Niall Ferguson, John Maynard Keynes, and hysteria

From my new VDARE.com column:

Harvard financial historian Niall Ferguson has gotten himself into the usual sort of Larry Summers / James D. Watson-style trouble for answering a question about economist John Maynard Keynes’s famous quip—“In the long run, we are all dead”—by cheekily pointing out that Keynes was a childless homosexual. ... 

Ferguson commented: “In the long run our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are alive, and will have to deal with the consequences of our economic actions.” ...

(In contrast to Keynes, the philoprogenitive Ferguson has three children by his first wife and one by his latest, the courageous anti-Islamist activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.) 

Ferguson’s off-the-cuff comments generated a vast global spasm of gasping and tsk-tsking. A Google search of “niall ferguson keynes gay” comes up with over two million hits. 

Why the hysteria?

Read the whole thing there.

Tony Stark's favorite architect: John Lautner

Iron Man's John Lautner-inspired house at Point Dume meets its doom

From my new column in Taki's Magazine:

With Iron Man 3 hauling in $174 million at the box office last weekend, this is a good time to pay tribute to a great architect whose hold on the American imagination is finally getting the respect it deserves: John Lautner. 

No matter where they’re filmed or when they’re set, the Iron Man movies take place, at least aesthetically and psychologically, in the shiny, optimistic, future-infatuated Southern California that peaked in the early 1960s. 

Billionaire Tony Stark’s Iron Mansion in Malibu is a fictitious CGI homage to the sometimes hilarious—but often surprisingly lovely—science-fiction houses and coffee shops, gas stations, and motels that Lautner erected all over the Los Angeles area from the 1930s into the 1980s.

... Lautner, a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright, was the finest exponent of the boyish fantasy school of design—Tom Swift books turned into cantilevered Googie drive-in restaurants—that is the indigenous style of the Southern California car-centered culture in which I grew up. Lautner’s school of commercial architecture required an unprecedentedly broad and affluent middle class, one perhaps never seen in world history before Los Angeles in the 1940s.

Read the whole thing there.

Ortiz & Telles: Mexican-Americans lag for 4 generations (at least)

The sociologists who authored the major Generations of Exclusion study tracking two generations of Mexican-American families in Los Angeles and San Antonio from 1965 to 2000 (which I reviewed for VDARE) wrote to the New York Times.

Their second paragraph is an important social science finding and should be cited in immigration debates. 

Mexican Immigrants 

To the Editor: 

Re “Hispanics, the New Italians,” by David Leonhardt (Sunday Review, April 21), and “When Assimilation Stalls,” by Ross Douthat (column, April 28): 

In our book “Generations of Exclusion,” we show that the descendants of Mexicans do not experience the steady progress into the third and fourth generations that has been documented for those of European ancestry. [Bold added]

Throughout the 20th century, Mexicans immigrated primarily to fill low-wage jobs and have been held in low regard, a status shared by many of their descendants. Although many Mexican-Americans do well, too many do not pursue education because they attend low-quality schools or receive the brunt of negative expectations by educators. 

Mexicans and other Latinos — especially Salvadorans, Puerto Ricans and Dominicans — also appear to share similar experiences and a nonwhite status that in effect racializes them and channels them into the lowest sectors of our society. 

The solution to poor treatment of immigrants is not to exclude them but to improve educational conditions for all! 

VILMA ORTIZ
EDWARD TELLES
Los Angeles, April 28, 2013

The writers are professors of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Princeton, respectively.  

In their sizable sample, fourth generation Mexican-Americans (i.e., people who had a grandparent born in American) had only a 6% college graduation rate. My recollection is that their preliminary data on the educational attainments of young fifth generation Mexican-Americans was also unpromising.

