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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:13 pm 
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Interesting article. I am sure many of the same things could be written about Illinois as well.

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Why is liberal California the poverty capital of America?


By KERRY JACKSON
JAN 14, 2018 | 4:00 AM LA TIMES


Guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the country? Not Mississippi, New Mexico, or West Virginia, but California, where nearly one out of five residents is poor. That's according to the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure, which factors in the cost of housing, food, utilities and clothing, and which includes noncash government assistance as a form of income.

Given robust job growth and the prosperity generated by several industries, it's worth asking why California has fallen behind, especially when the state's per-capita GDP increased approximately twice as much as the U.S. average over the five years ending in 2016 (12.5%, compared with 6.27%).

It's not as though California policymakers have neglected to wage war on poverty. Sacramento and local governments have spent massive amounts in the cause. Several state and municipal benefit programs overlap with one another; in some cases, individuals with incomes 200% above the poverty line receive benefits. California state and local governments spent nearly $958 billion from 1992 through 2015 on public welfare programs, including cash-assistance payments, vendor payments and "other public welfare," according to the Census Bureau. California, with 12% of the American population, is home today to about one in three of the nation's welfare recipients.

The generous spending, then, has not only failed to decrease poverty; it actually seems to have made it worse.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, some states — principally Wisconsin, Michigan, and Virginia — initiated welfare reform, as did the federal government under President Clinton and a Republican Congress. Tied together by a common thread of strong work requirements, these overhauls were a big success: Welfare rolls plummeted and millions of former aid recipients entered the labor force.

The state and local bureaucracies that implement California's antipoverty programs, however, resisted pro-work reforms. In fact, California recipients of state aid receive a disproportionately large share of it in no-strings-attached cash disbursements. It's as though welfare reform passed California by, leaving a dependency trap in place. Immigrants are falling into it: 55% of immigrant families in the state get some kind of means-tested benefits, compared with just 30% of natives.

Self-interest in the social-services community may be at fault. As economist William A. Niskanen explained back in 1971, public agencies seek to maximize their budgets, through which they acquire increased power, status, comfort and security. To keep growing its budget, and hence its power, a welfare bureaucracy has an incentive to expand its "customer" base. With 883,000 full-time-equivalent state and local employees in 2014, California has an enormous bureaucracy. Many work in social services, and many would lose their jobs if the typical welfare client were to move off the welfare rolls.

Further contributing to the poverty problem is California's housing crisis. More than four in 10 households spent more than 30% of their income on housing in 2015. A shortage of available units has driven prices ever higher, far above income increases. And that shortage is a direct outgrowth of misguided policies.

"Counties and local governments have imposed restrictive land-use regulations that drove up the price of land and dwellings," explains analyst Wendell Cox. "Middle-income households have been forced to accept lower standards of living while the less fortunate have been driven into poverty by the high cost of housing." The California Environmental Quality Act, passed in 1971, is one example; it can add $1 million to the cost of completing a housing development, says Todd Williams, an Oakland attorney who chairs the Wendel Rosen Black & Dean land-use group. CEQA costs have been known to shut down entire homebuilding projects. CEQA reform would help increase housing supply, but there's no real movement to change the law.

Extensive environmental regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions make energy more expensive, also hurting the poor. By some estimates, California energy costs are as much as 50% higher than the national average. Jonathan A. Lesser of Continental Economics, author of a 2015 Manhattan Institute study, "Less Carbon, Higher Prices," found that "in 2012, nearly 1 million California households faced … energy expenditures exceeding 10% of household income. In certain California counties, the rate of energy poverty was as high as 15% of all households." A Pacific Research Institute study by Wayne Winegarden found that the rate could exceed 17% of median income in some areas.

Looking to help poor and low-income residents, California lawmakers recently passed a measure raising the minimum wage from $10 an hour to $15 an hour by 2022 — but a higher minimum wage will do nothing for the 60% of Californians who live in poverty and don't have jobs. And research indicates that it could cause many who do have jobs to lose them. A Harvard University study found evidence that "higher minimum wages increase overall exit rates for restaurants" in the Bay Area, where more than a dozen cities and counties, including San Francisco, have changed their minimum-wage ordinances in the last five years. "Estimates suggest that a one-dollar increase in the minimum wage leads to a 14% increase in the likelihood of exit for a 3.5-star restaurant (which is the median rating)," the report says. These restaurants are a significant source of employment for low-skilled and entry-level workers.

