Tuesday, October 04, 2011
A Few Simple Truths
The Way Things Are!
Corporate jets are efficient transportation and time savers for movers and shakers.
There is nothing wrong with making a lot of money, and keeping it– minus taxes, of course.
Contributors to our society reap rewards commenserate with their value in the marketplace.
Deficit spending has a hard limit; it will have to stop when you cannot pay back in full. (We are too near that now for comfort.)
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
It isn’t a secret that corporate taxes are factored into the price to the customer, and the higher these taxes, the higher the price charged, and the less competitive the product is in the world market. So now we have an ever decreasing manufacturing sector and number of jobs, because to remain competitive we have shipped the manufacturing jobs overseas, mainly to China. They will not return.
The top 10% of tax payers today pay over 70% of the taxes: The bottom 40-50% pay nothing, so in a real sense the bottom half are not stakeholders but simply takers.
The free market is the most efficient way to control an economy, but it needs the right amount of regulation to ensure a level playing field and control of fraud and abuse, and this needs constant work to keep up.
This free market approach has been the best for our economy, including health care.
Environmental stewardship is an important objective for society, but we cannot wreck the economy to achieve unrealistic environmental goals, or we will only achieve a beautiful, clean, yet dirt poor, vulnerable and starving nation. Further, the world measures of clean air and water will continue to be negative until China and India, for two, make enormous strides in their lands.
The jobless rate is far closer to 16% to 18% than the carefully calculated 9.1%, because the government doesn’t count those who have stopped seeking non-existent jobs, and shouting out the true number would be politically rather bad for Obama.
Judicious tax cuts stimulate the economy via increased consumer spending and demand, which in turn sparks hiring, production of more supplies and thus the flow of wages and profits, and lo and behold, greater tax revenue. The deficit is reduced by the disciplined spending of less than the revenue income.
The chief characteristics of illegal immigrants is that they are here illegally and they work well for less than citizens demand.
If we pursue our main natural energy resources to the fullest we can become energy independent inside of 10 to 15 years, and that means coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas. By playing with solar, wind, and wave sources, but not the main sources, we will still be heavily dependent on imported oil from the ME after that same 10 to 15 years. We need to get cracking and fracking right now!
Utopian or collective societies fail because they are diametrically opposed to human nature, and you can’t change or homogenize human nature by edicts or at the point of a gun. You can, however, create a huge mound of bodies of misfits and a bare subsistence level for the majority of sullen and resentful citizens who live on the promise of nirvana in another five years, and another five years, and…. No thank you!
The Way Things Are!
Corporate jets are efficient transportation and time savers for movers and shakers.
There is nothing wrong with making a lot of money, and keeping it– minus taxes, of course.
Contributors to our society reap rewards commenserate with their value in the marketplace.
Deficit spending has a hard limit; it will have to stop when you cannot pay back in full. (We are too near that now for comfort.)
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
It isn’t a secret that corporate taxes are factored into the price to the customer, and the higher these taxes, the higher the price charged, and the less competitive the product is in the world market. So now we have an ever decreasing manufacturing sector and number of jobs, because to remain competitive we have shipped the manufacturing jobs overseas, mainly to China. They will not return.
The top 10% of tax payers today pay over 70% of the taxes: The bottom 40-50% pay nothing, so in a real sense the bottom half are not stakeholders but simply takers.
The free market is the most efficient way to control an economy, but it needs the right amount of regulation to ensure a level playing field and control of fraud and abuse, and this needs constant work to keep up.
This free market approach has been the best for our economy, including health care.
Environmental stewardship is an important objective for society, but we cannot wreck the economy to achieve unrealistic environmental goals, or we will only achieve a beautiful, clean, yet dirt poor, vulnerable and starving nation. Further, the world measures of clean air and water will continue to be negative until China and India, for two, make enormous strides in their lands.
The jobless rate is far closer to 16% to 18% than the carefully calculated 9.1%, because the government doesn’t count those who have stopped seeking non-existent jobs, and shouting out the true number would be politically rather bad for Obama.
Judicious tax cuts stimulate the economy via increased consumer spending and demand, which in turn sparks hiring, production of more supplies and thus the flow of wages and profits, and lo and behold, greater tax revenue. The deficit is reduced by the disciplined spending of less than the revenue income.
The chief characteristics of illegal immigrants is that they are here illegally and they work well for less than citizens demand.
If we pursue our main natural energy resources to the fullest we can become energy independent inside of 10 to 15 years, and that means coal, oil, nuclear and natural gas. By playing with solar, wind, and wave sources, but not the main sources, we will still be heavily dependent on imported oil from the ME after that same 10 to 15 years. We need to get cracking and fracking right now!
