Monday, July 9, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
NSA Wiretap Ban Overturned...
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Earlier today the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated an earlier 2006 order by a lower, Detroit court, which had found the NSA's warrantless wiretaps to be unconstitutional, violating both privacy and free speech rights.
With that decision, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals set the post-9/11 domestic NSA wiretap program back to its dfault position.
The court ruled 2 to 1 that the Plaintiffs had no standing on which to sue, since none of those involved had been subject to the surveillance.
Why Don’t National Dems Take a Lesson From These Guys...?
Jim Webb (D-VA), Jon Tester (D-MT) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) all voted to defeat the recent ill-conceived “amnesty for illegal aliens Bill,”
Now Arizona’s Democratic Governor, Janet Napolitano has signed a new law that effectively sets up a two-strikes penalty for enterprises that hire illegal aliens/”undocumented workers.” For a first offense, a business employing an illegal immigrant would have its business license suspended temporarily. A second offense would mean a permanent revocation of that license.
The new law "takes the most aggressive action in the country against employers who knowingly or intentionally hire undocumented workers says Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), who signed the measure into law late Monday, July 2nd.
This get-tough attitude with businesses is growing across the US. As of April, 40 other states had introduced 199 bills related to employment of undocumented workers – the top subject of immigration-related legislation in the states,
Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Tennessee, and West Virginia are still in the process of enacting legislation to force employers to verify their workers' legal status.
There’s no question that individual states have the right to set the parameters for employment within that state, so these new laws are expected to weather any challenges.
Given the overwhelming public support for border enforcement and its antipathy for illegal immigration, why are the national Democrats failing to adopt the agenda of their more enlightened brethren?
Now Arizona’s Democratic Governor, Janet Napolitano has signed a new law that effectively sets up a two-strikes penalty for enterprises that hire illegal aliens/”undocumented workers.” For a first offense, a business employing an illegal immigrant would have its business license suspended temporarily. A second offense would mean a permanent revocation of that license.
The new law "takes the most aggressive action in the country against employers who knowingly or intentionally hire undocumented workers says Gov. Janet Napolitano (D), who signed the measure into law late Monday, July 2nd.
This get-tough attitude with businesses is growing across the US. As of April, 40 other states had introduced 199 bills related to employment of undocumented workers – the top subject of immigration-related legislation in the states,
Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Tennessee, and West Virginia are still in the process of enacting legislation to force employers to verify their workers' legal status.
There’s no question that individual states have the right to set the parameters for employment within that state, so these new laws are expected to weather any challenges.
Given the overwhelming public support for border enforcement and its antipathy for illegal immigration, why are the national Democrats failing to adopt the agenda of their more enlightened brethren?
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
The WRONG Way to Look at Income and Wealth
(A Poorly Crafter Viewpoint, and My Response)
Inequality has run Amok. Do Leaders Care?
NY Daily News
Be Our Guest
By DMITRI IGLITZIN & STEVEN HILL
Posted Wednesday, June 27th 2007
When pets are poisoned by imported pet food or U.S. attorneys are fired under suspicious circumstances, Congress gears up hearings and vows quick action. A far greater scandal, however, has hardly gained the interest of legislators or the presidential candidates. That is the increasing wealth gap between the rich, the middle class and the poor, which is reaching alarming proportions.
The top 10% of income earners in the United States now owns 70% of the wealth, and the wealthiest 1% owns more than the bottom 95%, according to the Federal Reserve. In 2005, the top 300,000 Americans enjoyed about the same share of the nation's income - 21.8% - as the bottom 150 million.
New York is an especially bleak case study. The top fifth of earners in Manhattan now makes 52 times what the lowest fifth makes - $365,826 annually compared with $7,047 - roughly comparable to income disparity in Namibia.
Meanwhile, the ratio of average CEO to worker pay in the U.S. shot up from 301-to-1 to 431-to-1 in 2004. The average CEO now earns substantially more in one day than the average worker earns all year. Adding insult to injury, taxpayers actually give tax breaks to corporations for those salaries, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
In a country founded on the principle that "all men are created equal," this stark and growing economic inequality has become a third rail. Almost no one in political leadership touches it for fear of being accused of inciting class warfare.
