18101
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18102
Politics & Religion / Re: The Fed, Monetary Policy, Inflation, US Dollar & other currencies, & Gold/Silver
« on: October 23, 2011, 07:19:56 PM »
I think the heart of the matter is the massive debt at the federal, state and local levels. As pointed out in the Steyn piece Doug posted earlier, we are the brokest nation in human history and I think we are past the tipping point where we can avoid default. We can try to string this out a bit longer, but we will see this house of financial cards come crashing down, sooner rather than later.
Everything else is just attempts at Feng Shui-ing the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Everything else is just attempts at Feng Shui-ing the deck chairs on the Titanic.
18103
Politics & Religion / Is Hyperinflation coming to America?
« on: October 23, 2011, 03:43:32 PM »
18104
Politics & Religion / Re: 2012 Presidential
« on: October 23, 2011, 10:56:28 AM »
Isn't there a software upgrade available for the Romney-bot?
18105
Politics & Religion / Re: What now?
« on: October 23, 2011, 10:03:17 AM »Oh, I'm sure it'll turn out to be another "Arab Spring" where everything is rainbows and unicorns. AQ won't have another base of operations and a stockpile of MANPADs or anything....
BENGHAZI, Libya (AP) — Libya's transitional leader says Islamic Sharia law will be the "basic source" of all law.
18106
Politics & Religion / Wall Street Did It?
« on: October 23, 2011, 06:42:11 AM »
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/588856/201110201854/Wall-Street-Did-It-.htm
http://www.investors.com/image/ISSloan_111021_345.png.cms
Wall Street Did It?
Posted 10/20/2011 06:54 PM ET
View Enlarged Image
Meltdown: If Republicans are to take back the White House and Senate, they need to do a better job tying Democrats and Washington to the subprime crisis. It's not hard, yet even their front-runner struggles to make the case.
On Wednesday night, CNN host Piers Morgan guilted Cain into allowing that banks were, as Morgan put it, "effectively preying on the most vulnerable elements of American society," and that Wall Street deserves at least partial blame for the crisis and should be held to account. "I wouldn't defend the banks," Cain said, "because I happen to think that the banks are part of the problem. Wall Street is."
Cain belatedly also faulted Fannie and Freddie, and the Democrats in Washington who protected them. Piers then pressed him to come up with a pie chart alloting blame — Washington vs. Wall Street—and Cain assigned neither a majority responsibility for the mess.
But based on the number of toxic loans in the system in 2008, the government was responsible for not just a simple majority, but more than two-thirds. It's quantifiable — 71% to be exact (see chart). And the remaining 29% of private-label junk was mostly attributable to Countrywide Financial, which was under the heel of HUD and its "fair-lending" edicts.
To be fair, the blame-Wall Street narrative has cemented in the public consciousness, and is hard to crack. That's because in the wake of the crisis, the Obama White House and Pelosi-Reid Congress engineered a cover-up of Washington's role in the mess through the Democrat-led Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The national media now defer to it as the final authority on what caused the crisis and ensuing recession.
"The FCIC's report put the majority of the blame squarely where it belonged: on the shoulders of the Wall Street executives," Bloomberg News opined.
While not blameless, Wall Street is an easy scapegoat. And investment houses that made billions slicing and dicing mortgages into CDOs, derivatives, credit default swaps and other exotic paper are easy to demonize. But the problem wasn't these financial instruments. Or even the obscene profits they generated. Mortgage-backed securities were nothing new, and we've always had speculation in the market.
The problem was the underlying assets: low-quality mortgages. We've never had so many junk home-loans poisoning the financial well before. And who poisoned the well? Washington and its affordable-housing policies.
It was Washington that declared prudent home-lending standards racist and gutted traditional underwriting rules in the name of diversity. It was government that created the risk on Main Street. Yes, Wall Street spread it, with the help of Treasury-backed Fannie and Freddie. But who's at greater fault for harming the village — the person who poisons the well or the one who distributes the water?
http://www.investors.com/image/ISSloan_111021_345.png.cms
Wall Street Did It?
Posted 10/20/2011 06:54 PM ET
View Enlarged Image
Meltdown: If Republicans are to take back the White House and Senate, they need to do a better job tying Democrats and Washington to the subprime crisis. It's not hard, yet even their front-runner struggles to make the case.
On Wednesday night, CNN host Piers Morgan guilted Cain into allowing that banks were, as Morgan put it, "effectively preying on the most vulnerable elements of American society," and that Wall Street deserves at least partial blame for the crisis and should be held to account. "I wouldn't defend the banks," Cain said, "because I happen to think that the banks are part of the problem. Wall Street is."
Cain belatedly also faulted Fannie and Freddie, and the Democrats in Washington who protected them. Piers then pressed him to come up with a pie chart alloting blame — Washington vs. Wall Street—and Cain assigned neither a majority responsibility for the mess.
But based on the number of toxic loans in the system in 2008, the government was responsible for not just a simple majority, but more than two-thirds. It's quantifiable — 71% to be exact (see chart). And the remaining 29% of private-label junk was mostly attributable to Countrywide Financial, which was under the heel of HUD and its "fair-lending" edicts.
To be fair, the blame-Wall Street narrative has cemented in the public consciousness, and is hard to crack. That's because in the wake of the crisis, the Obama White House and Pelosi-Reid Congress engineered a cover-up of Washington's role in the mess through the Democrat-led Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. The national media now defer to it as the final authority on what caused the crisis and ensuing recession.
"The FCIC's report put the majority of the blame squarely where it belonged: on the shoulders of the Wall Street executives," Bloomberg News opined.
While not blameless, Wall Street is an easy scapegoat. And investment houses that made billions slicing and dicing mortgages into CDOs, derivatives, credit default swaps and other exotic paper are easy to demonize. But the problem wasn't these financial instruments. Or even the obscene profits they generated. Mortgage-backed securities were nothing new, and we've always had speculation in the market.
The problem was the underlying assets: low-quality mortgages. We've never had so many junk home-loans poisoning the financial well before. And who poisoned the well? Washington and its affordable-housing policies.
It was Washington that declared prudent home-lending standards racist and gutted traditional underwriting rules in the name of diversity. It was government that created the risk on Main Street. Yes, Wall Street spread it, with the help of Treasury-backed Fannie and Freddie. But who's at greater fault for harming the village — the person who poisons the well or the one who distributes the water?
18107
Politics & Religion / What cost more?
« on: October 22, 2011, 09:49:04 PM »
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/10/flashback-obamas-failed-stimulus-cost-more-than-9-year-iraq-war/
As the War in Iraq winds down remember…
The entire cost of the Iraq War was less than Barack Obama’s failed stimulus bill.
Nice work, champ!
FOX News reported:
As President Obama prepares to tie a bow on U.S. combat operations in Iraq, Congressional Budget Office numbers show that the total cost of the eight-year war was less than the stimulus bill passed by the Democratic-led Congress in 2009.
According to CBO numbers in its Budget and Economic Outlook published this month, the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom was $709 billion for military and related activities, including training of Iraqi forces and diplomatic operations.
The projected cost of the stimulus, which passed in February 2009, and is expected to have a shelf life of two years, was $862 billion.
The U.S. deficit for fiscal year 2010 is expected to be $1.3 trillion, according to CBO. That compares to a 2007 deficit of $160.7 billion and a 2008 deficit of $458.6 billion, according to data provided by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
18109
Politics & Religion / This is what marxism looks like
« on: October 21, 2011, 04:26:30 PM »
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2011/October/Witness-to-Evil-Mothers-Kill-Children-to-Survive/
Inside N. Korea’s Prisons: Moms Kill Children to Survive
By George Thomas
CBN News Sr. Reporter
Friday, October 21, 2011
SEOUL- South Korea -- Meet a woman who has witnessed unspeakable evil and lived to tell about it.
For 28 years, Kim Hye Sook languished as a prisoner inside North Korea's oldest concentration camp. She saw daily executions, mass starvation, and mothers killing their children to survive.
Kim granted CBN News the first American television news interview. We must warn you that the images and content of this report are not suitable for children.
Languishing in Prison
Kim is perhaps the longest serving prisoner ever to escape from North Korea.
"I went to the prison camp when I was only 13 years old and I got out when I was 41," she said.
The year was 1975. One morning North Korean government agents burst into her home and dragged away all the members of her family.
"My entire family went to prison," she recalled. "Some were taken to the mountains; others were put in different labor camps all because of my grandfather's one mistake: he escaped to South Korea during the Korean War."
Re-Education Center No. 18
Kim and some of her family were sent to Re-Education Center No. 18, also known as "Bukchang."
"I lost seven members of my family, including my grandmother, mother, brother, and my husband," Kim said.
Today she wears dark glasses to conceal her identity.
"I wear these glasses because I have family in the camp," she said. "Two of my sisters and brother are still in there."
Bukchang holds some 50,000 prisoners. It's one of six political prison camps operated by the North Korean government.
Human rights groups estimate some 200,000 North Koreans are languishing behind the walls of these secret internment camps.
"I attended indoctrination classes in the morning," Kims said. "In the afternoon the children were sent to push trolleys in the coal mines, often without any safety gear."
Treated Like Slaves
Kim said she was forced to work 16 to 18 hour work days with no rest.
"People were dying in the mines. There were numerous mine collapses, so many injuries, people who lost their legs, many who were buried alive," she recalled. "It was horrible."
"I was treated like a slave and worse. I hardly slept. It was inhuman," she said. "But I never complained. I just followed all the rules. I had to find a way to survive."
Prisoners didn't have enough food to eat. Kim said a family of seven was usually given just 10 pounds of corn a month.
Widespread Famine
"1996 was horrible. That year many people died of starvation. There was nothing to eat. There was no grass, no plants were growing," Kim said.
"You looked around and there were bodies littered throughout the camp," she said. "At first I was shocked but then you become numb to it all."
CBN News asked Kim if there were days when she felt that perhaps it was not worth living. Perhaps she thought of killing herself.
"Yes, I thought of committing suicide hundreds of thousands of times in those 28 years," she admitted. "But the way the camp is set up there is always someone watching you."
"Each prisoner is assigned to watch four or five other prisoners," she said. "So if anything happens, the other prisoners would alert the guards because they didn't want to get into trouble themselves."
Public Executions
Kim told CBN News that she witnessed countless public executions.
"Often these prisoners were killed over petty things like stealing food," she explained.
"The guards would always gather other prisoners to watch the execution. It was a form of intimidation," she said. "The command was then given to fire at the prisoners."
Perhaps most chilling is Kim's account of fellow prisoners killing their own children to stave off hunger.
Mothers Killing Children
"One time a mother put her 9-year-old daughter in this big cast iron pot and boiled her," she said. "She was a too big for the pot so the mother had to chop her legs and head to fit the body in the pot."
"On another occasion, a lady killed her 16-year-old son, chopped him into pieces and took him to a butcher shop to get some corn in exchange," she said.
Kim said talking about these gruesome details isn't easy.
"It is hard to talk about but I want the world to see these images and to hear my testimony," she said.
Retold in Tears
She escaped from Bukchang in 2003. The details of which are being kept confidential for security reasons. Now she lives in South Korea.
This summer Kim released her memoir called, A Concentration Camp Retold in Tears. It includes images seen in this story that she drew from memory of the horrors witnessed.
"I'm thankful to be alive but I can't get over the fact that I've lost half my life," she said.
Tear Down These Walls
In September, Kim flew to Washington, D.C., to testify before a United States congressional panel about the beatings, starvation, and brutal executions that she witnessed in Bukchang camp.
"My message to the world is that we have to shut down these labor camps and set the prisoners free," Kim testified.
"Every day people are dying. Every day people are killing each other," she said. "I am living proof that there are no human rights in North Korea."
Inside N. Korea’s Prisons: Moms Kill Children to Survive
By George Thomas
CBN News Sr. Reporter
Friday, October 21, 2011
SEOUL- South Korea -- Meet a woman who has witnessed unspeakable evil and lived to tell about it.
For 28 years, Kim Hye Sook languished as a prisoner inside North Korea's oldest concentration camp. She saw daily executions, mass starvation, and mothers killing their children to survive.
Kim granted CBN News the first American television news interview. We must warn you that the images and content of this report are not suitable for children.
Languishing in Prison
Kim is perhaps the longest serving prisoner ever to escape from North Korea.
"I went to the prison camp when I was only 13 years old and I got out when I was 41," she said.
The year was 1975. One morning North Korean government agents burst into her home and dragged away all the members of her family.
"My entire family went to prison," she recalled. "Some were taken to the mountains; others were put in different labor camps all because of my grandfather's one mistake: he escaped to South Korea during the Korean War."
Re-Education Center No. 18
Kim and some of her family were sent to Re-Education Center No. 18, also known as "Bukchang."
"I lost seven members of my family, including my grandmother, mother, brother, and my husband," Kim said.