Utopian or collective societies fail because they are diametrically opposed to human nature, and you can’t change or homogenize human nature by edicts or at the point of a gun. You can, however, create a huge mound of bodies of misfits and a bare subsistence level for the majority of sullen and resentful citizens who live on the promise of nirvana in another five years, and another five years, and…. No thank you!
Labels: Comments on the day, Conservatism, Economy, Government, Honesty, Illegals
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Illegal Immigration
A quest for the right solution
For me, the starting point is the 11 million or so illegal immigrants now in the nation. They are human beings that were driven to breaking our laws simply to feed, clothe, and house their families back home. While we could organize a mass deportation over a few years, the human suffering and the dislocation of the Mexican economy–and our own economy–by such an act needs to be taken fully into account.
There are few answers that satisfy all comers to this issue. It seems to me that we need itenerant workers, and we need skilled workers, yet the quotas for them are not sufficiently high to allow for sufficient numbers of itenerants. Creating an effective itenerant worker program should be very high on the to-do list. Despite a number of difficulties, I believe that the US can solve this IW problem.
Good fences make good neighbors. We should complete the border fences and any other necessary additions to shut down illegal entry insofar as possible, while at the same time allowing legal entry to many more migrant workers under suitable controls. Employer sponsorship should be made more stringent and costly, and the migrants themselves should be monitored far more closely. The basic premise is that a migrant is not a candidate for citizenship here; he is expected to return home once his job is ended. Illegal hiring of migrants by employers should be penalized heavily.
Amnesty is another “third rail” issue. I believe it is not fair to those who have tried for years to emigrate legally to wipe the slate clean for the illegals that have managed to survive here—and to prosper in many cases. If we gave amnesty to all 11 million illegals today, we would in effect saying that the doors are open for all to come, and wait out the next round of amnesty here, instead of waiting for legal emigration at home.
This brings our current emigration policy into play. We have gone from Y’all come, to a strict quota system, and then to a looser system now in vogue that I cannot describe. I suppose the question is, how many emigrees per year in total should we allow in the US from now on? a million? Ten million? What? Should we require that emigrees be able to earn a living by way of their skills, or by sponsorship? Recognize too that by allowing many unskilled people into the nation during boom times, inevitably results in having them here without jobs during downtimes, when they may leave on their own, or may not.
I have not seen much cogent analysis of these issues by commentors here in blogs, but a lot of posturing for effect or beating of sour drums, when these and more issues cry for intelligent responses.
Labels: Identity Card, Illegals, Immigration
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Deporting Illegals
Many people are trying to stop the deportation of illegal immigrants by claiming that the US cannot deport 12 million people. Hogwash! As I have posted in the past, all that is needed is the will. Reflect on how we handled mobilization and maintenance of well over 12 million men and women during WWII for the armed forces. We provided clothing, shelter, medical help, food, and transportation to the lot for over 4.5 years.
So, it is obviously possible to do if we really want to do it. Such a program would have to be spaced out over a period of time, like 5 years, which would mean only 2.4 million people per year would be affected. It is also true that once such an effort was underway, many of the illegals would voluntarily go home to avoid the hassle.
At one point, I speculated that some 20 cruise ships could be hired to transport the illegals back home to their Central and Latin American nations from key ports around the US, plus the road and rail transport to the ports, and perhaps housing and feeding them awaiting a ship. If you do the math, each ship could turn around in about 2 weeks, and could carry about 5,000 per trip very comfortably. So that would be 26 trips per year X 5,000 people X 20 ships = 2.6 million people per year. In 5 years, the lot would be back home rather easily. The biggest glitch would be whether their home nation would accept them, and accept them at this rate of 2.6 million per year, divided, of course, between the various nations of origin.
So, please don't try to say that it is impossible to do, because it obviously isn't! It merely takes the will to do it.
Labels: Illegals, Immigration
Sunday, July 18, 2010
The Border and Amnesty
Amnesty should not be part of the solution!
Let us face squarely the whole border issue in all of its complexity. Violence seeping into the US from Mexico is one important aspect that must be controlled and prevented right now. Smuggling of people and dope into the US is a second issue. A third issue is the penetration of our nation by millions of illegal immigrants which impacts us in innumerable ways.
