The Brand New Respectful Presidential Campaign Thread

Well, here I am again.  I was technical director for the Bell Laboratory's account, for General Electric, in the 1980's and 1990's, and I hired many consultants from other countries (and hated the work involved in getting them their visas).  Every foreign consultant on my account was from one of the following:  India, Pakistan, Taiwan, Korea, and mainland China.  In my five or so years doing this work I never once had a single consultant working for me from any European country. Bell Labs and G.E. are two very well known technology companies, so I believe my experience is highly relevant in making this point.  First, the reason why we had so many foreign consultants (about 75%) on my account, is that we couldn't find qualified Americans for the jobs--mainly electrical engineers. And we preferred consultants with master degrees or doctoral degrees, again a problem finding Americans with advanced degrees.  Since we paid foreign consultants the same salary for the same job (some of them refused to believe this, but it was true), whether American or foreign, it was my preference to hire Americans because of the visa work and also because some of the men (it was mainly men) from the countries I just cited, resented working for a woman. Just couldn't find a sufficient number of qualified Americans. Second, the foreign consultants were there mainly because of the money--it was much higher than what they could earn in their own countries, between $60,000 and $100,000 in the late 80's and early 90's, depending on experience.  And it's always nice to list "Bell Labs" on one's resume.

Thirty years ago, in 1978, the European Union had been in full swing for nearly two decades (under different names).  Italy was a highly successful early member and was admired as one of the more advanced industrialized nations in Europe, unlike Spain and Portugal which were still viewed as somewhat backward. I know Italian history well, as I write about Italy every day and it's necessary that my facts are correct. Italy was doing quite well in 1978.  Lately, for various reasons, it's having some economic problems, partly due to the global economy and partly due to bad management. The left is still very strong in Italy (although somewhat fractured), and Italy's last Prime Minister, Prodi, was from the left.  Italy will be having new elections very shortly.  There are still poor people in Italy as in every other country.  Most of them are in the unindustralized south.

And of course I will disagree with you Anneshirley! Yes, we have a democracy, and yes, there are people who voted for Bush. However, Bush won because of the delegate vote. He did not win because of the popular vote. I believe Al Gore won the popular vote. So, I guess I can hope that you enlightened your Italian friends that most of us did not vote for Bush, we were against the war, and cannot be held responsible for this war. Since Bush is the Commander-in-Chief (just like the CEO of a corporation), he is ultimately responsible for what he and/or his employees do.

"Grace--I disagree that people in other countries are not routinely bashing Americans, of late. They are. We were living there when the war began and only left at the end of 2005. Italians, more than any other western Europeans, have always been madly in love with Americans. There were anti-war marches all across Umbria when I lived there (at least one a week), and many Italians were very angry, not just at Bush, but at Americans. To quote them, you have a democracy; didn't the people vote for this man twice, so aren't they equally responsible for this war?"



It seems that we have had two different experiences when it comes to who really wanted this war, and who didn't. IMHO, Bush needs to be held accountable as he listened to advisors who lied to him.



Anyway, I don't want this to light fires on this thread. I just felt I needed to respond to your comments. As I said I totally agree to disagree. Funny how life puts us on different "pathways" that seem to overlap and move apart. I do learn from you about your experiences abroad and have great respect for your posts.



grace

Ok first of all the reson  I mentioned the whole incident was to demonstrate the point that some people's idea of another country could be rather unrealistic and not rooted in reality. I was just giving more and more background as anneshirley kept telling me that the incident never happened or was misunderstood. I do not like people questioning my integrity as I never doubted someone's personal experience and take them at their word.

Secondly I believe that the time will show whether the war was the right move or not. Let's recall Czechoslovakia and Nazi appeasement. At the time it sounded like Chamberlain was on the right path to avoid the conflict. We all know what happened then.

All I know for sure RIGHT NOW in the midst of it all that we haven't had another attack in almost 7 years. Unless you think that the terrorists all of sudden found themselves in love with America and became our friends, you  have to admit that we are doing something right. 

But again the history will judge it all. Remember how Regan said that the Soviet Union was an evil empire and needed to be dealt with. All the liberals here and our European allies were aghast that he would anger Russia and it will end badly. But he stood by his convictions and before we knew Berlin wall came down as well.

