MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
THE INVASION AND OCCUPATION YOU’RE PAYING FOR . HERE’S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
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WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN LOS ANGELES WHERE 50% OF THE WORK FORCE ARE ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, IS $50 MILLION PER MONTH. 95% OF ALL ARRESTS FOR MURDER ARE FOR ILLEGALS!
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38 MILLION ILLEGALS HAVE WALKED OVER OUR BORDERS, INTO OUR JOBS, AND WE GET THE BILLS FOR THEIR WELFARE AND PRISON COSTS.
HOW MUCH DOES ALL THIS “CHEAP” MEXICAN LABOR COST?
IT’S STAGGERING!
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WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN LOS ANGELES WHERE 50% OF THE WORK FORCE ARE ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, IS $50 MILLION PER MONTH. 95% OF ALL ARRESTS FOR MURDER ARE FOR ILLEGALS!
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7 Stressors Sapping the Middle Class
Rick Newman, On Tuesday March 16, 2010, 5:02 pm EDT
We all know about keeping up with the Joneses. Now, the Great Recession and the jobless recovery have introduced a new socioeconomic phenomenon: slip-sliding with the Smiths.
Working harder for less is the new normal--for those lucky enough to have a job. Millions of families are giving up comforts they long took for granted, such as restaurant meals, new clothes, vacations, spacious cars, home improvements, and cable television. College funds and retirement savings have taken a hit, and some families have been forced to downsize their homes or, worse, submit to foreclosure. Little wonder that record numbers of Americans tell pollsters it's getting harder to get ahead and that they worry their kids' standard of living may fall rather than rise.
The obvious culprit is a terrible job market that has left 15 million Americans out of work and millions more working less than they would like. But several economic trends have been stressing the American middle class for a decade or more, and the recession intensified those pressures as well. Healthcare and college costs, for example, have been rising unabated. Seniors who are living longer require more late-in-life care, with the costs often borne by their middle-aged kids. A turbulent economy, meanwhile, has hammered away at incomes, job security, and net worth--and even led the White House to create a "middle-class task force" that gives the problem an official hue: "It is harder to attain a middle-class lifestyle now than it was in the recent past," declared a recent task-force report.
Politicians want to help, with dozens of proposals in Washington and state capitals to create jobs, subsidize living costs, and prove that elected officials care. But most governments are running out of money, and many of the political proposals are hollow, vote-seeking gestures. Americans, meanwhile, are relying more on themselves by cutting spending, saving more, changing their lifestyles, and re-evaluating their careers. As a halting economic recovery evolves, here are seven stressors that middle-class Americans need to address in order to maintain their standard of living:
Falling income. The pinch that many families feel comes from incomes that have fallen while other unavoidable costs have continued to go up. From 2000 to 2008, median household income after inflation was basically unchanged, the weakest performance since at least the end of World War II. And that was mostly before the recession. Economists estimate that once additional data are tallied, they will show that median real income fell by 5 to 7 percent during the recession. That's a huge drop that seems unlikely to reverse itself anytime soon, since a weak job market means that even those who have jobs are far less likely to get raises. And many people have absorbed pay cuts or taken new jobs that pay a lot less than they used to earn.
A sudden loss of income can be devastating for those with a lot of debt and little savings, which unfortunately includes far too many Americans. Even so, people are adjusting. There's been a stutter-step increase in the savings rate, which, if it lasts, will help pad rainy-day funds. Shoppers are buying fewer extravagances and more discount merchandise. And after a 20-year borrowing binge, Americans are paying off (or defaulting on) record amounts of debt. If those trends continue, the typical household may eventually lower costs enough to live comfortably on less income--and enjoy a few new perks if incomes begin to rise again.
Reduced savings/net worth. When incomes fall faster than expenses, the first impulse is often to make up the difference by borrowing. But banks and credit-card issuers have clamped down on lending, leaving many Americans no choice but to raid their savings to pay the bills. This has happened at the same time that home values have plunged. Many homeowners now have little or no home equity, and a topsy-turvy stock market has stabilized more than 25 percent below its peak values from 2007. The result is a net loss of about $12 trillion in Americans' net worth over the past three years, according to the Federal Reserve--about $102,000 per U.S. household.