Government has more than a right to confront the problem. It has an obligation to do so.
A small first step would be passing the Income Equity Act, denying corporations a tax deduction for excessive CEO salaries (defined as pay greater than 25 times the company's lowest full-time worker). They could still pay CEOs whatever they wished, but taxpayers would no longer subsidize it. That would create downward pressure on executive income while saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
More substantive would be a fix to Social Security's dirty little secret of favoring the rich: Annual wage income above $94,200 is completely untaxed by Social Security. While an average worker pays 6.2% of her income to Social Security, a CEO earning $1 million pays only 1% of his salary. As is, only 83% of all wages are subject to Social Security taxes, so this would increase annual revenues by nearly 20%, or $100 billion a year.
Other worthy proposals include providing child care for working parents, expanding health care and lowering college costs. But the most direct way to address inequality is to reimpose higher income tax rates. Under President Dwight Eisenhower's Republican administration, the maximum marginal tax rate was 87%. The Reagan tax cut of 1981 dramatically lowered this to 50%, then again to 28% in 1986. Since then, no surprise, our nation has seen a steady rise in wealth disparity.
It is long past time for our political leaders toput aside the scandal du jour and take urgently needed action to slow if not reverse our nation's growing economic inequality.
Iglitzin is a labor law attorney. Hill is director of the political reform program of the New America Foundation and author of "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy."
Income Isn’t Wealth and Income Equality Isn’t the Answer
JMK
Mr. Dmitri Iglitzin and Mr. Steven Hill both subscribe to the “fixed pie” view of the economy.
The inane view that “there’s only so much money in the economy at any given time, so one person earning a lot of money, means many others will have to earn a lot less.”
That’s a view that’s been proven wrong since the 19th Century, when that idea first came into being. Today it’s folly is a staple of all first semester economics courses.
The fact is that the market determines what any given skill is worth. Skills that are particularly difficult to attain and master skills tend to be valued much higher than those that are more mundane.
Income disparities are not actually a sign that an economy is extremely healthy, NOT the reverse.
Moroever, income, contrary to what Mssr’s Hill and Iglitzin would have us believe, is NOT wealth.
In fact, there is virtually no overlap between the richest 1% of Americans and the top 1% of income earners! The truly “rich,” the Teresa Heinz-Kerry’s, the Tom Keane Jr.’s and the Kennedy’s don’t rely upon income as a major source of their wealth. Ergo, income equality is NOT the same as wealth equality, not that the latter is a good thing either.
In their article, Inequality has run Amok, they take issue with CEO “pay,” comparing CEO “pay” (total compensation) to average salaries.
That comparison conveniently does NOT count the full “compensation” of teachers, police officers, construction workers and firefighters, for instance, their healthcare and pension programs, their 457s and 401-Ks, etc., BUT it does very much count CEO “stock options.”
In fact, CEO stock options are investments, NOT mere “compensation.”
Just as we don’t count an employee’s 457 and 401-K contributions as “compensation,” a CEO’s stock options shouldn’t be counted as raw “compensation” either.
The reality is that there’s no way for any educated person today to argue in favor of the “fixed pie” economic model and because of that, there’s no way to argue, as Mr. Hill and Mr. Iglitzin do, in favor of higher marginal tax rates.
For one thing, higher across the board tax rates ALWAYS result in lowered government revenues, as more higher income earners (those Hill and Iglitzin would like to target) simply defer more of their compensation in various tax exempt vehicles, leaving the bulk of the tax bite to fall upon those earning lower incomes, those least able to defer income in order to avoid the full impact of the tax increase.