Oh and Grace, you asked for the figures and said you'd change your tune:

Dr. Donald Huddle, a Rice University economics professor, published a systematic analysis of those costs as of 1996 (see table below). The study also estimated the tax payments of those same aliens.

At that time, the illegal alien population was estimated to be about five million persons. The estimated fiscal cost of those illegal aliens to the federal, state and local governments was about $33 billion. This impact was partially offset by an estimated $12.6 billion in taxes paid to the federal, state and local governments, resulting in a net cost to the American taxpayer of about $20 billion every year. This estimate did not include indirect costs that result from unemployment payments to Americans who lost their jobs to illegal aliens willing to work for lower wages. Nor did it include lost tax collections from those American workers who became unemployed. The study estimated those indirect costs from illegal immigration at an additional $4.3 billion annually.

During the years since that estimate, the illegal alien population is estimated to have roughly doubled, so the estimated fiscal costs also will have at least doubled. Furthermore, the passage of time is accompanied by inflation in the costs of services, e.g., school budgets continue to climb. Therefore, what was estimated to be a cost to the American taxpayer of $33 billion in 1996 today would be at least $70 billion. Similarly, tax collections would have increased — sales taxes at least — so that the net expense to the taxpayer from illegal immigration would currently be at least $45 billion. The indirect fiscal costs would have also increased, especially during a period of already high unemployment, to perhaps and additional $10 billion annually.

                     $0.85

 

 $0.50

 

 $0.61

 Social Security

 $3.61

 Earned Income Tax Credit

 $0.68

 Medicaid

 $3.12

 Medicare A and B

 $0.58

Criminal Justice and Corrections

$0.76

Local Government

$5.00

Other Programs

$9.25

Total Costs

$32.74

Less Taxes Paid

$12.59

Net Costs of Direct Services

$20.16

Displacement Costs

$4.28

All Net Costs

$24.44

In hosting America's largest population of illegal immigrants, California bears a huge cost to provide basic human services for this fast growing, low-income segment of its population. A new study from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) examines the costs of education, health care and incarceration of illegal aliens, and concludes that the costs to Californians is $10.5 billion per year.

Among the key finding of the report are that the state's already struggling K-12 education system spends approximately $7.7 billion a year to school the children of illegal aliens who now constitute 15 percent of the student body. Another $1.4 billion of the taxpayers' money goes toward providing health care to illegal aliens and their families, the same amount that is spent incarcerating illegal aliens criminals.

"California's addiction to 'cheap' illegal alien labor is bankrupting the state and posing enormous burdens on the state's shrinking middle class tax base," stated Dan Stein, President of FAIR. "Most Californians, who have seen their taxes increase while public services deteriorate, already know the impact that mass illegal immigration is having on their communities, but even they may be shocked when they learn just how much of a drain illegal immigration has become."

The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Californians focuses on three specific program areas because those were the costs examined by researchers from the Urban Institute in 1994. Looking at the costs of education, health care and incarceration for illegal aliens in 1994, the Urban Institute estimated that California was subsidizing illegal immigrants to the tune of about $1.1 billion. The enormous rise in the costs of illegal immigrants over the intervening ten years is due to the rapid growth in illegal residents. It is reasonable to expect those costs to continue to soar if action is not taken to turn the tide.

"Nineteen ninety-four was the same year that California voters rebelled and overwhelmingly passed Proposition 187, which sought to limit liability for mass illegal immigration. Since then, state and local governments have blatantly ignored the wishes of the voters and continued to shell out publicly financed benefits on illegal aliens," said Stein. "Predictably, the costs of illegal immigration have grown geometrically, while the state has spiraled into a fiscal crisis that has brought it near bankruptcy.

"Nothing could more starkly illustrate the very high costs of ‘cheap labor' than California's current situation," continued Stein. "A small number of powerful interests in the state reap the benefits, while the average native-born family in California gets handed a nearly $1,200 a year bill."

The Federation for American Immigration Reform is a nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization advocating immigration policy reforms that would tighten border security and prevent illegal immigration, while reducing legal immigration levels from about 1.1 million persons per year to 300,000 per year

Anne and Amy .......  I am sorry that someone is using those terms "fascist" //

Obviously, now on a separate page, I have pasted a few articles regarding my view ......

I would hope that all of us can respect each other .... but I really think that most Republican type, conservative type views are not met with respect and are blasted.   