A sharp housing rebound or a fresh stock market rally would help recover those losses, but neither seems especially likely. And stock-market gains tend to benefit the wealthy much more than the middle class anyway. So the majority of Americans will have to rebuild their net worth the old-fashioned way: by saving more, spending less, and living more frugally. The savings rate has in fact ticked up over the past year, but not by as much as some economists had expected. That's one sign that it may take a long time for consumers to adjust their behavior and get used to a new financial reality.
High healthcare costs. The sob stories trotted out by advocates of healthcare reform ring true. Healthcare costs rose by 155 percent between 1990 and 2008, according to the White House's middle-class task force, while median household income rose by just 20 percent. That means medical costs take an increasing share of take-home pay for virtually every family. A separate study from 2009 found that 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies stemmed from medical problems that overwhelmed family finances. Even if Washington passes healthcare reform, rising medical costs seem likely to pressure the family budget for years, forcing many to simply spend less on other things.
Child-care/elder-care expenses. Many families have maintained their standard of living because both parents work. Between 1990 and 2008, for example, hours worked by both parents in a typical middle-income family increased 5 percent; in a middle-income single-parent family, hours worked spiked by 13.4 percent. That leaves less time for taking care of kids, aging parents, and anything else that needs attention--and the added costs of paying somebody else to do it. Data from the recession may show that child- and elder-care costs have eased as more people find themselves involuntarily stuck at home. And as Americans simplify their lives, some moms and dads may decide that it makes sense for one parent to spend more time at home instead of working to pay for a bunch of stuff the family doesn't really need.
[See 17 ways consumers are changing.]
College costs. A typical family with two kids should sock away about $4,200 per year to pay for college. That's a tall order. College costs have risen about 43 percent since 1990, nearly twice the rise in median income. And with state and federal education funds being axed, public universities are hiking tuition and fees. A budget crisis in California, for instance, has led to a 32 percent increase in tuition at marquee state schools like UCLA and Berkeley, with more increases likely. Private schools, meanwhile, are struggling with steep drops in their endowments thanks to the financial crisis and the housing bust, which trashed mortgage-based investments. The bottom line for many families is that they'll have to take out bigger college loans, with students working more to pay for their own education.
Housing costs. The cost of financing and maintaining a home soared by 56 percent between 1990 and 2008, thanks to the housing bubble that's now deflating. Many families that bought a home near the peak of the market--say, between 2005 and 2007--are stuck with property that's declining in value and in some cases worth less than the mortgage. That will continue to fuel foreclosures and the stress of making huge housing payments that the family income can barely cover. But the housing bust is helping bring prices back down to manageable levels for many families, one break for those who escape the recession with their household finances more or less intact.
False expectations. For the past 40 or 50 years, Americans have lived by a series of unofficial tenets: A good education guarantees a good job, hard work will bring prosperity, and 40 years of 40-hour-a-week work earns a comfortable retirement. Then, maybe; now, not so much. Workers who believe that somebody owes them a comfortable life just because they try hard are risking bitter disappointment in a Darwinian economy, where there are likely to be more losers and fewer winners than we're used to. The winners will be those who learn how to adapt, expect nobody to give them anything, and are prepared to work harder in the future than they did in the past. That's how it was in America before anybody ever heard of the middle class, and it may be that way for a while again. The real middle class--the true bedrock of the nation--will be able to handle it.
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WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN LOS ANGELES WHERE 50% OF THE WORK FORCE ARE ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, IS $50 MILLION PER MONTH. 95% OF ALL ARRESTS FOR MURDER ARE FOR ILLEGALS!
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WSWS.ORG GET ON THEIR FREE NO ADS EMAILS FOR THE NON-CORPORATE INTERESTS SLANT
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US jobless claims, home sales point to protracted recession
By Barry Grey
26 March 2010
The US Labor Department on Thursday reported that initial claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly in the week ending March 20, prompting much of the media to hail the data as another sign that the job market is “stabilizing” and the economic recovery is gaining strength.
The number of unemployed people who signed up for jobless benefits for the first time fell by 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 442,000, down from the prior week’s figure of 456,000. However, all but 4,000 of the decline was the result of changes in the metrics used by the Labor Department to calculate the data on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Had the report used the previous methodology, the figure for new claims would have actually been higher than the 450,000 projected by most economists.
