Arguing against the Bloombergian-replace-an-American-with-a-foreign-national pod-person crowd is like arguing auto-theft ...

... where you are forced to debate the thieves, and their cohorts all the way down the feeding-chain, and the preceding, thief, benefactors, and useful-idiots alike, are heavily funded by the crime-lords and their lobbies, via the ‘take’.

Death-By-Foreign-National is not laissez-faire.

Death-By-Foreign-National is not free-market.

MNCs' [/media/and academia] are not [supposed to be] in charge of U.S. immigration.

Visas such as H-1b, should be immediately suspended. MILLIONS of our better paying jobs would be instantly RETURNED, to Americans, in America.

HOW can anyone speak of returning jobs to Americans, while they ignore, or worse, lobby for, the CONTINUED replacement of MILLIONS of Americans, in American offices and worksites, with foreign nationals?

Start Article:

MUMBAI: US diplomat Peter Haas, recently appointed consul-general in Mumbai, stressed the importance of people-to-people contact in Indo-US ties.

US-India people-to-people connections are more powerful than any government initiative, said Haas. "While 8 lakh Americans travel to India each year, the US issues half a million non-immigration visas to Indians yearly," he said adding that Indian citizens formed the largest group of people to be issued H1B and L visas by the US over the last year.

End Article.

H-1b, L-1s, OPT, J-1, B-1, lotteries, green-cards, and on and on, and on, and on, it is no longer enough to stand as a nation and compete with the world-at-large, but no, the world at large will be brought to you, so that you may compete with them in your own offices and worksites...

Start Article:

The J-1 student work-travel program was created in 1961 to offer work opportunities and cultural enrichment for foreign students, and in the process, create goodwill ambassadors for the United States.

But the kids aren’t working in professional settings that complement their studies.

They’re toiling in warehouses for huge companies such as Hershey’s, which have laid off hundreds of workers, and resorts, from Disney World to Morey’s Pier in Wildwood, and for much lower wages than Americans earned doing the same tasks.

It’s a great deal for U.S. companies, because they don’t have to pay payroll taxes, Social Security or health insurance for J-1s.

One Spring Lake staffing company even has a nifty calculator to help businesses compare the costs of hiring J-1 vs. American workers.

End Article.

We should also revoke some or all green-cards, RETURNING a MASSIVE number of jobs, for Americans, in America.

And then there is the issue of sending our jobs offshore, often implemented by those brought to our country on visa, or those having become a green-card holder, who then coordinate the shipping of entire departments, knowledge-bases, and ultimately, entire industries, out of our country.

And what of, low to medium wage jobs? We can look towards our wide-open borders, and consider the traitors that advocate a nation without enforcement of its own borders, its laws, and disinterest in its own sovereign best-interest, survival.

And yes, it is Americans who have facilitated this betrayal of Americans, by corporations, supported by a sold-out government and press.

I had NPR News in the background today. They have generally been just horrible on issues about U.S. citizen labor displacement, but today they interviewed a man who told about how he has been working in construction since the 1960s and whenever illegal workers have come into the picture, his wages have been cut and all the rest (periods of unemployment, etc.). Seems to me that this was a first for NPR News, which did recently cover a town in the Carolinas severely impacted when textile mills (not textiles) were exported. In that story, they decidedly backtracked to present the fiction that there are plenty of other jobs out there, and "it's just a matter of retraining."

As to like STEM jobs, no, NPR hasn't even approached that yet.

This story was on FOX news today. The guest worker scams are being exposed, finally.

Felix Salmon, over a Reuters, cranks more numbers and shows HARP refinancing will not increase from it's current pathetic rates! Pay attention to people who know how to use a calculator, his article is pretty damning, amplifying this article's conclusion of more smoke and mirrors.

This is just scary as hell. The FBI has issued a report on gangs, organized criminal activity in the U.S.

It's incredibly detailed, complete with photos, maps, data and yes, we have gangs in the military.

There are a few things to note. Firstly, magically somehow ethnically based gangs are not "PC" for the FBI, they are calling it as it is, we have organized criminal gangs based on ethnicity and national origin.

Secondly, beyond the billions in drug trade, there is another major billion dollar "enterprise" and that is human slavery, trading women, little girls and forcing them into prostitution and other horrifying situations.

This is what happens with the median wage/salary for all of America is $26k a year. Poverty breeds criminal enterprise.

Myself, I am for legalizing marijuana, I just don't find pot a big deal, to me alcohol is way worse and it's clear this is Prohibition all over. Demand is not going to drop. They should legalize it, tax the hell out of it and create new billion dollar cash crops for the U.S. and hit cartels where they live, their pocket books.

Second, I think the U.S. should legalize prostitution. Heavily regulated, health inspectors, and so on. This is the worlds "oldest profession", with so many girls forced into prostitution, clearly there is a high "customer base" out there.