Then come the issues of how to proceed from here, such as closing the borders effectively, getting the illegals to return home, controlling the employers in the US that hire illegals, creating an effective guest worker program, handling the Anchor Baby problem and the bringing into the US of strings of relatives, the problems of assimilation and teaching culture, custom, language and the “rules of the road” here, and the idea of amnesty and citizenship for the illegal lot that has been most seriously considered by Congress in the past, and appears to be headed for another legislative run in the near future, and the rather ineffective attempts underway to solve some of these issues of an open border policy that many in government have advocated.
Pull on any one of these issue strings and you automatically pull out the rest of them with all of their messiness and political, social, and humanitarian conflicts. It is a very explosive set of concerns, not only for the Border States but also the rest of the states that find themselves in opposition to the ideas of maintaining in effect an open border policy, mobs of illegal immigrants on the streets, and populating the jails in every state with Hispanic gangs, while the police merely stand by and watch these illegals run around.
My particular thrust is and has been to find and support effective solutions to the full set, and to ward off the radical, humanitarian-oriented and progressive solution of total amnesty, and the most likely augmentation of the Democratic Party through such amnesty using my tax dollars to pay for it.
These things, and others that will come to mind later, I consider of major importance to be discussed once the border problem is broached in one or more of its facets, including the very political aspects that frost my cake.
Let us see where the amnesty argument take us in the following months. The crucial defense of allowing amnesty centers on a humanitarian argument.
Labels: Amnesty, Citizenship USA, Illegals, Nationwide ID
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Steering Us into Chaos
A few thoughts on where the left is taking us.
Some key themes the left seems to be carrying forward are:
1) Castigating conservatives with false accusations in a constant drumbeat of slogans;
2) Castigating Constitutionalists and rightists with the meme that the Constitution is out of date, an idea that I challenge most heartedly;
3) Castigating conservative radio talk show hosts for being...themselves! and,
4) At least implicitly, riding the "man is the measure of all things" meme, or in other words, atheistic Secular Humanism, materialism and moral relativism. But, I suppose they have to believe in "something" in order to understand anything, even if that something is dead wrong.
It is amazing to me that anyone can believe in some form of benign-but-authoritative world government, a major SH and leftist tenet that includes equal and democratic shares of power for immoral or amoral governments, ruling parties and national elites. There is no common cultural, religious, political, social, economic, military or philosophical basis for such a lash up, and it would most certainly ruin the sovereignty of our nation and our way of life. So why entertain this corrosive idea?
This idea, in turn, suggests that one must have a higher allegiance than to our nation---that is, to all of unwashed mankind and their leaderships (and not to God, of course!). This is perhaps the root of the belief in open borders for the US and amnesty for illegal immigrants, which is an impending disaster if Obama has his way.
The last two world government attempts, namely The League of Nations and the United Nations, have been failures in the large--a statement that has been well-illustrated elsewhere. Promoting more of the same is sheer folly! The over 200 governments around the world, their power elites, and a majority of their people are simply too intellectually, economically, culturally, politically and morally primitive or insular, or both, to play their expected altruistic roles in democratic or republican world governance at this juncture. The UN record provides all the proof needed for this assertion. For the backward nations to learn by doing in the UN is also rediculous when so many lives are at stake worldwide.
We do need mechanisms for controlling aggression, world domination movements (think Islam), genocide, piracy, open seas violations, wanton exploitation of resources, theft, and commerce, to name a few international law needs. Most of these needs can and should be accomplished by enforceable and monitored treaties between relevant nations for now. They can be backed up by the military power of the US and allied democratic Western nations, where the notions of democratic governance and justice are culturally and politically dominant. We should not concern ourselves with events in the interior of sovereign nations, or else there is no meaning to sovereignty. If asked to help by a legitimate government, however, that is a different thing, and such requests should be carefully considered.
Labels: Illegals, Immigration, Obama, Secular Humanism, UN, Worldview
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Arizona Law and Illegal Immigrants
Several points seem right to me:
1. America is a sovereign state, and therefore has a right and a duty to control its borders and to ship home illegal immigrants that have found their way here.
2. Arizona is a sovereign state and is within its rights to control its borders and illegal immigrants as well.
3. The hurrah in the media and by Hispanics is just so much nonsense. We do not want open borders, and we never voted for a flood of illegal immigrants to reside in the country.
4. In enforcing the law, I would be humane about hustling illegals out of the country; I would give individuals 24 to 48 hours, and families perhaps a week or so to pick up their belongings and leave.
5. However, I would ensure that the illegals didn't just migrate to another state. The actual means to ensure this I cannot say offhand. Perhaps I am being too lenient and should support immediate arrest and hold for return to their home country.