Today she wears dark glasses to conceal her identity.
"I wear these glasses because I have family in the camp," she said. "Two of my sisters and brother are still in there."
Bukchang holds some 50,000 prisoners. It's one of six political prison camps operated by the North Korean government.
Human rights groups estimate some 200,000 North Koreans are languishing behind the walls of these secret internment camps.
"I attended indoctrination classes in the morning," Kims said. "In the afternoon the children were sent to push trolleys in the coal mines, often without any safety gear."
Treated Like Slaves
Kim said she was forced to work 16 to 18 hour work days with no rest.
"People were dying in the mines. There were numerous mine collapses, so many injuries, people who lost their legs, many who were buried alive," she recalled. "It was horrible."
"I was treated like a slave and worse. I hardly slept. It was inhuman," she said. "But I never complained. I just followed all the rules. I had to find a way to survive."
Prisoners didn't have enough food to eat. Kim said a family of seven was usually given just 10 pounds of corn a month.
Widespread Famine
"1996 was horrible. That year many people died of starvation. There was nothing to eat. There was no grass, no plants were growing," Kim said.
"You looked around and there were bodies littered throughout the camp," she said. "At first I was shocked but then you become numb to it all."
CBN News asked Kim if there were days when she felt that perhaps it was not worth living. Perhaps she thought of killing herself.
"Yes, I thought of committing suicide hundreds of thousands of times in those 28 years," she admitted. "But the way the camp is set up there is always someone watching you."
"Each prisoner is assigned to watch four or five other prisoners," she said. "So if anything happens, the other prisoners would alert the guards because they didn't want to get into trouble themselves."
Public Executions
Kim told CBN News that she witnessed countless public executions.
"Often these prisoners were killed over petty things like stealing food," she explained.
"The guards would always gather other prisoners to watch the execution. It was a form of intimidation," she said. "The command was then given to fire at the prisoners."
Perhaps most chilling is Kim's account of fellow prisoners killing their own children to stave off hunger.
Mothers Killing Children
"One time a mother put her 9-year-old daughter in this big cast iron pot and boiled her," she said. "She was a too big for the pot so the mother had to chop her legs and head to fit the body in the pot."
"On another occasion, a lady killed her 16-year-old son, chopped him into pieces and took him to a butcher shop to get some corn in exchange," she said.
Kim said talking about these gruesome details isn't easy.
"It is hard to talk about but I want the world to see these images and to hear my testimony," she said.
Retold in Tears
She escaped from Bukchang in 2003. The details of which are being kept confidential for security reasons. Now she lives in South Korea.
This summer Kim released her memoir called, A Concentration Camp Retold in Tears. It includes images seen in this story that she drew from memory of the horrors witnessed.
"I'm thankful to be alive but I can't get over the fact that I've lost half my life," she said.
Tear Down These Walls
In September, Kim flew to Washington, D.C., to testify before a United States congressional panel about the beatings, starvation, and brutal executions that she witnessed in Bukchang camp.
"My message to the world is that we have to shut down these labor camps and set the prisoners free," Kim testified.
"Every day people are dying. Every day people are killing each other," she said. "I am living proof that there are no human rights in North Korea."
18110
Politics & Religion / Was rape a problem at the TEA parties?
« on: October 21, 2011, 02:57:28 PM »
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/10/20/occupy-baltimore-to-sex-assault-victims-we-dont-encourage-the-involvement-of-police-in-our-communities/
Occupy Baltimore to sex assault victims: We support you in reporting the abuse, but we don’t encourage the involvement of police in our community
posted at 9:33 pm on October 20, 2011 by Allahpundit
Via JWF, who makes the obligatory Joe Biden shout-out so that I don’t have to. The news here isn’t really that they’d rather have a “Security Committee” deal with alleged rapists than the local P.D. The whole point of starting a utopian commune is that it’s as insular as possible.
No, the news here is that there’s apparently enough of a problem that they felt obliged to publish a pamphlet dealing with the subject at all. I confess, I haven’t been to any tea-party rallies so you’ll have to tell me: Are there a lot of “here’s what to do if you’re raped today” fliers circulating at those too?
Efforts by the Occupy Baltimore protest group to evolve into a self-contained, self-governing community have erupted into controversy with the distribution of a pamphlet that victim advocates and health workers fear discourages victims of sexual assaults from contacting police.
The pamphlet says that members of the protest group who believe they are victims or who suspect sexual abuse “are encouraged to immediately report the incident to the Security Committee,” which will investigate and “supply the abuser with counseling resources.”
The directive also says, in part, “Though we do not encourage the involvement of the police in our community, the survivor has every right, and the support of Occupy Baltimore, to report the abuse to the appropriate authorities.”…
Lewis said there have been no reports of sexual assaults or rapes at the Baltimore protest site. But she said that members of the “security committee” have mediated several disputes involving allegations of sexual harassment.
That’s what Biden wants that new jobs-bill funding for, if I’m not mistaken — “mediating” between sex-crimes victims and their alleged attackers.
Now that you’re done here, go back over to JWF’s site and read about the residents near Zuccotti Park who have about had it with the heroes of the revolution literally crapping on their doorsteps. One of the challenges of blogging the “Occupy” movement is that there’s so much funny/creepy video being churned out every day — see, for example, Charles Cooke’s new stuff or a half dozen examples at Breitbart TV — that it’s hard to decide on just one to post for our readers. The following, though, from the MRC seems pretty well in line with the theme of this post, so let’s go with that. Ace is giving it “up twinkles” so it must be good.
Occupy Baltimore to sex assault victims: We support you in reporting the abuse, but we don’t encourage the involvement of police in our community
posted at 9:33 pm on October 20, 2011 by Allahpundit
Via JWF, who makes the obligatory Joe Biden shout-out so that I don’t have to. The news here isn’t really that they’d rather have a “Security Committee” deal with alleged rapists than the local P.D. The whole point of starting a utopian commune is that it’s as insular as possible.
No, the news here is that there’s apparently enough of a problem that they felt obliged to publish a pamphlet dealing with the subject at all. I confess, I haven’t been to any tea-party rallies so you’ll have to tell me: Are there a lot of “here’s what to do if you’re raped today” fliers circulating at those too?
Efforts by the Occupy Baltimore protest group to evolve into a self-contained, self-governing community have erupted into controversy with the distribution of a pamphlet that victim advocates and health workers fear discourages victims of sexual assaults from contacting police.
The pamphlet says that members of the protest group who believe they are victims or who suspect sexual abuse “are encouraged to immediately report the incident to the Security Committee,” which will investigate and “supply the abuser with counseling resources.”
The directive also says, in part, “Though we do not encourage the involvement of the police in our community, the survivor has every right, and the support of Occupy Baltimore, to report the abuse to the appropriate authorities.”…
Lewis said there have been no reports of sexual assaults or rapes at the Baltimore protest site. But she said that members of the “security committee” have mediated several disputes involving allegations of sexual harassment.
That’s what Biden wants that new jobs-bill funding for, if I’m not mistaken — “mediating” between sex-crimes victims and their alleged attackers.
Now that you’re done here, go back over to JWF’s site and read about the residents near Zuccotti Park who have about had it with the heroes of the revolution literally crapping on their doorsteps. One of the challenges of blogging the “Occupy” movement is that there’s so much funny/creepy video being churned out every day — see, for example, Charles Cooke’s new stuff or a half dozen examples at Breitbart TV — that it’s hard to decide on just one to post for our readers. The following, though, from the MRC seems pretty well in line with the theme of this post, so let’s go with that. Ace is giving it “up twinkles” so it must be good.
18111
Politics & Religion / Steve Wynn on Obama
« on: October 21, 2011, 02:19:03 PM »
Wynn’s comments, transcribed from the audio presentation, come after the casino executive, who has donated heavily to Democrat campaigns, called the Obama administration on a prior earnings conference call “the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime.” He added at that time: “I'm telling you that the business community in this country is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he's gone, everybody's going to be sitting on their thumbs."
Question: How do you see the landscape politically now? Is there any reason for optimism given the current slate of candidates to give you hope for the regulatory environment improving for your business?
Wynn: "We had a debate here last night and we had a focus group, that actually took place in the Tryst last night ... It's very interesting about the folks who are occupying Wall Street. That group is quite diverse. There are people in there that think the government should give them more just because they are alive. There are people there who are opposing government spending. There are people there that are opposing bailouts. That group is not homogeneous by any means.
"What you do have on Wall Street is a reflection, a real reflection in my opinion, of the anxiety, the insecurity and the fear that is endemic in the United States of America about the way government has gotten into the business of managing its life and the ability of the government to manage the economy intelligently by increasing the emphasis in government spending rationally ... to the point that we want ... everybody's financial security.
"I am watching my employees' standard of living drop because of deficits. I think that the American public is beginning to make a connection between deficits and their own loss of living standard...
"The net result of all of this is frustration, anxiety and anger. You're seeing that on Occupy Wall Street. You can see it taken to the next level in Greece, where people are trying to break in to a Parliament primarily controlled by the unions and the very kind of government that the people who are trying to break down the census elected. There comes a moment when the population realizes that it has to stop, and sometimes it takes a form of tax the rich people, which is a reflection more of the lack of understanding of how the economy works.
"Rich people are now being defined by the administration as people who make $1 million. Well, most of the businesses in America, other than giant corporations, are paying taxes under Chapter S partnerships or individual proprietorships. So somebody shows that they've made $3 million or $2 million this year and they paid personal taxes on that money. They subtract the cost of living and then what's left after, and that does not show that probably 25% or 30% of their profits are tied up in accounts receivable or inventory, stuff that they can't spend or get their hands on, but to support their business and their employment. And then they take whatever is left, these so-called millionaires, and they open up another shop or another office. And that, that is the only known engine of growth in the United States of America.
"And we have an administration that is fanning the fires that this is somehow undeserved, profligate millionaires, and it is worse than hypocrisy. It is totally dishonest. It represents young people who don't know the difference, simple misunderstanding and the lack of understanding of how the economy works or what's going on in America, but if it's politician that does it or union leader, then it represents something much more pernicious. It represents a deliberate misleading of the public. And I think that Americans are waking up to this.
"And it's taking the form of anger and dissatisfaction with the government. And I think that's probably just right because until there is a change, until this all stops, it's only going to get worse. No matter what anybody says in some fancy speech, even if it's a President, it is going to get worse. People say we're angry at the government for not compromising on both sides. Well, we don't really have a situation that lends itself to what reasonable people would call compromise. We've got a situation that requires a change.
"That is to say one side is right here and the other side is wrong. You cannot sustain these deficits. You cannot undercut the people that form the jobs and create the employment in this country. I'll give you an example of Las Vegas in my own industry. Across the street from me is an empty piece of property that's 34 acres. It's owned by two Israelis that are friends of mine that bought it at a very high price and are sort of in a difficult position now.
"They even owe money against that property. They have come to me on a monthly basis to say, go ahead, Steve, you take it, build something, connect it to Wynn and Encore ... We are willing to take a very long-term approach, and we'll turn the property over to you even if we have to pay off the loan. Well, that's a very attractive offer, especially since they're willing to pay us for management, design and supervision, as well as inviting us to invest.
"But I have to tell both of these men who were friends of mine, look, I can't give you a reasonable projection of what this return on investment will be even if we spend $2 billion and create 10,000 direct jobs and another 30,000 indirect jobs for a total of 40,000 jobs. That's how many jobs I could create if I broke ground on the Frontier property in the next 6 months or a year. And we would know how to do that.
"But I can't tell the men who are willing to sacrifice any short-term benefit in exchange for a long-term opportunity because I cannot predict what healthcare costs are going to be, what regulatory load they're going to heap on us, what new taxes or other burdens this insatiable governmental appetite for money from the citizens will take us to. Now that is simply a statement of fact. It isn't a partisan political pitch.
"It's simply a statement of fact from a businessman who has supported probably more Democrats than Republicans. But I say right now that the Democratic agenda of spend and bribe the public has bankrupt this country, and until it stops, the citizens of this country are in for more hard times. And fancy speeches aren't going to change that, only a fundamental realization that citizens are going to have to take real sophisticated responsibility for how we allocate the resources of this country."
Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/10/20/steve-wynn-unbound/
Question: How do you see the landscape politically now? Is there any reason for optimism given the current slate of candidates to give you hope for the regulatory environment improving for your business?
Wynn: "We had a debate here last night and we had a focus group, that actually took place in the Tryst last night ... It's very interesting about the folks who are occupying Wall Street. That group is quite diverse. There are people in there that think the government should give them more just because they are alive. There are people there who are opposing government spending. There are people there that are opposing bailouts. That group is not homogeneous by any means.
"What you do have on Wall Street is a reflection, a real reflection in my opinion, of the anxiety, the insecurity and the fear that is endemic in the United States of America about the way government has gotten into the business of managing its life and the ability of the government to manage the economy intelligently by increasing the emphasis in government spending rationally ... to the point that we want ... everybody's financial security.
