PALO ALTO’S REV
GREGORY STEVENS SPEAKS OUT ABOUT POVERTY…. But to the cell phone-addicted!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/05/rev-gregory-stevens-rev-gregory-stevens.html
ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN WORKER…. Amazon’s JEFF BEZOS PLAN FOR A NEW AMERICAN SLAVERY
"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail.
It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL
GREENFIELD FRONTPAGE MAG
"The Wealth-X report shows that the world’s billionaire
population has grown by 15 percent, to 2,754 people, since
2016, and that the wealth of these billionaires “surged by 24
percent to a record level of $9.2 trillion,” equivalent to 12
percent of the gross domestic product of the entire planet."
Wealth-X report shows
billionaires gained $1.8 trillion in 2017
21
May 2018
American television viewers and newspaper readers were inundated
this weekend with banner headlines and around-the-clock coverage of the royal
wedding of Prince Harry of the British House of Windsor and his American
partner, Meghan Markle.
The major networks deployed an army of reporters to present the
wedding as an historic event. CNN called it “an electrifying affair that will
live long in the memory.” ABC called the wedding “a love locomotive,” while the
phrase “A Modern Fairytale” appeared as an on-screen banner. The coverage
provided no hint that the United States was born out of a violent struggle
against the British crown—a revolution that produced a Constitution banning
titles of nobility.
How is the fawning praise for aristocracy by the American media
establishment to be explained?
It is rooted in the staggering growth of social inequality, which
continues to enrich a modern-day financial aristocracy that exercises
oligarchic rule all over the world. The historically unprecedented
concentration of wealth at the very pinnacle of society inevitably breeds envy
of the British nobility, with its titles and caste privileges, within the
ruling elite of the American “republic” and its well-paid apologists.
The material and social basis of this longing for monarchy finds
new documentation in the publication last week of the Wealth-X “Billionaire
Census.” It shows that a tiny group of billionaires is continuing to increase
the immense scale of the fortunes it has amassed at the expense of billions of
workers and poor people worldwide.
The Wealth-X report shows that the world’s billionaire population
has grown by 15 percent, to 2,754 people, since 2016, and that the wealth of
these billionaires “surged by 24 percent to a record level of $9.2 trillion,”
equivalent to 12 percent of the gross domestic product of the entire planet.
Billionaires the world over increased their wealth, but nowhere
did they make as much money as in the United States and Asia. The wealth of the
727 billionaires in North America increased by 22.8 percent to a total of $3.3
trillion, a rate outpaced only by the 49.4 percent wealth increase among Asia’s
784 billionaires, who recorded a combined fortune of $2.4 trillion in 2018.
The super-rich are for the most part speculators. They derive their
income not by contributing to the process of production, but by gambling,
stealing and cheating. Among all billionaires, the portion of total wealth
derived from shares of stock increased from 32.9 percent in 2016 to 41.5
percent in 2017.
At the very top of the wealth pyramid, the richest 10 billionaires
own a combined $663 billion. Each has a net worth that is on average 20 times
higher than the “average billionaire.” A plurality of billionaires (413) derive
their wealth from finance, banking or investment, surpassing industrial
conglomerates (380), real estate (173), manufacturing (167) and technology
(143).
The increase in billionaire wealth is the result of policies
enacted by the governments of the world. In no other country do the super-rich
so nakedly control the political system as in the United States, where
President Donald Trump epitomizes the criminal character of Wall Street.
The report notes a “dramatic improvement in extreme wealth
creation” in the United States due to “buoyant equity markets and robust
corporate earnings.” American billionaires benefited from “the implementation
of a major US tax reform package late in the year,” i.e., the Trump
administration’s sweeping tax cut for the rich, passed without any serious
opposition from the Democratic Party.
The United States is home to the most billionaires of any country
in the world and accounts for 34 percent of billionaire wealth worldwide. New
York maintained its position as the top billionaire city, home to 103
billionaires.
In 2017, Wealth-X published a report on the world’s “ultra high
net worth” population, which includes individuals whose net worth is over $30
million. According to this report, the world’s “ultra wealthy”—some 250,000
people worldwide—owned a combined $25 trillion, including $9.6 trillion in
liquid cash alone.
The ultra wealthy expect to increase their wealth by another $8.5
trillion in the next five years to over $35 trillion, equaling the total net
worth of the bottom 90 percent of the world’s population, according to 2017
figures from Credit Suisse Bank.
Even these astronomical figures mask the real power of the
billionaires and the super-rich, whose wealth translates into control over the
world’s governments, media corporations, trade unions, political parties, universities,
courts, militaries and spy agencies.
After having made billions of dollars on the technology boom, the
ruling classes of the major powers are now working with technology corporations
such as Google and Facebook to censor left-wing viewpoints out of fear that
cell phones and the Internet are helping billions of the poor and working class
acquire access to news and information that is not vetted by the corporate
media.
Karl Marx wrote in Volume 1 of Capital: “Accumulation of wealth at one pole is,
therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery,
ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the
side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.” This
aptly characterizes the global situation today.
All over the world, in developed, undeveloped and semi-developed
countries alike, the working class is completely excluded from the government
decision-making process. As the governments enact policies to increase the
wealth of the billionaires, the needs of billions of people for clean water,
adequate medical attention and affordable health care, education, food,
housing, public transportation, infrastructure and culture go unmet.