If either Mr. Hill or Mr. Iglitzin really cared about those earning lower salaries, one or both of these men would be supporting replacing the income tax with a consumption tax, along the lines of the Fair Tax, which would kick in after the first $30,000 spent each year, exempt medicines and basic foods like milk, bread, meats, etc. and tax luxury good slightly higher, having the effect of not only taxing the truly “rich” and the highest income earners more, as they all spend much more, but it would also tax the huge and growing underground economy of “off-the-books” workers, etc.
Instead the Steven Hill’s and Dmitri Iglitzin’s of the world still espouse 19th Century solutions (higher income tax rates) to deal with a problem (wide disparities in wealth and in tax burdens) that’s really not about income at all!
The FDNY, New York City and The Vulcans are Failing New Yorkers
John Coombs (President of the Vulcans - the FDNY's Black fraternal organization, pictured left) seems to believe that written tests “discriminate against black candidates.”
He believes that without any apparent proof.
Disparate impact is NOT proof of either “test bias” nor actual “hiring discrimination.”
Mr. Coombs and those like him, would have you believe that written exams do not measure aptitude but merely learned facts, which means that those from better schools have an distinct advantage.
That argument has been used against the SATs, but ALL available research shows that SAT scores do, in fact, correlate virtually 1 to 1 with how well a prospective student will do in College.
Same for the U.S. Military’s use of a battery of IQ tests and aptitude tests, that are used to determine which areas of service a recruit will serve in.
The IQ tests used DO NOT measure a candidate’s “knowledge” or “known facts,” they actually measure the candidate’s ability to process and absorb information...and they do that quite effectively.
Firefighters and police must process a tremendous amount of information at the scene of an emergency, Firefighters must be able to process and absorb information on Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation and Defibrillation, as well as courses in dealing with Hazardous Materials.
There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that written exams discriminate against black candidates. To argue that, in fact, is a tacit endorsement of "white supremacy." In this case, it's also an endorsement of "Asian and Hispanic supremacy, as those groups have also done better than blacks have on recent standardized entrance exams across the board.
Oddly enough, on the one hand Mr. Coombs argues that the physical exam should be made more competitive, and while I agree and even believe it should also be made more stringent as well, that inconsistent reasoning - opposing a competitive written, while supporting a competitive physical undermines the argument that "arbitrary standards are wrong," as Mr.Coombs and the Vulcans even support "arbitrary standards" when they perceive them to be advantageous.
He believes that without any apparent proof.
Disparate impact is NOT proof of either “test bias” nor actual “hiring discrimination.”
Mr. Coombs and those like him, would have you believe that written exams do not measure aptitude but merely learned facts, which means that those from better schools have an distinct advantage.
That argument has been used against the SATs, but ALL available research shows that SAT scores do, in fact, correlate virtually 1 to 1 with how well a prospective student will do in College.
Same for the U.S. Military’s use of a battery of IQ tests and aptitude tests, that are used to determine which areas of service a recruit will serve in.
The IQ tests used DO NOT measure a candidate’s “knowledge” or “known facts,” they actually measure the candidate’s ability to process and absorb information...and they do that quite effectively.
Firefighters and police must process a tremendous amount of information at the scene of an emergency, Firefighters must be able to process and absorb information on Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation and Defibrillation, as well as courses in dealing with Hazardous Materials.
There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that written exams discriminate against black candidates. To argue that, in fact, is a tacit endorsement of "white supremacy." In this case, it's also an endorsement of "Asian and Hispanic supremacy, as those groups have also done better than blacks have on recent standardized entrance exams across the board.
Oddly enough, on the one hand Mr. Coombs argues that the physical exam should be made more competitive, and while I agree and even believe it should also be made more stringent as well, that inconsistent reasoning - opposing a competitive written, while supporting a competitive physical undermines the argument that "arbitrary standards are wrong," as Mr.Coombs and the Vulcans even support "arbitrary standards" when they perceive them to be advantageous.
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Now I agree that the physical portion of the exam should be more competitive, but so should the written exam! The argument that essentially goes, "What's the certifiable difference between a candidate who gets a 96 on an exam and, say, a 72," is (1) absurd on its face and (2) is just as valid for arguing that the physical standard should be pass/fail, as well as the written.