"I am watching my employees' standard of living drop because of deficits. I think that the American public is beginning to make a connection between deficits and their own loss of living standard...
"The net result of all of this is frustration, anxiety and anger. You're seeing that on Occupy Wall Street. You can see it taken to the next level in Greece, where people are trying to break in to a Parliament primarily controlled by the unions and the very kind of government that the people who are trying to break down the census elected. There comes a moment when the population realizes that it has to stop, and sometimes it takes a form of tax the rich people, which is a reflection more of the lack of understanding of how the economy works.
"Rich people are now being defined by the administration as people who make $1 million. Well, most of the businesses in America, other than giant corporations, are paying taxes under Chapter S partnerships or individual proprietorships. So somebody shows that they've made $3 million or $2 million this year and they paid personal taxes on that money. They subtract the cost of living and then what's left after, and that does not show that probably 25% or 30% of their profits are tied up in accounts receivable or inventory, stuff that they can't spend or get their hands on, but to support their business and their employment. And then they take whatever is left, these so-called millionaires, and they open up another shop or another office. And that, that is the only known engine of growth in the United States of America.
"And we have an administration that is fanning the fires that this is somehow undeserved, profligate millionaires, and it is worse than hypocrisy. It is totally dishonest. It represents young people who don't know the difference, simple misunderstanding and the lack of understanding of how the economy works or what's going on in America, but if it's politician that does it or union leader, then it represents something much more pernicious. It represents a deliberate misleading of the public. And I think that Americans are waking up to this.
"And it's taking the form of anger and dissatisfaction with the government. And I think that's probably just right because until there is a change, until this all stops, it's only going to get worse. No matter what anybody says in some fancy speech, even if it's a President, it is going to get worse. People say we're angry at the government for not compromising on both sides. Well, we don't really have a situation that lends itself to what reasonable people would call compromise. We've got a situation that requires a change.
"That is to say one side is right here and the other side is wrong. You cannot sustain these deficits. You cannot undercut the people that form the jobs and create the employment in this country. I'll give you an example of Las Vegas in my own industry. Across the street from me is an empty piece of property that's 34 acres. It's owned by two Israelis that are friends of mine that bought it at a very high price and are sort of in a difficult position now.
"They even owe money against that property. They have come to me on a monthly basis to say, go ahead, Steve, you take it, build something, connect it to Wynn and Encore ... We are willing to take a very long-term approach, and we'll turn the property over to you even if we have to pay off the loan. Well, that's a very attractive offer, especially since they're willing to pay us for management, design and supervision, as well as inviting us to invest.
"But I have to tell both of these men who were friends of mine, look, I can't give you a reasonable projection of what this return on investment will be even if we spend $2 billion and create 10,000 direct jobs and another 30,000 indirect jobs for a total of 40,000 jobs. That's how many jobs I could create if I broke ground on the Frontier property in the next 6 months or a year. And we would know how to do that.
"But I can't tell the men who are willing to sacrifice any short-term benefit in exchange for a long-term opportunity because I cannot predict what healthcare costs are going to be, what regulatory load they're going to heap on us, what new taxes or other burdens this insatiable governmental appetite for money from the citizens will take us to. Now that is simply a statement of fact. It isn't a partisan political pitch.
"It's simply a statement of fact from a businessman who has supported probably more Democrats than Republicans. But I say right now that the Democratic agenda of spend and bribe the public has bankrupt this country, and until it stops, the citizens of this country are in for more hard times. And fancy speeches aren't going to change that, only a fundamental realization that citizens are going to have to take real sophisticated responsibility for how we allocate the resources of this country."
Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/10/20/steve-wynn-unbound/
18112
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Re: The First Amendment & Free Speech
« on: October 21, 2011, 09:37:59 AM »Pretty much. You'll never entirely purge corruption from power, but you can work to supress it and mitigate the potential harm. Like why are we funding fcking car companies? I missed that part in the constitution.
I think what you are saying is that we can't stop bribery of government people so the best option is just limit their function overall?
18113
Politics & Religion / Re: Oy fg vey; Baraq finances car factory in Finland
« on: October 21, 2011, 09:35:06 AM »
http://www.fantasticalandrewfox.com/2011/10/19/fisker-karma-solyndra-on-wheels/
Fisker Karma: Solyndra on Wheels?
Fisker Karma: can you say, "crony capitalism?"
Our tax dollars at work… a half-billion dollar loan (actually $529 million) from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a hybrid toy for the wealthy and/or celebri-licious (like Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the first customers) that, in real world driving, won’t get much better mileage than your average crossover utility vehicle. Not only that, but the cars are manufactured in Finland — that’s right, Finland – and shipped here for sale, where their purchasers will then receive a $7,500 tax credit for buying one (the “cheap” base model starts at $96,895, with the full-zoot Eco Chic model going for a bargain $108,900).
I generally try to keep this blog pretty much clear of politics. But I’ll make an exception for this. Staring out the windows of my lunch room this afternoon, I saw something intriguing enough to get me to scarf down my lunch and get myself out into a gray, drizzly afternoon to check it out. Across the street from my building, a very large automotive transport truck with a fully enclosed trailer unloaded four cars of a type I had never seen before. They looked somewhat like big, four-door Chevy Corvettes, with voluptuous curves leading to a sleek rear end. People on the sidewalk next to the cars crowded around them and took photos with their camera phones.
I headed downstairs to see what the heck the cars were. I thought they might be one of the new four-door luxury electric models from either Tesla or Fisker, which I’d read about but hadn’t yet seen pictures of. What threw me, though, was spotting a round gas tank door on the rear driver’s side flank, plus dual exhausts. Not electric, I thought. By the time I got downstairs and across the street, the cars had been moved a block away, to the front of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, a luxury hotel in Southwest Washington, DC. I spotted the driver of the auto transport rig and asked him what he’d been hauling. He said four of the brand-new Fisker Karma performance hybrid sedans. Oh, gas-electric hybrids, I thought; that explains the gas tank and the exhausts. He said he’d had the devil of a time getting into this corner of Southwest Washington. Most of the city’s highways had been off-limits to his giant truck, and then he had found several local streets blocked by Occupy DC protests taking place at MacPherson Square, our local version of Occupy Wall Street. He said this was Fisker’s big roll-out. The head of the company, Mr. Fisker himself, was present at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to do a press conference.
I walked over to the front of the hotel to get a look at the cars. Pretty damned nice, I’ll certainly admit, with a sleek roof lined with solar panels that, according to the company’s claims, give up to five additional miles per week of all-electric driving. While I was standing there admiring the four identical silver cars’ lines, a cabby exited his ratty old Crown Victoria and wandered over next to me, a look of rapt admiration on his face. “Nice, but it’s not for the likes of you and me,” I said. He nodded a little sadly, circled the cars, then returned to his cab.
I recalled reading that the Federal government had become a major financial partner in Fisker Automotive. That would explain the official rollout taking place in Washington. When I got back to my computer, I looked up the specifics. We the taxpayers are on the hook for more than half a billion dollars, about the same amount that got loaned to Solyndra, another “green manufacturer,” before they went bankrupt. At least Solyndra was manufacturing their products in this country, providing American manufacturing jobs (if short-lived jobs), and making a product that average Americans could conceivably afford. Fisker is manufacturing these gorgeous Leonardo DiCaprio toys in Finland. And the kicker, for those of you who would still claim that the risk of half a billion tax dollars is justified by environmental gains… contrary to the company’s initial hype, the Karma will only run for thirty-two miles on its electric motors before its turbocharged gasoline engine needs to kick in (as opposed to the initial estimate of fifty miles). Once that occurs, the Karma gets about the same mileage as a Ford Explorer. Not the new Explorer, even. The older, gas-hog, body-on-frame model. We’re talking twenty miles per gallon, folks. So much for your “green investment.”
Those Occupy Wall Street-types in their tents at MacPherson Square? If they really, truly are bugged by corporate welfare, they need to schlep their signs and their chants and their anger over to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Right now. Because the Fisker Karma is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to corporate welfare.
I have no problem with a group of entrepreneurs raising money from private investors to build a hundred thousand dollar toy for rich folks who want to flaunt their eco-consciousness. When and if that’s the case, may they have all the mazel in the world. But damn, it steams me up when my family and every family in America are forced to pay for it.
Al Gore is on the list of customers waiting to receive their Fisker Karmas, having put in his order before the DOE signed off on the company’s half-billion dollar loan. Oh, and by the way, it just so happens that several major investors in the company are also major donors to the Democratic Party. And here’s information on John Doerr, an advisor to President Obama who is also a major investor in Fisker Automotive. Can you say, “crony capitalism?”
Update: The analysts at Green Car Reports, “the ultimate guide to cleaner, greener driving,” worry that the Fisker Karma may discredit the entire Department of Energy loan program. Given that, in a comparison of EPA mileage ratings between the two “American made” (scare quotes present due to the Karma being manufactured in Finland, with its electric motors and batteries being sourced from China) plug-in hybrids now on the market, the Chevrolet Volt and the Fisker Karma, the Volt is “rated at 94 MPGe in electric mode, and 37 mpg on gasoline, with an electric range of 35 miles,” whereas the Karma is rated at “54 MPGe in electric mode; 20 mpg in range-extended mode,” with an electric range of just 32 miles, they may well be right to worry. Oh, and Fisker conveniently left out that little detail about “20 mpg in range-extended mode” in their press releases sent out in the last few days. Details are for the little people, don’t you know…
Fisker Karma: Solyndra on Wheels?
Fisker Karma: can you say, "crony capitalism?"
Our tax dollars at work… a half-billion dollar loan (actually $529 million) from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a hybrid toy for the wealthy and/or celebri-licious (like Leonardo DiCaprio, one of the first customers) that, in real world driving, won’t get much better mileage than your average crossover utility vehicle. Not only that, but the cars are manufactured in Finland — that’s right, Finland – and shipped here for sale, where their purchasers will then receive a $7,500 tax credit for buying one (the “cheap” base model starts at $96,895, with the full-zoot Eco Chic model going for a bargain $108,900).
I generally try to keep this blog pretty much clear of politics. But I’ll make an exception for this. Staring out the windows of my lunch room this afternoon, I saw something intriguing enough to get me to scarf down my lunch and get myself out into a gray, drizzly afternoon to check it out. Across the street from my building, a very large automotive transport truck with a fully enclosed trailer unloaded four cars of a type I had never seen before. They looked somewhat like big, four-door Chevy Corvettes, with voluptuous curves leading to a sleek rear end. People on the sidewalk next to the cars crowded around them and took photos with their camera phones.
I headed downstairs to see what the heck the cars were. I thought they might be one of the new four-door luxury electric models from either Tesla or Fisker, which I’d read about but hadn’t yet seen pictures of. What threw me, though, was spotting a round gas tank door on the rear driver’s side flank, plus dual exhausts. Not electric, I thought. By the time I got downstairs and across the street, the cars had been moved a block away, to the front of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, a luxury hotel in Southwest Washington, DC. I spotted the driver of the auto transport rig and asked him what he’d been hauling. He said four of the brand-new Fisker Karma performance hybrid sedans. Oh, gas-electric hybrids, I thought; that explains the gas tank and the exhausts. He said he’d had the devil of a time getting into this corner of Southwest Washington. Most of the city’s highways had been off-limits to his giant truck, and then he had found several local streets blocked by Occupy DC protests taking place at MacPherson Square, our local version of Occupy Wall Street. He said this was Fisker’s big roll-out. The head of the company, Mr. Fisker himself, was present at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to do a press conference.
I walked over to the front of the hotel to get a look at the cars. Pretty damned nice, I’ll certainly admit, with a sleek roof lined with solar panels that, according to the company’s claims, give up to five additional miles per week of all-electric driving. While I was standing there admiring the four identical silver cars’ lines, a cabby exited his ratty old Crown Victoria and wandered over next to me, a look of rapt admiration on his face. “Nice, but it’s not for the likes of you and me,” I said. He nodded a little sadly, circled the cars, then returned to his cab.
I recalled reading that the Federal government had become a major financial partner in Fisker Automotive. That would explain the official rollout taking place in Washington. When I got back to my computer, I looked up the specifics. We the taxpayers are on the hook for more than half a billion dollars, about the same amount that got loaned to Solyndra, another “green manufacturer,” before they went bankrupt. At least Solyndra was manufacturing their products in this country, providing American manufacturing jobs (if short-lived jobs), and making a product that average Americans could conceivably afford. Fisker is manufacturing these gorgeous Leonardo DiCaprio toys in Finland. And the kicker, for those of you who would still claim that the risk of half a billion tax dollars is justified by environmental gains… contrary to the company’s initial hype, the Karma will only run for thirty-two miles on its electric motors before its turbocharged gasoline engine needs to kick in (as opposed to the initial estimate of fifty miles). Once that occurs, the Karma gets about the same mileage as a Ford Explorer. Not the new Explorer, even. The older, gas-hog, body-on-frame model. We’re talking twenty miles per gallon, folks. So much for your “green investment.”