For just one
fifth of the total wealth of the 10 richest people in the
world, the following social needs could be immediately addressed:
* The provision of housing for all 634,000 homeless people in the
US: $20 billion
* The provision of food to 862 million malnourished people
worldwide: $30 billion
* Reduction by half of the total number of people without access
to clean water: $11 billion
* Education for every child who doesn’t receive one: $26 billion
* Free maternal and prenatal care for every mother in the
developing world: $13 billion
* Treatment and vaccination to prevent 4 million malaria deaths:
$6 billion
* Replacement of the toxic water infrastructure of Flint, Michigan
with a safe and clean system: $1.5 billion
* Immediate $20,000 bonuses to all 3.1 million teachers in the US:
$62 billion
Total cost: $169.5 billion.
The glorification of monarchy underscores the fact that no society
can sustain democratic forms of rule under conditions where such levels of
wealth concentration and inequality prevail. Nor can any social problems be
addressed when the wealth produced by the working class and the world’s natural
resources are squandered to satisfy the insatiable greed of the super-rich.
There is no real democracy today outside of the mobilization of
the international working class to put an end to capitalism and establish
socialism.
Eric London
Viking Economics by George Lakey
by Melville
House
Graph
by Alberto Mena
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a 11 TRILLION
DOLLARS in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!
Barack Obama created
more debt for the middle class than any president in US
history, and also
had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s
terms, 95% of the wealth created went to the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
JEFF BEZOS, BILL
GATES AND WARREN BUFFET and SWAMP KEEPER TWITTER TRUMPER….
THE ROAD TO
REVOLUTION II WILL IS PAVED BY THE LOOTING BILLIONAIRE CLASS AND WILL TRAMPLE
THE POLS THAT GROVEL AT THEIR FEET FOR BRIBES!
"Today, each of the top 5 billionaires owns as much as 750 million people, more than the total population of Latin America and double the population of the US."
"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail.
It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL
GREENFIELD
FRONTPAGE MAG
HAS AMERICA DESTROYED ITSELF MERELY TO MAKE THE RICH SUPER RICH?
Viking Economics by George Lakey
by Melville
House
This
week, we’re excited to be publishing Viking Economics, George Lakey’s
look at how the Nordic countries, in a very short span of time, managed to move
past many of the problems faced by nations like the US and UK today — problems
with inequality, infrastructural weakness, the cost of education, and personal
freedom. Today, the people of Denmark, Iceland, Norway,
and Sweden enjoy widely-shared prosperity, low
crime rates, reliable infrastructure, affordable education, great personal
freedoms — some of the highest standards of living in the world.
Particularly
as both the US and the UK face some of our biggest challenges in a generation —
and, in both cases, under new leadership — Viking Economicsoffers some crucial examples of how we
might get some things right.
Here’s a brief
excerpt to read on the longship ride over to your local bookstore to buy a copy; please try not to get herring on it.
Like most
Americans today, Norwegians a century ago didn’t like the results of a wealth
gap: the hunger and poverty, the crime, elderly friends warehoused or left in
isolation, young people without hope of a good job. Norwegians also didn’t like
the attitudes that went with inequality: an inclination toward arrogance among higher-income
people and the feeling among lower-income people that they were losers,
defeated by the system.
Early in
the twentieth century, Norway had the formal institutions of parliamentary
democracy, but ordinary people were not empowered: they did not set the
direction of their society. The direction was set, instead, by the economic
elite, through the political parties they dominated and the businesses they
ran. Career options were limited, and there was little social mobility.
The
differences between then and now are striking: If you’re a Norwegian teenager
today and the job you’re interested in pursuing doesn’t require higher
education, you can choose among good public vocational courses. If you learn
better in a hands-on apprenticeship mode, publicly supported programs help you
do that. If, instead, you prefer to develop a talent in art or music, or follow
a career at sea or in engineering, you can attend a free post-secondary school.
Paid
maternity and paternity leave (including for adoptive parents) is built into
the system, and your job is held until you return. After the leave is over,
child support is increased if you choose to be a full-time parent. If your
choice is to go back to work, affordable childcare is available.
Extensive,
subsidized public transport means that you probably won’t need a car to get to
work. High educational standards prevail in big-city schools, as well as in the
suburbs. Small towns receive subsidies to make them attractive for people who
might otherwise feel forced to live in a city for cultural amenities, again
increasing your options. The economy subsidizes family farming both for its own
sake and for food security, so farmers can earn a reasonable income, another
freedom denied in many industrialized countries.
The
government offers free vocational counseling, education, and job-training
resources for people seeking a career change, and entrepreneurialism is
encouraged through free health care and a public pension for all: In Norway,
you have the freedom to fail without becoming a failure.
Money
doesn’t dominate the political system, so citizens are freer to participate
meaningfully in political life—and they’re more likely to be exposed to
newspapers with a variety of points of view, because journalism is subsidized
to avoid a narrowing of perspective. According to Freedom House, in 2013,
Norway was tied with Sweden at number one in the world for freedom of the
press. Denmark was sixth, and Iceland was tenth. (The United States was
twenty-sixth.) Indeed, this approach to public life has a long lineage in the
region: Sweden was the first country in the world to establish freedom of the
press—in 1766.
The
Nordics are among the longest-living people in the world, and older citizens
continue to benefit from an economy designed for personal freedom. The Global
Watch Index studied ninety-six countries and rated Norway as the best place to grow old, followed closely by Sweden.
The pension system enables you to live at home with health aides or in a senior
living facility. You don’t need to fear hunger or lack of medicines or of
health care. Every small town has a music and culture center where you can
enjoy the arts and pursue your hobbies.
The crime
rate is very low, partly because societies with high equality tend to
experience less crime. Even in their largest city, Norwegians enjoy a
remarkable degree of freedom from fear about personal safety.