Jerry Seinfeld on Emma Lazarus's poem

I am for open immigration, but that sign we have on the front of the Statue of Liberty, "Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses..." can't we just say, "Hey, the door's open, we'll take whoever you got"? Do we have to specify the wretched refuse? I mean, why don't we just say, "Give us the unhappy, the sad, the slow, the ugly, people that can't drive, that they have trouble merging, if they can't stay in their lane, if they don't signal, they can't parallel park, if they're sneezing, if they're stuffed up, if they're clogged, if they have bad penmanship, don't return calls, if they have dandruff, food between their teeth, if they have bad credit, if they have no credit, missed a spot shaving, in other words any dysfunctional defective slob that you can somehow cattle prod onto a wagon, send them over, we want 'em."

Seinfeld

Episode 55 - The Visa

Broadcast date: January 27, 1993

David Brooks goes beyond self-parody

Mrs. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, beneficiary
of immigrant social conservatism.
Note leopard-skin hijab.

From the New York Times:

Beyond the Fence
By DAVID BROOKS

... First, immigration opponents are effectively trying to restrict the flow of conservatives into this country. In survey after survey, immigrants are found to have more traditional ideas about family structure and community than comparable Americans. ... Immigrants go into poor neighborhoods and infuse them with traditional values.

When immigrant areas go bad, it’s not because they have infected America with bad values. It’s because America has infected them with bad values already present. So the first thing conservative opponents of reform are trying to restrict is social conservatism.

I really despise this kind of divide-and-conquer shuck-and-jive. Besides being just stupid and dishonest empirically (Gen. Douglas MacArthur was an American conservative, a Chechen boxer or a Mixtec day laborer is just kind of backward), one of the basic patterns of history is that, no matter how much your fellow countrymen get on your nerves, you are a better off being stuck arguing with them endlessly than in inviting in people from beyond the seas to help you win your petty domestic disputes.

For example, in 1167, one Irish lord was losing a struggle with another Irish lord. But then he had a great idea: he'd invite over some Norman knights from England to help him put that other Irishman in his place.

The Normans were Vikings who had conquered a chunk of France, learned French, then conquered England. What could possibly go wrong if he brought some to Ireland? What?  Were the English Normans going to conquer Ireland and own it for most of a millennium? Hah! Likely story ...

No, the truly important priority was to show High King Ruaidri mac Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair that he couldn't push King Diarmait Mac Murchada of Leinster around. These cool new English underlings of King Diarmait's would show High King Ruaidri who's boss!

And that's when I say, "And that reminds me to remind you of the continuing Spring 2013 iSteve Panhandling Drive."

Except that this post didn't really remind me, my American Express bill reminded me.

I want to thank everybody who has contributed so far. And for those who haven't gotten around to it:

First: you can make a non-tax deductible contribution to me by credit card via WePay by clicking here.

Second: you can make a tax deductible contribution to me via VDARE by clicking here.

Third: You can mail a non-tax deductible donation to:

Steve Sailer
P.O Box 4142
Valley Village, CA 91607-4142

Thanks.

The highest law of the land: Emma Lazarus's poem

You maniacs, you blew it all up.

Emma Lazarus's poem inscribed near the Statue of Liberty is a bit of ethnocentric kitsch that has been turned into an all-conquering mind virus that is making impossible intelligent thought about the future of America. The Constitution may not be a suicide pact, but Lazarus's dopey poem is turning into one.

In his column in the Washington Post, Dana Milbank points out that even if conservatives don't say that Hispanic immigrants tend to be badly educated, or even notice that Hispanic immigrants tend to be badly educated, conservatives are still racist because -- Gotcha -- Hispanic immigrants are badly educated! 

No poor and huddled need apply

By Dana Milbank, Monday, May 6, 5:47 PM 

Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint prefaced his condemnation of immigration legislation Monday with the same form of inoculation conservatives often use on such occasions: He quoted Emma Lazarus. 

“There’s a statement at the bottom of the Statue of Liberty,” said the former Republican senator who just took over as chief of the powerful think tank. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses . . . ”

He and his colleagues then went on to outline their version of immigration reform: No poor and huddled need apply. 