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In point of fact, ALL standards, are to some extent, arbitrary, BUT the employer, in this case the FDNY and the City of New York, has the right to hire those candidates with the highest overall standards - combined written and physical qualifications. There is no good argument against that.
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Hopefully the courts will ultimately acknowledge that disparate impact, a concept that has done tremendous harm to the fabric of America, is not a valid means of assessing discrimination.
The problem is high standards and stringent exams, the problem is with the individual candidates. Those who are motivated to do these jobs will prepare for the exams and do well, those who aren’t as motivated will not.
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In point of fact, ALL standards, are to some extent, arbitrary, BUT the employer, in this case the FDNY and the City of New York, has the right to hire those candidates with the highest overall standards - combined written and physical qualifications. There is no good argument against that.
.
Hopefully the courts will ultimately acknowledge that disparate impact, a concept that has done tremendous harm to the fabric of America, is not a valid means of assessing discrimination.
The problem is high standards and stringent exams, the problem is with the individual candidates. Those who are motivated to do these jobs will prepare for the exams and do well, those who aren’t as motivated will not.
Two Energy Giants May Abandon Venezuela’s Chavez
Last week, Conoco-Phillips and Exxon Mobil refused to meet Venezuela’s deadline to reach an agreement on ceding control of their major oil production ventures, possibly indicating their imminent separation from billions of dollars in investments in that country.
The possible exit of two major American oil companies from Venezuela is not expected to have an immediate impact on American energy supplies.
Moreover, most energy experts believe that the Venezuelan state oil company will be hard pressed to sustain production levels without American expertise.
Oil is the centerpiece of a broader nationalization effort that includes telecommunications and electricity companies. Hugo Chávez is seeking a stronger hand for his government in Venezuela’s economy even as the oil industry, by far the country’s largest source of revenue, struggles to maintain its current, anemic production levels.
The possible abandonment by Conoco-Phillips and Exxon Mobil could be troublesome for Venezuela, what with public spending surging under Mr. Chávez and with oil companies from Brazil, China and India hesitant to make major investments in Venezuela while legal uncertainty persists, energy analysts have cautioned that Venezuela’s government may risk allowing prized reserves to remain underdeveloped.
“The Venezuelans have increased the cost of developing this resource,” said Roger Tissot, director for Latin America at PFC Energy, a consulting firm, in Washington. “At the end of the day, the Venezuelan people will pay the price for these decisions.”
In a similar move Zimbabwe’s government has put forward legislation that would require virtually all publicly traded companies to cede controlling interests to “indigenous” citizens, raising the possibility of a sizable redistribution of the country’s remaining wealth at a time when its economy is collapsing.
The draft legislation, which was published Monday, would mandate that a 51 percent stake in the companies be transferred to Zimbabweans who were “disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds of his or her race” before April 1980, when the nation won independence from white rule.
The government calls it a plan for black empowerment, while critics label it a bid to shore up crumbling political support for Zimbabwe’s president, Robert G. Mugabe. Given that Mr. Mugabe’s party dominates Parliament, the measure will almost certainly pass.
It was unclear, however, how Zimbabwe’s bankrupt government, beset by hyperinflation and a currency crisis, would finance the transfers.
At the same time, the government began an effort to rein in Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation, officially about 4,500 percent, but described by private economists as approaching 20,000 percent. A cabinet-level task force on price controls ordered factories and sellers to cut the prices of certain basic goods and services by as much as 50 percent — to levels that existed roughly one week ago.
the legislation evokes the specter of Mr. Mugabe’s seizure of thousands of white-owned farms early this decade, mostly without compensation, in what was then called a redistribution of land to poor blacks. Instead, many of the best farms were awarded to leading figures in Mr. Mugabe’s government and his ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. Once “the breadbasket of Africa,” Zimbabwe today, can’t even feed it’s own population.
The possible exit of two major American oil companies from Venezuela is not expected to have an immediate impact on American energy supplies.
Moreover, most energy experts believe that the Venezuelan state oil company will be hard pressed to sustain production levels without American expertise.
