Friday, March 06, 2020




‘We Are Desperate’ For More Immigrants, A Top Trump Aide Says

This is the sort of nonsense we expect from the NYT.  It is certainly true that SOME migrants are of net benefit to society but less educated ones tend to be welfare reliant for a lot of the time and are hence  a burden on other Americans.

It is true that more migrants bring a bigger GNP but what is the use of that?  It is the PER CAPITA GNP that matters and that can even decline while GNP grows.  Growth for growth's sake is an idiotic goal.

A policy of accepting only highly educated migrants would probably benefit the whole population but we are a long way from that



At a private event last week, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, stated a reality that economists treat as conventional wisdom but that the Trump administration routinely ignores: The United States needs immigration to fuel future economic growth.

“We are desperate, desperate for more people,” Mr. Mulvaney told a crowd in England. “We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth.” He said the country needed “more immigrants” but wanted them in a “legal” fashion.

Mr. Mulvaney’s sentiments are at odds with President Trump’s crackdown on undocumented entries and family- based immigration into the United States.

But they reflect the viewpoint of economists and many in the business community, who say that immigrants are needed to power the U.S. labor market as growth in the nativeborn work force rapidly slows as the population ages and people have fewer children.

Immigrants have already been a crucial source of new workers, accounting for about half of the labor force’s expansion over the past two decades. But the foreignborn population has been expanding only tepidly during Mr. Trump’s tenure. That slowdown could have long-lasting and profound repercussions, economists warn.

“Immigration, while a sensitive topic, has been a key part of work force growth in the United States,” Robert S. Kaplan, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said in an interview. Immigrants “have been additive to the U.S. economy” and “they’ve helped us to grow faster.” Gross domestic product growth comes from two basic ingredients: population and productivity gains. To produce more goods and services, businesses need either more workers or better efficiency.

Productivity improvement has been weak in America over the past decade. While some economists hope that will change as companies embrace nascent technologies in robotics and machine learning, others believe that most economy-altering innovations may be behind us — think cars, washing machines and refrigerators.

Future gains could be consistently mediocre.

If that’s the case, the United States’ economic fate will hinge on population growth.

Work force expansion will almost certainly not come naturally.

Fertility has dropped since the baby boom of the late 1940s to mid-1960s, and has plunged recently.

The expected number of births per woman in America has dropped to just 1.73, based on data from the National Vital Statistics System. That is nowhere near the rate the population would need to replace itself — a little more than two births per woman.

But America’s immigrant population has been growing more slowly, a phenomenon exacerbated by Trump administration policies including strict enforcement and travel restrictions on many countries with substantial Muslim populations.

The United States added only 595,000 total immigrants last year, the fewest since the 1980s, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution demographer William H. Frey based on Census Bureau data. That contributed to the lowest year in overall population growth since 1918.

Undocumented immigration has been declining since about 2007. While conclusive data is sparse, estimates by the Pew Research Center suggest the trend has continued under the Trump administration.

Legal immigration has also been slowing, and that is poised to persist. A report released this week by the National Foundation for American Policy projected a 30 percent plunge in legal immigration by 2021 and a 35 percent dip in average annual growth of the U.S. labor force.

That “will take place without any change in the law by Congress but as a result of policies that include the broadened version of the public charge rule, the travel ban and lower admission of refugees,” according to the report. The socalled public charge rule can curb visa and green card eligibility for people who are deemed likely to tap public programs.

“The Trump administration’s reduction in legal immigration will mean slower growth in the labor force and a lower rate of economic growth,” the report stated.

Proponents of restraining immigration, particularly among low-skill workers, often argue that newcomers can supplant American workers or depress their wages, even if they help the economy as a whole. Companies have to compete less to hire when there are more workers around. But the evidence supporting that argument is limited.

In one study, the Harvard economist George Borjas examined how a group of Cubans who went to Miami in 1980 affected the local labor market. He found that native- born workers who had dropped out of high school took a wage hit when the newcomers arrived.

But that research has been the subject of a fierce debate over data choices — several different economists have argued that with a different design, the pay effects disappear.

Other research, by Giovanni Peri at the University of California, Davis, suggests that lowerskill immigrants complement their American counterparts, actually lifting wages. Immigrants are more entrepreneurial, other studies have found, and at higher education levels, they contribute a big share of the United States’ science, technology and math work force.

Whatever competition immigrants do pose is probably even more limited now, when the unemployment rate is at its lowest in half a century and businesses have about 1.1 job openings for every available worker.

