Great Depression of 2016

[rufus]

And our social welfare system draws people to the US. They can get food stamps, WIC, subsidized housing and a plethora of other benefits. I don't want to deny people those benefits; I just don't want to pay for them.

I know how desperate living is in some small Mexican village, but it must be truly worse father south. But, I am not responsible for the condition of those nations. Like Ms. B says, why don't they fix their own nation first?

The governments of those countries love to see the remittances come in from the US. Mexico had a series of stamps with "Mexico Exporta ______." Shoes, automobiles, vegetables etc. They should have had a "Mexico Exporta Gente" stamp.

People come with the idea of working and making some money so they can put a business or ranch back home. That doesn't work. They go to a dance and they meet a girl. Pretty soon she is pregnant and they have a family. The kids are US citizens and they generally don't speak Spanish. They can't take the kids back to their country of origin because they are not citizens of that country, they don't speak the language and are not entitled to public education.

In time the kids grow up, get covered with ugly tatoos and end up in the penal system. The parents can't visit them because they are still illegal.

I don't know what the answer is, but we had better find one soon.

 

[hemet dennis]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102757113

 

[WooingWyandotte]

 

[rufus]

Well, it looks like Greece is not going to take the austerity program offered by the Europeans. Will they turn to Russia, and will the Russians take them on? I guess we will just have to wait to find out.

This has nothing to do with the conversation, but I will throw it in anyway.

Relative to placing arms in other NATO countries, I suspect they will end up in the hands of people we really didn't want to have them. If Russia came at the Baltic countries, they would fold like a house of cards.

Someone in high position in the US would blame his predecessor or someone else, and then take another vacation, but not in northern Europe. There will be many games of golf.

No US troops would be sent into the contested area.

 

[hemet dennis]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102764431

 

[rufus]

Well Dennis, it is their money and they can spend it anyway they want. However, educating a person in a field they cannot work in is pretty much pointless. A degree in engineering is not much good if the only job they can secure is mopping out a hotel. There needs to be a solution to the problem. I don't know how it will all work out, but I hope for the best.

I have heard that the Obama trade bill will open our borders to all sorts of immigrants from the Pacific Rim. I don't know if that is true or not; they won't publish what was in it.

Luckily, it failed in congress, but they will bring it back again and again until they get what they want. I am pretty sure it will not be good for you and I.

 

[hemet dennis]

Well Dennis, it is their money and they can spend it anyway they want. However, educating a person in a field they cannot work in is pretty much pointless. A degree in engineering is not much good if the only job they can secure is mopping out a hotel. There needs to be a solution to the problem. I don't know how it will all work out, but I hope for the best.

I have heard that the Obama trade bill will open our borders to all sorts of immigrants from the Pacific Rim. I don't know if that is true or not; they won't publish what was in it.

Luckily, it failed in congress, but they will bring it back again and again until they get what they want. I am pretty sure it will not be good for you and I.

Why would we know what's in a treaty that isn't written yet ?

 

[rufus]

Dennis, read this column by Dick Morris. It is written based upon information released by Wikileaks.

"The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is supposed to be the trade deal that needs fast-track authority to get approved by Congress. But the real worry is not TPP -- it's the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) that's being negotiated well out of public view.

Until recently, the details of TISA had been carefully hidden, but a draft treaty and notes about the negotiations now in progress were leaked and posted earlier this month on the WikiLeaks website. It is now clear that, even as Republicans like Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) have been assuring us that the free flow of labor is not covered in the TPP, it is the entire point of much of TISA.

An article by Daniel Costa and Ron Hira of the Economic Policy Institute wades through the pages of TISA documents posted on WikiLeaks to find provisions on open immigration. Article 4, concerning "Entry and Temporary Stay of Natural Persons," states signatories "shall not maintain or adopt Economic Needs Tests, including labor market tests, as a requirement for a visa or work permit." Costa and Hira explain: "In other words, U.S. laws or regulations limiting guestworkers only to jobs where no U.S. workers were available would violate the terms of the treaty."

Article 5 goes further, proposing that member nations "shall take market access and national treatment commitments for intra-corporate transferees, business visitors, and ... contractual service suppliers and independent professionals." The draft then goes on to require signatories to "allow entry and temporary stay of [contractual service suppliers and independent professionals]" in a long list of specific fields.

The covered occupational sectors listed include landscape architectural services, medical services, midwife and nursing, business services dealing with maintenance and repair of equipment, general construction, assembly work, refuse disposal and sanitation, hotels and restaurants, and transport services, among others -- precisely areas that use huge numbers of legal and illegal foreign workers.

Costa and Hira point out that "foreign firms would not be required to advertise jobs to U.S. workers, or to hire U.S. workers if they were equally or better qualified for job openings in their own country." They note that the treaty means that "potentially hundreds of thousands of workers could enter the United States every year ... importing cheaper labor to supplant American workers."