Rocktobermon, is there some way I can address you that's a bit shorter?  I feel so rude not calling you by name 

I'm sorry you feel that we haven't been open to your views.  I disagree with some of them, but I do take them seriously, and I do agree on one point you make in your recent posts.  The federal government is in charge of managing immigration, and in the same respect it needs to distribute the costs more evenly among all the states so that it's not just the border states that bear the heaviest costs.

I just think that the English-only movement is (1) bound to fail, (2) is not cost-effect, and (3) tends to be geared more towards punishment than cost-savings or improving communications.  I think there are lots of ways to deal with this issue, and the easiest is to accept that we have close neighbors who speak another language and that citizens on both sides of the border should learn the language of the other.  It's been shown in study after study that children who speak multiple languages usually are better students in all subjects.  The challenge of speaking another language strengthens one's reasoning powers.

I hope you don't leave. 

Inna--the problem is we're running two threads on much the same topic. It seems easier to just dump them all in the same thread.  I just did it again, and started a topic here that I meant to start on the other thread.

As Obama said two days ago in response to McCain, there weren't any terrorists in Iraq until George Bush invaded.  In fact, Hussein and Ben Laden hated each other and Hussein, who ran a very tough shop, wouldn't let any of them into Iraq.  It's George Bush who brought them in!

Yes, it is good to remember history and if the example fits, I thnk it's great to make the comparison.  But the appeasement of Hitler by Chamberlain has no relationship to our invasion of Iraq.  I can't think of even one circumstance that's similar. I don't think that because some people didn't want to go to war and some did is pertinent enough to compare the two situations, since whenever war threatens (wherever) there are always some people who want it and some who don't.

New topic:  So what does everyone here think about the Air Force giving its recent contract to a foreign company?  That seemed to be the big news tonight, other than yesterday's primaries. And how will this impact the elections?  My own thought is that it's the worst news the Republicans could have on the day that John McCain officially accepted his status as Republican nominee.  With all the problems in the economy and loss of jobs, this is bound to reflect badly on the government, which, after all, is Republican at the moment.

My son reminded me this week that when you point and shake a finger at someone...three are pointing and shaking back at you.  Don't you just hate it when your kids send back to you what you sent to them...and they are right!  Suffice it to say that my lack of estrogen impacted my temperament and had flowed over onto their plates....but that's another story.

Not that this simple sentence can abate the rancor that rises to the top of conversations that involve politics or religion.  It is possible though if there is a sincere interest to do so. 

A few thoughts I had when I read through some of this.....

....about language....a couple of days ago, I walked with my son and an Italian lady from the village along the lake.  My son is interested to speak Italian.  We talked (in Italian) about the differences of dialect.  The lady conveyed a story about a woman who studied very hard in the US before to come here.  She was so happy to know the language.  But when she arrived, she was in the central part of the country.....her teacher was from Sicilia....she was disappointed to find that she understood nothing that was being said to her in the central dialects.  One of my Italian teachers was from Sicilia...one of my best teachers...but I needed to put my dialect ears on to understand him.

This is true even in our village....the older dialects are very difficult to understand. My husband is from Rome (and a communication expert) and he can't understand the dialect from Puglia. 

....about Inna's story....Italy of the 30's was a different place.  There is much Russian and communist influence...still is today.  My husband remembers when the Americans came through the streets with Lifesaver candies after the Germans left.  Of interest might be to read the "Dark Heart of Italy" for a broader perspective.  I'm not sure if it was this book or another that I read on the culture here that told about WWII and the US....the US government open their jails and implanted the mafia back into Italy so to infiltrate the Germans....mafia didn't exist in Fascism...interesting don't you think?

The Dark Heart of Italy is kindof like reading about the 20's and 30's in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia....or even today...the mafia in the US only changed from Italian dominance to Russian, Viet Nam, Cambodian, Chinese, etc.  Here the Italian mafia are only just beginning to deal with "competition"...as immigration increases, so too does the "dark side".

Italy today, however, has leaped far past the days of the 20's, 30's and 40's.   They are proud of their Republic.  The US through NATO funded many military bases that infused the economy....like elsewhere in the world...not completely a bad idea in balance...and with permission.

Tourism permitted that they embrace their "lighter side"....art, music, gastronomy.  The food is so very important here.  But I wonder how long they will be able to protect it as a national treasure...the farm lands are disappearing and apartments are being built everywhere....sound familiar?