Apparently content with futile poverty policies, Sacramento lawmakers can turn their attention to what historian Victor Davis Hanson aptly describes as a fixation on "remaking the world." The political class wants to build a costly and needless high-speed rail system; talks of secession from a United States presided over by Donald Trump; hired former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. to "resist" Trump's agenda; enacted the first state-level cap-and-trade regime; established California as a "sanctuary state" for illegal immigrants; banned plastic bags, threatening the jobs of thousands of workers involved in their manufacture; and is consumed by its dedication to "California values." All this only reinforces the rest of America's perception of an out-of-touch Left Coast, to the disservice of millions of Californians whose values are more traditional, including many of the state's poor residents.

With a permanent majority in the state Senate and the Assembly, a prolonged dominance in the executive branch and a weak opposition, California Democrats have long been free to indulge blue-state ideology while paying little or no political price. The state's poverty problem is unlikely to improve while policymakers remain unwilling to unleash the engines of economic prosperity that drove California to its golden years.

Kerry Jackson is the Pacific Research Institute's fellow in California studies. This essay was adapted from the winter issue of City Journal.


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:17 pm 
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Maybe it's because it's one of the few states where someone can get an even chance in a healthy, robust place.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:36 pm 
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Inequality is only gonna get worse, folks!

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:39 pm 
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Curious Hair wrote:
Inequality is only gonna get worse, folks!

But the min wage was raised!

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:44 pm 
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RFDC wrote:
Curious Hair wrote:
Inequality is only gonna get worse, folks!

But the min wage was raised!


And the growth industries are right there for them. Often spearheaded by other immigrants

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:54 pm 
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The state's draconian zoning laws are the primary reason you are seeing an explosion in homelessness there.

For no other reason than "preserving historical value" San Francisco has limited the vast majority of the city to roof heights of 40 feet, which pretty much make it impossible to build for density, which is what you need to do when you have a shortage in your housing stock. Add in environment challenges to every new building project and you have a housing catastrophe of government's own making.

California knows that they need to add over 230,000 housing units per year to keep up with growth, but they have added only half of that on their best years and typically fall under 100,000 per year. The developers and money is there to add the housing, but the government, NIMBY's, and environmentalists are bringing it all to a halt. As expected, where supply is constrained, prices rise so everyone pays more to live there.

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Last edited by Ogie Oglethorpe on Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:55 pm 
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RFDC wrote:
Curious Hair wrote:
Inequality is only gonna get worse, folks!

But the min wage was raised!

Yeah, it's probably best to not get economic news and insights from Jacobin. :lol:

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:39 am 
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This story of the torture of the 10 children is pretty fucked up.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:43 am 
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RFDC wrote:
Curious Hair wrote:
Inequality is only gonna get worse, folks!

But the min wage was raised!

Lower it back and poverty is cured in California!

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:48 am 
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Its a state run by an ideology that sees human suffering as an acceptable, if not desirable, function. You all think California or Illinois are just misguided or poorly run, but they actually function exactly as intended.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:58 am 
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America wrote:
Its a state run by an ideology that sees human suffering as an acceptable, if not desirable, function. You all think California or Illinois are just misguided or poorly run, but they actually function exactly as intended.

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in any group of people there's a few winners and a whole lotta losers

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:09 am 
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Regular Reader wrote:
Maybe it's because it's one of the few states where someone can get an even chance in a healthy, robust place.


But the facts seem to defy that contention. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is greater in California than anywhere.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 8:31 am 
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Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
Regular Reader wrote:
Maybe it's because it's one of the few states where someone can get an even chance in a healthy, robust place.


But the facts seem to defy that contention. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is greater in California than anywhere.


For one it's warm, and two the highest rat populations are always where the most money is because scraps fall to the ground.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 10:57 am 
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Hmm,not a word about the illegal problem.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 11:17 am 
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chaspoppcap wrote:
Hmm,not a word about the illegal problem.

That isn't a cause of poverty and actually helps the economy. Seriously, illegal immigration is one of the few things that will keep us from falling into the demographic time bomb that is about to destroy the Japanese economy over the next generation.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:19 pm 
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Ogie Oglethorpe wrote:
chaspoppcap wrote:
Hmm,not a word about the illegal problem.

That isn't a cause of poverty and actually helps the economy. Seriously, illegal immigration is one of the few things that will keep us from falling into the demographic time bomb that is about to destroy the Japanese economy over the next generation.



