Political Roundtable Part XIV

[dckingsfan]

Well, ok, although I see that the purpose of the legislation is to deemphasize awarding green cards to relatives and focus more on the "encouraging brain drain" aspect of it. That I don't have a problem with, as an economist.

What is disappointing to me is, why don't they crack down on student and tourism visas? That's where all the illegal immigration comes from.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/08/02/trump-gop-senators-to-introduce-bill-to-slash-legal-immigration-levels/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_pp-immigration-940am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.4ef4e2f4e8a1

Although now that I think about it *even more carefully,* by making it more difficult to bring your family with you, you are still actively discouraging talented people from coming over. So it still doesn't make any sense.

Agreed on the visa issue - that needs to get addressed. And I understand moving away from awarding green cards to relatives - that hasn't helped us in the past - and won't moving forward, except in relationship to direct family unit (wife/husband/children - not cousins, grandchildren, etc.).

Even more disappointing (to me), first, when someone gets a degree here (especially in STEM), we should immediately offer them a green card.

Second, our unemployment levels are where? We want growth - then we are going to need a sustainable program of bringing in talent. This doesn't seem to address the growth issue.

This won't win me any popularity awards, but I would argue that legal immigrants create more than their fair share of jobs. That if you want more job creation, you need to, well, do what the Republicans are proposing - focus on poaching more high skilled labor from other countries.

Unemployment is 4.3% right now, although labor force participation is a few ticks lower than it was a decade ago.

Yep, labor participation for 25 to 54 is running around 82% so yes, one could argue that the unemployment rate is closer to 6% - still, that doesn't leave much room for expansion. Our economic expansion (as feeble as it has been) will run out of steam without a reasonable influx of talent and/or an increase productivity of our current workers, IMO.

I agree that the Rs policy of targeting legal immigrants that can immediately contribute to our economy over the familial immigration is better for the health of our economy. But - let's see if they can govern and get it passed in a way that doesn't cause unintended consequences. The Rs as a whole haven't proven (to me at least) that they can govern on a federal level (healthcare and taxes jump out).

[dckingsfan]

Read on Twitter

This is amazing....can you believe 33% of people polled think he is doing a good job>????

If a poll is supposed to take a sample of a specific group and extrapolate out for a specific populace, then this poll represents us as americans.

If this is a poll of Americans and how they feel about Trumps performance...100 MILLION PEOPLE THINK TRUMP IS DOING A GOOD JOB.

This proves our education is broken...possibly beyond repair.

I have to admit I miss BOTH of these people and thier families RIGHT NOW!!!!

Spoiler:

I am not a republican or a democrat....just like I'm not a blood or a crip...I dont do group think

I think that those 33% were hoping for a disruption in the current political process. I guess they got it for whatever that is worth.

And (in comparison) yes, going back to Clinton, the first Bush and Reagan too... Especially Reagan, Bush and Clinton that really worked in a bipartisan fashion (IMO).

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

[Wizardspride]

Read on Twitter

[Wizardspride]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/8/3/16084246/mueller-obstruction-case-stronger-trump-surrogates

Exclusive: top FBI officials could testify against Trump


Shortly after the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller in May, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe told several of the highest-ranking managers of the bureau they should consider themselves possible witnesses in any investigation into whether President Donald Trump engaged in obstruction of justice, according to two senior federal law enforcement officials.

McCabe has told colleagues that he too is a potential witness in the probe of whether Trump broke the law by trying to thwart the FBI's Russia investigation and the investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Two senior federal law enforcement officials have told me that the new revelations illustrate why they believe the potential case against Trump is stronger than outsiders have thought.

“What you are going to have is the potential for a powerful obstruction case,” a senior law enforcement official said. “You are going to have the [former] FBI director testify, and then the acting director, the chief of staff to the FBI director, the FBI’s general counsel, and then others, one right after another. This has never been the word of Trump against what [James Comey] has had to say. This is more like the Federal Bureau of Investigation versus Donald Trump.”

