Immigration Policy

Some incomplete thoughts on the issue of immigration in this country today.  Why not create a policy where the present immigrants in this country would be granted permanent legal status as "resident aliens".  That way they could be granted some legal and workplace protection.  They  would be expected to pay social security taxes as well other taxes that they are obligated to.  They would not be citizens so they could not vote (which should put the conservative mind at rest).  Maybe most important of all, their children born in the US would be recognized  by all as being US citizens (even thou they are already, it would also serve to end the argument of "birthright citizenship".  A major plus of this policy would be the wages earned would be subject to FICA taxation thus bulking up the Social Security Trust Fund.  Maybe the biggest benefit of this approach would be to bring the 11 million people here illegally out from the shadows providing them a better life and providing the nation with a needed workforce.

August 2015 Stock Market news

In an article in The Record on Sunday 8/23/2015 it was noted that because gas prices have fallen, consumers have more money in their pockets.  But, to the dismay of businesses, those consumers are opting to "pay off debt instead of going shopping".  It seems to me that the business community wants to pay as little as possible for labor while also wanting those with less to spend what little they do have on the products of the business community.  It proves that the economy will be in the crapper until the consumers have some real reason to begin to spend again.

The South and the Civil War

I have made comments on this forum in the past about the coming of the Civil War with the intention of showing that the South had no reason to secede and by doing so only managed to bring down destruction on themselves.

Another example of this concept is one of the compromises from the Constitutional Convention in the 1780's.  The "three fifth's compromise" is always noted for his disparaging comment about African-American slaves; three-fifths of a person.  I think another way of looking at this compromise is the advantage it gave to the slave holding southern states.  The compromise involved the counting of persons (in a census) for purposes of representation in Congress and maybe more importantly in the Electoral College.  The south got votes for a population they considered property and not able to vote, hold office or have any privileges of citizens.  That plus the Constitution gave the south the ability to import more slaves for twenty years after the signing and then to continue to count slaves who were "bred" on the plantation, many times by the owners themselves.  This gave the south more electoral power than they deserved and a greater influence on passing legislation.  

My original position that the South had few real reasons to withdraw from the Union as they were basically in control of the debate over slavery and all other issues that may have derived from slavery.

Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission

President Harry Truman, after the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Nagasaki, created this commission to "study the health impact on survivors in order to better protect Americans in case of attacks".  The commission's doctors examined those injured by the bombing and suffering from radiation poisoning by photographing them, taking blood samples and semen samples.   However they "...did not treat them".  I hate to make the comparison, but it almost sounds like Nazi doctors conducting experiments on prisoners of war to see how long they would live under certain conditions.  That was considered a war crime at Nuremberg after WWII for which we executed German officials.

(Source: The Virginian Pilot on 8/9/15.  I did not record the writer or title of article)

The battle flag and the Civil War

Pardon me for offering a history lesson on the Confederate Battle Flag and the reason it came into existence, the Civil War.  Most wars are unnecessary and lead to "most of the troubles of the world" as spoken by Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind and the Civil War is no exception.

The southern states-led by South Carolina-had no reason to secede.  They had won the argument over slavery that had been growing since the Missouri Compromise of 1820.  I would note the following:

1.  The Compromise of 1850 gave the slave states freedom (I hate to use that word here) to bring slaves into an area once prohibited to slavery; that being New Mexico and Utah.

2.  That 1850 compromise also gave the slave states a "more stringent Fugitive Slave Law", meaning escaped slaves in the north were required to be returned to their owners with the help of federal and state officials.

3.  The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 made the Compromise of 1820 null and void, or unconstitutional.

4.  Then in 1857 the Supreme Court came out with the Dred Scott decision declaring that it was unconstitutional to ban slaves in the territories.  

5.  Up till the election of 1860 the Democratic Party controlled all three branches of government and had nearly done so for many years.

6.  The Democratic candidate in 1860-Stephen Douglas- supported a plan to allow settlers of the new territories to decide for themselves the status of slavery in their territory.  (He did advise on how that could be ignored, in order to win a Senate seat in Illinois).