Designing
an economy that supports freedom and equality pays off in happiness, judging
from the Vikings’ descendants making the top ten in the UN’s International
Happiness Index. In 2015, the ratings showed Denmark, Iceland, and Norway sharing first
place with Switzerland, while Sweden was close to its cousins.
The
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), composed of
thirty-four of the most-developed nations, compared life satisfaction
experienced by the people in each country in 2013. The OECD found Norway second, Iceland third, Sweden fourth, and
Denmark fifth.
And yet
in spite of all this security and support, the Nordic yen for adventure has not
disappeared. Americans, too, have a strong yearning for both freedom and
equality, so the Nordic desire for both isn’t surprising. What is surprising,
though, is that they went ahead and built an economy to serve those values.
That’s the story in this book.
Like
their Viking ancestors, the moderns made mistakes in their explorations.
Iceland’s financial collapse of 2008 was a spectacular error, and, as I’ll
describe, back in the 1980s, the Norwegians and Swedes made a series of serious
economic mistakes. The Nordics haven’t built a utopia: Norwegians see
themselves as “a nation of complainers,” and this book doesn’t shy away from
the challenges that face them and their Nordic cousins.
Still,
it’s useful for us as outsiders to observe the Nordics’ expeditions and to use
them to reflect on our own situations. There are many important lessons to be
learned.
WHY AMERICA CAN’T LOWER
CHILD POVERTY LEVELS
Economy, finance, and budgets
The Social Order
Articles about America’s
high levels of child poverty are a media evergreen. Here’s a typical entry,
courtesy of the New York Times’s Eduardo Porter: “The
percentage of children who are poor is more than three times as high in the
United States as it is in Norway or the Netherlands. America has a larger
proportion of poor children than Russia.” That’s right: Russia.
Outrageous
as they seem, the assertions are true—at least in the sense that they line up
with official statistics from government agencies and reputable nongovernmental
organizations like the OECD and UNICEF. International comparisons of the sort that
Porter makes, though, should be accompanied by a forest of asterisks. Data
limitations, varying definitions of poverty, and other wonky problems are
rampant in these discussions.
The lousy
child-poverty numbers should come with another qualifying asterisk, pointing to
a very American reality. Before Europe’s recent migration crisis, the United
States was the only developed country consistently to import millions of very
poor, low-skilled families, from some of the most destitute places on
earth—especially from undeveloped areas of Latin America—into its communities,
schools, and hospitals. Let’s just say that Russia doesn’t care to do this—and,
until recently, Norway and the Netherlands didn’t, either. Both policymakers
and pundits prefer silence on the relationship between America’s immigration
system and poverty, and it’s easy to see why. The subject pushes us headlong
into the sort of wrenching trade-offs that politicians and advocates prefer to
avoid. Here’s the problem in a nutshell: you can allow mass low-skilled
immigration, which many on the left and the right—and probably most poverty
mavens—consider humane and quintessentially American. But if you do, pursuing
the equally humane goal of substantially reducing child poverty becomes a lot
harder.
In 1964, the federal
government settled on a standard definition of poverty: an income less than
three times the value of a hypothetical basic food basket. (That approach has
its flaws, but it’s the measure used in the United States, so we’ll stick with
it.) Back then, close to 23 percent of American kids were poor. With the
important exception of the years between 1999 and 2007—following the
introduction of welfare reform in 1996—when it declined to 16 percent, child
poverty has bounced within three points of 20 percent since 1980. Currently,
about 18 percent of kids are below the poverty line, amounting to 13,250,000
children. Other Anglo countries have lower child-poverty rates: the OECD puts
Canada’s at 15 percent, with the United Kingdom and Australia lower still,
between 11 percent and 13 percent. The lowest levels of all—under 10
percent—are found in the Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and
Finland.
How does
immigration affect those post-1964 American child-poverty figures? Until 1980,
it didn’t. The 1924 Immigration Act sharply reduced the number of immigrants
from poorer Eastern European and southern countries, and it altogether banned
Asians. (Mexicans, who had come to the U.S. as temporary agricultural workers
and generally returned to their home country, weren’t imagined as potential
citizens and thus were not subject to restrictive quotas.) The relatively small
number of immigrants settling in the U.S. tended to be from affluent nations
and had commensurate skills. According to the Migration Policy Institute, in
1970, immigrant children were less likely to be poor than were the children of
native-born Americans.
By 1980,
chiefly because of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, the situation
had reversed: immigrant kids were now poorer than native-born ones. That 1965
law, overturning the 1924 restrictions, made “family preference” a cornerstone
of immigration policy—and, as it turned out, that meant a growing number of new
Americans hailing from less-developed countries and lacking skills. The income
gap between immigrant and native children widened. As of 1990, immigrant kids
had poverty rates 50 percent higher than their native counterparts. At the turn
of the millennium, more than one-fifth of immigrant children, compared with
just 9 percent of non-Hispanic white kids, were classified as poor. Today,
according to Center for Immigration Studies estimates, 31.1 percent of the poor
under 18 are either immigrants or the American-born kids of immigrant parents.
Perhaps
the most uncomfortable truth about these figures, and surely one reason they
don’t often show up in media accounts, is that a large majority of America’s
poor immigrant children—and, at this point, a large fraction of all its poor
children—are Hispanic (see chart below). The U.S. started collecting separate
poverty data on Hispanics in 1972. That year, 22.8 percent of those originally
from Spanish-language countries of Latin America were poor. The percentage
hasn’t risen that dramatically since then; it’s now at 25.6 percent. But
because the Hispanic population in America quintupled during those years, these
immigrants substantially expanded the nation’s poverty rolls. Hispanics are now
the largest U.S. immigrant group by far—and the lowest-skilled. Pew estimates
that Hispanics accounted for more than half the 22-million-person rise in the
official poverty numbers between 1972 and 2012. Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post found that, between 1990 and 2016,
Hispanics drove nearly three-quarters of the increase in the nation’s poverty
population from 33.6 million to 40.6 million.