Those Occupy Wall Street-types in their tents at MacPherson Square? If they really, truly are bugged by corporate welfare, they need to schlep their signs and their chants and their anger over to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Right now. Because the Fisker Karma is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to corporate welfare.
I have no problem with a group of entrepreneurs raising money from private investors to build a hundred thousand dollar toy for rich folks who want to flaunt their eco-consciousness. When and if that’s the case, may they have all the mazel in the world. But damn, it steams me up when my family and every family in America are forced to pay for it.
Al Gore is on the list of customers waiting to receive their Fisker Karmas, having put in his order before the DOE signed off on the company’s half-billion dollar loan. Oh, and by the way, it just so happens that several major investors in the company are also major donors to the Democratic Party. And here’s information on John Doerr, an advisor to President Obama who is also a major investor in Fisker Automotive. Can you say, “crony capitalism?”
Update: The analysts at Green Car Reports, “the ultimate guide to cleaner, greener driving,” worry that the Fisker Karma may discredit the entire Department of Energy loan program. Given that, in a comparison of EPA mileage ratings between the two “American made” (scare quotes present due to the Karma being manufactured in Finland, with its electric motors and batteries being sourced from China) plug-in hybrids now on the market, the Chevrolet Volt and the Fisker Karma, the Volt is “rated at 94 MPGe in electric mode, and 37 mpg on gasoline, with an electric range of 35 miles,” whereas the Karma is rated at “54 MPGe in electric mode; 20 mpg in range-extended mode,” with an electric range of just 32 miles, they may well be right to worry. Oh, and Fisker conveniently left out that little detail about “20 mpg in range-extended mode” in their press releases sent out in the last few days. Details are for the little people, don’t you know…
18114
Science, Culture, & Humanities / Re: My legally and scholarly diatribe
« on: October 21, 2011, 08:49:52 AM »
The smaller the federal gov't, the less the stakes and the lesser impact DC has on everyone. Now, when DC has a hand in every aspect of every American's life, like healthcare, then it's a diferent story, isn't it?
Rather than the attempts to cutail speech, which are immediately worked around anyway, would it not be better to return the federal gov't to it's constitutionally mandated duties alone and let the 10 Amd. work as was intended?
Rather than the attempts to cutail speech, which are immediately worked around anyway, would it not be better to return the federal gov't to it's constitutionally mandated duties alone and let the 10 Amd. work as was intended?
18115
Politics & Religion / Re: 2012 Presidential
« on: October 21, 2011, 06:19:35 AM »On Iran: Perhaps, but Stuxnet was a US decision. I say that because it is possible (and I mean only possible), that Obama's use of intel, spec ops, and the like are being put to task in less obvious ways in Iran. I will confess to not enjoying the "wait and see" on this particular possibility.
On McCain:indeed!
Really? Then why did Buraq say almost nothing when there was a real chance at a "Persian Spring" in 2009 while he instead focused on underming Israel's security at that time?
We spent more than a billion dollars on the Libya op. Aside from Ka-daffy's head, we shall see what spins out of it. Somehow I'm not expecting flowers and rainbows.
18116
Politics & Religion / Um, was this a problem at the TEA party rallies?
« on: October 21, 2011, 04:46:52 AM »
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=31000
Report: Occupy Oakland Devolves into “Lord of the Flies”
John on October 20, 2011 at 12:01 am
From the Oakland Tribune:
The next thing Hughes knew he was in a headlock, then he was being punched, and then he was on the ground as a large man began to choke him.
This happened as Hughes, a substitute teacher and Occupy Oakland resident, tried to keep a larger man who also lived in the camp from threatening a woman there. Finally, after another threatening incident involving the same individual, the occupiers had had enough:
About 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, a group of roughly 50 people gathered by the man’s tent and told him he had to leave. Some were speaking calmly. Others weren’t. It was then that the man pulled out a large kitchen knife and threatened the whole group…It was only when someone picked up a piece of wood and cracked him across the head that the ordeal ended.
Self-realization dawns on at least one of the occupiers:
“At some point, we have to recognize that we can’t control everything,” said Boomer Frank, a 24-year-old tent resident and ad hoc camp organizer. “I’m anti-authoritarian, but we need to acknowledge that some things are out of our control.”
If only they could apply that lesson a little more broadly, e.g. to the police, to the economy as a whole even. Appropriately, it’s the cops who patrol the camp that get it. One officer compared the scene to “Lord of the Flies.” His supervisor was even more insightful:
One Oakland police supervisor said that the participants first appeared to him as “freethinking activists” but have since devolved into something more sinister. He said it was “interesting for a group that claims to be against current civilization and rules to set up a far more oppressive society than our own.”
Very interesting indeed.
Update: One of the wags at American Glob created this Photoshop to illustrate this story:
Report: Occupy Oakland Devolves into “Lord of the Flies”
John on October 20, 2011 at 12:01 am
From the Oakland Tribune:
The next thing Hughes knew he was in a headlock, then he was being punched, and then he was on the ground as a large man began to choke him.
This happened as Hughes, a substitute teacher and Occupy Oakland resident, tried to keep a larger man who also lived in the camp from threatening a woman there. Finally, after another threatening incident involving the same individual, the occupiers had had enough:
About 3:30 Tuesday afternoon, a group of roughly 50 people gathered by the man’s tent and told him he had to leave. Some were speaking calmly. Others weren’t. It was then that the man pulled out a large kitchen knife and threatened the whole group…It was only when someone picked up a piece of wood and cracked him across the head that the ordeal ended.
Self-realization dawns on at least one of the occupiers:
“At some point, we have to recognize that we can’t control everything,” said Boomer Frank, a 24-year-old tent resident and ad hoc camp organizer. “I’m anti-authoritarian, but we need to acknowledge that some things are out of our control.”
If only they could apply that lesson a little more broadly, e.g. to the police, to the economy as a whole even. Appropriately, it’s the cops who patrol the camp that get it. One officer compared the scene to “Lord of the Flies.” His supervisor was even more insightful:
One Oakland police supervisor said that the participants first appeared to him as “freethinking activists” but have since devolved into something more sinister. He said it was “interesting for a group that claims to be against current civilization and rules to set up a far more oppressive society than our own.”
Very interesting indeed.
Update: One of the wags at American Glob created this Photoshop to illustrate this story:
18117
Politics & Religion / Re: Politics
« on: October 21, 2011, 04:34:42 AM »Ditching the 2 term presidency?
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/first_times_a_charm
I think we will, next year.
18118
Politics & Religion / Re: Impact of Gadhafi's death on 2012 Presidential
« on: October 21, 2011, 04:34:00 AM »http://news.yahoo.com/qadhafi-death-blunts-gops-critique-133500278.html
Thoughts?
I wouldn't unpack the "Mission Accomplished" banner just yet, until we see that Libya doesn't turn into a new AQ base of operations/ bloody civil war amongst the various tribes. Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear menace and acts of war go unanswered.
Still, I'd like to point out that "They told me if I voted for McCain, we'd have even more cowboy swagger and gunboat diplomacy, and they were right"!
18119
Politics & Religion / About time!
« on: October 20, 2011, 06:45:12 PM »
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203752604576641421449460968.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
HOMES OCTOBER 20, 2011.
Foreigners' Sweetener: Buy House, Get a Visa .
By NICK TIMIRAOS
The reeling housing market has come to this: To shore it up, two Senators are preparing to introduce a bipartisan bill Thursday that would give residence visas to foreigners who spend at least $500,000 to buy houses in the U.S.
The provision is part of a larger package of immigration measures, co-authored by Sens. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah), designed to spur more foreign investment in the U.S.
Supporters of the bill, co-authored by Sen. Charles Schumer, say it would help make up for American buyers who are holding back.
.
Foreigners have accounted for a growing share of home purchases in South Florida, Southern California, Arizona and other hard-hit markets. Chinese and Canadian buyers, among others, are taking advantage not only of big declines in U.S. home prices and reduced competition from Americans but also of favorable foreign exchange rates.
To fuel this demand, the proposed measure would offer visas to any foreigner making a cash investment of at least $500,000 on residential real-estate—a single-family house, condo or townhouse. Applicants can spend the entire amount on one house or spend as little as $250,000 on a residence and invest the rest in other residential real estate, which can be rented out.
The measure would complement existing visa programs that allow foreigners to enter the U.S. if they invest in new businesses that create jobs. Backers believe the initiative would help soak up an excess supply of inventory when many would-be American home buyers are holding back because they're concerned about their jobs or because they would have to take a big loss to sell their current house.
"This is a way to create more demand without costing the federal government a nickel," Sen. Schumer said in an interview.
International buyers accounted for around $82 billion in U.S. residential real-estate sales for the year ending in March, up from $66 billion during the previous year period, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Foreign buyers accounted for at least 5.5% of all home sales in Miami and 4.3% of Phoenix home sales during the month of July, according to MDA DataQuick.
Foreigners immigrating to the U.S. with the new visa wouldn't be able to work here unless they obtained a regular work visa through the normal process. They'd be allowed to bring a spouse and any children under the age of 18 but they wouldn't be able to stay in the country legally on the new visa once they sold their properties.
The provision would create visas that are separate from current programs so as to not displace anyone waiting for other visas. There would be no cap on the home-buyer visa program.
Over the past year, Canadians accounted for one quarter of foreign home buyers, and buyers from China, Mexico, Great Britain, and India accounted for another quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors. For buyers from some countries, restrictive immigration rules are "a deterrent to purchase here, for sure," says Sally Daley, a real-estate agent in Vero Beach, Fla. She estimates that around one-third of her sales this year have gone to foreigners, an all-time high.
"Without them, we would be stagnant," says Ms. Daley. "They're hiring contractors, buying furniture, and they're also helping the market correct by getting inventory whittled down."
In March, Harry Morrison, a Canadian from Lakefield, Ontario, bought a four-bedroom vacation home in a gated community in Vero Beach. "House prices were going down, and the exchange rate was quite favorable," said Mr. Morrison, who first bought a home there from Ms. Daley four years ago.
While a special visa would allow Canadian buyers like Mr. Morrison to spend more time in the U.S., he said he isn't sure "what other benefit a visa would give me."
The idea has some high-profile supporters, including Warren Buffett, who this summer floated the idea of encouraging more "rich immigrants" to buy homes. "If you wanted to change your immigration policy so that you let 500,000 families in but they have to have a significant net worth and everything, you'd solve things very quickly," Mr. Buffett said in an August interview with PBS's Charlie Rose.
The measure could also help turn around buyer psychology, said mortgage-bond pioneer Lewis Ranieri. He said the program represented "triage" for a housing market that needs more fixes, even modest ones.
But other industry executives greeted the proposal with skepticism. Foreign buyers "don't need an incentive" to buy homes, said Richard Smith, chief executive of Realogy Corp., which owns the Coldwell Banker and Century 21 real-estate brands. "We have a lot of Americans who are willing to buy. We just have to fix the economy."
The measure may have a more targeted effect in exclusive markets like San Marino, Calif., that have become popular with foreigners. Easier immigration rules could be "tremendous" because of the difficulty many Chinese buyers have in obtaining visas, says Maggie Navarro, a local real-estate agent.
Ms. Navarro recently sold a home for $1.67 million, around 8% above the asking price, to a Chinese national who works in the mining industry. She says nearly every listing she's put on the market in San Marino "has had at least one full price cash offer from a buyer from mainland China."
Corrections & Amplifications
Harry Morrison bought a four-bedroom vacation home in Vero Beach in March. He first bought a home there four years ago from Sally Daley, a local real-estate agent. An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Ms. Daley sold the four-bedroom home to Mr. Morrison in March.
Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com
HOMES OCTOBER 20, 2011.
Foreigners' Sweetener: Buy House, Get a Visa .
By NICK TIMIRAOS
The reeling housing market has come to this: To shore it up, two Senators are preparing to introduce a bipartisan bill Thursday that would give residence visas to foreigners who spend at least $500,000 to buy houses in the U.S.
The provision is part of a larger package of immigration measures, co-authored by Sens. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah), designed to spur more foreign investment in the U.S.
Supporters of the bill, co-authored by Sen. Charles Schumer, say it would help make up for American buyers who are holding back.
.
Foreigners have accounted for a growing share of home purchases in South Florida, Southern California, Arizona and other hard-hit markets. Chinese and Canadian buyers, among others, are taking advantage not only of big declines in U.S. home prices and reduced competition from Americans but also of favorable foreign exchange rates.
