Crush Liberalism

Liberalism: Why think when you can “feel”?

WSJ: New “No Match” immigration enforcement will work well, so don’t use it!

The open borders shills at the WSJ are abandoning all pretense of common sense. From Junkyard Blog:

Time for another open-borders editorial tucked behind the WSJ subscriber firewall. They’re getting better; this time they’re not complaining about their unmowed suburban lawns. They’ve dialed back the condescension a bit, too.

Which leaves Federal Reserve economist Pia Orennius to lay it out clearly. She’s concerned about the government’s new “No Match” regulations. Right now, if a business submits more than 10 SSN’s that match up to bogus names or other people’s names, that business gets a “No Match” letter and…nothing else. What’s changing is that

…the new rules will change that by offering a “safe harbor” from prosecution only to employers who act on no-match letters by firing workers who cannot present valid Social Security numbers. This is striking fear into the hearts of many employers and their workers.

And Wall Street, apparently. Why? Because, she says, it will work:

The new no-match program may not catch everybody, but it has the potential to impact the employment of three to four million undocumented workers. (They just can’t bring themselves to say “illegal immigrant”, can they? – Ed.) With such workers concentrated in just a few big states — California, Texas, Florida, New York, Arizona and Illinois — the regional impact of the program could be substantial.

Border enforcement keeps some immigrants out, but since it does nothing to remove the jobs magnet pulling workers here, it actually raises the rewards for those who make it in, encouraging more illegal immigration. Fears of no-match letters reflect a simple reality — this could work.

Can’t have that, now can we?

Interior enforcement strikes at the heart of why immigrants come to the U.S. — jobs. This approach can be effective without harming the U.S. economy when used to deter illegal inflows. When directed at the current stock of illegal immigrant workers, however, interior enforcement may do more harm than good.

The main effects will be to drive undocumented workers underground where they will work off the books for lower wages, under worse conditions and subject to more abuses. In recent work, Madeline Zavodny of Agnes Scott College and I found that the no-match letters and other post-9/11 enforcement measures, such as the Real ID Act, have eroded the demand for undocumented (sic) labor relative to other low-skilled workers, causing the relative wages and employment rates of undocumented workers (sic) to decline.

Subject to more abuses. Illegals are already nearly in indentured servitude, subject to extortion by the threat of informing La Migra about them. But this unsavory status quo doesn’t seem to be a big concern to the amnesty advocates. Given that, they need to explain why these lower wages (which would increase overall efficiency, fight inflation, and lower the price of those all-important heads of lettuce we keep hearing about) would be such a bad thing. If cheap labor is OK, why isn’t even cheaper labor better?
…
It’s not a fence, and it’s not going to shut people like me up, but as a part of a broader strategy it makes sense. And the WSJ is scared of it, so there might be something to it.

This makes me giddier than Al Gore’s kid on his third fatty at a Live Earth concert: the pro-amnesty shills are petrified that the laws may actually be getting properly enforced! Oh, the horror!

August 14, 2007 Posted by | illegal immigration | 6 Comments

German paper: We were wrong, US is “more successful than the world wants to believe”

From Moonbattery:

Will wonders never cease? From Der Spiegel:

Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq — it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq — not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers — are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn’t hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious “Sunni Triangle,” is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.

The article goes on for pages, explaining how leftist propaganda notwithstanding, America is winning our war against Islamic terrorism. What makes this amazing is that Der Spiegel has been instrumental in amplifying this very propaganda, usually to deafening levels. Not so long ago, they were feeding their readers this:

spiegel-power-and-lies.jpg
Power and Lies: George W. Bush and the Lost War in Iraq

Now, they’re writing this:

In many cities and villages in Iraq’s 18 provinces, terrorist networks are either weaker or have been destroyed entirely. The number of attacks is declining, as is the number of racially or religiously motivated killings.
[…]
Earlier this year, thousands of attacks occurred every week, and hundreds died daily. It seemed that terror reigned supreme, that its resources were inexhaustible. But now the trend appears to be reversing itself. Terror is weakening, and its leaders, most recently al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are issuing dramatic appeals to radical communities not to give up the fight. This is a good sign.
[…]
Something is happening in Iraq that is consistently concealed behind images of bombings. The situation that the White House and its deceptive advisors had erroneously predicted before their invasion — that the troops would be greeted with candy and flowers — could in fact still come true. That’s already the case in many places. It’s as if the terrorists have lost popular support, as if their acts of violence have driven the Iraqi people into the arms of the enemy, the Americans.