Ironically,
then, at the same time that America’s War on Poverty was putting a spotlight on
poor children, the new immigration system was steadily making the problem
worse. In 1980, only 9 percent of American children were Hispanic. By 2009,
that number had climbed to 22 percent. Almost two-thirds of these children were
first- or second-generation immigrants, most of whose parents were needy.
Nowadays, 31 percent of the country’s Hispanic children are in poverty. That
percentage remains somewhat lower than the 36 percent of black children who are
poor, true; but because the raw number of poor Hispanic kids—5.1 million—is so
much higher (poor black children number 3.7 million), they make up by far the
largest group in the child-poverty statistics. As of 2016, Hispanic children
account for more than one-third of America’s poor children. Between 1999 and
2008 alone, the U.S. added 1.8 million children to the poverty rolls; the
Center for Immigration Studies reports that immigrants accounted for 45 percent
of them.
Let’s be clear: Hispanic
immigration isn’t the only reason that the U.S. has such troubling
child-poverty rates. Other immigrant groups, such as North Africans and
Laotians, add to the ranks of the under-18 poor. And American Indians have the
highest rates of child poverty of all ethnic and racial groups. These are
relatively small populations, however; combine Indians and Laotians, and you
get fewer than a half-million poor children—a small chunk of the 14-plus
million total.
Even if
we were following the immigration quotas set in 1924, the U.S. would be
something of a child-poverty outlier. The nation’s biggest embarrassment is the
alarming percentage of black children living in impoverished homes.
Unsurprisingly, before the civil rights movement, the numbers were higher; in
1966, almost 42 percent of black kids were poor. But those percentages started
to improve in the later 1960s and in the 1970s. Then they soared again. By the
1980s and early 1990s, black child poverty was hovering miserably between 42
percent and almost 47 percent. Researchers attribute the lack of progress to
the explosion in single-parent black families and welfare use. The current
percentage of black kids living with a single mother—66 percent—far surpasses
that of any other demographic group. The 1996 welfare-reform bill and a strong
economy helped bring black child poverty below 40 percent, a public-policy
success—but the numbers remain far too high.
Policymakers and pundits prefer silence on the
relationship between America’s immigration system and poverty.
Immigrant
poverty, though usually lumped within a single “child-poverty” number, belongs
in a different category from black or Native American poverty. After all,
immigrants voluntarily came to the United States, usually seeking opportunity.
And immigrants of the past often found it. The reality of American upward
mobility helps explain why, despite real hardships, poor immigrant childhood
became such a powerful theme in American life and literature. Think of classic
coming-of-age novels like Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (about Irish
immigrants), Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep (Jewish
immigrants), and Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones (West Indians), all
set in the first decades of the twentieth century. With low pay, miserable work
conditions, and unreliable hours, the immigrant groups that such novels
depicted so realistically were as poor as—and arguably more openly
discriminated against than—today’s Mexicans or Bangladeshis.
Their
children, though, didn’t need a ton of education to leave the hard-knocks life
behind. While schools of that era were doubtless more committed to assimilating
young newcomers than are today’s diversity-celebrating institutions, sky-high
dropout rates limited their impact. At the turn of the twentieth century, only
5 percent of the total population graduated from high school; the rate among
immigrants would have been even lower. That doesn’t mean that education brought
no advantages. Though economist George Borjas notes that endemic truancy and
interrupted studies had ripple effects on incomes into following generations,
the pre–World War II industrial economy offered a “range of blue collar
opportunities” for immigrant children, as sociologists Roger Waldinger and Joel
Perlman observe, and it required “only modest educations to move a notch or two
above their parents.” It may have taken more than one generation, but most
immigrant families could expect, if not Horatio Alger–style ascents, at least
middle-class stability over time.
America’s
economy has transformed in ways that have blocked many of the avenues to upward
mobility available to the immigrant families of the past. The kind of
middle-skilled jobs that once fed the aspirations of low-income strivers are
withering. “Modest educations” will no longer raise poor immigrant children above
their parents’ station. Drop out of high school, and you’ll be lucky to be
making sandwiches at a local deli or cleaning rooms at a Motel 6. Even a high
school diploma can be a dead end, unless supplemented by the right kind of
technical training. Get a college degree, however, and it is a different,
happier, story.
Yes, some
immigrant groups known for their obsessional devotion to their children’s
educational attainment (Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants come to mind) still
have a good shot at middle-class stability, even though the parents typically
arrive in America with little skill or education and, working in low-wage
occupations, add to poverty numbers in the short term. But researchers have
followed several generations of Hispanics—again, by far the largest immigrant
group—and what they’ve found is much less encouraging. Hispanic immigrants
start off okay. Raised in the U.S., the second generation graduates high school
and goes to college at higher rates than its parents, and it also earns more,
though it continues to lag significantly behind native-born and other immigrant
groups in these outcomes. Unfortunately, the third generation either stalls, or
worse, takes what the Urban Institute calls a “U-turn.” Between the second and
third generation, Hispanic high school dropout rates go up and college-going
declines. The third generation is more often disconnected—that is, neither
attending school nor employed. Its income declines; its health, including
obesity levels, looks worse. Most disturbing, as we look to the future, a
third-generation Hispanic is more likely to be born to a single mother than
were his first- or second-generation predecessors. The children of single
mothers not only have high poverty rates, regardless of ethnic or racial background;
they’re also less likely to experience upward mobility, as a mountain of data
shows.