To fuel this demand, the proposed measure would offer visas to any foreigner making a cash investment of at least $500,000 on residential real-estate—a single-family house, condo or townhouse. Applicants can spend the entire amount on one house or spend as little as $250,000 on a residence and invest the rest in other residential real estate, which can be rented out.
The measure would complement existing visa programs that allow foreigners to enter the U.S. if they invest in new businesses that create jobs. Backers believe the initiative would help soak up an excess supply of inventory when many would-be American home buyers are holding back because they're concerned about their jobs or because they would have to take a big loss to sell their current house.
"This is a way to create more demand without costing the federal government a nickel," Sen. Schumer said in an interview.
International buyers accounted for around $82 billion in U.S. residential real-estate sales for the year ending in March, up from $66 billion during the previous year period, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Foreign buyers accounted for at least 5.5% of all home sales in Miami and 4.3% of Phoenix home sales during the month of July, according to MDA DataQuick.
Foreigners immigrating to the U.S. with the new visa wouldn't be able to work here unless they obtained a regular work visa through the normal process. They'd be allowed to bring a spouse and any children under the age of 18 but they wouldn't be able to stay in the country legally on the new visa once they sold their properties.
The provision would create visas that are separate from current programs so as to not displace anyone waiting for other visas. There would be no cap on the home-buyer visa program.
Over the past year, Canadians accounted for one quarter of foreign home buyers, and buyers from China, Mexico, Great Britain, and India accounted for another quarter, according to the National Association of Realtors. For buyers from some countries, restrictive immigration rules are "a deterrent to purchase here, for sure," says Sally Daley, a real-estate agent in Vero Beach, Fla. She estimates that around one-third of her sales this year have gone to foreigners, an all-time high.
"Without them, we would be stagnant," says Ms. Daley. "They're hiring contractors, buying furniture, and they're also helping the market correct by getting inventory whittled down."
In March, Harry Morrison, a Canadian from Lakefield, Ontario, bought a four-bedroom vacation home in a gated community in Vero Beach. "House prices were going down, and the exchange rate was quite favorable," said Mr. Morrison, who first bought a home there from Ms. Daley four years ago.
While a special visa would allow Canadian buyers like Mr. Morrison to spend more time in the U.S., he said he isn't sure "what other benefit a visa would give me."
The idea has some high-profile supporters, including Warren Buffett, who this summer floated the idea of encouraging more "rich immigrants" to buy homes. "If you wanted to change your immigration policy so that you let 500,000 families in but they have to have a significant net worth and everything, you'd solve things very quickly," Mr. Buffett said in an August interview with PBS's Charlie Rose.
The measure could also help turn around buyer psychology, said mortgage-bond pioneer Lewis Ranieri. He said the program represented "triage" for a housing market that needs more fixes, even modest ones.
But other industry executives greeted the proposal with skepticism. Foreign buyers "don't need an incentive" to buy homes, said Richard Smith, chief executive of Realogy Corp., which owns the Coldwell Banker and Century 21 real-estate brands. "We have a lot of Americans who are willing to buy. We just have to fix the economy."
The measure may have a more targeted effect in exclusive markets like San Marino, Calif., that have become popular with foreigners. Easier immigration rules could be "tremendous" because of the difficulty many Chinese buyers have in obtaining visas, says Maggie Navarro, a local real-estate agent.
Ms. Navarro recently sold a home for $1.67 million, around 8% above the asking price, to a Chinese national who works in the mining industry. She says nearly every listing she's put on the market in San Marino "has had at least one full price cash offer from a buyer from mainland China."
Corrections & Amplifications
Harry Morrison bought a four-bedroom vacation home in Vero Beach in March. He first bought a home there four years ago from Sally Daley, a local real-estate agent. An earlier version of this story incorrectly said Ms. Daley sold the four-bedroom home to Mr. Morrison in March.
Write to Nick Timiraos at nick.timiraos@wsj.com
18121
Politics & Religion / Re: Maureen Dowd: Anne Frank the Mormon
« on: October 20, 2011, 03:40:54 PM »
Another famous nonbeliever, Christopher Hitchens, wrote in Slate on Monday about “the weird and sinister belief system of the LDS,” the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
18122
Politics & Religion / Hop on board the Zimbabwe Express!
« on: October 20, 2011, 12:38:11 PM »
**Oy-fracking-vey!
http://www.cnbc.com//id/44963251
QE3 'Certainly a Possibility': Boston Fed President
Published: Wednesday, 19 Oct 2011 | 3:16 PM ET
By: Margo D. Beller
Special to CNBC.com
Another round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve is "certainly a possibility" if there is a "bad economic shock," Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren told CNBC Wednesday.
"It depends on what you think is the likelihood of what a bad economic shock is," he said. "So if you think there’s a shock from Europe, or you think that some of the fiscal discussion is gonna break down, those might be the types of incidents…[that] might affect how likely you think it is that we’ll have additional quantitative easing ."
Deflation would be another condition "under which it would make sense to have additional quantitative easing," he added.
Rosengren was interviewed after speaking at the Boston Fed's annual conference. He said it is "critical that we focus on strengthening the financial architecture" of U.S. banks "so that the struggles of one institution or group of them no longer poses risks to the broader global economy."
To CNBC he said most U.S. banks don't have huge direct exposure to the troubles in Europe. But "if a serious problem erupted in Europe, we would not be immune," he said, and that might be something the Fed would "have to react to."
http://www.cnbc.com//id/44963251
QE3 'Certainly a Possibility': Boston Fed President
Published: Wednesday, 19 Oct 2011 | 3:16 PM ET
By: Margo D. Beller
Special to CNBC.com
Another round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve is "certainly a possibility" if there is a "bad economic shock," Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren told CNBC Wednesday.
"It depends on what you think is the likelihood of what a bad economic shock is," he said. "So if you think there’s a shock from Europe, or you think that some of the fiscal discussion is gonna break down, those might be the types of incidents…[that] might affect how likely you think it is that we’ll have additional quantitative easing ."
Deflation would be another condition "under which it would make sense to have additional quantitative easing," he added.
Rosengren was interviewed after speaking at the Boston Fed's annual conference. He said it is "critical that we focus on strengthening the financial architecture" of U.S. banks "so that the struggles of one institution or group of them no longer poses risks to the broader global economy."
To CNBC he said most U.S. banks don't have huge direct exposure to the troubles in Europe. But "if a serious problem erupted in Europe, we would not be immune," he said, and that might be something the Fed would "have to react to."
18123
Politics & Religion / Re: The Fed, Monetary Policy, Inflation, US Dollar & other currencies, & Gold/Silver
« on: October 20, 2011, 12:31:43 PM »
TB,
Yes, when we magically create all these dollars, it makes the NorK/Iranian "supernotes" plale in comparison.
BTW, it looks like QE3 is being floated. Zimbabwe, here we come....
Yes, when we magically create all these dollars, it makes the NorK/Iranian "supernotes" plale in comparison.
BTW, it looks like QE3 is being floated. Zimbabwe, here we come....
18124
Politics & Religion / Time to run the JooooOOOOooos out.....
« on: October 20, 2011, 12:21:23 PM »
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch4VcOGv36U&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch4VcOGv36U&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch4VcOGv36U&feature=player_embedded
18125
Politics & Religion / Re: The Fed, Monetary Policy, Inflation, US Dollar & other currencies, & Gold/Silver
« on: October 20, 2011, 11:47:11 AM »http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/kids/inside/html/spring98-2.html
When the United States Secret Service (USSS) was established, its main duty was to prevent the illegal production, or counterfeiting, of money. In the 1800s, America's monetary system was very disorganized. Bills and coins were issued by each state through individual banks, which generated many types of legal currency. With so many different kinds of bills in circulation, it was easy for people to counterfeit money. During President Lincoln's Administration, more than a third of the nation's money was counterfeit. On the advice of Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch, President Lincoln established a commission to stop this rapidly growing problem that was destroying the nation's economy, and on April 14, 1865, he created the United States Secret Service to carry out the commission's recommendations.
I'm not sure returning to this would work out well.
18126
Politics & Religion / Re: What now?
« on: October 20, 2011, 11:03:01 AM »
Oh, I'm sure it'll turn out to be another "Arab Spring" where everything is rainbows and unicorns. AQ won't have another base of operations and a stockpile of MANPADs or anything....
18127
Politics & Religion / Re: Libya and
« on: October 20, 2011, 10:13:44 AM »GM, At least he was not caught in the picture bowing. Ghadafy was a humble man, never appointing himself past the rank of Colonel. Had he made it to King or even Prince, the photo would be most embarrassing.Yeah, you've got to give him props for that. Obama is actually treating him like a peer rather than shamelessly debasing himself and America.
For once.
I wonder if Ka-daffy got the "Fredo" kiss later?
18128
Politics & Religion / Re: Libya and
« on: October 20, 2011, 09:32:18 AM »Whatever happened to the policy articulated so well four years ago that we can sit and and talk to these people?
Oh, here it is:
18129
Politics & Religion / Re: The Fed, Monetary Policy, Inflation, US Dollar & other currencies, & Gold/Silver
« on: October 20, 2011, 05:53:11 AM »
I'd think that trying to cure market distortions by creating more market distortions is not good policy, and with any complex system, will tend to result in unintended consequences.
18130
Politics & Religion / Re: The Fed, Monetary Policy, Inflation, US Dollar & other currencies, & Gold/Silver
« on: October 19, 2011, 10:03:14 PM »
"The problem is the spiral and that we don't know any easy fixes to snap an economy out of it."
I see us heading for a "hard reboot" at some point in the future. It's not going to be pretty.
"How does someone buy a house today if they know the price will be lower tomorrow? They don't. Consistently falling prices are a bad thing."
Buying houses is like polyester bellbottoms for the most part. Houses are a place to live. Houses as an investment (in most circumstances) are as dead as "Hope and change".
I see us heading for a "hard reboot" at some point in the future. It's not going to be pretty.
"How does someone buy a house today if they know the price will be lower tomorrow? They don't. Consistently falling prices are a bad thing."
Buying houses is like polyester bellbottoms for the most part. Houses are a place to live. Houses as an investment (in most circumstances) are as dead as "Hope and change".
18131
Politics & Religion / Re: Mexico-US matters
« on: October 19, 2011, 09:10:42 PM »We've done this before. I was merely addressing what I was asked.But, he won an award from the ACLU, GM. I was asked about this: "any examples of the ACLU or Senators," and found both.
Hitler liked animals and was a vegitarian, doesn't make him not Hitler. If the ACLU is actually ever on the right side of something, it's either an accident or part of their pose to convince the uninformed into thinking that they actually are something else than a Stalinist group designed to damage America from within.
Understood. It's important to point out who the ACLU really is. Much like pointing out CAIR is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. The MSM won't do that for the public at large.
18132
Politics & Religion / The ACLU's Stalinist Heritage
« on: October 19, 2011, 08:54:28 PM »
The ACLU’s untold Stalinist heritage
Published: 2:11 AM 01/04/2011 | Updated: 3:29 AM 01/05/2011
By John Rossomando - The Daily Caller
Noted author Paul Kengor has unearthed declassified letters and other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives linking early leaders of the ACLU with the Communist Party.
Kengor found a May 23, 1931 letter in the archives signed by ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, written on ACLU stationery, to then American Communist Party Chairman William Z. Foster asking him to help ACLU Chairman Harry Ward with his then-upcoming trip to Stalin’s Russia.
The letter suggests Ward intended to visit the Soviet Union to find “evidence from Soviet Russia” that would undermine the capitalist profit motive.
Baldwin wrote the letter at a time when Stalin was deporting 1.8 million Ukrainian peasants to Siberia under his policy of the forced collectivization of agriculture, which resulted in the deaths of up to 10 million Ukrainians in the two years that followed.
The Ukrainian government considers this to have been an act of genocide.
Foster was a key figure in the early years of the American communist movement who belonged to the ACLU’s National Committee in the 1920s, according to FBI documents. He later wrote a book titled “Toward Soviet America” in 1932 and also testified under oath before Congress that he opposed American democracy.
Another letter on ACLU letterhead Kengor found in the Soviet archives dated Sept. 2, 1932 asks the Communist Party of America for a schedule of Foster’s trips around the country and offers to help keep the police at bay. It also asks for the names and addresses of Communist Party representatives in the cities where Foster was speaking.
Kengor also found a flier from 1933 advertising ACLU board member Corliss Lamont as the headline speaker for “Soviet Union Day,” which its organizers hoped would “answer lies and slanders of enemies of the Soviet Union.”
The documents found their way into the Soviet archives because the Communist Party sent all of its correspondences to the Comintern in Moscow for safekeeping, according to Kengor.
Other documents released in the 1990s by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin show the American Communist Party was under the Moscow’s direct control until 1989.
“These guys were advocating a regime that arguably was the biggest mass murderer in all of human history,” Kengor said. “Where is the moral authority in that?”
