Month: December 2011

The
U.S. federal government’s legislature is comprised of two chambers, the
Senate and the House of Representatives- the latter of which is also
known as “The People’s House” because it is supposed to be
closest to the citizens of our nation.  This is a wonderful concept but
tragically, it is no longer accurate.  Collectively our Congress is
sometimes referred to as the “Two Houses of Congress.”  The time has
come to change the name of the legislative branch to one that is more
representative of the truth- I would suggest that henceforth it be
referred to as “The Houses of Corporate Interests.”

Here’s why…

Time and again call for importing foreign workers and foreign
students to help to make American companies more competitive.  One idea
that has been floated by some politicians, including most of the GOP
candidates for the Presidency, has been to “staple a green onto advanced
degrees awarded to foreign students.”  According to some this should
especially be done when the foreign students graduate with advanced
degrees in the STEM curricula (Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics) so that companies will gain the benefit of these
newly-minted graduates.

It is astonishing that while we hear much about the need to help
American companies to be as competitive as possible, not one candidate
has talked about the need to enable American workers to be as
competitive as possible!  Certainly there is nothing wrong with
companies being successful and profitable- but not when that success and
increased profits come at the expense of beleaguered American workers!

Advocates for open borders, the immigration anarchists,
demand that illegal aliens be granted in-state tuition while tuition for
American students climbs through the stratosphere.  How are Americans
supposed to pay for their extremely costly educations when the costs of
their educations continue to rise and prospects for employment after
graduation continue to plummet?

Because of our nation’s economic crisis, jobs are increasingly
scarce.  Unemployment benefits have been extended a number of times and
today, an unemployed American can collect unemployment benefits for 99
weeks- nearly.  Yet no one is discussing the idea of subsidizing tuition
for American students or unemployed Americans to help them to become
more competitive and making certain that investigations into the fraud
that permeates the various categories of work visas for foreign workers
be aggressively pursued.  However nearly every Presidential candidate
has voiced concerns about making American companies more competitive.

What these politicians are not discussing is how most major American
companies are not really American companies at all, but are, in reality,
multinational corporations whose profitability has nothing to do with
how well the United States and its citizen are faring.  Multinational
companies can hire foreign nationals by moving their factories and
offices overseas where labor is cheaper and various regulations
concerning the environment, worker safety and a host of other such
issues do not apply.  These companies don’t say a “Pledge of Allegiance
to the United States” but to the bottom line!

We have been told that the recession ended in 2009, yet more
Americans continue to lose their jobs and their homes to foreclosure- if
the recession ended, how do we define the current economic situation?

On April 30, 2009 Alan
Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank testified at
hearing that was conducted by the United States Senate Immigration
Subcommittee on the topic of Comprehensive Immigration Reform that
was chaired by New York’s Senator Charles Schumer who undoubtedly
invited Greenspan to testify.  Keep in mind that Greenspan was arguably
one of the architects of the economic meltdown of the United States who
had advocated for providing subprime mortgages to many people who could
not afford those mortgages including illegal aliens.

On January 27, 2011 Fox News posted a report about the economic meltdown worth reviewing.

Among the remarks made by Greenspan in his prepared testimony at the immigration hearing, were these outrageous statements:

The quantity of temporary H-1B visas issued each year
is far too small to meet the need, especially in the near future as the
economy copes with the forthcoming retirement wave of skilled baby
boomers. As Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft, succinctly testified
before Congress in March 2007, “America will find it infinitely more
difficult to maintain its technological leadership if it shuts out the
very people who are most able to help us compete.” He added that we are
“driving away the world’s best and brightest precisely when we need them
most.”

Our skill shortage, I trust, will ultimately be resolved through
reform of our primary and secondary education systems. But, at best,
that will take many years. An accelerated influx of highly skilled
immigrants would bridge that gap and, moreover, carry with it two
significant bonuses.

First, skilled workers and their families form new households.
They will, of necessity, move into vacant housing units, the current
glut of which is depressing prices of American homes. And, of course,
house price declines are a major factor in mortgage foreclosures and the
plunge in value of the vast quantity of U.S. mortgage-backed securities
that has contributed substantially to the disabling of our banking
system. The second bonus would address the increasing concentration of
income in this country. Greatly expanding our quotas for the highly
skilled would lower wage premiums of skilled over lesser skilled. Skill
shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor
force from world competition. Quotas have been substituted for the wage
pricing mechanism. In the process, we have created a privileged elite
whose incomes are being supported at noncompetitively high levels by
immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such
restrictions would reduce at least some of our income inequality.

In point of fact, investigations have shown that many aliens who are
granted H-1B visas often are less qualified than their American
counterparts.  Fraud permeates the entire visa process.

Greenspan notes that if more foreign workers were admitted into the
United States that they would buy the now vacant homes- homes vacated by
Americans who could no longer afford the mortgage payments!

Next you must consider that Greenspan lamented that skilled American
workers were earning too much money He complains bitterly about the
increasing concentration of income in this county by working Americans
he refers to as “the privileged elite” and then has the unmitigated
chutzpah to say that by not permitting more foreign workers to enter the
United States.

To think that the man who had a huge impact on setting economic
policies for the United States could stand before a Senate immigration
hearing and refer to middle class, hard working Americans, as the
“privileged elite” demonstrates a level of contempt for the citizens of
this nation that is utterly incomprehensible!  Furthermore, to call for
an expansion of quotas for foreign workers to reduce the income
inequality between Americans with skills and Americans who have no
special skills or educations flies in face of what has come to be known
as the “American Dream!”

The underlying concept of the American Dream is that as people
acquire more advanced educations or acquire specific trades or skills
that their earning potential increases, thereby spurring Americans on to
greater success that also buoys our nation.

This is what the profit motive is supposed to be about! This was what
created the motivation that created our nation’s middle class that made
America the envy of the world!

Finally, Greenspan claimed that:

Our skill shortage, I trust, will ultimately be
resolved through reform of our primary and secondary education systems.
But, at best, that will take many years. An accelerated influx of highly
skilled immigrants would bridge that gap and, moreover, carry with it
two significant bonuses.

Once wages are driven down, as Greenspan clearly stated was one of
his goals, why on earth would anyone invest the time, money and effort
to acquire an advanced education if in so doing he (she) would not
realize a substantial increase in earning power but would have to delay,
by a number of years, entering the workforce while studying for that
degree and paying astronomical tuition fees?

The Democratic Party used to be the party of blue collar Americans
while the Republican Party was seen as the party of the business owners.

Senator Schumer, chairs the Senate Immigration Subcommittee and has
to know that under our nation’s immigration laws, it is illegal to
provide visas for foreign workers to compete with American workers for
jobs if, in so doing, wages and working conditions of American workers
will be adversely affected.

It is clear that the leaders of both major parties are far more
concerned with advocating for the interests of major corporations than
the average American.  They are failing to live up to their oaths of
office and making certain that our government is, in the eloquent
description of President Abraham Lincoln, a government “Of the people, by the people and for the people!”