The dominance of socialism extends a very humanistic hand out to the inhabitants.  The "right center" politics would like to change that to be more like the US....there in lies the tension.  They want the growth of capitalism but maintain their social systems....just like anywhere else in the world.

....about being legal....I appreciate the request to respect the law...afterall it's respect for the law that is the measure of a great society.  But there is a great deal of interpretation between fascism, communism, Stalinism and many other isms and the principles in the US Constitution....God how I love to read that Constitution...written by a group of Europeans who were friendly with the locals I've heard.

about paying for the poor .... the health system in the US before HMO's was funded by private insurance and the government.  The full charge was paid.  The charge didn't look anything like the charge you see on your bills today....I kept stats on this but I don't have them here to quote.  The private insurance and government paid the greatest portion of the care for everyone....people who didn't have insurance through employers were covered by Medicare and Medicaid.  When you entered the hospital, you received the same care regardless of who paid....all were equal...no one scheduled an OR by insurance class.

In this time medicine advanced....for example, anesthesia became much safer.... pulse oximetry was a huge life saver as were the more sophisticated agents that responded faster and increased the reversal of potential complications.  Lives were saved.....in operating rooms and obstetric suites.

Saving lives creates a demand....everyone wanted to be saved....and that cost money to the insurance companies and governments that were paying for it.....they pulled back and tried to contain the cost....thus HMOs.

Then doctors and hospitals began to bill patients for "the balance"....and they didn't like it.   Then.....Joe public with private insurance didn't want to pay more than "the people with HMO's"...so they called and complained...bitterly....even one of the authors of the Diagnostic Related Groups made this argument to me on behalf of his son who was billed for services.  

So HMOs propagated and services diminished with productivity models of time management...I know...I observed it first hand.  Ironically, I studied the effects of extreme productivity management on the Japanese .... their level of suicide was far too high, their creativity was far too low and they lost their investment into intelligence with the loss of life.  So they shifted their focus...they moved toward the US model and open creativity....at the same time the US was moving away from creativity and moving toward productivity.

Amazing isn't it....we really are a small world after all... 

     

Amy said: If anyone believes that learning another language won't be beneficial to them, then I say, don't learn one. I wish I had gone for the double major in undergrad, because being bilingual would have risen my salary and opened up some jobs for which that was a requirement-- which would have benefitted me.

Me:  You're right.  I happen to have taken French, Spanish, German and Italian in school.  When I went to Italy, it was  nice to know some broken Italian.  In France, thank heavens I was fluent.  Spanish ... I can get by at work, in Mexico and I used to work in East L.A.  ... so yes I have benefitted.

I think some people are DELIBERATELY missing our point.  No one is saying that the people need to rid ourselves of foreign language. No one is saying don't learn in it school.  I am glad it's offered and REQUIRED.  

Here is my point:  I don't believe MY TAX DOLLARS SHOULD FUND THE SUPPLY OF FORMS, TELEPHONE LINES (well, I agree 911 should have a variety of languages), TELEPHONE BOOKS, VOTING BALLOTS, DMV FORMS, etc ... Nor do I believe that my cost of goods should go up due to companies being required to accomodate foreign speakers.  I am sick and tired of paying the big and small dollars to make them feel more comfortable in their language.  At my workplace, we do have an English Only policy when it comes safety, the sales managers don't speak Spanish.  But they can speak spanish amongst themselves.

I worked at another place where English Only was enforced even on the premises. That policy was awful.  And we did get it changed although the spanish speakers would make a point to not make any of the others in the room feel like they were being gossipped about when they would speak Spanish.... (we had a mixed language housekeeping crew) 

I hope I have been clear about what the point is ...  

Ann ....  Amy, calls me Rocker, which I hate.  I am not into Rock music so it irks me.  So maybe my name: Kelly or RM ....... either one.

Just wanted to pointed out that Jesse Jackson is a rabid anti-semite. He once publicly refered to New York as a Hymietown. As a Jew I was beyond being insulted.

I may not like Obama or Hillary but I do not despise them which is the feeling I reserve for "Reverend Jesse Jackson". 

Maybe she didn't want her real name "out" there in the www.

Or maybe she is really Hillary Clinton disguising herself to find the views of women with BC!