Kengor told The Daily Caller he found numerous other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives that also show a close relationship between the Communist Party and the ACLU.
These documents corroborate rumors that have circulated about the ACLU’s founders and early leaders dating back to the 1920s.
The ACLU would not comment on Kengor’s research, but the ACLU’s official history describes its founders as a “small group of idealists” who began the organization amid the “Palmer Raids” of late 1919 and early 1920 against “so-called radicals”.
“The problem here is what is being left out of the narrative,” Kengor said. “Palmer, who was attorney general to Woodrow Wilson, the great progressive’s progressive, understood, as did the Wilson administration, that many of these radicals were American communists who were literally devoted to the overthrow of the U.S. government and its replacement with a ‘Soviet-American republic.’
“American communists actually stated such things in their proclamations, documents, and fliers.”
Kengor catalogs many of these in his book “Dupes.”
“If you look at a lot of things about the ACLU’s early history, you will see a lot of things that are pro-communist,” Kengor said. “What I’m trying to say about this group is that from the outset was on the farthest extremes of the left.
“It was atheistic. Certain members were pro-communist, and would argue that the ACLU itself in the 1920s was pro-communist, as defined by the writings and the beliefs of its founders, key officials and board members.”
Kengor, however, does not believe today’s ACLU is communist, but he argues it still pushes its founders’ militant atheism.
Kengor said a conservative group would not receive the same sort of a pass from the press and the left were it to be discovered its founders had Nazi or fascist ties during the same time period.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/01/04/the-aclu%e2%80%99s-untold-stalinist-heritage/
Published: 2:11 AM 01/04/2011 | Updated: 3:29 AM 01/05/2011
By John Rossomando - The Daily Caller
Noted author Paul Kengor has unearthed declassified letters and other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives linking early leaders of the ACLU with the Communist Party.
Kengor found a May 23, 1931 letter in the archives signed by ACLU founder Roger Baldwin, written on ACLU stationery, to then American Communist Party Chairman William Z. Foster asking him to help ACLU Chairman Harry Ward with his then-upcoming trip to Stalin’s Russia.
The letter suggests Ward intended to visit the Soviet Union to find “evidence from Soviet Russia” that would undermine the capitalist profit motive.
Baldwin wrote the letter at a time when Stalin was deporting 1.8 million Ukrainian peasants to Siberia under his policy of the forced collectivization of agriculture, which resulted in the deaths of up to 10 million Ukrainians in the two years that followed.
The Ukrainian government considers this to have been an act of genocide.
Foster was a key figure in the early years of the American communist movement who belonged to the ACLU’s National Committee in the 1920s, according to FBI documents. He later wrote a book titled “Toward Soviet America” in 1932 and also testified under oath before Congress that he opposed American democracy.
Another letter on ACLU letterhead Kengor found in the Soviet archives dated Sept. 2, 1932 asks the Communist Party of America for a schedule of Foster’s trips around the country and offers to help keep the police at bay. It also asks for the names and addresses of Communist Party representatives in the cities where Foster was speaking.
Kengor also found a flier from 1933 advertising ACLU board member Corliss Lamont as the headline speaker for “Soviet Union Day,” which its organizers hoped would “answer lies and slanders of enemies of the Soviet Union.”
The documents found their way into the Soviet archives because the Communist Party sent all of its correspondences to the Comintern in Moscow for safekeeping, according to Kengor.
Other documents released in the 1990s by KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin show the American Communist Party was under the Moscow’s direct control until 1989.
“These guys were advocating a regime that arguably was the biggest mass murderer in all of human history,” Kengor said. “Where is the moral authority in that?”
Kengor told The Daily Caller he found numerous other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives that also show a close relationship between the Communist Party and the ACLU.
These documents corroborate rumors that have circulated about the ACLU’s founders and early leaders dating back to the 1920s.
The ACLU would not comment on Kengor’s research, but the ACLU’s official history describes its founders as a “small group of idealists” who began the organization amid the “Palmer Raids” of late 1919 and early 1920 against “so-called radicals”.
“The problem here is what is being left out of the narrative,” Kengor said. “Palmer, who was attorney general to Woodrow Wilson, the great progressive’s progressive, understood, as did the Wilson administration, that many of these radicals were American communists who were literally devoted to the overthrow of the U.S. government and its replacement with a ‘Soviet-American republic.’
“American communists actually stated such things in their proclamations, documents, and fliers.”
Kengor catalogs many of these in his book “Dupes.”
“If you look at a lot of things about the ACLU’s early history, you will see a lot of things that are pro-communist,” Kengor said. “What I’m trying to say about this group is that from the outset was on the farthest extremes of the left.
“It was atheistic. Certain members were pro-communist, and would argue that the ACLU itself in the 1920s was pro-communist, as defined by the writings and the beliefs of its founders, key officials and board members.”
Kengor, however, does not believe today’s ACLU is communist, but he argues it still pushes its founders’ militant atheism.
Kengor said a conservative group would not receive the same sort of a pass from the press and the left were it to be discovered its founders had Nazi or fascist ties during the same time period.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/01/04/the-aclu%e2%80%99s-untold-stalinist-heritage/
18133
Politics & Religion / Re: Mexico-US matters
« on: October 19, 2011, 08:47:15 PM »But, he won an award from the ACLU, GM. I was asked about this: "any examples of the ACLU or Senators," and found both.
Hitler liked animals and was a vegitarian, doesn't make him not Hitler. If the ACLU is actually ever on the right side of something, it's either an accident or part of their pose to convince the uninformed into thinking that they actually are something else than a Stalinist group designed to damage America from within.
18134
Politics & Religion / Re: Mexico-US matters
« on: October 19, 2011, 07:45:24 PM »I am not sure that you will accept him as a "liberal" since that may be up to you, and not me to define. Here is a Democrat, who has sponsored bills"reforming procedures for providing court-appointed defense counsel to indigent defendants, and carried DNA legislation that has resulted in freeing many wrongly convicted citizens." Moreover, he was NOW's "Legislator of the Year." In 2005, he "received the John Henry Faulk award from the [A]merican Civil Liberties Union." Damn near a hippy protesting at OWS!!!!!I like the "Innocence Project" and DNA testing that frees wrongly convicted persons. I'd point out that Texas and other southern dems are different, mostly.
BUT, he has also "worked with a bipartisan group of legislators to allocate more than $120 million on training and technology for border security."
I give you: http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist20/dist20.htm, a liberal senator who is also pro-border security.I highlighted the "every liberal portion" of your assertion. I am liberal, at least compared to the average forum participant, and I think that defending the borders is of paramount importance.
" I am liberal, at least compared to the average forum participant, and I think that defending the borders is of paramount importance."
Fair enough. In regard to those that aren't members of this forum, can you speak to any examples of the ACLU or Senators and Representatives that actively engage in securing the borders without trying to pass inclusive legislation that makes it possible for those that are here illegally, "citizens?"
It's a fair question.
18135
Politics & Religion / Re: President Biden
« on: October 19, 2011, 06:16:59 PM »This is rather pathetic from a security perspective. If they could steal the entire truck unhindered, then they could just as easily have planted explosives in the President's lecterns.
Do you really want to count on a dog sweep (highly probable) as your only layer of security between the President and an item he might be standing right next to? I see this as no better than leaving a protectee's vehicle unsecured at night.
--------------
Obama’s speech equipment stolen in Virginia: report
By David Nakamura
Washington Post October 19, 2011
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Opportunistic thieves, opposition party operatives or just fans of President Obama really eager to know what he has to say?
A Henrico, Va., television station, WWBT-NBC12, is reporting that a truck carrying $200,000 worth of equipment — including several lecterns with the presidential seal, teleprompters and portable audio equipment — for Obama’s appearance in Chesterfield on Wednesday was stolen outside a Marriott hotel.
There has been some serious security breaches in recent times that demonstrate some serious problems within the US Secret Service.
18136
Politics & Religion / Re: Israel, and its neighbors
« on: October 19, 2011, 05:46:42 PM »The first thing I thought when I heard they traded 1000 for 1 was that they were planning on killing everyone, and wanted to have a clean crack at killing everyone they released. That's just my sunny side talking though.
We can only hope.
18137
Politics & Religion / Re: Mexico-US matters
« on: October 19, 2011, 05:15:40 PM »
The problem is never with the US military or other gov't agencies on the sharp end, it's with those in the leadership positions, most every time.
18138
Politics & Religion / Re: Mexico-US matters
« on: October 19, 2011, 04:57:21 PM »
The JFK/Scoop Jackson wing of the dems, which is about as extinct as t-rex these days.
Although Buraq the bloodthirsty has had moments that made me quite happy. OBL, Gitmo and drone strikes, oh my!
Although Buraq the bloodthirsty has had moments that made me quite happy. OBL, Gitmo and drone strikes, oh my!
18139
Politics & Religion / Re: The Fed, Monetary Policy, Inflation, US Dollar & other currencies, & Gold/Silver
« on: October 19, 2011, 04:54:09 PM »Lets define our terms here. Question: Is the bursting of a bubble a deflation?
Well, it's a deflation of the bubble. I'm not sure that it applies to the broader definition of deflation as previously cited by Doug.
As an example, the gov't interference in the housing market created the distortion in housing prices and the end of the bubble is good when the houses return to an authentic demand based price. If it's a systemic deflation, I'd think it's not a good thing.
18140
Politics & Religion / Re: Solway: The Weakness of the West
« on: October 19, 2011, 04:09:24 PM »
As an individual as much as a society, one must seek clarity and reflect on one's faults in an effort to improve and grow. However, when the introspection becomes destructive then it is clearly unbalanced and negative. We, as a society, should examine our historical faults to learn from them, while placing those errors in the correct historical perspective.
As an example, every American should recognize the horrors of slavery. We should also recogonize that our ancestors fought a horrific war to cleanse this evil from our shores and and worked to end it globally while it persists in many places today, despite our best efforts.
As an example, every American should recognize the horrors of slavery. We should also recogonize that our ancestors fought a horrific war to cleanse this evil from our shores and and worked to end it globally while it persists in many places today, despite our best efforts.
18141
Politics & Religion / Re: The Fed, Monetary Policy, Inflation, US Dollar & other currencies, & Gold/Silver
« on: October 19, 2011, 04:00:18 PM »
I just got back from shopping and note the roasted chicken my wife loves has jumped from about 5 bucks to almost 8.
Frack.
Frack.
18142
Politics & Religion / The Open Borders Lobby and the Nation's Security After 9/11
« on: October 19, 2011, 03:58:00 PM »
http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=14499
The Open Borders Lobby and the Nation's Security After 9/11
By: William Hawkins and Erin Anderson
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Forward – by David Horowitz
There are few issues so important to the life of a nation as the integrity of its borders and the nature of its citizenship. These are issues that define its identity and shape its future. When a nation is at war, moreover, its ability to regulate and control its borders is a security matter of paramount importance.
The following text by William Hawkins and Erin Anderson describes how America’s borders have been under assault for forty years with consequences that are measurable and disturbing. The assault has been led by an open borders lobby that is sophisticated and powerful. Many of its components, moreover, have a history of antagonism to American purposes and a record of active support for America’s enemies. Its funders are multi-billion dollar entities, who are unaccountable and unscrutinized. They have more discretionary incomes at their disposal to influence these issues than is possessed by either political party, or any business group, or even the federal government itself.
As Hawkins and Anderson show, the open borders campaign was already instrumental in damaging the nation’s ability to defend itself before 9/11. Yet not even this terrible event has caused its activists to have second thoughts, or tempered their reckless attacks. Instead, the open borders lobby has expanded its efforts to eliminate America’s border controls to include the active defense of terrorists and terrorist organizations and a continuing assault on the very policies the federal government has adopted to defend its citizens from terrorist attacks.
A Ford Foundation newsletter the authors cite features an interview with Georgetown law professor David Cole, a leading academic figure in the open borders campaign, who has written a book attacking America’s immigration laws and their protections against terrorist groups. In the interview, Cole denounces, “the criminalization of what the government calls material support for terrorist organizations. This is a practice that was introduced … through the immigration law, … It criminalizes any support of any blacklisted terrorist organization without regard to whether one’s support actually had any connection whatsoever to terrorist activity that the group undertakes.”
The Ford Foundation interview with Cole was published with hindsight in September 2003, ten years after the first World Trade Center bombing and two years after the September 11 attack. As Hawkins and Anderson point out, the anti-terrorist law which Professor Cole is denouncing was introduced as legislation and passed during the Clinton Administration in response to the first World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist plots. It was a bi-partisan effort to put a check on terrorist support groups that were using use the liberties afforded by the American legal system to aid and abet terrorist activities. Shortly after the interview with Cole appeared, it was revealed that the Ford Foundation had granted millions of tax-exempt dollars to terrorist support groups and other radical organizations in the Middle East.[1]
The Ford Foundation’s sponsorship of Professor Cole in underwriting his book and promoting his conclusions is but a reflection of Ford’s larger role as the central funder of the open borders lobby, and the architect of many of its radical agendas. Elsewhere in their text Hawkins and Anderson describe how this $11 billion leviathan took a small civil rights group called the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund which was based in San Antonio Texas, poured more than $30 million into its treasury, revamped its political agendas, moved its offices to Washington and turned it into one of the largest and most powerful proponents of radical immigration change in the nation.