7.  If the southern democrats who supported John Breckinridge supported Douglas and those who supported John Bell (Union Party) had supported Douglas it is very possible Lincoln would have lost to Douglas and the democrats would have continued to hold the Presidency, giving South Carolina no reason to leave the Union.

8.  The Supreme Court ruling (Dred Scott) meant that slavery was legal in all territories and only a constitutional amendment could have changed that, something not likely to occur with southern states still in the Union and voting.

9.  With even the south's most dreaded opponent-Lincoln-the institution would have been guaranteed existence in the places where it all ready existed.

Back to the original question of what was the need of the south to secede.  There was nothing left to argue, they had won them all.  Hell, if anyone should have seceded it would have been the New England states (imagine how history would have changed if New England seceding and joining Canada and the western territories were up for grabs).  I also wonder if the racial situation in this country could have been any worse fi the Civil War never happened.

The south wanted war-certainly South Carolina did-and the other ten states went along.  And as classical literature once noted "you loose the dogs of war" and there is no controlling where they go.

You would think the south would want to down-play the decision that caused so much violence, death and destruction instead of remember their folly by waving the battle flag.

Iran and Israel

I am reminded of a bit of history while reading about the issue of Iran and its nuclear power program, or as Israel claims, it's nuclear weapons program.  Prior to 1914 German and Austria-Hungry were in the same place.  The German government gave Austria-Hungry a "blank-check" to deal with their problem with the nation of Serbia.  History tells us that a Serbian nationalist assassinated an heir to the throne of Austria and the Austrian government wanted to use the issue to force Serbia to give in to its demands.  They were, by the way, not that concerned about the Archduke and his wife-the victims-as they were not well liked by his family or the country.  But the incident provided Austria with a opportunity to gain back some land lost in the Balkans to new countries in the region.  So, in the popular vernacular, Germany told Austria "we got your back" and the Austrians used it to make unreasonable demands on Serbia.  Even after these demands were met the Austrians declared war on the smaller nation.  Now the you-know-what hits the fan and German was stuck with a situation that soon developed into a world war; the "great war" as historians note, and the world or at least Europe was never the same.  We should recall that the generals in 1914 are like the military-industrial complex today; just itching for a chance to use their war plans and weapons.

We are in that place now with our willingness to back Israel is whatever they want in regard to Iran and their nuclear power/weapons program.  If we make the same mistake of granting a "blank check" to an ally without making every effort to restrict their military actions, we very likely could be drawn into a war in a region that is already a powder keg ready to explode.  If that happens a lot of innocent people will be killed or made homeless.  As the Indian proverb goes, "When the elephants fight, only the ants get stomped".

Greece 2015

Greece seems to be on the verge of collapse, economically at least.  This post will be an attempt to record some of the issues.  As on July 15th the country has recieved an additional bail out from the European Union.  It seems one of the provisions of that plan is an increase in sales tax, making everything the Greek citizen buys more expensive.  Many are rioting at this time.  When there last year we saw the evidence of he last time the country rioted because of the recessions there.  Graffiti was everywhere.

One issue may be the reluctance of the Greek citizen to pay taxes.  Some say that harks back to a time when the Ottoman Turks ruled the country and to not pay taxes was seen as a form of patriotism; but hell that was way over 100 years ago.  Now it is said the reluctance comes from the believ that the govt is corrupt.

On reported income earned by the underground economy is one issue, it could amount to 25 % of the gross domestic product.  The IMF says that tax evasion is a big problem,  "Tax debts in Greece equal about 90 % of annual tax revenue" that is the hightest among industrialized nations.  A chart I found on a Google search indicated that from 2008 to 2010 tax collection % fell from just over 60 % to just over 50 %.  This while other countires the figure is in the high 90's.

The bail out recently was for 85 billion euroes or 95 billion dollars.  Unpaid taxes since 2009 were 76 billion euroes or 86 billion dollars. 

Might be an on-going file.