The
Hispanic “U-turn” probably has many causes. Like most parents these days,
Hispanics say that they believe that education is essential for their
children’s success. Cultural norms that prize family and tradition over
achievement and independence often stand in the way. According to a study in
the Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, Hispanic parents don’t
talk and read to their young children as much as typical middle-class parents,
who tend to applaud their children’s attempts at self-expression, do;
differences in verbal ability show up as early as age two. Hispanic parents of
low-achieving students, most of whom also voiced high academic hopes for their
kids, were still “happy with their children’s test scores even when the
children performed poorly.” Their children tended to be similarly satisfied.
Unlike many other aspiring parents, Hispanics are more reluctant to see their
children travel to magnet schools and to college. They also become parents at
younger ages. Though Hispanic teen birthrates have fallen—as they have for all
groups, apart from American Indians—they remain the highest in the nation.
The sheer
size of the Hispanic population hinders the assimilation that might moderate
some of these preferences. Immigrants have always moved into ethnic enclaves in
the United States when they could, but schools and workplaces and street life
inevitably meant mixing with other kinds, even when they couldn’t speak the
same language. In many parts of the country, though, Hispanics are easily able
to stick to their own. In fact, Generations of Exclusion, a longitudinal study of
several generations of Mexican-Americans, found that a majority of fourth-generation Mexican-Americans live in Hispanic neighborhoods and
marry other Hispanics.
Other affluent countries
have lots of immigrants struggling to make it in a postindustrial economy.
Those countries have lower child-poverty rates than we do—some much lower. But
the background of the immigrants they accept is very different. Canada, New
Zealand, and Australia are probably the best points of comparison. Like the
United States, they are part of the Anglosphere and historically multicultural,
with large numbers of foreign-born residents. However, unlike the U.S., they
all use a points system that considers education levels and English ability,
among other skills, to determine who gets immigration visas. The Brookings
Institution’s Hamilton Project calculates that, while 30 percent of American
immigrants have a low level of education—meaning less than a high school
diploma—and 35 percent have a college degree or higher, only 22 percent of
Canadian immigrants lack a high school diploma, while more than 46 percent have
gone to college. (Canada tightened its points system after a government study
found that a rise in poverty and inequality during the 1980s and 1990s could be
almost entirely attributed to an influx of poorer immigrants.) Australia and
New Zealand also have a considerably more favorable ratio of college-educated
immigrants than does the United States. The same goes for the U.K.
The
immigration ecosystem of the famously egalitarian Nordic countries also differs
from the U.S.’s in ways that have kept their poverty numbers low. Historically,
the Nordics didn’t welcome large numbers of greenhorns. As of 1940, for
instance, only 1 percent of Sweden’s population was foreign-born, compared with
almost 8.8 percent of Americans. After World War II, Nordic immigration numbers
began rising, with most of the newcomers arriving from developed countries, as
was the case in the U.S. until 1965. In Finland and Iceland, for instance, the
plurality of immigrants today is Swedish and Polish, respectively. In Norway,
the majority of immigrants come from Poland and Lithuania. Note that these
groups have low poverty rates in the U.S., too.
Sweden
presents the most interesting case, since it has been the most welcoming of the
Nordic countries—and it has one of the most generous welfare states, providing
numerous benefits for its immigrants. For a long time, the large majority of
Sweden’s immigrants were from Finland, a country with a similar culture and
economy. By the 1990s, the immigrant population began to change, though, as
refugees arrived from the former Yugoslavia, Iran, and Iraq—populations with
little in common culturally with Sweden and far more likely to be unskilled
than immigrants from the European Union. By 2011, Sweden, like other European
countries, was seeing an explosion in the number of asylum applicants from
Syria, Afghanistan, and Africa; in 2015 and 2016, there was another spike.
Sweden’s percentage of foreign-born has swelled to 17 percent—higher than the
approximately 13 percent in the United States.
How has
Sweden handled its growing diversity? We don’t have much reliable data from the
most recent surge, but numbers from earlier this decade suggest the limits of
relying on copious state benefits to acclimate cultural outsiders. In the U.S.,
immigrants are still more likely to be employed than are the native-born. In
Sweden, the opposite holds. More than 26 percent of Swedish newcomers have
remained unemployed long-term (for more than a year). Immigrants tend to be
poorer than natives and more likely to fall back into poverty if they do
surmount it. In fact, Sweden has one of the highest poverty rates among
immigrants relative to native-born in the European Union. Most strikingly, a
majority of children living in Sweden classified as poor in 2010 were
immigrants.
Despite
its resolute antipoverty efforts, Sweden has, if anything, been less successful
than the U.S. at bringing its second-generation immigrants up to speed.
According to the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)
survey, Sweden has “declined over the past decade [between 2005 and 2015] from
around average to significantly below average . . . . No other country taking
part in PISA has seen a steeper fall.” The Swedish Education Agency reports
that immigrant kids were responsible for 85 percent of a decline in school
performance.
Outcomes like these
suggest that immigration optimists have underestimated the difficulty of
integrating the less-educated from undeveloped countries, and their children,
into advanced economies. A more honest accounting raises tough questions.