…
Speaking of defeatist Dems, Victor Davis Hanson has also noticed a shifting tide:

Do anti-war politicians frequently proclaim our defeat in Iraq — or instead worry that the war might be won? In the spring, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced Iraq was lost, the surge a failure and Gen. Petraeus not “in touch.” We haven’t seen Sen. Reid much lately.

But we have heard from the House’s majority whip, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C. He’s worried that Gen. Petraeus’ good news about the surge might be “a real problem for us” — “us” being anti-war Democrats. And at a congressional briefing, when Gen. Jack Keane reviewed the positive signs from the surge, Rep. Nancy Boyda, D-Kan., walked out on the testimony. She complained that there was “only so much that you could take … after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to.” (Yeah, good news for America sure does suck, doesn’t it? – Ed.)

…
Looks like Der Spiegel, like the Gray Lady, sees a winning horse and wants to place a bet on it. This is bad news for Democrats and their terrorist allies — but great news for civilization.

August 14, 2007 Posted by | defeatism, Euros, Iraq | 6 Comments

Income gap…between union bosses and dues-paying members

We always hear the left whine about the “income gap” in this country between the poor and the non-poor. I’m guessing they think that it’s the federal government’s job to dictate what people should be paid, so as to close this “gap”. Didn’t they try that in the Soviet Union? But I digress.

I wonder, though: will Democrat leaders find ways to address the income gap between union bosses and the dues-paying laymen who work for them? From Motown:

In the past five years, pink slips have descended upon tens of thousands of union workers in Michigan, while others have seen their health care and pension benefits gutted and wages frozen or cut.

But in many cases, labor’s pain stops at the union hall door.

During the toughest economic times for organized labor in decades, union leaders are more likely to keep their jobs and get raises than the members they serve. A Detroit News analysis of U.S. Department of Labor data revealed a growing pay divide between labor bosses and the rank and file who pay their salaries with their dues.

Michigan’s biggest unions represented 60,000 fewer workers in 2006 compared with 2002. While membership plummeted 14 percent, jobs at union halls remained safe, dropping less than 1 percent.

Workers who kept their jobs saw the disparity between their paychecks and those of their union bosses grow. The pay gap between the state’s 50 top-paid labor leaders and union workers has grown by $18,000 since 2002 — an economic chasm expanding by almost $10 a day. Records supplied to the Labor Department by the unions themselves show that the state’s 50 top-paid union officials now earn an average of $186,000. More than 1,000 labor officers and staffers in Michigan made more than $100,000 in 2006, more than twice as much as the average union worker.
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In 2006, the highest-paid union official in Michigan was Grosse Pointe Park’s Walter “Ralph” Mabry, the former executive secretary-treasurer of the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters. He was paid more than $410,000 last year — up $26,000 from the year before. That’s a 6.7 percent pay hike at a time when his union lost 5 percent of its members, records show.

“That’s silly,” said Peter Morici, a business professor at the University of Maryland, about Mabry’s pay. “Those are the kind of things that make them (union officials) look bad.” …

Unions, in many ways, are like our federal government: they frequently ignore economic reality, give the impression that they’re run by functional economic illiterates, and give themselves pay raises when times are tough for eveyone they allegedly “represent.” Whenever I see a union direct its members to strike, either during or right before their employer goes bankrupt, that kind of ignorance tells me all I need to know about the stupidity of unions.

By the way, whenever you see a liberal politician fighting for an increase in the minimum wage, don’t be stupid: they’re not doing it for the “little guy” or for “working families”, OK? They’re pandering to unions.

See, union contracts guarantee a minimum wage for their employees that is indexed with the federal minimum wage. For example, ABC Union has a contract with the ABC Company that says the employees of ABC Company cannot be paid less than 3x the federal minimum wage. When the federal minimum wage increases, so does the pay for union employees…and thus, the dues coming into ABC Union increases! Unions are always the ones who are front and center in screaming for an increase in the minimum wage, despite the fact that none of a union’s members make anywhere near the minimum wage. Remember that next time you hear calls for a minimum wage increase.