Oil is the centerpiece of a broader nationalization effort that includes telecommunications and electricity companies. Hugo Chávez is seeking a stronger hand for his government in Venezuela’s economy even as the oil industry, by far the country’s largest source of revenue, struggles to maintain its current, anemic production levels.
The possible abandonment by Conoco-Phillips and Exxon Mobil could be troublesome for Venezuela, what with public spending surging under Mr. Chávez and with oil companies from Brazil, China and India hesitant to make major investments in Venezuela while legal uncertainty persists, energy analysts have cautioned that Venezuela’s government may risk allowing prized reserves to remain underdeveloped.
“The Venezuelans have increased the cost of developing this resource,” said Roger Tissot, director for Latin America at PFC Energy, a consulting firm, in Washington. “At the end of the day, the Venezuelan people will pay the price for these decisions.”
In a similar move Zimbabwe’s government has put forward legislation that would require virtually all publicly traded companies to cede controlling interests to “indigenous” citizens, raising the possibility of a sizable redistribution of the country’s remaining wealth at a time when its economy is collapsing.
The draft legislation, which was published Monday, would mandate that a 51 percent stake in the companies be transferred to Zimbabweans who were “disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds of his or her race” before April 1980, when the nation won independence from white rule.
The government calls it a plan for black empowerment, while critics label it a bid to shore up crumbling political support for Zimbabwe’s president, Robert G. Mugabe. Given that Mr. Mugabe’s party dominates Parliament, the measure will almost certainly pass.
It was unclear, however, how Zimbabwe’s bankrupt government, beset by hyperinflation and a currency crisis, would finance the transfers.
At the same time, the government began an effort to rein in Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation, officially about 4,500 percent, but described by private economists as approaching 20,000 percent. A cabinet-level task force on price controls ordered factories and sellers to cut the prices of certain basic goods and services by as much as 50 percent — to levels that existed roughly one week ago.
the legislation evokes the specter of Mr. Mugabe’s seizure of thousands of white-owned farms early this decade, mostly without compensation, in what was then called a redistribution of land to poor blacks. Instead, many of the best farms were awarded to leading figures in Mr. Mugabe’s government and his ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. Once “the breadbasket of Africa,” Zimbabwe today, can’t even feed it’s own population.
Could This be the Perfect Solution From a Radical Environmentalist Perspective???
The World Health Organization (WHO) claims that 1 Billion people worldwide will die from smoking this Century!
That’s tragic to those who respect human life, but it should make environmentalists, many of whom inanely see human life as “the enemy of earth,” ecstatic! After all, many environmentalists are always going on about “too many humans polluting the earth.”
Better still, at least for the enviro anti-humans, while smoking rates declining across the board in developed nations, they are skyrocketing in developing nations, especially among teens.
This should make environmentalists extremely happy, since it’s developing nations that are responsible for an increasing amount of pollution. China recently passed the US as the world’s premier CO2 emitter.
Opponents of the anti-human environmental ideology like to point to the fact that the earth is incredibly regenerative and is great at balancing itself. Perhaps increasing smoking and lung cancer rates in the developing world are “the earth’s means of pollution offsets.”
SEE: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070702/india_nm/india282814
That’s tragic to those who respect human life, but it should make environmentalists, many of whom inanely see human life as “the enemy of earth,” ecstatic! After all, many environmentalists are always going on about “too many humans polluting the earth.”
Better still, at least for the enviro anti-humans, while smoking rates declining across the board in developed nations, they are skyrocketing in developing nations, especially among teens.
This should make environmentalists extremely happy, since it’s developing nations that are responsible for an increasing amount of pollution. China recently passed the US as the world’s premier CO2 emitter.
Opponents of the anti-human environmental ideology like to point to the fact that the earth is incredibly regenerative and is great at balancing itself. Perhaps increasing smoking and lung cancer rates in the developing world are “the earth’s means of pollution offsets.”
SEE: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070702/india_nm/india282814
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