“It’s very hard to think that in this situation you would displace anyone,” Mr. Peri said. “A little bit more immigration would alleviate and help this problem, allowing the economy to grow a little faster and generating more consumption.” In Chester County, Pa., which produces more than 60 percent of the country’s mushrooms, immigration is top of mind. Harvesting is difficult work: It requires laboring from early in the day in growing houses, bending and stretching to twist the produce from its trays. In recent years, there have been too few people to complete the task even at higher pay rates, so companies have planted less and have even allowed crops to go unpicked.

“As an industry, they are not able to produce at the levels they would like, and at the demand that’s being requested,” said Guy Ciarrocchi, the head of the Chester County Chamber of Business and Industry. The local unemployment rate comes in under 3 percent, so other opportunities are plentiful.

“You can make a very nice living in mushrooms, but it’s hard work,” said Lori Harrison, the communications director at the American Mushroom Institute, an industry group. Farms have avoided building new houses to expand amid labor shortages, she said. “If you put the capital into it, but don’t have anyone to harvest the mushrooms, then you’re out.” Mr. Ciarrocchi and his chamber colleagues regularly talk to their legislators about the shortage in the local work force, which extends to other industries. They see immigration as one part of the answer.

“Build the wall, that’s fine,” he said. “But at the same time, we should be able to talk to — whether it’s mushroom farmers or engineers or doctors — whatever the economic needs may be.” Near-term labor shortages like Chester County’s offer a hint of problems that could arise if the work force expands more slowly amid muted immigration. As the population ages, more people will depend on Social Security, Medicare and other public programs while a shrinking share of the population punches the clock and pays taxes needed to fund them.

“The U.S. economy, I think, will undergo a transition in which growth will slow down, society will age, and the economic dynamism will slow,” Mr. Peri said, adding that the nation’s debt burden would increase. “That’s the direction that the U.S. is going to be headed toward if fertility doesn’t change and immigration is still constrained.”

SOURCE 






Californians Suffering the Consequences of Prop 47

Bad ideas, no matter how popular or vociferously promoted, will inevitably lead to tragedy and ruin. Or, as the old adage states, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Back in 2014, Californians passed Proposition 47, a bill touted as a means to cut law-enforcement costs and free up funding for crime prevention and drug-treatment programs. In order to cut law-enforcement costs, Proposition 47 downgraded numerous crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, so crimes like shoplifting, fraud, writing bad checks, and even (temporary) grand theft auto no longer rise to the level of felonies. The resulting change meant that if a thief stole no more than $950 value in property and was later apprehended, he would essentially skate with no more than a small fine or at most a brief stint in jail. Furthermore, since DNA is not collected for misdemeanor offenses, the state’s DNA database, an important and effective tool in solving and prosecuting violent crimes like murders and rapes, has shrunk.

Another unintended but entirely predictable outcome of Prop 47 is its disincentive of law enforcement to respond aggressively or at all to what is now classified as petty crime. How the theft of nearly a thousand dollars does not rise to the level of significant crime only makes sense if an individual is astronomically wealthy; for most Californians, $1,000 is still a sizable sum. And this misdemeanor-level theft has become an increasingly common problem that only seems to be getting worse.

As the president of one San Francisco condo association exasperatedly observed: “Every bicycle in our building has been stolen. I’ve caught so many people stealing packages. They don’t care. They know nothing will happen to them. It’s crazy. It’s horrible. I feel like these people need to go to jail.”

National Review noted back in 2018 that many Californians were getting fed up but were unfortunately focusing their ire on the wrong culprit — law enforcement: “During a recent gathering in San Francisco’s Russian Hill — a beautiful neighborhood that boasts that famous crooked street, Lombard (now infamous for being haunted by rings of gang members who break into cars, steal tourists’ belongings, and relieve news crews of equipment) — an older gentleman who was born and raised in the city now says he feels like a prisoner in his home, afraid to leave. Officers, who are doing their best, urge residents to call the police and report crimes. Yet people are acutely aware that even if they do, justice won’t be served. So they direct their rage toward the police with a ‘you’re not doing your job!’ No one leaves happy.”

Shoplifting has become such a problem in San Fransisco that stores have stopped stocking shelves with goods as a measure to combat constant theft. Residents have also stopped locking their cars and instead place signs in their car windows that read “unlocked no valuables inside” to prevent thieves from smashing car windows.

What motivates this type of disregard for private property and law and order? The insidious doctrine of “fairness” based upon the envious assumption that if someone has more than another it can only be attributed to injustice. This is the same type of thinking behind the socialism of Bernie Sanders, who bases his dangerous, false, and hypocritical policy agenda upon calls for “fairness.”

SOURCE 






The Knights of Columbus, Blacks, and the Fight for Civil Rights and Justice
  
In 1918, a popular song with America’s World War I troops contained these lyrics: “No matter their color, their race or creed, for every Yankee’s welfare, the K of C takes heed.”