Trump and his supporters have long argued that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the special counsel to bring an obstruction case against Trump. The case would rely on the word of one man versus another, that of the president of the United States versus the FBI director he fired. But this was never the case.

[JWizmentality]

Sessions wants to prosecute journalists for publishing leaked info?? Welcome to the banana republic.

Sent from my ASUS_Z01BDC using Tapatalk

[montestewart]

Sessions wants to prosecute journalists for publishing leaked info?? Welcome to the banana republic.

Sent from my ASUS_Z01BDC using Tapatalk

The Trumpagon Papers

[payitforward]

When I went to Yaroslavl in 1993 we spent a lot of time sitting by the Volga drinking samagonka with pickle juice. And I spent some time in 96 hanging out with some friends who had a place near the Tverskaya metro in Moscow and her place was full of art cause her husband was a painter.

I miss my twenties.

Me too! (Also my thirties, forties, fifties & sixties... what can I say?)

OTOH, do you miss the "samagonka with pickle juice"? Whatever that is....

[Zonkerbl]

When I went to Yaroslavl in 1993 we spent a lot of time sitting by the Volga drinking samagonka with pickle juice. And I spent some time in 96 hanging out with some friends who had a place near the Tverskaya metro in Moscow and her place was full of art cause her husband was a painter.

I miss my twenties.

Me too! (Also my thirties, forties, fifties & sixties... what can I say?)

OTOH, do you miss the "samagonka with pickle juice"? Whatever that is....

Do I miss homemade vodka sold by babushkas on the street?

I miss the me that could drink it.

The samagonka... not so much.

[payitforward]

When I went to Yaroslavl in 1993 we spent a lot of time sitting by the Volga drinking samagonka with pickle juice. And I spent some time in 96 hanging out with some friends who had a place near the Tverskaya metro in Moscow and her place was full of art cause her husband was a painter.

I miss my twenties.

Me too! (Also my thirties, forties, fifties & sixties... what can I say?)

OTOH, do you miss the "samagonka with pickle juice"? Whatever that is....

Do I miss homemade vodka sold by babushkas on the street?

I miss the me that could drink it.

The samagonka... not so much.

Babushka distillers?

Tell me -- why oh why is there not a "Babushka brand" vodka!!?!! It's a natural!!

Meanwhile, my question remains: what the h*ll is "samagonka"??? (w/ or w/o the pickle juice chaser)

[Zonkerbl]

"Samagonka" is vodka distilled in some babushkas basement. Tastes like turpentine.

[Wizardspride]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-trump-democrat/2017/08/04/0d5d06bc-7920-11e7-8f39-eeb7d3a2d304_story.html?utm_term=.f044b793da54

There’s no such thing as a Trump Democrat



Do you believe in mermaids, unicorns and fairies?

If so, you may have taken interest in a new mythical creature that appeared during the 2016 election: the Trump Democrat.

It has become an article of faith that an unusually large number of people who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 or 2012 switched sides and voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. It follows that Democrats, to win in the future, need to get these lost partisans to come home.

But new data, and an analysis by AFL-CIO political director Michael Podhorzer that he shared with me, puts all this into question. The number of Obama-to-Trump voters turns out to be smaller than thought. And those Obama voters who did switch to Trump were largely Republican voters to start with. The aberration wasn’t their votes for Trump but their votes for Obama.

Data from the American National Election Study survey found that about 13.4 percent of Trump voters had backed Obama in 2012. A University of Virginia poll found that 20 percent of Trump voters had supported Obama at least once.

But such polls have a flaw: People tend to forget how they voted in previous elections, with more recalling they voted for the winner than actually did. A poll released in June by the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, a nonpartisan collaboration of analysts and scholars, avoided this problem because it re-interviewed the same respondents queried in 2012; they were asked who they voted for in real time.