6. We should not allow illegals to stay here on the grounds that they have children born here. These children are the product of lawbreakers and they are governed by those same lawbreakers; hence, they must leave also. I also believe that the idea that kin should be able to come here to join their legal relatives should be severely limited.
7. I believe that we must have foreign workers here on a legal and well-monitored basis, including identification papers that include unforgeable elements such as retina scans, fingerprints, and DNA samples.
8. Good for Arizona!
9. Think we can't ship all illegals back home? Think again. Over a 5 year period we could organize the necessary infrastructure rather handily. Remember the military effort to man up our forces in WWII? We housed, fed, clothed, trained, armed and shipped over ten million soldiers around the world inside of three years. Here, we aren't concerned with clothing, arming, training or shipping most of the illegals all that far.
10. I do hope that Obama will try to pass amnesty. It will be his final Rubicon.
Labels: Arizona, Illegals, Immigration
Sunday, November 01, 2009
This Healthcare Bill: just Say NO!
Instead of an omnibus bill, take many small remedial steps!
Isolate specific problems, such as tort reform, and send a bill for signature on that one thing.
Put a real enforcement campaign onto Medicare fraudsters and fund it well.
Ensure that Illegals do not get free coverage.
Ensure that abortion is not funded by the government.
Ensure that private industry has free reign. Limit government's role in healthcare.
Elect those who will continue this program: conservatives!
Labels: Corruption, Health Debate, Illegals
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Healthcare
Things that should be done now:
1. Ensure financial security for Medicare and Medicaid
2. Ensue financial security of Social Security
3. Reform the tort system to eliminate abuses
4. Reform the administration of Medicare and Medicaid
5. Allow health insurance to be portable across state lines and from company to company
6. Eliminate the “doughnut hole” in prescription insurance
7. Eliminate the mandatory ER treatment for scofflaws
8. Eliminate the mandatory hospitalization of all comers
9. Ensure no free coverage for aliens
10. Require immigrants and visitors to take out adequate health insurance in advance of entry into the US
11. Require employers of aliens to take out health insurance on their employees and families.
12. Require proper ID for all persons in the nation.
13. No refusal by insurance companies because of preexisting conditions, but allow them to set premiums to balance the risk.
14. No limits on maximum coverage in a lifetime
15. No cancellation of policies that are kept current in payments.
16. No increase in the national debt--pay as you go!
17. No establishment of a government bureaucracy or increased government employment for health reasons.
Labels: Health Debate, Identity Card, Illegals
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
A National Identification Card
What, pray tell, is wrong with having a high tech national identification card?
When this subject first came up, I took out my wallet and examined the cards I currently carry around. A driver's license with my SS number on it and my address and picture; my Medicare card and alternate insurance card; my honorable discharge card; three credit cards; my voter card; and sundry others, all painting a picture of my existence in the US. Through access to my credit reports, many companies and their employees can find out in great detail what I have been buying, how well I pay my bills, and on and on. If stopped by the police, I must show them my identification. If I want to fly overseas, I must show not only my driver's license, but also my passport, so airlines have a record of my flights too. TSA looks for my name on their no-fly list, which isn't there, so far! A number of services on line will research my background, the property I own, and many other facts recorded in databanks. The IRS can access my financial records , and the FBI or DOD can access my clearance records dating back to 1952 or 53, everywhere I have worked, and what I was paid.
So why would I object to being issued an identity card expressly for myself? The answer is I would not object at all. The government already has all the access they need about me if they are going rogue with the people, which I say is ridiculous. So it isn't a problem of lessened degrees of freedom.
But, it seems to me that it is a problem for those who want the US to have open borders and a flood of illegal immigrants coming into the nation and wandering all over the place. A really good ID card would be a great stopper to the illegals, so long as they cannot forge it adequately! That seems to be a technical problem we could solve.
Labels: Identity Card, Illegals
Friday, June 29, 2007
Immigration Revisited
What does an acceptable immigration bill contain?
A very easy question that 100 senators could not agree upon!
- Do everything needed to seal up our Southern border very tightly.
Enforce old laws
Enforce new laws
Photo and fingerprint all who cross and are caught, then deport them.
- Do everything needed to identify and bring to justice all Illegals.
Give arrest permission to all law enforcement.
Give deportation permission to all law enforcement. Force INS to follow.
Deport all Illegals forthwith over the next five years.
- Do not allow Illegals to be employed in the nation.
Punish employers severely that knowingly hire Illegals.
Search and find Illegals diligently wherever they may be.
Do not allow families into the nation.
