"Unemployment" in the United States

The following is a comment I made to an editorial about choosing the ideal career written by the editor, Paul-V, of the Web journal Brainshrub.

I'm sorry that I may sound like the "bitter guy" in your article but I take his position as well. There are approximately 70 million people in the U.S. who are of working age but apparently have no job. The government has these figures as well. They publish the "participation rate" which is currently less than 66% of all people between the ages 15 and 62 in the U.S. The other 33 or more percent are the real people currently unemployed in the U.S. Granted that includes a lot of teenagers that haven't families to support who shouldn't be counted to be fair. Likewise there are, lets say, 15 million housewives remaining at home taking care of their family's needs and maybe 5 million more incarcerated or in poor health. So lets just say that only 40 million are unemployed(leaving out the zillions underemployed). But the govenment keeps pretending that the unemployment rate is 5%(around 6 million)! They either claim these unaccounted-for millions are lazy or, the worst insult of all, that they have voluntarily chosen "leisure" rather than work! Like, someone having spent 8,12,or 16 years in school and shelled out perhaps $60,000 if he/she has attended college, suddenly decides "I think I'll just relax around my shack in the woods,parents house, welfare office,etc. Yea, that sounds good!". The real culprit here is the U.S. government which has continually passed laws giving away American jobs(NAFTA,CAFTA, the legal immigrant IT giveaway)to say nothing about their sitting around mute while millions of manufacturing jobs disappeared overseas. They have suceeded superbly in turning tens of millions of American citizens into the indigent unemployed! But simultaneously they exhort the public to retrain themselves(for the same jobs they have given away). This pretence is indeed obscene.

Another Nail in our Coffins

I read now that the U.S. government is restricting purchases of strategic properties by foreigners. It's about time! All other countries have been restricting ownership of their country's businesses for years, normally allowing only 49 percent foreign ownership and local control. China has recently restated this policy regarding foreign purchase of their companies. But, in the case of the U.S., this will now unfortunately advance the day of reckoning when America will have no more properties or assets for foreign purchase and the dollar(and U.S. living standard)will drop like a rock. Read my article on 01/06/2006 about "The U.S. Current Account Catastrophe" to better understand these comments.

An Attempt to Support Dutch Immigrant Practices

The following article was a comment I made in response to an article published in the Singapore Times regarding a country's rights to ask a lot of what at times appeared to be unnecessary and intrusive questions of a prospective immigrant. The article was not used by the newspaper which is unfortunate because I believe it has implications for all immigrant policies worldwide.

Regarding the article "Dutch migrants to take 'attitude test''', it is entirely proper and necessary to require these tests. Each society has developed it's own cultural values which it has every right to protect. By allowing a large number of people of any other culture to enter any country, given laws protecting all residents against discrimination, will legally open the door to attempts to change the local culture to one more in line with the immigrants own culture. Britain has suffered this with Muslim Imams who, after accepting the right to immigrate there ungraciously turn right around and suggest that their disciples are justified in killing British citizens(among others). The poor British authorities have bent over backwards to resist the prosecution of one Imam because of their fear of been accused of "racism" or religious intolerance. Finally they had to prosecute, which is what any country would/should have done from the start based upon their own laws, and now this person is jail and the taxpayers will be footing the bill for his extended incarceration.

This is similar to the conditions prevalent in the United State in the states of Florida and California with respect to immigrants from Cuba and Mexico respectively. In both cases the immigrant's culture is fast becoming the norm of these states, at least in localized areas. They demand certain things of the local officials such as making Spanish the official language of their community. Fortunately these people come from non-theocratic countries and are able to adapt to the U.S. culture well and are a contributing and law abiding group which are readily accepted by the U.S. citizens. If this were not the case the U.S. officials would indeed be fools to allow them to immigrate.

The bottom line for allowing any foreign national from entering any other country should be "Will this person fit in with our own culture" or "Will this person say or do things disruptive of community harmony". The only way to determine this is on a personal basis and should be required of all potential immigrants and should consists of just those questions regarding whether the person will indeed "fit in".