Immigration reform will get some applause. Financing it would almost be impossible. These 11 million illegal immigrants if given the rights to stay would qualify for health care, food stamps and SSI at retirement age. They certainly wouldn’t be losing any retirement benefits from their home country. Of course when Congress finds out that they underestimated the number of illegals, by about 10 million, what's next? ---Online registration for citizenship? (Get them vote ready for the next election)
Employment is up; even the gangs in Chicago have over 300 positions to fill. These gang bangers will really appreciate the new health care plan coming out. You get pumped full of lead, you won’t need to worry about medical bills, and the hospital won’t either. Gang bangers will turn into hospital meal tickets; every procedure in the books will be run on them, before they’re mobile enough to escape (but I digress).
As for the economy, Obama will point out that we’re not out of the woods yet (yawn). My wife’s and I each have $200 less a month in our take home pay after the Social Security reset. That's about $4,800 of consumption that isn't going to happen for an economy in recession. On the plus side, the food stamp program is a tremendous success, they have renamed it to SNAP (I’m not kidding) (Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program). So I guess Obama can claim to have put a little SNAP into the economy without stretching the truth.
It will be talk, pause and applause, over and over again. This is definitely not a beer, pizza, and chicken wing event.
Obama’s State of the Union speech will be followed by a Clint Eastwood special “The Republican Rebuttal” staring Florida's Senator, Marco Rubio (It won’t be as funny as the last one; I think they sold the chair).
If we review the Presidents last four years, a lot of Obama’s cabinet has moved on. It tends to suggest that these people felt their input wasn’t of much value and/or four more years of the same thing just wasn’t worth it (we’re not talking 20k a year jobs either). It will be interesting to take note of what is not talked about next Tuesday. The people who have left the oval circle are tight lipped. I guess the thought of a drone circling the house might keep it that way.
15 comments:
Jim,
Pertaining to the last post and the individual who thinks they are anonymous
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/02/governments-move-to-destroy-online-anonymity/
Hi Anon 3:57
Its even worse than that. If I have your IP and the time you posted, your service provider could give me your name and address if the government requested it.
I'm a computer tech, and would explain more about it, but that would not be a good thing. Password you router and use encryption. Tape the password and encryption key to the underside of the router.
We live by a college and several students park in front of my neighbors house every morning to check their email. The sad thing is that they could be checking his email.
Thank you for the link. The government might want to limit free speech, the hacker wants access to your bank account.
Actually, immigrants already have a pretty good retirement plan.
If you are a legal immigrant to the U.S., you can bring your parents over, who qualify for Social Security, even if they have never worked here, or contributed one dime to Social Security.
The fallacy of the immigration argument is that Democrats are selling taxes disguised as citizenship. And the food stamp program was renamed in Oct. 2008 - who were they trying to fool?
Hi Anon 8:48
I know both sides of the coin. My grandmother raised 5 children and lost a son in WWII. Her SS was 900 a month.
My wifes parents emigrated from Iran never worked a day in this country and got about $1,600 SSI a month. They wouldn't have qualified for anything in their own country and they were wealthy by our standards.
I wrote to the Social Security Administration pointing out the discrepancy and was very indignantly advised that Social Security and Supplementary Security Income are two different entities. It was emphasized that no SS payments were ever made to SSI recipients, it was a different program.
Added on top of that is Medicare for immigrants, that these people qualify for. The cab drivers in Glendale California, hand out bath towels, slippers and bed sheets to drive people to their doctors. Not quit sure who pays for what on that. But you can bet for sure it isn't the cab drivers or the doctors.
PensionTsunami.com now has an interactive link where you can figure out what public employees in Ca. will get in retirement
(money only, not including free medical care,etc.)
One of my neighbors, who was a teacher, was constantly complaining about how teachers are underpaid.
Since retiring, she has remodeled every room in her house.
After plugging in her numbers, I understant how she does it.
Hi Anon 7:54
Thank you for the link.
If you really want to get upset go to : this web site
Plus if you have a name you can find out exactly what they make.
I wouldn't recomend viewing the site, it might raise your blood pressure a tad.