We need immigrants, but not necessarily illegal ones.

There are serious questions about immigration but it seems we lack serious people in government to address those questions. I've heard Victor Davis Hanson say quite eloquently the things I believe Trump is attempting to say although Trump seems incapable of articulating them in a way that makes sense (though I don't think anyone can really be sure what our current president is trying to say, possibly not even himself).

For example, Prof. Hanson talks about a brilliant student he had, an illegal immigrant from Oaxaca who was burning the U.S. flag. Hanson asked him, "Why are you burning the flag of a country you would hate to leave while flying the flag of a country you would hate to go back to?" And the student simply answered, "I don't know."

We don't have to call these countries "shitholes" to understand that if they were so great, nobody would want to leave them. So then the question becomes, are people responsible for their own governments/nations? And if so, why would we want overwhelming numbers of people from places that are terrible? That's a legitimate question that should be able to be posed without accusations of racism or bigotry.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:23 pm 
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:23 pm 
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chaspoppcap wrote:
Hmm,not a word about the illegal problem.


CA's economy would collapse overnight without undocumented workers.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:32 pm 
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Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
Ogie Oglethorpe wrote:
chaspoppcap wrote:
Hmm,not a word about the illegal problem.

That isn't a cause of poverty and actually helps the economy. Seriously, illegal immigration is one of the few things that will keep us from falling into the demographic time bomb that is about to destroy the Japanese economy over the next generation.



We need immigrants, but not necessarily illegal ones.

There are serious questions about immigration but it seems we lack serious people in government to address those questions. I've heard Victor Davis Hanson say quite eloquently the things I believe Trump is attempting to say although Trump seems incapable of articulating them in a way that makes sense (though I don't think anyone can really be sure what our current president is trying to say, possibly not even himself).

For example, Prof. Hanson talks about a brilliant student he had, an illegal immigrant from Oaxaca who was burning the U.S. flag. Hanson asked him, "Why are you burning the flag of a country you would hate to leave while flying the flag of a country you would hate to go back to?" And the student simply answered, "I don't know."

We don't have to call these countries "shitholes" to understand that if they were so great, nobody would want to leave them. So then the question becomes, are people responsible for their own governments/nations? And if so, why would we want overwhelming numbers of people from places that are terrible? That's a legitimate question that should be able to be posed without accusations of racism or bigotry.


Is there a better country than ours? Other than America are there folks running from our country? Don't most people (even from places that aren't of color/shitholes) like to live here? Should we also not allow them in because their place of birth is worse than ours?

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:34 pm 
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Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
Ogie Oglethorpe wrote:
chaspoppcap wrote:
Hmm,not a word about the illegal problem.

That isn't a cause of poverty and actually helps the economy. Seriously, illegal immigration is one of the few things that will keep us from falling into the demographic time bomb that is about to destroy the Japanese economy over the next generation.



We need immigrants, but not necessarily illegal ones.

There are serious questions about immigration but it seems we lack serious people in government to address those questions. I've heard Victor Davis Hanson say quite eloquently the things I believe Trump is attempting to say although Trump seems incapable of articulating them in a way that makes sense (though I don't think anyone can really be sure what our current president is trying to say, possibly not even himself).

For example, Prof. Hanson talks about a brilliant student he had, an illegal immigrant from Oaxaca who was burning the U.S. flag. Hanson asked him, "Why are you burning the flag of a country you would hate to leave while flying the flag of a country you would hate to go back to?" And the student simply answered, "I don't know."

We don't have to call these countries "shitholes" to understand that if they were so great, nobody would want to leave them. So then the question becomes, are people responsible for their own governments/nations? And if so, why would we want overwhelming numbers of people from places that are terrible? That's a legitimate question that should be able to be posed without accusations of racism or bigotry.
We don't really know what illegal immigration does in the era of permanent unemployment either though the current economy is hiding a lot of those issues currently.

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It seems the rural counties want to secede from California.


New California declares "independence" from rest of state
3 hrs ago

© newcaliforniastate.com california.jpg

SACRAMENTO — With the reading of their own version of a Declaration of Independence, founders of the state of New California took the first steps to what they hope will eventually lead to statehood. CBS Sacramento reports they don't want to leave the United States, just California.

