duck session of Congress may well be over whether or not to extend the Bush administration's tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire in January.   The fact that this decision has been left until late in the eleventh hour, even though the expiration date has been known for years, tells us a lot about the utter irresponsibility of Congress.   Neither businesses nor individuals nor the Internal Revenue Service will know what to do until this issue is resolved.   In a stalled economy, we do not need this prolonged uncertainty that can paralyze both consumer spending and investment spending.   Republicans want the current tax rates to continue and Democrats want only the current tax rates for people earning less than 'the rich' -- variously defined -- to continue, with everyone making more than some specified income to have their tax rates rise next year.   What makes predicting the outcome of this battle very iffy is that Republicans won a big majority in the House of Representatives in the recent election, but the tax cuts are scheduled to expire before the new members of Congress are sworn in -- and the Democrats have a big majority in both Houses of Congress in the lame duck session, where this issue will be decided...   Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can afford to have all the tax rates go up in January because they couldn't get together and pass a bill to prevent that from happening.   But the nature of that bill matters, not just for politicians but -- far more important -- for the economy."
 
 

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