The four-week moving average for initial claims fell by 11,000 to 453,750. Continuing claims—those made for more than one week—fell by 54,000 to 4.6 million for the week ending March 13. However, this was down from an upwardly revised figure for the previous week.
The Labor Department said that although initial claims fell in three of the past four weeks, they were still above the 439,000 posted in early February.
One measure of the ongoing jobs crisis, which has seen the elimination of 8.4 million jobs since December 2007, is the fact that more than 11.1 million workers are claiming jobless benefits—4.6 million of whom are on state jobless rolls and 5.7 million who are receiving extended benefits from the federal government.
The government puts the official jobless total at 15.1 million workers. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted that the “unemployment situation is very weak,” with 40 percent of those officially counted as jobless having been without work for more than 6 months.
However, far from suggesting any serious job creation measures, Bernanke reiterated his call for the White House and Congress to formulate an austerity program to rein in record federal budget deficits. Such, in fact, is the policy of the Obama administration.
Obama has rejected out of hand any government job-creation programs, such as public works. In the name of “job creation,” he and congressional Democrats have proposed a series of tax breaks for business, claiming that such windfalls will revive the private sector and encourage more hiring.
Last week, Congress passed an administration “jobs” bill allocating a derisory $17 billion, virtually all of which goes to tax cuts for companies that hire unemployed workers. No serious measures are being taken to address the increasingly desperate economic plight of millions of Americans, who are facing ongoing layoffs, wage cuts, home foreclosures, utility shutoffs, malnutrition, and the loss of savings as a result of plummeting home prices, rising health care costs and pension reductions.
Another so-called “jobs” bill is in the works that will provide additional tax windfalls for business interests.
With the passage of Obama’s health care overhaul, the stage has been set for hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly and disabled. This is to be a precedent for sweeping cuts in the core “entitlement” social program, Social Security. Earlier this year, Obama announced the formation of a bipartisan deficit commission to recommend cuts in Social Security and further cuts in Medicare as a means of reversing the explosive growth of federal budget deficits.
Meanwhile, corporate America, with the encouragement of the Obama administration, is utilizing mass unemployment to drive down the wages and living standards of the working class, while extracting more production from those still employed, thereby increasing corporate profits.
According to most economists, the figure for new jobless claims has to fall below 400,000 to indicate a shift to net job creation. Some economists responded to Thursday’s report with a sober assessment. Jim Baird, chief investment strategist at Plante Moran Financial Advisors, said, “We are still not seeing the degree of job creation that is needed to meaningfully chip away at a persistently high unemployment rate near 10 percent.”
While noting that the pace of job losses has slowed from the torrent that followed the financial crash of 2008, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Janet Yellen said this week, “What I fear is that unemployment will stay high for years.”
In another sign of the continuing slump, the Commerce Department on Wednesday reported that sales of new homes fell 2.2 percent in February from the previous month, hitting their lowest level since records began in 1963. February new home sales were at an annualized rate of 308,000 units, 13 percent below the level of February 2009.
That marked the fourth straight monthly decline. The Federal Reserve is set to end its purchase of hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgage-backed securities from the home finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the end of this month, which is likely to result in a further decline in home sales and prices and a new wave of layoffs in construction and related industries.
Barely noted by the media is an escalating wave of layoffs by state and local governments, which are responding to soaring deficits by slashing services and shutting schools. State and local governments employ 20 million workers, or 15 percent of the labor force. In the first two months of this year, they have cut 45,000 jobs, and more layoffs are expected in fiscal year 2011.
Just this week, the city of Baltimore announced the layoff of 600 employees, and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina) school board voted to begin laying off 600 teachers and cutting the pay of all 224 assistant principals.
Private sector layoffs announced this week include 840 by Delta Airlines at its Cincinnati, Ohio facility; 200 by defense contractor BAE Systems at its Jefferson City, Tennessee plant; and a 4 percent workforce reduction throughout New England by the Shaw’s supermarket chain.