Should the United States, as the Trump administration is proposing, and as is
already the case in Canada and Australia, pursue a policy favoring
higher-skilled immigration? Or do we accept higher levels of child poverty and
lower social mobility as a cost of giving refuge and opportunity to people with
none? If we accept such costs, does it even make sense to compare our
child-poverty numbers with those of countries like Denmark or Sweden, which
have only recently begun to take in large numbers of low-skilled immigrants?
Recent
events in Denmark and Sweden put another question in stark relief. How many
newcomers—especially from very different cultures—can a country successfully
absorb, and on what timetable? A surge of asylum seekers beginning in 2015
forced both countries to introduce controls at their borders and limits to
asylum acceptances. Their existing social services proved unable to cope with
the swelling ranks of the needy; there was not enough housing, and, well, citizens
weren’t always as welcoming as political leaders might have wished. The growing
power of anti-immigrant political parties has shocked these legendarily
tolerant cultures.
And yet
one more question: How long can generous welfare policies survive large-scale
low-skilled immigration? The beneficent Nordic countries are not the only ones
that need to wonder. The National Academies of Sciences finds that immigration
to America has an overall positive impact on the fiscal health of the federal
government, but not so for the states and localities that must pay for
education, libraries, some social services, and a good chunk of Medicaid.
Fifty-five percent of California’s immigrant families use some kind of
means-tested benefits; for natives, it’s 30 percent. The centrist Hamilton
Project observes that high-immigrant states—California, New York, New Jersey,
among others—“may be burdened with costs that will only be recouped over a
number of years, or, if children move elsewhere within the United States, may
never fully be recovered.”
In short,
confronting honestly the question of child-poverty rates in the United
States—and, increasingly, such rates in other advanced countries—means
acknowledging the reality that a newcomer’s background plays a vital role in
immigrant success. Alternatively, of course, one can always fall back on
damning worries about our current immigration system as evidence of racism.
Remember November 8, 2016, if you want to know how that will play out.
VIDEO:
THIS AMERICAN LIFE
NPR PROGRAM ON
AMERICA UNDER LA RAZA OCCUPATION – GRIM!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/12/american-life-america-under-mexican.html
We spent
eight months and did over a hundred interviews to try to bypass the usual
rhetoric and get to the bottom of what really happened when undocumented
workers showed up in one Alabama town. Pictured: Albertville “Miss Chick” 1954.
“Open border advocates, such as
Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to
California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the CIS has
documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few
skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them
access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegals
were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, CA, with its 2.6
million illegals, would be booming.” STEVE BALDWIN – AMERICAN SPECTATOR
MARK ZUCKERBERG AND OTHER TECH BILLIONAIRES SAY
HELL NO TO PAYING LEGALS LIVING WAGES… not when there’s boatloads of Chinese
ready to take our tech jobs and work cheap!
Democrats Reject Trump’s Amnesty Framework,
Seek Alliance With GOP’s Business Wing… OTHER PARTNERS INCLUDE MEXICO, U.S.
CHAMBER of COMMERCE, ALL BILLIONAIRES WHO HIRE FOREIGNERS ONLY!
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/02/neil-munro-working-hard-to-keep-wages.html
AMNESTY IS ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES
DEPRESSED.
It Pays to be Illegal in California
It
certainly is a good time to be an illegal alien in California. Democratic State
Sen. Ricardo Lara last week pitched a bill to permit illegal immigrants to
serve on all state and local boards and commissions. This week, lawmakers
unveiled a $1 billion health care plan that would include spending
$250 million to extend health care coverage to all illegal alien adults.
“Currently,
undocumented adults are explicitly and unjustly locked out of healthcare due to
their immigration status. In a matter of weeks, California legislators will
have a decisive opportunity to reverse that cruel and counterproductive fact,”
Assemblyman Joaquin Arambula said in Monday’s Sacramento Bee.
His
legislation, Assembly Bill 2965, would give as many as 114,000
uninsured illegal aliens access to Medi-Cal programs. A companion bill has been
sponsored by State Sen. Richard Lara.
But that
could just be a drop in the bucket. The Democrats’ plan covers more than
100,000 illegal aliens with annual incomes bless than $25,000, however an
estimated 1.3 million might be eligible based on their earnings.
In
addition, it is estimated that 20 percent of those living in California
illegally are uninsured – the $250 million covers just 11 percent.
So, will
politicians soon be asking California taxpayers once again to dip into their pockets
to pay for the remaining 9 percent?
Before
they ask for more, Democrats have to win the approval of Gov. Jerry Brown, who
cautioned against spending away the state’s surplus when he introduced his $190 billion budget
proposal in January.
Given
Brown’s openness to expanding Medi-Cal expansions in recent years, not to
mention his proclivity for blindly supporting any measure benefitting lawbreaking
immigrants, the latest fiscal irresponsibility may win approval.
And if he
takes a pass, the two Democrats most likely to succeed Brown – Lt. Gov. Gavin
Newsom and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – favor excessive social spending and are actively courting
illegal immigrant support.
Maybe if California and New York Cared as Much about the Middle Class as
They Do About Illegal Alien…
Maybe if California and New York Cared as Much about the Middle Class as
They Do About Illegal Alien…
TWEET
Economists Arthur Laffer (the guy with the famous curve) and Stephen Moore, a leading
libertarian voice for mass immigration, predict that some 800,000 people will pack up and leave California and New York over the next three years. The
reason they cite for the exodus in their Wall Street Journal op-ed is that the
new federal tax law, which eliminates deductions for state income taxes, will
be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Implicit in their assignment of blame to the federal tax
overhaul is that the people who will be leaving are the ones who pay taxes –
the sort of folks that state and local governments rely to provide a revenue
stream. As such, one would think that these would be the people whose concerns
would get a lot of interest in Sacramento and Albany. But clearly that is not
the case.