Frankly, make it safe, get kids out of this situation and make it highly lucrative for the people "providing services" directly.

It's just ridiculous to have things be illegal when nothing ever changes. I think we can still talk about morality and healthy behavior and so on, but it's clear on some things, making them illegal is simply making the situation worse and creating huge underground "businesses" that are much, much worse than the original "sin".

Check out the report, the FBI just isn't messing around and you'll get the feeling "you're surrounded" after reading it.

and vote down bailing out the banks with their money. They seem to be fine too.

on nations with export surpluses, first world, with high wages who are doing well. Japan has had so many problems, a similar "housing bubble" like the U.S. plus the Earthquake have really rattled their economy but they are still #3. Germany comes to mind and I'll have to check up on Canada, Singapore, Australia and some others.

I want to say that only the U.S. signs such absurd terms and gives away the U.S., one trade "treaty" at a time, but need to verify.

The economic miracle of postwar Japan was built on a solid policy of protectionism since the formation of the  Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1949. Is it any wonder that Japan is slow to abandon its right to determine its import policies based on its own political priorities?

The following is excerpted from Wiki article, "Japanese post-war economic miracle" --

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) was instrumental in Japan's post-war economic recovery. According to some scholars, no other governmental regulation or organization had more economic impact than MITI. “The particular speed, form, and consequences of Japanese economic growth,” Chalmers Johnson writes, “are not intelligible without reference to the contributions of MITI” .... Established in 1949, MITI’s role began with the "Policy Concerning Industrial Rationalization" (1950)  .... The extent of the policy was such that if MITI wished to “double steel production, the neo-zaibatsu already has the capital, the construction assets, the makers of production machinery, and most of the other necessary factors already available in-house” ....

MITI also boosted the industrial security by untying the imports of technology from the imports of other goods. MITI's Foreign Capital Law (1950) granted the ministry power to negotiate the price and conditions of technology imports. This element of technological control allowed it to promote industries it deemed promising. The low cost of imported technology allowed for rapid industrial growth. Productivity was greatly improved through new equipment, management, and standardization.

MITI gained the ability to regulate all imports with the abolition of the Economic Stabilization Board and the Foreign Exchange Control Board in August 1952 .... in effect giving MITI full control over all Japanese imports. Power over the foreign exchange budget was also given directly to MITI.

MITI's establishment of the Japan Development Bank (1951) also provided the private sector with low-cost capital for long-term growth. The Japan Development Bank introduced access to the Fiscal Investment and Loan Plan (FILP), a massive pooling of individual and national savings. At the time FILP controlled four times the savings of the world's largest commercial bank. With this financial power, FILP was able to maintain an abnormally high number of Japanese construction firms (more than twice the number of construction firms of any other nation with a similar GDP).

Does that sound like a plan ... or what? (But first we would need a government committed to the well-being of America and of American working families!)

The talk from Washington and the office of the USTR is that this next FTA will somehow be better than all of the others. But the truth is that we are putting the cart before the horse, because we first need to establish a protectionist system for all our trade relations.

My view on trade is like the OWS -- I don't have a simplistic political demand for fixing it, but I do know that there are systemic problems that require systemic reform. And as Buddy Roemer points out about USA politics, it's the money running things that messes up the system.

First, before entering into any more FTAs, we need to establish our own pro-America trade regulation system -- including such legislation as the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act (that Boehner's has sunk in the House despite that a bipartisan majority of House members declared their support for the bill).

We need a system that is established under US law that essentially treats all trading partners alike -- that is, a system that establishes standards for the protection of US workers and industry, making distinctions according to objective standards applied equally to all of our trading partners. That description (establishing objective standards applied equally to all of our trading partners) applies to the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Reform Act that came out of the Senate recently only to be torpedoed by Boehner in the House, despite that a bipartisan majority of House members declared their support for the bill.

We need to put a complete halt to the idea that domestic policy can be changed for the better by legislating through the backdoor of 'fast track' FTAs. If a trade agreement requires some change in domestic policy -- for product standards, national defense, patents, environmental law, food and drug safety, employment-labor law and the preservation of USA work force -- then, those areas need to be legislated separately before any trade agreement can be implemented.

In short, opposition to fast-track FTAs by the working people of America must be, and is becoming, total.

The preference system that has been enshrined as a Holy Cow in the WTO bureaucratic mess has been proven dysfunctional and in need of thorough-going reform. We should know by now that we cannot reform the entire world through fast-track 'free' trade agreements, and we should also know by now that the basis of successful trade for USA must be a rational protectionist system.

We need to go all the way back to the philosophical or idealistic foundations of the Uruguay Round and consider how those foundations have been shown to be faulty. To continue building on a poorly laid foundation, when we see structural problems developing everywhere around the world, is insanity.