Forty years ago, as Hawkins and Anderson observe, the most prominent Hispanic civil rights organization – the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) – supported English as the common national language and assimilation as a citizenship goal. Membership in LULAC was limited to American citizens and its code stated: “Respect your citizenship; honor your country, maintain its traditions in the minds of your children; incorporate yourself in the culture and civilization.” Today, as a result in part of the huge financial investment Ford has made in the immigration lobby, no major Hispanic civil rights organization subscribes to these views.
Finally, Hawkins and Anderson show how thoroughly the Ford-funded open borders network is integrated with the traditional American left, including its factions from the old Communist movement. Most prominent among these organizations and a strategic player in the open borders network is the National Lawyers Guild, which began as a Soviet front and has continued its “revolutionary” allegiances since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today its most celebrated and admired member – as well as one of its chief causes – is attorney Lynne Stewart, who is under federal indictment for aiding and abetting the terrorist activities of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the leader of group that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993.
William Hawkins and Erin Anderson have performed an essential public service by tying together the threads of this network and putting its agendas into perspective. The picture they paint is as detailed as it is disturbing and should open a national debate and perhaps congressional hearings on the uses to which taxpayer funds are being directed as the nation faces its post-9/11 threats.
Introduction: Open Borders in a Time of Terror
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which killed 3,000 Americans, have brought the question of border security to the forefront of the nation’s agenda. Even among Hispanics, a U.S. subgroup thought to favor liberal immigration policies, a majority of 56% wanted “tougher immigration [controls] in light of security concerns,” according to a national poll commissioned by a Hispanic business magazine in late 2003.[2]
All the terrorists who flew the hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had come into the United States from the other side of the world with the intent of carrying out their premeditated plot. America’s natural barriers – the great oceans which traditionally have protected America from foreign attacks – failed to provide security in this case because the enemy did use ballistic missiles or a naval armada. The traditional safety afforded to the United States by the vast oceans separating the country from foreign powers and foreign strife was not breached by ballistic missiles or an invading armada. Our enemies used normal commercial methods of transportation and exploited America’s laxity about possible threats from strangers in its midst. The terrorists’ visa applications had been rubber-stamped by U.S. consular officials despite flagrant errors and suspicious answers to security-inspired questions.[3] On arrival, the terrorists simply blended in the general population – which already accommodates more than 8 million illegal immigrants -- and went about their business of planning mass murder. Half of the 19 hijackers made their deadly 9/11 airline reservations on an Internet travel site.
Since the first World Trade Center bombing by Arab-Muslim fanatics in 1993, forty-eight foreign-born Islamic radicals have been charged, convicted, pled guilty or admitted involvement in terrorism within the United States since 1993. According to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies, 16 of the 48 terrorists were on temporary visas (primarily tourists); 17 were legal permanent residents or naturalized U.S. citizens; 12 were illegal aliens; and 3 had applications for asylum pending (including Ramzi Yousef, the Iraqi mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center Attack).[4] In addition to the dozen who had entered the country illegally, ten of those who had entered by legal means had subsequently violated the terms of their admission by overstaying their visas. All the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. on temporary visas, except Ali Mohammed, a leading member of al Qaeda, who was a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The United States has at sea the largest navy in the world and is developing a national missile defense system to frustrate overt military attacks on the country. But the day-to-day security of its borders is a broken system that has been unable to stop small groups of terrorists, let alone a mass migration that outnumbers the largest armies of history. It is estimated that 700,000 illegal immigrants simply walked across the U.S.-Mexican border last year and moved inland without interception by the thinly deployed Border Patrol.[5] The demographic shifts caused by unregulated mass immigration can have adverse impacts on national stability that rival or surpass the effects of war.
Despite these widely known and universally accepted facts, every major reform of the immigration laws over the last forty years has served to systematically undermine existing protections and controls, to open America’s borders wider and to call forth a larger flow of legal and illegal migration.[6]
The most notable changes came in 1965 and 1986. In the first instance, quotas for people from South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia were lifted, radically altering the composition and rate of legal and illegal immigration, the latter in part because of the geographical proximity of South America to the United States. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 granted a general amnesty for millions of illegal aliens who had entered the United States prior to 1982. Rather than establish controls over immigration – something considered routine by every other nation in the world -- these reforms stimulated a new massive migration and created a vast underground network of illegal aliens and institutional supports for them.
The United States has also experienced explosive growth in the number of foreigners admitted to the country on a “temporarily” basis using “non-immigrant” visas — from seven million admitted in 1980 to nearly 33 million in 2001. There is no set limit to the number of non-immigrant visas that can be issued; it is purely a demand-driven system. Most of these visas go to tourists, visiting relatives or business travelers who do return home. However, many of these temporary immigrants overstay their visas and join the illegal alien population. Like the September 11 terrorists, about 40 percent of the 8-12 million illegal aliens in the United States entered by this initially legal method.
Since the 2001 attacks, there has been a concerted effort to perform better background checks on those applying for visas and to track the movement of foreigners in and out of the country. But as in the case of other reasonable concerns about the porous nature of American borders, there has also been a steady barrage of criticism against reasonable new screening and monitoring programs from well-funded and powerful political interests who promote the idea of “open borders,” and other forms internationalism. These radicals dismiss domestic political or security considerations in favor of an alleged higher “human right” to untrammeled migration and the fulfillment of individual agendas over community concerns.
The concept of “open borders” has long been an agenda of the ideological left. Since the 1960s, a vast network -- including hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of grassroots activists, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars from leftwing foundations -- has waged a sustained campaign to open America’s borders to a mass migration from the Third World. Though these groups talk in terms of “human rights,” the rights they demand are not the restrictions on government enshrined in the American Bill of Rights, but the claims on society for “equity” and “welfare” and special treatment for designated groups that are the familiar menu of the left and would, if enacted, amount to a revolution in America’s existing social order. Which is precisely their intent.
The “open borders” movement emerged from the radicalism of the 1960s and matured in the fight over amnesty for illegal aliens in the 1980s. It gained a certain mainstream status in the 1990s as the “globalization” and “multilateralism” fads of the decade encouraged talk of a “world without borders” and the decline (even the demise) of the nation-state. At the center of the movement was the Ford Foundation – the largest tax-exempt foundation in the world, and one increasingly guided by the political left.
Under the leadership of McGeorge Bundy (1966-1979), a dissident liberal who broke with President Lyndon Johnson over the war in Vietnam, the Ford Foundation embraced aspects of the New Left assault on American society, for example on the issue of race, funding a radical secession from the New York City School system. Ford bankrolled the creation of new groups like the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the National Council of La Raza, expanded the role of established leftwing groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and promoted radical Marxist organizations – overtly hostile to American values and purposes -- like the National Lawyers Guild. It also was the prime funder of “multiculturalism” in college and university programs, whose effect was to undermine the concept of a national identity, as Arthur Schlesinger pointed out in a celebrated essay, The Disuniting of America: Reflections On A Multicultural Society.[7]
In the radical perspective, America is an oppressor nation, which significantly depreciates any value that American citizenship might have and justifies a less than solicitous view towards the preservation of American culture and America’s borders. One of the more prolific academics promoting the radical viewpoint is has been James D. Cockcroft, a New Left radical who has received much of the funding for his work from the Ford Foundation. A characteristic Cockcroft work is Outlaws in the Promised Land: Mexican Immigrant Workers and America's Future.[8] This is a frontal attack on American society, in which Cockcroft argues, “the U.S. working class can realistically strengthen its position only when it adds to its fight‑back strategy a commitment to the defense of the unorganized and the undocumented.”[9] This Ford-sponsored effort also claims that, “since Vietnam, this [U.S.] society has displayed a deepening ‘anti-communist,’ racist, nativist, and class-biased character in its treatment of immigrants and in its immigration policy....it has also experienced a wave of legislative, administrative, and court decisions that may curtail the basic civil rights of not only immigrants but of all U.S. citizens.”[10]
The campaign to radically change American values and culture through mass immigration and the political mobilization of the alienated presents a danger to the American that parallels the anti-American agendas of the Islamic jihad. Moreover, politically engineered demographic shifts and terrorism are not unrelated. The same communities of recently arrived immigrants (whether legal or not) help create networks used by illegal aliens that provide jobs, housing, and routes of entry into America for other illegals, including criminals and terrorists. Immigrants from strife-torn lands often provide funds for movements engaged in conflict in their homelands, while factions competing for power overseas frequently have their struggles mirrored within immigrant communities here.
The concerted leftist attempt to radicalize immigrant communities runs the risk that at the periphery a home-grown terrorist cells will form that will work in conjunction with foreign movements while finding a base of support within the United States. At which time, it will be too late to close the borders. There is already a growing problem with ethnic criminal gangs fighting for turf in major U.S. cities, a form of low-level conflict that could escalate into a form of insurgency as it has in so many other countries.
**Read it all.
The Open Borders Lobby and the Nation's Security After 9/11
By: William Hawkins and Erin Anderson
FrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Forward – by David Horowitz
There are few issues so important to the life of a nation as the integrity of its borders and the nature of its citizenship. These are issues that define its identity and shape its future. When a nation is at war, moreover, its ability to regulate and control its borders is a security matter of paramount importance.
The following text by William Hawkins and Erin Anderson describes how America’s borders have been under assault for forty years with consequences that are measurable and disturbing. The assault has been led by an open borders lobby that is sophisticated and powerful. Many of its components, moreover, have a history of antagonism to American purposes and a record of active support for America’s enemies. Its funders are multi-billion dollar entities, who are unaccountable and unscrutinized. They have more discretionary incomes at their disposal to influence these issues than is possessed by either political party, or any business group, or even the federal government itself.
As Hawkins and Anderson show, the open borders campaign was already instrumental in damaging the nation’s ability to defend itself before 9/11. Yet not even this terrible event has caused its activists to have second thoughts, or tempered their reckless attacks. Instead, the open borders lobby has expanded its efforts to eliminate America’s border controls to include the active defense of terrorists and terrorist organizations and a continuing assault on the very policies the federal government has adopted to defend its citizens from terrorist attacks.
A Ford Foundation newsletter the authors cite features an interview with Georgetown law professor David Cole, a leading academic figure in the open borders campaign, who has written a book attacking America’s immigration laws and their protections against terrorist groups. In the interview, Cole denounces, “the criminalization of what the government calls material support for terrorist organizations. This is a practice that was introduced … through the immigration law, … It criminalizes any support of any blacklisted terrorist organization without regard to whether one’s support actually had any connection whatsoever to terrorist activity that the group undertakes.”
The Ford Foundation interview with Cole was published with hindsight in September 2003, ten years after the first World Trade Center bombing and two years after the September 11 attack. As Hawkins and Anderson point out, the anti-terrorist law which Professor Cole is denouncing was introduced as legislation and passed during the Clinton Administration in response to the first World Trade Center bombing and other terrorist plots. It was a bi-partisan effort to put a check on terrorist support groups that were using use the liberties afforded by the American legal system to aid and abet terrorist activities. Shortly after the interview with Cole appeared, it was revealed that the Ford Foundation had granted millions of tax-exempt dollars to terrorist support groups and other radical organizations in the Middle East.[1]
The Ford Foundation’s sponsorship of Professor Cole in underwriting his book and promoting his conclusions is but a reflection of Ford’s larger role as the central funder of the open borders lobby, and the architect of many of its radical agendas. Elsewhere in their text Hawkins and Anderson describe how this $11 billion leviathan took a small civil rights group called the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund which was based in San Antonio Texas, poured more than $30 million into its treasury, revamped its political agendas, moved its offices to Washington and turned it into one of the largest and most powerful proponents of radical immigration change in the nation.
Forty years ago, as Hawkins and Anderson observe, the most prominent Hispanic civil rights organization – the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) – supported English as the common national language and assimilation as a citizenship goal. Membership in LULAC was limited to American citizens and its code stated: “Respect your citizenship; honor your country, maintain its traditions in the minds of your children; incorporate yourself in the culture and civilization.” Today, as a result in part of the huge financial investment Ford has made in the immigration lobby, no major Hispanic civil rights organization subscribes to these views.