Democracy Fund found a fairly ordinary crossover vote in 2016: 9.2 percent of Obama voters supported Trump and 5.4 percent of Mitt Romney voters supported Clinton. That was a “typical” and unsurprising degree of partisan loyalty. “The 2016 election did not create more instability, in the aggregate, than others,” it reported.

And those Obama voters who did cross to Trump look a lot like Republicans. The AFL-CIO’s Podhorzer analyzed raw data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study , out in the spring, and found that Obama-Trump voters voted for Republican congressional candidates by a 31-point margin, Republican Senate candidates by a 15-point margin and Republican gubernatorial candidates by a 27-point margin. Their views on immigration and Obamacare also put them solidly in the GOP camp.

“Democratic analysts who are looking to solve the party’s problem by appealing to this small group of Obama-Trump voters are pointing themselves to a group that by and large is a Republican group now,” Podhorzer told me. “The bulk of Obama-Trump voters are not fed-up Democratic voters; they are Republican voters who chose Obama in 2012. As such, few are available in 2018 or 2020.”

[cammac]

Immigration is a touchy subject in any country because of the misconception that it is a negative taking jobs from people already in the country. The reality is that immigration creates jobs and is a positive to the general economy. The USA has 13% of the population which is foreign born and Canada has 21% of the population. The reality is the birthrates in both countries is less than replacement with USA @ 1.9% and Canada @ 1.6%. Countries have the right to set policies to bring in the best people possible and countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand have set up point systems to allow the best possible applicants into the country. Yes part of that is the ability to speak English or in Canada English or French but that is only part of the process. Canada is allowing 300,000 immigrants and refugees in 2017 or about .86 of 1% while the Trump plan for 500,000 immigrants is about .15 of 1%. This is a play to the uneducated working class base not sound economic policy. Plus the green card system such as $500,000 for bogus investment plans such as proposed by a Kushner company in China. This doesn't bring the best and brightest in many cases and countries like Canada, Australia and NZ have basically eliminated those look holes. (NZ allows immigration with a $10 million investment)

Many immigrants in Canada come from foreign students who have studied in our universities or universities in USA and are encouraged to stay. My stepdaughter is a prime example getting her degree in Biology and is now studying to become a pharmacist. The point system isn't totally geared to professional but to where jobs are needed in the country. Of the 300,000 immigrants about 45,000 are refugees which have come from mostly Syria and are families. This will likely increase substantially since between 100 to 150 people claiming refugee status are crossing into Canada from the USA on a daily basis. While these people are technically not refugees since they landed into the USA before entering Canada. It is a sticky problem caused by the Trump administration in that Canada has to review policies on how to handle this situation.

Canada also has a significant number of guest workers in Canada in the agricultural industry and service industry. The guest workers come primarily in agriculture from Mexico or the Caribbean and service workers from the Philippines. The workers are protected by the same laws as a Canadian getting social services and at least minimum wages.

I think parts of the new immigration policy is sound but overall it is a feeble attempt at pacifying the base. I could see the policy as a plus if it also included fixing illegal immigrants problem which are needed in many sectors of the USA economy where American citizens will not take jobs.

[verbal8]

"Samagonka" is vodka distilled in some babushkas basement. Tastes like turpentine.

How does it compare to Trump vodka?

[cammac]

Trump lies about Foxconn flat screen production in Wisconsin.
I did a little research since I remembered before my return from China that Foxconn and Sharp had made a deal to build a flat screen facility in Shenzhen. Sure enough they broke ground on a $8.8 factory in March of 2017 now they are building a factory in Wisconsin where they are to pay a average wage of $54,000 a year when the maximum they would be paying in Shenzhen would be $18,000 a year likely about $12,000.

[Wizardspride]

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/how-can-kelly-save-trump-when-he-was-a-human-rights-disaster-at-homeland-security-20170806.html

How can Kelly save Trump when he was a human-rights disaster at Homeland Security?