11 million new workers. For the small business owner, that would be good news, correct? 11 million more people to choose from, and many of them will work for poverty wages. Good luck to the teenagers looking for a job this summer.
HI Anon 8:37
There is no such thing as poverty wages unless you are extremely lazy. A little hustle and you beat the minimum wage by miles.
Most places offer a starting wage 2 dollars above the minimum wage.
I started at the bottom at $1.75 an hour in high school part time. This was just a start for me.
Think about it for a minute, what skills do you need to assemble cars that warrants $75 dollars an hour at GM? We are not talking college here are we?
You work for a company and produce, you will get pay raises, or you move on to better jobs.
The thing you may need to look at is, are there 11 million new jobs for those that want them? The answer is no. That is hardly a minimum wage issue.
A lot of 16 to 18 year olds will try their hand at employment at the minimum wage just for the experience.
What amazes me are the beet-heads that think everyone is rushing to fill the minimum wage jobs. Wake up.
Jim,
Thank you for the reply. However, jobs are not as easy to come by as they were for your generation. It has little to do with laziness; good jobs just do not exist like they used to.
"Almost a quarter of all jobs in America now pay wages below the poverty line for a family of four. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates 7 out of 10 growth occupations over the next decade will be low-wage. "
"You work for a company and produce, you will get pay raises, or you move on to better jobs.". In a good economy, yes..
Hi Anon
I beg to differ. In 1974 I got laid off and no one was hiring. I bought a lawn mower on my Visa card and started a lawn business that made me 20K just working the summer time. Extremely boring work, but it paid the bills until something better came along. I ended up selling the business for 10K.
The guy who used to haul away our garbage when I was a kid in a pickup truck is a millionaire today. Opportunity is out there and it isn't asking someone else for a job in a lot of cases.
jim from san marcos, do you think our economy is truly free? the world economy truly free? the economy tony soprano operates in free?
if yes, then i understand your positions, if you are realistic and answer no, then you will know why the great depression of 2006 never happened because it wasn't allowed to.
point being, i have prepared for dooms day but i realize it is a tiny probability event, so instead of getting caught up in the doom and gloom, i try to swim with the current and not against it...
everyone buys insurance but most don't want to have to use it, so lets agree that a depression is possible but NOT probable. you know the difference between the two right, possible and probable? and if you think it is probable, you must then think about the timeframe and ask, will i be alive to see it...
Hi Anon 11:01
You might want to review what happens in a great depression. Banks go broke, people can't pay their bills, jobs are scarce. 40 million people on food stamps might indicated a thing or two. It's not like half the town is destroyed and you have to rebuild. The Great Depression was invisible, it affected people and their lives.
The government can try to print their way out of this, but that doesn't address the problem. What happens when the dollars the government prints get returned to it later as taxes? Its kind of like a snake eating its tail.
"2006 never happened because it wasn't allowed to."
Yes , the government hid the problem by loose monetary policy, expanded unemployment benefits, and generous food stamp programs. However, now we have trillions in debt to deal with. The government shifted the problem space, but the issue remains.
If you take a 55 gallon drum of nuclear waste, and dump it down the drain, the problem magically dissapears. You may even convince yourself that it never even happened. Life will appear to go back to normal, for a while anyway.
"What happens when the dollars the government prints get returned to it later as taxes?"
again, if it was truly a free economic world, your thesis would hold, however, we do not live in such a world.
some countries back their currency with precious metals, the u.s backs its currency with technology, tech that translates into things like aircraft carries.
if i had the choice of backing my currency with gold or an aircraft carrier, I would take the aircraft carrier. don't bring a gold bar to a gun fight type of thing.
in any case, analytical thinking, such as yours, only works in a fair and exact system but when the system can be tweaked at will it doesn't work.
let me give you an example, lets say people do try to convert their dollars back into their currency of choice, as soon as that happens, lets say they convert to euros, all you have to do is cause a little scare to get them back in. downgrade the credit risk of euro nations, talk about them splitting up and killing the euro, this is terrible, but start some military conflict between two countries there. all of the sudden the dollar looks great.
and inflation is a great way to pay off the national debt!
imo
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