You read that right. Five decades before the Civil Rights movement, the organization mentioned in the song was the only charitable organization in World War I to offer integrated facilities to troops — something it did decades before the military itself was integrated.

And when the Navy and Marine Corps themselves integrated in the late 1940s, it was a project led and championed by a former CEO of this organization.

The “K of C” stood for Knights of Columbus, and what they did a century ago on the issue of race was decades ahead of its time.

I was quite taken with these stories, detailed in a new book, The Knights of Columbus: An Illustrated History, being released this month. Anyone interested in the intersection of faith, freedom, and racial equality in the U.S. should read this book. It tells the incredible and multifaceted story of an organization that has helped shape history through action and advocacy for those in financial need and those suffering discrimination or persecution on account of race, creed, or color.

As we just ended Black History month, it’s worth remembering the Knights’ efforts.

These efforts didn’t begin and end with World War I; they started in the 1890s, when the Knights were already admitting African American members. The first known African American member of the Knights joined in 1895 and held a leadership position in his local council. At the same time, the Knights were not shy about overtly advocating for equal citizenship regardless of race, color, or creed.

And after the “Great War,” the K of C work continued as the group provided job training and education for veterans — both black and white.

In the 1920s, the Knights stepped up again for African Americans — in a big way. Seeing that many groups were being overlooked by American history books, the Knights set out to change that and make sure the stories of Catholics, African Americans, and Jews were told.

Specifically, the Knights hired W.E.B. DuBois to write The Gift of Black Folk, which explored the contributions of African Americans to U.S. history. The book is a classic, and it was published by the Knights of Columbus during a time when many religious institutions were still segregated.

Underlying the Knights efforts was a simple fact. The Knights believed that America’s promise of equal rights should apply to everyone — black or white, Catholic or non-Catholic.

This meant the Knights would lead the charge against the Ku Klux Klan when the Klan tried to outlaw Catholic education in the state of Oregon. At the Supreme Court, the Knights-funded plaintiffs (the Society of Sisters) prevailed, and Catholic education was persevered.

When governments persecuted Christians in the Middle East in the early 1920s, and Catholics in Mexico in the later 1920s, the Knights were there to assist those persecuted and advocate for them.

When the Nazis began persecuting Jews — and others — the Knights spoke up again. They spoke up also against human-rights abuses by the Soviet bloc before and during the Cold War, and, of course, their work for persecuted Christians in the Middle East today is legendary.

Where faith and freedom have been threatened, the Knights have been there to help. Ahead of its time on racial and religious-freedom issues — not to mention a global force for charity — the Knights of Columbus is an organization that Americans who value our country’s freedoms should get to know. The Knights of Columbus: An Illustrated History is the perfect introduction.

SOURCE 






Australian Olympic hero Tamsyn Lewis questions the fairness of transgender athletes competing in women's sports - and says many don't speak out because of political correctness

Three-time Australian Olympian Tamsyn Lewis has questioned the fairness of transgender athletes being allowed to compete in women's sport.

The 41-year-old said there are too many unknowns regarding transgender and transitioning athletes to create a level playing field in women's competition.

The three-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist told 2GB radio it was a politically charged and sensitive topic that many did not want to address. 'There's been a lot of people who are scared to come out and say anything because of political correctness,' she said.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic games will see a number of transgender competitors, with the IOC rules forcing female competitors to remain below testosterone guidelines to compete as women.

Lewis believes the guidelines don't factor in the physical advantage of growing up and going through puberty as a male.

'If you've grown up a male and had testosterone your bone structure is different to the female, your upper body strength is going to remain, you've got greater lung capacity a larger heart size, there's too many unknowns about how much going through puberty and being born a male is going to effect your result,' she said.

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard will compete at the Tokyo Olympics and was born a male named Gavin    +4
New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard will compete at the Tokyo Olympics and was born a male named Gavin

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard and Brazilian volleyball player Tiffany Abreu will be among the transgender athletes to compete at Tokyo.

2GB host Ben Fordham argued Hubbard had an obvious physical advantage compared to the rest of her field, prompting Lewis to question whether the female category would remain fair with increasing transgender participants.

'If we don't take a stand, what's going to happen to the female category of sport?,' she said.

'You don't want to get to the point where we haven't tackled this issue head on and in a respectful manner, that in 20 years time we're seeing our kids grow up and compete in sports that they just actually can't win.'

SOURCE  

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Men and women compete separately in track and field. Did you know that the height and spacing of the hurdles is different? Hurdles for male events are higher and spaced further apart than for female events. A male who switched to the female event would find it much easier to clear the lower height.