Tell Congress to pass The Uniting American Families Act!
by: dstavro
Thu Dec 25, 2008 at 12:51:04 PM EST

http://pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=AC659A31018A7EA0E0552CDC2E6D4400?diaryId=8805

As the inauguration of the next President of the United States nears, the organization change.org is pushing for the change that President-elect Obama promised.  The "idea" of equal immigration rights for same sex binational couples has garnered enough votes to qualify for the second round of "ideas for change" in the immigration category.  The top "ideas" will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day.  If you have not yet voted for the "idea" of Equal Immigration Rights for Same Sex Binational Couples, you can do so HERE

Personally, given the growth in joblessness, and the problems in the economy, I'd like to see all immigration cut way back, and while they are at it, they do need to revise the entire process.

Quote from: tekla on December 27, 2008, 09:49:42 AM
Personally, given the growth in joblessness, and the problems in the economy, I'd like to see all immigration cut way back, and while they are at it, they do need to revise the entire process.

You can't make a country less poor by turning away voluntary labor.  If a million illegals from Mexico flooded into the USA tomorrow, and all sent 90% of their paychecks back home, we'd still be better off in the long run.

From my most left wing friends, to the most conservative people I know, one of the few things that we find any sort of agreement on is how screwed up our immigration system is.  Of course, we can't agree on what the fix is.  It's long past time that people sat down and really looked hard at a policy that seems to work well for large economic concerns when it comes to lowering wages, and doing an end run around unionization, but its become very poor policy for the rest of us.  A one or two year moratorium on all but the most pressing cases - political amnesty stuff - will not hurt, and I think in the end everyone will be better off with a policy that, whatever it is, is at least a policy, and not just an arrangement of convenience.

The lowering of wages should ultimately be more than offset by a rise in purchasing power as the stock of goods & availability of services increase - and there's no reason wages can't rise again when the equilibrium price changes.  America needs to throw out this idea of consumption uber alles and realize that production is the thing which raises the standard of living.

America needs to throw out this idea of consumption uber alles and realize that production is the thing which raises the standard of living.

Yeah in the haste to offshore all of our production, and now let the auto industry slide, people seem to have forgot that you have to make things for people to consume. 

However...  The lowering of wages should ultimately be more than offset by a rise in purchasing power as the stock of goods & availability of services increase  does not seem to pan out in reality as well as it does in the textbooks. 

Quote from: tekla on December 27, 2008, 12:21:40 PM
However...  The lowering of wages should ultimately be more than offset by a rise in purchasing power as the stock of goods & availability of services increase  does not seem to pan out in reality as well as it does in the textbooks.

The problem is that it's a painful adjustment & nobody with any political power is willing to see it through.  Also, I think we can both agree that the electorate is never going to vote for something as unpleasant-looking as this, no matter how beneficial down the road.

We should never have gotten ourselves into this position in the first place - you never win when you fight the market.  Enron, the bank failures, and the Big Three should have taught us that by now.

I thought, or at least what I take from those examples is that regulation of capitalism is not all that bad an idea.  Except for the car companies, that's a different deal.

What I take away from it is that the market is very good at pointing out failure and eliminating it, but we have a tendency not to listen.

Enron was a case of reality (market reality) striking back - before government knew anything about it, and before they could intervene to make it worse.  People lost their savings, true, but it didn't collapse the economy and it ran it's course very quickly.

The banks and the Big Three are a slow-motion Enron with the government enlarging and disguising the gaping hole that's sucking up all the money.  The longer they let it go on, the worse it gets and the worse the collapse is going to be.

EDIT:  Even if we give the state the power to regulate the economy to alleviate this kind of thing (regardless of whether they're actually responsible), do you really trust the government to do so?  It's not like any level of government or political party here has reputation of honesty or integrity, and certainly not incorruptibility.

People lost their savings, true, but it didn't collapse the economy and it ran it's course very quickly.

I'm not all that sure.  I think Enron did a lot of damage, along with WorldTel and few others.  Enron sure hurt Cali by using unlawful means to manipulate energy prices in one of the world's largest energy markets, causing long term financial ruin for some, increasing unemployment, and changing the government of the state.  Without Enron, no Arnold. 

Quote from: tekla on December 27, 2008, 01:00:42 PM
People lost their savings, true, but it didn't collapse the economy and it ran it's course very quickly.