Why would a hotel chain hire American workers when it could transfer unlimited numbers of foreign employees to the U.S.? Those who have visited Western Europe may have been amazed at the number of Polish, Hungarian, Czech and Romanian kids waiting tables in Paris, Rome, Dublin and London -- all courtesy of the European Union requirement for free flow of labor. Meanwhile, unemployment in Western Europe frequently runs into double digits. Under TISA, the same thing will happen here, and American workers will find fewer and fewer job openings.

The treaty is often billed as impacting high-tech Silicon Valley jobs only. But its provisions make it obvious that it will be a bonanza for multinational corporations of all sorts. Nothing could be more calculated to depress wage levels in the service sector, which provides 7 of 10 American jobs.

Employment in manufacturing has already been truncated in the U.S. because of competition from foreign, offshore workers. But the service sector has seen less foreign competition because, by definition, most services cannot be outsourced offshore. Under TISA, they can be.

In general, Democrats want immigrants to vote but, because of union pressure, not to work, and Republicans want them to work, to pad corporate profits, but not to vote. TISA lets them work without getting on a citizenship track. It puts corporate profits ahead of American employment and wages.

The TPP deal doesn't really need fast-track to get approved. But TISA does. Anyone who backs fast-track should forfeit the right to complain about income stagnation and inequality in America."

Now that worries me.

 

[hemet dennis]

Dennis, read this column by Dick Morris. It is written based upon information released by Wikileaks.

"The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is supposed to be the trade deal that needs fast-track authority to get approved by Congress. But the real worry is not TPP -- it's the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) that's being negotiated well out of public view.

Until recently, the details of TISA had been carefully hidden, but a draft treaty and notes about the negotiations now in progress were leaked and posted earlier this month on the WikiLeaks website. It is now clear that, even as Republicans like Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) have been assuring us that the free flow of labor is not covered in the TPP, it is the entire point of much of TISA.

An article by Daniel Costa and Ron Hira of the Economic Policy Institute wades through the pages of TISA documents posted on WikiLeaks to find provisions on open immigration. Article 4, concerning "Entry and Temporary Stay of Natural Persons," states signatories "shall not maintain or adopt Economic Needs Tests, including labor market tests, as a requirement for a visa or work permit." Costa and Hira explain: "In other words, U.S. laws or regulations limiting guestworkers only to jobs where no U.S. workers were available would violate the terms of the treaty."

Article 5 goes further, proposing that member nations "shall take market access and national treatment commitments for intra-corporate transferees, business visitors, and ... contractual service suppliers and independent professionals." The draft then goes on to require signatories to "allow entry and temporary stay of [contractual service suppliers and independent professionals]" in a long list of specific fields.

The covered occupational sectors listed include landscape architectural services, medical services, midwife and nursing, business services dealing with maintenance and repair of equipment, general construction, assembly work, refuse disposal and sanitation, hotels and restaurants, and transport services, among others -- precisely areas that use huge numbers of legal and illegal foreign workers.

Costa and Hira point out that "foreign firms would not be required to advertise jobs to U.S. workers, or to hire U.S. workers if they were equally or better qualified for job openings in their own country." They note that the treaty means that "potentially hundreds of thousands of workers could enter the United States every year ... importing cheaper labor to supplant American workers."

Why would a hotel chain hire American workers when it could transfer unlimited numbers of foreign employees to the U.S.? Those who have visited Western Europe may have been amazed at the number of Polish, Hungarian, Czech and Romanian kids waiting tables in Paris, Rome, Dublin and London -- all courtesy of the European Union requirement for free flow of labor. Meanwhile, unemployment in Western Europe frequently runs into double digits. Under TISA, the same thing will happen here, and American workers will find fewer and fewer job openings.

The treaty is often billed as impacting high-tech Silicon Valley jobs only. But its provisions make it obvious that it will be a bonanza for multinational corporations of all sorts. Nothing could be more calculated to depress wage levels in the service sector, which provides 7 of 10 American jobs.

Employment in manufacturing has already been truncated in the U.S. because of competition from foreign, offshore workers. But the service sector has seen less foreign competition because, by definition, most services cannot be outsourced offshore. Under TISA, they can be.

In general, Democrats want immigrants to vote but, because of union pressure, not to work, and Republicans want them to work, to pad corporate profits, but not to vote. TISA lets them work without getting on a citizenship track. It puts corporate profits ahead of American employment and wages.

The TPP deal doesn't really need fast-track to get approved. But TISA does. Anyone who backs fast-track should forfeit the right to complain about income stagnation and inequality in America."

Now that worries me.

No one other then the ones working on the treaty knows what's in it. And they don't know what is in the final document, because it hasn't been decided between the parties yet. It hasn't even been finalized who the parties will all be.

Tomorrow I'll post some leaked documents from the treaty, they will be just as accurate.

 

[rufus]

Dennis, if it was voted down in congress, I think that it had been pretty much finalized. We need to know the text, terms and other implications that this treaty will cause. Please provide any information you have encountered.