August 14, 2007 Posted by | economic ignorance, unions | 3 Comments

Katrina aid building luxury condos in Tuscaloosa

Yet another reason (among many) that we do not need the federal government running our health care! From Breitbart/AP:

With large swaths of the Gulf Coast still in ruins from Hurricane Katrina, rich federal tax breaks designed to spur rebuilding are flowing hundreds of miles inland to investors who are buying up luxury condos near the University of Alabama’s football stadium.

About 10 condominium projects are going up in and around Tuscaloosa, and builders are asking up to $1 million for units with granite countertops, king-size bathtubs and ‘Bama decor, including crimson couches and Bear Bryant wall art.

While many of the buyers are Crimson Tide alumni or ardent football fans not entitled to any special Katrina-related tax breaks, many others are real estate investors who are purchasing the condos with plans to rent them out.

And they intend to take full advantage of the generous tax benefits available to investors under the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005, or GO Zone, according to Associated Press interviews with buyers and real estate officials.

The GO Zone contains a variety of tax breaks designed to stimulate construction in Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. It offers tax-free bonds to developers to finance big commercial projects like shopping centers or hotels. It also allows real estate investors who buy condos or other properties in the GO Zone to take accelerated depreciation on their purchases when they file their taxes.

The GO Zone was drawn to include the Tuscaloosa area even though it is about 200 miles from the coast and got only heavy rain and scattered wind damage from Katrina.

The condo deals are perfectly legal, and the tax breaks do not take money away from Katrina victims closer to the coast because the depreciation is wide open, with no limits per state.

But the tax breaks are galling to some community leaders, especially when red tape and disorganization have stymied the rebuilding in some of the devastated coastal areas.

“The GO Zone extends so damn far, but the people who need it the most can’t take advantage of it,” said John Harral, a lawyer in hard-hit Gulfport, Miss.

Check this schmuck out:

“It is a joke,” said Tuscaloosa developer Stan Pate, who has nevertheless used GO Zone tax breaks on projects that include a new hotel and a restaurant. “It was supposed to be about getting people … to put housing in New Orleans, Louisiana, or Biloxi, Mississippi. It was not about condos in Tuscaloosa.”

“It was not about condos in Tuscaloosa.” Nope, instead it was about new hotels and restaurants? “It’s not fair! But, if people are gonna get rich off of it, I might as well, too. But I’ll assuage my own guilt by chanting loudly and longly ‘It’s a joke! It’s not fair!’ After a while, I might actually believe it.”

More:

An investor could write off more than $155,000 of the cost of a $300,000 condo in the first year and use the savings to lower his taxes on other rental income, according to Kelly Hayes, a tax attorney who advises investors in Southfield, Mich. Without the GO Zone tax break, the depreciation benefit from a single year on such a property would typically be just $10,909.

(The tax break is not available to people who buy a home for their own use.)

Yes sir, with that kind of forethought and management, the federal government would just do a bang-up job managing our health care, wouldn’t it?

August 14, 2007 Posted by | corruption, hurricanes, shameful, taxes | 5 Comments

Matthews: Rove allowing N.O. to drop into Gulf

It’s a good thing that Newsbusters watches his show, because apparently, no one else does. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t pass on the moonbattery to you fine people.

Matthews: “Can President Bush think without the man they call his brain? What about all those great ideas like dividing the country over Iraq and leaving New Orleans to drop into the sea? A country without Karl Rove calling the shots? Let’s fear for the Republic. Let’s play Hardball.”

It wasn’t bad enough that Rove caused the hurricane in the first place with his Rovian Climate Catastrophe Machine, but then he left the Chocolate City to drop into the Gulf of Mexico afterwards! Where’s the UN for a sternly worded resolution when you need it?

For those of you on the left, the prior paragraph was sarcasm.

August 14, 2007 Posted by | moonbats | 2 Comments

Obama: We need to stop killing innocent Afghani villagers

I wonder if this was a “botched joke”? From Breitbart/AP:

But during a later appearance before about 800 people in Nashua, Obama made a comment likely to further the spats he was warned about.

Asked whether he would move U.S. troops out of Iraq to better fight terrorism elsewhere, he brought up Afghanistan and said, “We’ve got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there.”

Oh, so that’s what we’re doing in Afghanistan! And here I thought we were fighting terrorists, helping a fledgling democracy, and keeping the Taliban from regaining power! What the heck was I thinking?

“Halp us, Obomma! We R stuk N Afgannestann!”

August 14, 2007 Posted by | Afghanistan, Obama | 5 Comments

   

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