For the privilege of living in places like the Bay Area, Los
Angeles, or New York City, you must bear some of the most ridiculous housing
costs in the nation, along with crushing state and local taxes. In
California, be prepared to turn over as much as 13.3 percent of your income to
the state. High-earning New Yorkers fork over a more modest 8.82 percent, but
if you live in the five boroughs you can tack on an additional 3.87 percent in city income taxes. California and New York also have some of the highest sales tax rates in the
country at 8.54 percent and 8.49 percent respectively (and higher in many
cities). And now, as Laffer and Moore point out, you can’t even deduct those
costs on your federal taxes.
One might also think that for all these state and local taxes,
residents could expect the most modern infrastructure, efficient public
transportation, world class public schools, affordable housing, and other
amenities. Ha. No, in Sacramento and Albany they prioritize an ever-growing
list of public benefits and services to immigration law violators; subsidies
and grants to go to college, and legal aid for illegal aliens in deportation
proceedings. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is even threatening to sue the federal government (with taxpayer money, of course) for even trying to
enforce immigration laws.
Some $23 billion of California taxpayers’ money and $7.5 billion of New
York taxpayers’ money is expended on illegal aliens
and their dependent children. For the benefit of the trolls at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the problems of California and New York cannot entirely be
blamed on illegal aliens. Many, many factors have led to the middle class
flight from these states. But one has to wonder why states wouldn’t want to do
as much to woo their tax base into staying as they are doing to attract,
protect, and reward illegal aliens.
Cutting back on benefits and protections for illegal aliens
would not solve all of these states’ problems, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.
In the meantime, every U-Haul packing up a middle or upper-middle class family
headed out of California and New York represents a loss of vital revenue
necessary to address myriad needs of both citizens and legal immigrants.
Adios, Sanctuary La Raza Welfare State of California
A fifth-generation Californian laments his state’s ongoing economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
A fifth-generation Californian laments his state’s ongoing economic collapse.
By Steve Baldwin
American Spectator, October 19, 2017
What’s clear is that the producers are leaving the state and the takers are coming in. Many of the takers are illegal aliens, now estimated to number over 2.6 million. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that California spends $22 billion on government services for illegal aliens, including welfare, education, Medicaid, and criminal justice system costs.
BLOG:
MANY DISPUTE CALIFORNIA’S EXPENDITURES FOR THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IN
MEXIFORNIA JUST AS THEY DISPUTE THE NUMBER OF ILLEGALS. APPROXIMATELY HALF THE
POPULATION OF CA IS NOW MEXICAN AND BREEDING ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE LIKE
BUNNIES. THE $22 BILLION IS STATE EXPENDITURE ONLY. COUNTIES PAY OUT MORE WITH
LOS ANGELES COUNTY LEADING AT OVER A BILLION DOLLARS PAID OUT YEARLY TO
MEXICO’S ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS. NOW MULTIPLY THAT BY THE NUMBER OF COUNTIES IN
CA AND YOU START TO GET AN IDEA OF THE STAGGERING WELFARE STATE MEXICO AND THE
DEMOCRAT PARTY HAVE ERECTED SANS ANY LEGALS VOTES. ADD TO THIS THE FREE ENTERPRISE
HOSPITAL AND CLINIC COST FOR LA RAZA’S “FREE” MEDICAL WHICH IS ESTIMATED TO BE
ABOUT $1.5 BILLION PER YEAR.
Liberals
claim they more than make that up with taxes paid, but that’s simply not true.
It’s not even close. FAIR estimates illegal aliens in California contribute
only $1.21 billion in tax revenue, which means they cost California $20.6
billion, or at least $1,800 per household.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
Nonetheless, open border advocates, such as Facebook Chairman Mark Zuckerberg, claim illegal aliens are a net benefit to California with little evidence to support such an assertion. As the Center for Immigration Studies has documented, the vast majority of illegals are poor, uneducated, and with few skills. How does accepting millions of illegal aliens and then granting them access to dozens of welfare programs benefit California’s economy? If illegal aliens were contributing to the economy in any meaningful way, California, with its 2.6 million illegal aliens, would be booming.
Furthermore, the complexion of illegal aliens has changed with far more on welfare and committing crimes than those who entered the country in the 1980s. Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeles’s largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens. Granted, those statistics are old, but if you talk to any California law enforcement officer, they will tell you it’s much worse today. The problem is that the Brown administration will not release any statewide data on illegal alien crimes. That would be insensitive. And now that California has declared itself a “sanctuary state,” there is little doubt this sends a message south of the border that will further escalate illegal immigration into the state.
"If the racist "Sensenbrenner
Legislation" passes the US Senate, there is no doubt that a massive civil
disobedience movement will emerge. Eventually labor union power can merge with
the immigrant civil rights and "Immigrant
Sanctuary" movements to enable us to either form a new political
party or to do heavy duty reforming of the existing Democratic Party. The next
and final steps would follow and that is to elect our own governors of all the
states within Aztlan."
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
Indeed, California goes out of its way to attract illegal aliens. The state has even created government programs that cater exclusively to illegal aliens. For example, the State Department of Motor Vehicles has offices that only process driver licenses for illegal aliens. With over a million illegal aliens now driving in California, the state felt compelled to help them avoid the long lines the rest of us must endure at the DMV. And just recently, the state-funded University of California system announced it will spend $27 million on financial aid for illegal aliens. They’ve even taken out radio spots on stations all along the border, just to make sure other potential illegal border crossers hear about this program. I can’t afford college education for all my four sons, but my taxes will pay for illegals to get a college education.