- Rescind the ‘child born in the nation automatically a citizen’ clause.
Rescind the rule.
Make the new rule retroactive to 2000.
Ensure that there is no dual citizenship allowed.
- Create a legal migrant worker program with all needed provisions.
Limit the number per year, and number of years in succession.
Limit travel to only the registered employer’s locations.
Ensure positive identification and employer sponsorship
- Create a registered employee program, with penalties for abuses.
Employees must sponsor named migrant workers.
Employees must deposit $1,000 per worker he sponsors.
The deposit will be forfeited in the worker leaves.
Labels: Illegals, Immigration
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Subject: Illegal Immigration
We have a crisis over the immigration issue
By now, it ought to be clear to reasonable people that the problem of immigration is not one that can be finessed and passed off as “good for the nation.” Let us be more precise, however. We have no objection to legal immigration, per se, and if such immigration is by worthy souls, so much the better for us. But, we also feel that there should be a limit to immigration per year. About .5% of our population per year is comfortable, which would mean about 1.5 million people all told. We also believe that this number should be apportioned across the nations that are friendly to us, not those that harbor hatreds and religious, jihadist tendencies.
First things first, though. We have not enforced our immigration and border security laws on the books. These laws should be fully implemented before we diddle around with new and sweeping changes that we obviously cannot enforce well. Our borders should be firmly under control. After six years in office, the President has not made a real effort to beef up the borders and enforce the laws we have. We now hear that instead of 700 miles of border fencing, it will be scaled back to 350 miles. Wrong move! We must control our borders, and I do not see it happening.
The interior of the nation is also a security concern. We have some 10 or 12 million illegal aliens wandering around in the country that are not known to the authorities. That is the measure of the incompetence, and flagrant misapplication of our laws by successive administrations. Mr. Bush has had 6 1/2 years in office to correct this huge gap, and has not done so. In fact, he does not want to do a thing about it but make it worse.
The INS is dysfunctional. The State Department is namby-pamby about immigration. Local law enforcement is not empowered to arrest and deport aliens they discover. They turn them over to the INS, which means effectively the aliens are free to go back into the nation very quickly. Our police forces could do a tremendous job of finding Illegals and holding them for deportation. Many forces will not do it at all, claiming that it is useless unless they can deport the Illegals.
It appears that there are companies that want Illegal immigrants to work for them. Perhaps this is because they will work for much, much less than the going wages of Americans. Their influence has been felt in the manner in which the issue has been handled. These Illegals are law breakers. Companies that knowingly hire them are breaking the law also. The Illegals have access to forgers that can set them up with all the needed papers to appear legitimate to an employer. We need to attack both aspects of this problem, that of employers hiring known Illegals, and that of Illegals acquiring documents to allow them to pass muster.
So what about the mass of Illegals that have made a home here, or have a good job here and want to continue to enjoy the benefits of our economy, and of our social benefits as well, such as schools, and medical care? Their children, some of them, are born here and have US citizenship, which gives them a hook to prevent deportation.
A percentage of these people want to become American citizens and reside here permanently. Others simply want to work here and send money home. Many do not want to assimilate into our society, but to garner its benefits, while continuing to follow their foreign moral guidelines. Our jails are almost half full of such Illegals. Do we want to give these people effectively instant and unqualified amnesty and a route to citizenship? That is what the current Senate bill promises.
This bill must be defeated as it stands, and then completely rethought and rewritten. It is a future nightmare for my children and their children.
Labels: Illegals, Immigration
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Iraq; Illegal Immigration Agreement
A few comments
There is little reason to expect the surge to have a truly measurable effect by September of 07. Perhaps by September of 08 there will be good things to report, but the surge has not even been completed. My thinking now is that the President is playing possum, and has his eyes on
Illegal Immigration Agreement
What I have read so far seems to be a reasonable agreement, but I will await the full text before I deliver a definitive opinion. There seems to be more to the idea of Z Cards than mere amnesty. But I need to see the full text. I also wonder what will happen when a majority of Illegals stay away from applying for legal status.
Labels: Comments on the day, Illegals, Iraq
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Illegals, Radical Muslims, and America Haters
Our American society has been built around the idea of tolerance for our neighbors, other religions, and other people of the world. It has perhaps always been true that some of our citizens are disgruntled, discouraged, and downright furious at our government. It is fortunate that they are not so numerous that they can do serious harm to our society, whether they are from the right or left in their politics.
Muslims have the right to practice their religion in the
Sometimes tolerance is hard to maintain in the face of hatred and irrationality.
