So as the new year starts, where do we stand? It seems like things are poised to stay about the same or get worse. Nothing on the horizon suggests that the economy will start moving again on its own. All of the long-term factors and components of a changed structural economy are in place and will remain in place for a long time, mimicking an economy in recession. What is true this week was true last week. And with Congress dithering on the payroll tax cut extension and undecided on continuing aid to the long-term unemployed, the signs are not encouraging. Add to that the presidential campaign that officially starts tomorrow in Iowa and that will not be resolved for another 11 months – tempting businesses in and outside the United States to hold back from investing in their own growth. Hard to make a new year’s resolution to remain optimistic. However: Continue reading
Tag Archives: immigration
HispanicLatinos at a Crossroads
HispanicLatinos are living through a nationally decisive moment. The pressure is building on HispanicLatino leaders – elected, appointed, self-proclaimed and otherwise – to step up to a point in history as important as any since the mid-1960’s. In but a few months, the Supreme Court could waylay the progress HispanicLatinos have made over five decades to achieve social, economic a political parity with mainstream society – and in the process the Court could jeopardize America’s very future.
The Supreme Court Disrupting the Future
Redistricting and immigration are difficult and complex subjects and are easily and simply intertwined for one reason: They relate directly to the power of the two political parties in the country since most HispanicLatinos vote Democratic.
Given the expanding number of HispanicLatinos in the nation relative to the rest of the population, any fair handling of redistricting going forward should favor HispanicLatinos and, therefore, Democrats. And given that immigration is the lifeblood a country, any mishandling of it could be catastrophic for the long term. That seems natural and reasonable enough, though the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to confirm the unfairness and outright hostility that state legislatures and other political entities are visiting upon their HispanicLatino populations.
All for Newt, Newt for All
Sometimes what passes for political reporting from Washington swamps the senses. A report in one of the nation’s leading newspapers suggests that New Gingrich has built a network to make inroads into the HispanicLatino vote. Goodness. That is news. Gingrich does not have an organization in Iowa and cannot pull together a full slate of delegates for the caucuses to vote on, but, by gosh, he has a network within the HispanicLatino population. Yes, and peanuts turn into gold if you stare at them long enough. Continue reading
Slow Down the Slowing Down
Decision-makers, especially those in business, should take a considered view of recent reporting on the slowdown of the growth of the HispanicLatino population. Changes in population by their very nature alter the composition of the marketplace, but the formation of new markets and a work force that is more HispanicLatino remains fairly on course.
Much is being made of the slowdown in the HispanicLatino birthrate since 2007. As the Great Recession took hold, it dampened the disposition of HispanicLatinos to add to their families. Coupled with the dramatic increases in deportation of individuals in the country illegally and increased border security to prevent their return, the lower birth rate is causing some observers to move quickly to ratchet down estimates of the size of the HispanicLatino population going forward.
Gingrich: The Newt Slaveholder
Newt Gingrich is at it again. He sat down for an interview yesterday with CNN and repeated the idea that most of the world ridiculed when he offered it at the most recent Republican presidential debate. The notion that local panels or juries would decide the fate of immigrants who are in the country illegally boggles the mind. But he is serious. He apparently believes that citizens other than hate-filled, blood-thirsty bigots would serve on the local boards.
Gingrich would have us believe, too, that such a system could be built. The mountains of files, the numbers of lawyers, the need to hire experts to verify piles of paper – the whole thing is an unworkable mess. Come to think of it already exists. It used to be called the INS.
However unseemly and unmanageable his idea, Gingrich presses on. His new system would never, ever grant citizenship or voting rights to the immigrant community – even after 25 years of lawful and productive existence.
You would think that someone from Georgia – especially someone who seeks to convince the public that he was paid $100 million to provide “historical perspective” to corporate interests after he left the Speakership – would know the definition of slavery.
Feel free to forward these blogs that deal with topics on business on Mondays, politics on Wednesdays and social and personal and professional development issues on Fridays. Additional thoughts are published invariably in between on Tuesdays or Thursdays.
What Luck!
Newt Gingrich’s proposal for local citizen juries to decide which of the individuals illegally in the country gets to stay is of course nuts. Why even discuss it? The arguments against it are monumental. The idea is being laughed at across the board and it shows one of the reasons Gingrich would be an excellent choice for Republicans to nominate as their candidate for president – if they want to lose in a landslide.
Turning Back History
The long arc of the immigration story has gotten us here, literally. Yet on one hand, the demographic and economic forces which are structural in nature and in place have led to the assertion of immigration as a population change agent. Immigration, as it has always, is adding to the population of the country and changing it in the process.
On the other hand, the countervailing sentiment is also asserting itself, so that states like Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and Texas are leading the equally natural anti-immigrant reaction.
Not Armageddon Yet
The Wall Street Journal hid the woman’s face. Not the usual journalistic fare you see on a Greyhound bus between Austin and Dallas. The WSJ is more likely found zipping above us on American Airlines on a 35-minute flight. She sat to my left, within the peripheral range of my one good eye.
Every other week or so when I board the bus to go 220 miles in four and a half hours instead of three by road I resolve to fly the next time or to break down and get a car. If I get the smallest car on the market, I can minimize my carbon footprint. But I then think, regardless of the size of the car, about the number of people who would be at risk. Oh, I can drive. Recently in a rented car with a package of insurance that could have bailed out the Greek economy, I managed to navigate more than 300 miles safely. But I still shudder when I think about the old lady I almost ran over with my truck on my way to Christmas Eve Mass at Saint Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington years ago. The police rightfully would have concluded it was her fault but had I better vision I would have been able to react more quickly.
Behind the WSJ woman, a young man sat fidgeting, his face turned brackish, or perhaps crackish, and dark by either a hard life or drugs or both. A diamond ring in the ear of an NFL linebacker strutting his masculinity on television on Sundays no longer comes off as improbable. On a somewhat youngish man who should weigh another 10 or 15 pounds, his stoned ear suggests the rest of him might be too.
Thinking Beyond the Recession
An unforgiving national unemployment rate of nine percent and stagnant – or declining – wages for the average household for the last ten years dominate the minds of Americans worried about the economy. As important is the number of business closings, though it seldom gets the same amount of ink. More than 1.5 million businesses have closed since the start of the current recession. A high unemployment rate and extenuated business closures feed off each other in an economy with little demand. Continue reading