If Immigration Creates
Wealth, Why Is California America's Poverty Capital?
California used to be home to America's
largest and most affluent middle class. Today, it is
America's poverty capital. What went
wrong? In a word: immigration. According to the
U.S. Census Bureau'...: The
Golden State is peddling fool's gold lately.
California used to be
home to America's largest and most affluent middle class. Today, it
is America's poverty capital. What went wrong? In a
word: immigration.
According to the U.S. Census
Bureau's Official Poverty Measure, California's poverty rate hovers
around 15 percent. But this figure is misleading: the Census Bureau
measures poverty relative to a uniform national standard, which doesn't account
for differences in living costs between states – the cost of taxes, housing,
and health care are higher in California than in Oklahoma, for example. Accounting
for these differences reveals that California's real poverty rate is
20.6 percent –
the highest in America, and nearly twice the national average of 12.7
percent.
Likewise, income inequality in California is
the second-highest in America, behind only New York. In fact, if California
were an independent country, it would be the 17th most unequal country on
Earth, nestled comfortably between Honduras and Guatemala. Mexico is
slightly more egalitarian. California is far more unequal than the
"social democracies" it emulates: Canada is the 111th most
unequal nation, while Norway is far down the list at number 153 (out of 176
countries). In terms of income inequality, California has more in
common with banana republics than other "social democracies."
More Government, More Poverty
High taxes, excessive regulations,
and a lavish welfare state – these are the standard explanations for
California's poverty epidemic. They have some merit. For
example, California has both the highest personal income tax rate and the
highest sales tax in America, according to Politifact.
Not only are California's taxes high,
but successive "progressive" governments have swamped the state in a
sea of red tape. Onerous regulations cripple small businesses and
retard economic growth. Kerry Jackson, a fellow with the Pacific
Research Institute, gives a few specific examples of how excessive government
regulation hurts California's poor. He writes in a recent op-ed for
the Los Angeles Times:
Extensive environmental regulations
aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions make energy more expensive, also
hurting the poor. By some estimates, California energy costs are as
much as 50% higher than the national average. Jonathan A. Lesser of
Continental Economics ... found that "in 2012, nearly 1 million California
households faced ... energy expenditures exceeding 10% of household
income."
Some government regulation is
necessary and desirable, but most of California's is not. There is
virtue in governing with a "light touch."
Finally, California's welfare state
is, perhaps paradoxically, a source of poverty in the
state. The Orange Country Register reports that California's
social safety net is comparable in scale to those found in Europe:
In California a mother
with two children under the age of 5 who participates in these major welfare
programs – Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (food stamps), housing assistance, home energy assistance,
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children – would
receive a benefits package worth $30,828 per year.
... [Similar] benefits
in Europe ranged from $38,588 per year in Denmark to just $1,112 in
Romania. The California benefits package is higher than in
well-known welfare states as France ($17,324), Germany ($23,257) and even
Sweden ($22,111).
Although welfare states ideally help the poor, reality
is messy. There are three main problems with the welfare
state. First, it incentivizes poverty by rewardingthe poor with government
handouts that are often far more valuable than a job. This can be
ameliorated to some degree by imposing work requirements on welfare recipients,
but in practice, such requirements are rarely imposed. Second,
welfare states are expensive. This means
higher taxes and therefore slower economic growth and fewer job opportunities
for everyone – including the poor.
Finally, welfare states are magnets
for the poor. Whether through domestic migration or foreign
immigration, poor people flock to places with generous welfare
states. This is logical from the immigrant's perspective, but it
makes little sense from the taxpayer's. This fact is why socialism
and open borders arefundamentally incompatible.
Why Big Government?
Since 1960, California's population exploded from 15.9 to 39 million
people. The growth was almost entirely due to immigration – many
people came from other states, but the majority came from
abroad. The Public Policy Institute of California estimates that 10 million
immigrants currently reside in California. This works out to 26
percent of the state's population.
BLOG: COME TO
MEXIFORNIA! HALF OF LOS ANGELES 15 MILLION ARE ILLEGALS!
This figure includes
2.4 million illegal aliens, although a recent study from Yale University suggests that the
true number of aliens is at least double that. Modifying the initial figure implies that
nearly one in three Californians is an immigrant. This
is not to disparage California's immigrant population, but it is madness to
deny that such a large influx of people has changed California's society and
economy.
Importantly, immigrants vote
Democrat by a ratio higher than 2:1, according to a report from the Center for Immigration Studies. In California,
immigration has increased the pool of likely Democrat voters by nearly 5
million people, compared to just 2.4 million additional likely Republican
voters. Not only does this almost guarantee Democratic victories,
but it also shifts California's political midpoint to the left. This
means that to remain competitive in elections, the Republicans must abandon or soften many
conservative positions so as to cater to the center.
California became a
Democratic stronghold not because Californians became socialists, but because
millions of socialists moved there. Immigration turned California
blue, and immigration is ultimately to blame for California's high poverty
level.
THE DEATH of
CALIFORNIA: SHOCKING REPORT OF POVERTY, CRIME AND LA RAZA SUPREMACY
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-passes-uk-to-become-worlds.html
PRINCETON REPORT:
American middle-class is addicted,
poor, jobless and suicidal…. Thank the corrupt government for surrendering our
borders to 40 million looting Mexicans and then handing the bills to middle
America?
OPIOID MURDERS BY BIG
PHARMA
“While drug distributors have paid a total of $400 million in fines over the past 10 years, their combined revenue during this same period was over $5 trillion.”
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