I'm not all that sure.  I think Enron did a lot of damage, along with WorldTel and few others.  Enron sure hurt Cali by using unlawful means to manipulate energy prices in one of the world's largest energy markets, causing long term financial ruin for some, increasing unemployment, and changing the government of the state.  Without Enron, no Arnold.

It wasn't without consequence, but imagine if we'd bailed out Enron.  Repeatedly.  For decades.

It's like advocating a continual blood transfusion into a patient with a severed leg, while refusing to apply a tourniquet.

In a NASCAR 'stock' car race, there is a moment, before the car hits the wall, before it goes caroming off three other cars, gets airborne and flips end over end in the infield, there is a moment, when the tires get loose and begin the chain of events.  I think in some ways, those events, Enron, WorldTel and others, was just that moment.  The stuff that was supposed to hold the car on the track - regulation and oversight - no longer worked, and the wreck became almost a foregone conclusion.

Quote from: tekla on December 27, 2008, 01:25:08 PM
In a NASCAR 'stock' car race, there is a moment, before the car hits the wall, before it goes caroming off three other cars, gets airborne and flips end over end in the infield, there is a moment, when the tires get loose and begin the chain of events.  I think in some ways, those events, Enron, WorldTel and others, was just that moment.  The stuff that was supposed to hold the car on the track - regulation and oversight - no longer worked, and the wreck became almost a foregone conclusion.

Government regulation & oversight is a dangerous myth.  Trusting in the goodness of unaccountable bureaucrats - or even elected officials - is a sure way to be disappointed.  That power will be abused, sooner or later.

QuoteGovernment regulation & oversight is a dangerous myth.  Trusting in the goodness of unaccountable bureaucrats - or even elected officials - is a sure way to be disappointed.  That power will be abused, sooner or later.

LOL, the bureaucrats are understaffed, poorly supervised, and too lazy to abuse power. They collect their pay checks and take holidays.  The elected officials let the lobbyists write the laws and accept campaign contributions to vote for the laws. I doubt that they ever read them.

That power will be abused, sooner or later.

I'll almost take that, for unregulated capitalism driven by the bottom line and bottom line only gets abused from the get-go.  I don't see it as any sort of magic bullet, but not to have any seems pretty dumb too.

QuoteI don't see it as any sort of magic bullet, but not to have any seems pretty dumb too.

The fact is that the law makers have made laws so complicated and numerous that if everyone in the country was employed by the government they still could not enforce all of them. What we need is all laws simplified and a government that makes a law also have in place the staff and resources to enforce that law . If not then it can not be made a law.

Quote
Government regulation & oversight is a dangerous myth.  Trusting in the goodness of unaccountable bureaucrats - or even elected officials - is a sure way to be disappointed.  That power will be abused, sooner or later.

I find myths like The market will regulate itself and The freer the market, the freer the people way more dangerous and chaos-inducing.
Governments are human endeavors and as such they are fallible. Shouldn't we perfect them instead of abandoning them for a "Greed is good" approach? Well-tuned regulation will not stamp out all problems but it's the only thing that can guarantee a measure of fair play and order.

QuoteWell-tuned regulation will not stamp out all problems but it's the only thing that can guarantee a measure of fair play and order.

The government can not do the job alone. It takes people with morals whistle blowers, a concerned public,  diligent unions, honest workers, and voting with every dollar you spend. For spending money is just as hard as making it. It takes research into the products and services you buy. Is the source of that product concerned with human rights? etc.

Quote from: soldierjane on December 27, 2008, 03:45:59 PM

Quote
Government regulation & oversight is a dangerous myth.  Trusting in the goodness of unaccountable bureaucrats - or even elected officials - is a sure way to be disappointed.  That power will be abused, sooner or later.

I find myths like The market will regulate itself and The freer the market, the freer the people way more dangerous and chaos-inducing.
Governments are human endeavors and as such they are fallible. Shouldn't we perfect them instead of abandoning them for a "Greed is good" approach? Well-tuned regulation will not stamp out all problems but it's the only thing that can guarantee a measure of fair play and order.

The market regulation we need is a uniform code of law that doesn't grant special exceptions to corporations (or any other group) and doesn't infringe on our rights for the sake of "progress" or "economic growth".  No corporate shield, limited liability, eminent domain, bailouts, subsidies, patents, intellectual property, and possibly not even copyright.

EDIT:  And there's nothing that can substitute for critical thinking among the consumers.  Nothing.

In fact it begins rather simply, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad needs to be revoked.