"Well, it's been ungovernable for a long time. High taxes, education, you name it, and we're rated around 48th or 50th from a business climate and standpoint in California," said founder Robert Paul Preston.
The state of New California would incorporate most of the state's rural counties, leaving the urban coastal counties to the current state of California.
"There's something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed," Preston said.
Cal-exit? Meet the movement for California secession
But unlike other separation movements in the past, the state of New California wants to do things by the book, citing Article 4, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution and working with the state legislature to get it done, similar to the way West Virginia was formed.
"Yes. We have to demonstrate that we can govern ourselves before we are allowed to govern," said founder Tom Reed.
And despite obstacles, doubters, and obvious long odds, the group stands united in their statehood dream.
The group is organized with committees and a council of county representatives, but say it will take 10 to 18 months before they are ready to fully engage with the state legislature.
This is not the first effort to split up California. In 2014, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper submitted signatures to put a measure that would split California in six separate states. 

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:59 pm 
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Seacrest wrote:
chaspoppcap wrote:
Hmm,not a word about the illegal problem.


CA's economy would collapse overnight without undocumented workers.

Heck, the building industry around the nation would collapse. I can pretty much guarantee the house I'm having built right now is being built with illegal workers, but that's what the company I'm using has to do in order to keep costs down as they face a shortage of workers during a time of record building. We literally do not have enough legal residents in the labor force to support our economy today. We need the illegals.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:06 pm 
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Nas wrote:
Is there a better country than ours? Other than America are there folks running from our country? Don't most people (even from places that aren't of color/shitholes) like to live here? Should we also not allow them in because their place of birth is worse than ours?


To your first question, I would say that "better" is subjective, but I do think America is unique in that once one becomes an American they are just as American as the ancestors of those who came on the Mayflower. Of course, slavery was a bump in the road and we're still trying to rectify that. When you and I were going at it awhile back you made an eloquent post about what it means to be a black American. I tried to find it without success. I liked what you wrote and I don't think anyone can claim to be more American than those who are descended from slaves. Anyway, if you're asking me, I don't think there is a better country than ours.

And of course we should take immigrants from horrible places, but we should make sure we can assimilate them. I think immigrant enclaves will tear America apart. And these enclaves are different than the Irish ghettoes or Little Italys in that the recent immigrants don't seem to have any desire to assimilate. We have to hop their children will against the wishes of the parents. It is a country's right to regulate who comes and how many.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:07 pm 
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Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
[
We don't have to call these countries "shitholes" to understand that if they were so great, nobody would want to leave them. So then the question becomes, are people responsible for their own governments/nations? And if so, why would we want overwhelming numbers of people from places that are terrible? That's a legitimate question that should be able to be posed without accusations of racism or bigotry.

It's most interesting to hear this kind of responsibility standard applied to other peoples and nations, as those most adamant about deploying it for judgments about others rarely seem all that interested interested in using it for themselves. Indeed, those who do try to encourage their citizens to view themselves as ethically responsible for the actions of their government like Noam Chomsky are frequently labeled as America haters or framed as desperate to blame the US for everything.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:12 pm 
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Ogie Oglethorpe wrote:
Seacrest wrote:
chaspoppcap wrote:
Hmm,not a word about the illegal problem.


CA's economy would collapse overnight without undocumented workers.

Heck, the building industry around the nation would collapse. I can pretty much guarantee the house I'm having built right now is being built with illegal workers, but that's what the company I'm using has to do in order to keep costs down as they face a shortage of workers during a time of record building. We literally do not have enough legal residents in the labor force to support our economy today. We need the illegals.


Very few people are aware of this.

Freight is sitting all over the country because of a shortage of employable truck drivers.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:20 pm 
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ZephMarshack wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
[
We don't have to call these countries "shitholes" to understand that if they were so great, nobody would want to leave them. So then the question becomes, are people responsible for their own governments/nations? And if so, why would we want overwhelming numbers of people from places that are terrible? That's a legitimate question that should be able to be posed without accusations of racism or bigotry.

It's most interesting to hear this kind of responsibility standard applied to other peoples and nations, as those most adamant about deploying it for judgments about others rarely seem all that interested interested in using it for themselves. Indeed, those who do try to encourage their citizens to view themselves as ethically responsible for the actions of their government like Noam Chomsky are frequently labeled as America haters or framed as desperate to blame the US for everything.



I wasn't setting a responsibility standard. I'm not sure how much responsibility "the people" have for their government. But I will say it seems to be applied differently depending on the nation/situation. Do you think it was unfair to make German villagers clean up concentration camps?