The unsupported Kelly hagiography ignores the testimony of those such as the ICE agent who last month bared his soul to the New Yorker magazine. The agent told the magazine that he wasn’t a fan of micromanagement and some policies during the Obama years, but now he was appalled at what was happening at the agency under Kelly and Trump. Things such as basic humane discretion, or simply calling an interpreter to resolve a problem, he says, have been tossed out the window because “[t]he problem is that now there are lots of people who feel free to feel contempt.” The agent said he struggled to understand a policy change to deport children who had been placed in U.S. homes and given an education, only because they had turned 18 and were now legally adults. “We’re doing it because we can,” the unnamed agent told the magazine, “and it bothers the hell out of me.”

[dckingsfan]

Immigration is a touchy subject in any country because of the misconception that it is a negative taking jobs from people already in the country. The reality is that immigration creates jobs and is a positive to the general economy. The USA has 13% of the population which is foreign born and Canada has 21% of the population. The reality is the birthrates in both countries is less than replacement with USA @ 1.9% and Canada @ 1.6%. Countries have the right to set policies to bring in the best people possible and countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand have set up point systems to allow the best possible applicants into the country. Yes part of that is the ability to speak English or in Canada English or French but that is only part of the process. Canada is allowing 300,000 immigrants and refugees in 2017 or about .86 of 1% while the Trump plan for 500,000 immigrants is about .15 of 1%. This is a play to the uneducated working class base not sound economic policy. Plus the green card system such as $500,000 for bogus investment plans such as proposed by a Kushner company in China. This doesn't bring the best and brightest in many cases and countries like Canada, Australia and NZ have basically eliminated those look holes. (NZ allows immigration with a $10 million investment)

Many immigrants in Canada come from foreign students who have studied in our universities or universities in USA and are encouraged to stay. My stepdaughter is a prime example getting her degree in Biology and is now studying to become a pharmacist. The point system isn't totally geared to professional but to where jobs are needed in the country. Of the 300,000 immigrants about 45,000 are refugees which have come from mostly Syria and are families. This will likely increase substantially since between 100 to 150 people claiming refugee status are crossing into Canada from the USA on a daily basis. While these people are technically not refugees since they landed into the USA before entering Canada. It is a sticky problem caused by the Trump administration in that Canada has to review policies on how to handle this situation.

Canada also has a significant number of guest workers in Canada in the agricultural industry and service industry. The guest workers come primarily in agriculture from Mexico or the Caribbean and service workers from the Philippines. The workers are protected by the same laws as a Canadian getting social services and at least minimum wages.

I think parts of the new immigration policy is sound but overall it is a feeble attempt at pacifying the base. I could see the policy as a plus if it also included fixing illegal immigrants problem which are needed in many sectors of the USA economy where American citizens will not take jobs.

Not all immigration policies increase growth or limit employment from native workers.

You want a policy that increases growth, increases productivity, and keeps labor participation rates up.

The argument for skill based vs. familial based immigration on the surface is a pretty good one. There is a positive compromise to be reached:

The second problem is that mainstream liberalism has gone a little bit insane on immigration, digging into a position that any restrictions are ipso facto racist, and any policy that doesn’t take us closer to open borders is illegitimate and un-American.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/05/opinion/sunday/trump-immigration-compromise-douthat.html?ref=opinion

[Zonkerbl]

Well, this is boring. Somebody start a fight.

Legalize pot! And crack and heroin! Rawr rawr!

[Zonkerbl]

The CIA deliberately funneled heroin into Harlem in the seventies to undermine the Black Panthers! I have no proof but I know it's true! Rawr rawr!

[montestewart]

The CIA deliberately funneled heroin into Harlem in the seventies to undermine the Black Panthers! I have no proof but I know it's true! Rawr rawr!

That had more to do with fighting the spread of communism and having extra funds free from governmental oversight. And maybe a new pool in the back yard. They didn't care much about Harlem or the Panthers one way or the other.