Finally, Hawkins and Anderson show how thoroughly the Ford-funded open borders network is integrated with the traditional American left, including its factions from the old Communist movement. Most prominent among these organizations and a strategic player in the open borders network is the National Lawyers Guild, which began as a Soviet front and has continued its “revolutionary” allegiances since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today its most celebrated and admired member – as well as one of its chief causes – is attorney Lynne Stewart, who is under federal indictment for aiding and abetting the terrorist activities of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the leader of group that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993.
William Hawkins and Erin Anderson have performed an essential public service by tying together the threads of this network and putting its agendas into perspective. The picture they paint is as detailed as it is disturbing and should open a national debate and perhaps congressional hearings on the uses to which taxpayer funds are being directed as the nation faces its post-9/11 threats.
Introduction: Open Borders in a Time of Terror
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which killed 3,000 Americans, have brought the question of border security to the forefront of the nation’s agenda. Even among Hispanics, a U.S. subgroup thought to favor liberal immigration policies, a majority of 56% wanted “tougher immigration [controls] in light of security concerns,” according to a national poll commissioned by a Hispanic business magazine in late 2003.[2]
All the terrorists who flew the hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had come into the United States from the other side of the world with the intent of carrying out their premeditated plot. America’s natural barriers – the great oceans which traditionally have protected America from foreign attacks – failed to provide security in this case because the enemy did use ballistic missiles or a naval armada. The traditional safety afforded to the United States by the vast oceans separating the country from foreign powers and foreign strife was not breached by ballistic missiles or an invading armada. Our enemies used normal commercial methods of transportation and exploited America’s laxity about possible threats from strangers in its midst. The terrorists’ visa applications had been rubber-stamped by U.S. consular officials despite flagrant errors and suspicious answers to security-inspired questions.[3] On arrival, the terrorists simply blended in the general population – which already accommodates more than 8 million illegal immigrants -- and went about their business of planning mass murder. Half of the 19 hijackers made their deadly 9/11 airline reservations on an Internet travel site.
Since the first World Trade Center bombing by Arab-Muslim fanatics in 1993, forty-eight foreign-born Islamic radicals have been charged, convicted, pled guilty or admitted involvement in terrorism within the United States since 1993. According to a report by the Center for Immigration Studies, 16 of the 48 terrorists were on temporary visas (primarily tourists); 17 were legal permanent residents or naturalized U.S. citizens; 12 were illegal aliens; and 3 had applications for asylum pending (including Ramzi Yousef, the Iraqi mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center Attack).[4] In addition to the dozen who had entered the country illegally, ten of those who had entered by legal means had subsequently violated the terms of their admission by overstaying their visas. All the 9/11 hijackers entered the U.S. on temporary visas, except Ali Mohammed, a leading member of al Qaeda, who was a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The United States has at sea the largest navy in the world and is developing a national missile defense system to frustrate overt military attacks on the country. But the day-to-day security of its borders is a broken system that has been unable to stop small groups of terrorists, let alone a mass migration that outnumbers the largest armies of history. It is estimated that 700,000 illegal immigrants simply walked across the U.S.-Mexican border last year and moved inland without interception by the thinly deployed Border Patrol.[5] The demographic shifts caused by unregulated mass immigration can have adverse impacts on national stability that rival or surpass the effects of war.
Despite these widely known and universally accepted facts, every major reform of the immigration laws over the last forty years has served to systematically undermine existing protections and controls, to open America’s borders wider and to call forth a larger flow of legal and illegal migration.[6]
The most notable changes came in 1965 and 1986. In the first instance, quotas for people from South America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia were lifted, radically altering the composition and rate of legal and illegal immigration, the latter in part because of the geographical proximity of South America to the United States. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 granted a general amnesty for millions of illegal aliens who had entered the United States prior to 1982. Rather than establish controls over immigration – something considered routine by every other nation in the world -- these reforms stimulated a new massive migration and created a vast underground network of illegal aliens and institutional supports for them.
The United States has also experienced explosive growth in the number of foreigners admitted to the country on a “temporarily” basis using “non-immigrant” visas — from seven million admitted in 1980 to nearly 33 million in 2001. There is no set limit to the number of non-immigrant visas that can be issued; it is purely a demand-driven system. Most of these visas go to tourists, visiting relatives or business travelers who do return home. However, many of these temporary immigrants overstay their visas and join the illegal alien population. Like the September 11 terrorists, about 40 percent of the 8-12 million illegal aliens in the United States entered by this initially legal method.
Since the 2001 attacks, there has been a concerted effort to perform better background checks on those applying for visas and to track the movement of foreigners in and out of the country. But as in the case of other reasonable concerns about the porous nature of American borders, there has also been a steady barrage of criticism against reasonable new screening and monitoring programs from well-funded and powerful political interests who promote the idea of “open borders,” and other forms internationalism. These radicals dismiss domestic political or security considerations in favor of an alleged higher “human right” to untrammeled migration and the fulfillment of individual agendas over community concerns.
The concept of “open borders” has long been an agenda of the ideological left. Since the 1960s, a vast network -- including hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of grassroots activists, backed by hundreds of millions of dollars from leftwing foundations -- has waged a sustained campaign to open America’s borders to a mass migration from the Third World. Though these groups talk in terms of “human rights,” the rights they demand are not the restrictions on government enshrined in the American Bill of Rights, but the claims on society for “equity” and “welfare” and special treatment for designated groups that are the familiar menu of the left and would, if enacted, amount to a revolution in America’s existing social order. Which is precisely their intent.
The “open borders” movement emerged from the radicalism of the 1960s and matured in the fight over amnesty for illegal aliens in the 1980s. It gained a certain mainstream status in the 1990s as the “globalization” and “multilateralism” fads of the decade encouraged talk of a “world without borders” and the decline (even the demise) of the nation-state. At the center of the movement was the Ford Foundation – the largest tax-exempt foundation in the world, and one increasingly guided by the political left.
Under the leadership of McGeorge Bundy (1966-1979), a dissident liberal who broke with President Lyndon Johnson over the war in Vietnam, the Ford Foundation embraced aspects of the New Left assault on American society, for example on the issue of race, funding a radical secession from the New York City School system. Ford bankrolled the creation of new groups like the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the National Council of La Raza, expanded the role of established leftwing groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and promoted radical Marxist organizations – overtly hostile to American values and purposes -- like the National Lawyers Guild. It also was the prime funder of “multiculturalism” in college and university programs, whose effect was to undermine the concept of a national identity, as Arthur Schlesinger pointed out in a celebrated essay, The Disuniting of America: Reflections On A Multicultural Society.[7]
In the radical perspective, America is an oppressor nation, which significantly depreciates any value that American citizenship might have and justifies a less than solicitous view towards the preservation of American culture and America’s borders. One of the more prolific academics promoting the radical viewpoint is has been James D. Cockcroft, a New Left radical who has received much of the funding for his work from the Ford Foundation. A characteristic Cockcroft work is Outlaws in the Promised Land: Mexican Immigrant Workers and America's Future.[8] This is a frontal attack on American society, in which Cockcroft argues, “the U.S. working class can realistically strengthen its position only when it adds to its fight‑back strategy a commitment to the defense of the unorganized and the undocumented.”[9] This Ford-sponsored effort also claims that, “since Vietnam, this [U.S.] society has displayed a deepening ‘anti-communist,’ racist, nativist, and class-biased character in its treatment of immigrants and in its immigration policy....it has also experienced a wave of legislative, administrative, and court decisions that may curtail the basic civil rights of not only immigrants but of all U.S. citizens.”[10]
The campaign to radically change American values and culture through mass immigration and the political mobilization of the alienated presents a danger to the American that parallels the anti-American agendas of the Islamic jihad. Moreover, politically engineered demographic shifts and terrorism are not unrelated. The same communities of recently arrived immigrants (whether legal or not) help create networks used by illegal aliens that provide jobs, housing, and routes of entry into America for other illegals, including criminals and terrorists. Immigrants from strife-torn lands often provide funds for movements engaged in conflict in their homelands, while factions competing for power overseas frequently have their struggles mirrored within immigrant communities here.
The concerted leftist attempt to radicalize immigrant communities runs the risk that at the periphery a home-grown terrorist cells will form that will work in conjunction with foreign movements while finding a base of support within the United States. At which time, it will be too late to close the borders. There is already a growing problem with ethnic criminal gangs fighting for turf in major U.S. cities, a form of low-level conflict that could escalate into a form of insurgency as it has in so many other countries.
**Read it all.
18143
Politics & Religion / Re: Israel, and its neighbors
« on: October 19, 2011, 05:50:30 AM »
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/8834887/Palestinian-militants-vow-to-abduct-a-new-Gilad-Shalit.html
The Popular Resistance Committees, the Hamas-dominated militant coalition that captured Sgt Maj Shalit, vowed that it would seize another Israeli soldier to force Israel to release the 6,000 Palestinian prisoners that remain in its custody.
"We are going to capture another soldier and cleanse all the Israeli jails of our prisoners," said a masked spokesman using the nom de guerre Abu Mujahid.
For many Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, the release of so many prisoners for one man is evidence that Israel responds only to threats, making the path of peaceful negotiation espoused by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and his moderate Fatah party nonsensical. "The people want a new Gilad, the people want a new Gilad," chanted the tens of thousands who gathered at a Hamas-sponsored rally in Gaza city to welcome home the freed prisoners.
The Popular Resistance Committees, the Hamas-dominated militant coalition that captured Sgt Maj Shalit, vowed that it would seize another Israeli soldier to force Israel to release the 6,000 Palestinian prisoners that remain in its custody.
"We are going to capture another soldier and cleanse all the Israeli jails of our prisoners," said a masked spokesman using the nom de guerre Abu Mujahid.
For many Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, the release of so many prisoners for one man is evidence that Israel responds only to threats, making the path of peaceful negotiation espoused by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and his moderate Fatah party nonsensical. "The people want a new Gilad, the people want a new Gilad," chanted the tens of thousands who gathered at a Hamas-sponsored rally in Gaza city to welcome home the freed prisoners.
18144
Politics & Religion / Re: Mexico-US matters
« on: October 19, 2011, 05:41:47 AM »
Love the Amerikan Criminal Liberties Union take on deportations. As long as it hurts the US, they are for it.
18145
Politics & Religion / Re: Mexico-US matters
« on: October 19, 2011, 05:39:53 AM »Deportations at an all time high:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/18/us/immigrant-deportations/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
And with the border still unsecured, they are often back in a week or two.
18146
Politics & Religion / Re: The Fed, Monetary Policy, Inflation, US Dollar & other currencies, & Gold/Silver
« on: October 18, 2011, 04:13:11 PM »I have come to doubt the "deflation is bad" hypothesis.
Oh? Do tell.
18147
Politics & Religion / Re: A surprisingly wooly-headed analysis from Stratfor
« on: October 18, 2011, 01:36:18 PM »
Ooof!
18148
Politics & Religion / Who could have seen this coming?
« on: October 18, 2011, 12:10:17 PM »http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-military-schalit-suffering-malnutrition-132751567.html
Netanyahu told an audience that he understood the pain of Israeli families who lost relatives in Palestinian violence, but that Israel's ethos of doing everything possible to bring its soldiers home safely forced him to act.
He also issued a staunch warning to the freed militants. "We will continue to fight terror and every released terrorist who returns to terror will be held accountable," he said.
Those concerns were underscored with comments by one of the freed prisoners, Hamas militant leader Yehia Sinwar, who called on the movement to kidnap more soldiers.
Hamas agreed to release Schalit in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, many of them serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis. The arrivals of the prisoners set off ecstatic celebrations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where large crowds and dignitaries greeted them.
In Gaza, prisoners embraced and shook hands with Hamas leaders at the Rafah border crossing.
Tens of thousands of flag-waving Palestinians celebrated at a rally that quickly turned into a show of strength by the Islamic militant group, which seized control of Gaza from its rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in 2007.
On a sandy lot, a huge stage was set up and decorated with a mural depicting Schalit's capture in a June 2006. Thousands hoisted green Hamas flags.
"My happiness is indescribable," said Azhar Abu Jawad, a 30-year-old woman who celebrated the return of a brother who had been sentenced to life for killing an Israeli in 1992.
"We'll get him a bride and everything. I just spoke to him. He's so happy. This is a reminder, God doesn't forget anyone," she said.
In the West Bank, released prisoners were taken to the grave of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas greeted them, and several thousand people filled the courtyard outside his headquarters to celebrate.
"We thank God for your return and your safety," Abbas said. "You are freedom fighters and holy warriors for the sake of God and the homeland."
18149
Politics & Religion / Re: Israel, and its neighbors
« on: October 18, 2011, 09:24:44 AM »
The concept of every Israeli being a frontline soldier served Israel well, saving more lives in the long run. This is a bad decision.
18150
Politics & Religion / Re: Israel, and its neighbors
« on: October 18, 2011, 09:13:37 AM »
The importance of taking Israelis hostage just went through the roof for the jihadists. That which you reward, you'll see more of.