The true depth of the recession is being obscured by the government. On Thursday, Federal Reserve Board economist Jeremy Nalewaik released a paper arguing that the government’s reliance on estimates of the gross domestic product (GDP) to measure economic performance has resulted in an underestimation of the depth of the recession, which officially ended last year, and an overestimation of the scale of the claimed recovery.
Nalewaik said that a more accurate barometer is a measure of national income, called gross domestic income (GDI). He noted, “The differences have become particularly glaring over the latest cyclical downturn, which appears considerably worse along several dimensions when looking at GDI.”
Along similar lines, David Rosenberg, chief economist at money management firm Gluskin Sheff, wrote in a note to clients last week that GDI was still contracting in the third quarter of 2009, when the GDP was reported to have surged by 5.9 percent. He pointed out that the gap between GDP and GDI was the largest on record.
This statistical divergence reflects the fact that the present recovery is largely a rebound in corporate profits and the wealth of the financial elite, while the living standards of the vast majority of Americans are continuing to fall. In other words, class divisions in the US are widening.
Corporate CEOs are continuing to award themselves multimillion-dollar pay packages. In the past few days, Ford announced that Chief Executive Alan Mulally is receiving $17.9 million for 2009, an increase of nearly 6 percent over 2008; JC Penney CEO Myron Ullman will get at least $4.7 million; and the CEO of insurance giant Travelers, Jay Fishman, is netting $20.6 million, an increase of 42 percent over the previous year.
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WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN LOS ANGELES WHERE 50% OF THE WORK FORCE ARE ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, IS $50 MILLION PER MONTH. 95% OF ALL ARRESTS FOR MURDER ARE FOR ILLEGALS!
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/////////////////////.. Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal
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Reply to: see below
Date: 2009-06-21, 1:07PM PDT
Joe Legal vs. Jose Illegal
Here is an example of why hiring illegal aliens is not economically productive for the State of California...
You have 2 families..."Joe Legal" and "Jose Illegal". Both families have 2 parents, 2 children and live in California.
"Joe Legal" works in construction, has a Social Security Number, and makes $25.00 per hour with payroll taxes deducted...."Jose Illegal" also works in construction, has "NO" Social Security Number, and gets paid $15.00 cash "under the table".
Joe Legal...$25.00 per hour x 40 hours $1000.00 per week, $52,000 per year
Now take 30% away for state and federal tax
Joe Legal now has $31,231.00
Jose Illegal...$15.00 per hour x 40 hours $600.00 per week, $31,200.00 per year
Jose Illegal pays no taxes...
Jose Illegal now has $31,200.00
Joe Legal pays Medical and Dental Insurance with limited coverage
$1000.00 per month
$12,000.00 per year
Joe Legal now has $19,231.00
Jose Illegal has full Medical and Dental coverage through the state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year
Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00
Joe Legal makes too much money is not eligible for Food Stamps or welfare
Joe Legal pays for food
$1,000.00 per month
$12,000.00 per year
Joe Legal now has $ 7,231.00
Jose Illegal has no documented income and is eligible for Food Stamps and Welfare
Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00
Joe Legal pays rent of
$1,000.00 per month
$12,000.00 per year
Joe Legal is now in the hole... minus (-) $4,769.00
Jose Illegal receives a $500 per month Federal rent subsidy
Jose Illegal pays rent
$500.00 per month
$6,000.00 per year
Jose Illegal still has $25,200.00
Joe Legal now works overtime on Saturdays or gets a part time job after work.
Jose Illegal has nights and weekends off to enjoy with his family.
Joe Legal's and Jose Illegal's children both attend the same school. Joe Legal pays for his children's lunches while Jose Illegal's children get a government sponsored lunch.
Jose Illegal's children have an after school ESL program. Joe Legal's children go home.
Joe Legal and Jose Illegal both enjoy the same Police and Fire Services, but Joe paid for them and Jose did not pay.
Don't vote/support any politician that supports illegal aliens...
Its WAY PAST time to take a stand for America and Americans!
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WELFARE FOR ILLEGALS IN LOS ANGELES WHERE 50% OF THE WORK FORCE ARE ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, IS $50 MILLION PER MONTH. 95% OF ALL ARRESTS FOR MURDER ARE FOR ILLEGALS!
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