As for Chomsky, I don't think he's necessarily wrong in principle, but he reserves his harshest judgment for the U.S./Israel/Britain. And yeah, I know his answer is that it's self-criticism since he is an American/Jew/Westerner.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 2:22 pm 
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Seacrest wrote:
Ogie Oglethorpe wrote:
Seacrest wrote:
chaspoppcap wrote:
Hmm,not a word about the illegal problem.


CA's economy would collapse overnight without undocumented workers.

Heck, the building industry around the nation would collapse. I can pretty much guarantee the house I'm having built right now is being built with illegal workers, but that's what the company I'm using has to do in order to keep costs down as they face a shortage of workers during a time of record building. We literally do not have enough legal residents in the labor force to support our economy today. We need the illegals.


Very few people are aware of this.

Freight is sitting all over the country because of a shortage of employable truck drivers.



Maybe if we stopped pushing every HS kid into college and eliminated dumbass degrees like Women's Studies we would increase the labor pool. Not everyone needs to be splitting the atom at best or cramming themselves full of Adderal at worst.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 2:25 pm 
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Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
[ I think immigrant enclaves will tear America apart. And these enclaves are different than the Irish ghettoes or Little Italys in that the recent immigrants don't seem to have any desire to assimilate. We have to hop their children will against the wishes of the parents. It is a country's right to regulate who comes and how many.


You say it is different and then describe an identical situation.

The first generation here is always betwixt and between. The second generation keeps the old traditions alive for nostalgia and reverence of their ancestors but are fully immersed in the US. The third generation is embarrassed by the old traditions that are mocked by the suburban group they wish to become.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 2:29 pm 
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good dolphin wrote:
Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
[ I think immigrant enclaves will tear America apart. And these enclaves are different than the Irish ghettoes or Little Italys in that the recent immigrants don't seem to have any desire to assimilate. We have to hop their children will against the wishes of the parents. It is a country's right to regulate who comes and how many.


You say it is different and then describe an identical situation.

The first generation here is always betwixt and between. The second generation keeps the old traditions alive for nostalgia and reverence of their ancestors but are fully immersed in the US. The third generation is embarrassed by the old traditions that are mocked by the suburban group they wish to become.


Exactly. Look at Muslims. The first generation wanted to buy into American culture, and then by third generation the grandkids are trying to buy Stinger missiles and throwing pressure cookers at marathon runners.

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Last edited by ToxicMasculinity on Tue Jan 16, 2018 2:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 2:31 pm 
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Joe Orr Road Rod wrote:
Nas wrote:
Is there a better country than ours? Other than America are there folks running from our country? Don't most people (even from places that aren't of color/shitholes) like to live here? Should we also not allow them in because their place of birth is worse than ours?


To your first question, I would say that "better" is subjective, but I do think America is unique in that once one becomes an American they are just as American as the ancestors of those who came on the Mayflower. Of course, slavery was a bump in the road and we're still trying to rectify that. When you and I were going at it awhile back you made an eloquent post about what it means to be a black American. I tried to find it without success. I liked what you wrote and I don't think anyone can claim to be more American than those who are descended from slaves. Anyway, if you're asking me, I don't think there is a better country than ours.

And of course we should take immigrants from horrible places, but we should make sure we can assimilate them. I think immigrant enclaves will tear America apart. And these enclaves are different than the Irish ghettoes or Little Italys in that the recent immigrants don't seem to have any desire to assimilate. We have to hop their children will against the wishes of the parents. It is a country's right to regulate who comes and how many.

You guys (and Ogie and others) make some good points.

I think that at some point (and everyone can call me a Nazi if they want) that the US has to move beyond the beacon-for-immigrants identity. I don't buy the argument that we need the workers since Great Depression-levels of unemployment never went away in black neighborhoods (and are now back in some other areas); if you want to be competitive, figure out how to pay people a decent wage. I get it that health-care benefits really make this hard and so many Americans workers are lazy. I know people in the construction industry and I hate it when they hire skabs or non-union people, but when they explain why, I sympathize.

I also get it that migration is what's happening, and we go through waves of migration periodically, and there's nothing you can do to stop it unless you are really brutal. I am so conflicted on this. What's more, I wish we would hire American kids to do some of these unskilled jobs--maybe connect it to tuition somehow--but we're just too good to take that janitor's job. When we die, our grandfathers, who would have shoveled shit if it meant a few extra dollars per month, are gonna choke us to death (uh, again) for being such snobs.


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