“We feel that the best immigration system is one that focuses on bringing high school [graduate] immigrants in,” said Robert Rector, the Heritage scholar seated beside DeMint for the rollout of a new study on the costs of immigration. “We think the proper policy is that you shouldn’t be bringing immigrants into the U.S. that by and large are going to impose additional costs on U.S. taxpayers by getting more benefits than they pay in taxes,” he explained. 

... Latinos have been suspicious of Republicans in part because they assume that conservatives’ desire to crack down on illegal immigration may extend to legal immigration as well. Republicans invariably proclaim that they are big fans of legal immigration. But the Heritage doctrine undermines that, because it would sharply curtail Hispanic immigration — legal and illegal alike. 

Of the Mexican-born people in the United States age 25 and older, nearly 60 percent didn’t graduate from high school, according to a Pew Hispanic Center compilation of census data. Among Central Americans, the figure is 50 percent. To shun those without high school diplomas would dramatically reduce eligibility among Latinos. 

Rector acknowledged that “all immigration in fact does make a larger GDP.” But, he added, “the question is fiscally whether they pay more in taxes than they take out in benefits. College-educated immigrants do that. Other immigrants do not.” 

Even the second generation doesn’t pay its way, he argued, citing “very sophisticated data on the expected upward mobility based on historical averages of kids given their ethnicity and their parents’ education level.” 

But even if you accept Heritage’s calculations, immigration isn’t purely a fiscal question. If Republicans don’t find a way to deal with illegal immigrants in the country, they risk political oblivion as the swelling ranks of Latino voters turn against them. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) recognized this in reaching a bipartisan agreement to allow legalization — a proposal being denounced by the right. ...

Never mind the rest of that Lazarus inscription DeMint cited, the bit about accepting “the wretched refuse” and the “homeless, tempest-tossed.” Now they’ll need a diploma.

The only way for conservatives to prove they aren't racist is by letting more badly educated Hispanics in. Of course, that will just make it more obvious that Hispanic immigrants are badly educated, which will mean that conservatives are even more under suspicion of noticing racist hatefacts. So, the only way for them to atone for that is to let more badly educated Hispanics in. And so forth and so on.

Good meme: Gang of Eight lets Southern white plantation owners discriminate against blacks

Typical Southern white farmer

You know and I know that the Gang of Eight's immigration bill is a grotesque farrago of mechanisms for special interests to exploit the public, but then you and I are horrible people for knowing that. Think of the DREAM children!

But, the more the spotlight gets shone on those special interests who each have their trotters in the immigration bill's trough, the more interesting things become. The Establishment's amnesty offensive is a rickety contraption and has the potential to implode, just like it did in 2001, 2004, 2006, and 2007. 

For example, it's promising that Mark Zuckerberg, the subject of The Social Network, has managed to insert his divisive personality into the immigration debate. Now Ethan Bronner of the New York Times has perhaps inadvertently opened the door for another traditional bad guy to take center stage: the Southern white farmer.

Workers Claim Race Bias as Farms Rely on Immigrants

By ETHAN BRONNER 

VIDALIA, Ga. — For years, labor unions and immigrant rights activists have accused large-scale farmers, like those harvesting sweet Vidalia onions here this month, of exploiting Mexican guest workers. Working for hours on end under a punishing sun, the pickers are said to be crowded into squalid camps, driven without a break and even cheated of wages.

But as Congress weighs immigration legislation expected to expand the guest worker program, another group is increasingly crying foul — Americans, mostly black, who live near the farms and say they want the field work but cannot get it because it is going to Mexicans. They contend that they are illegally discouraged from applying for work and treated shabbily by farmers who prefer the foreigners for their malleability. 

“They like the Mexicans because they are scared and will do anything they tell them to,” said Sherry Tomason, who worked for seven years in the fields here, then quit. Last month she and other local residents filed a federal lawsuit against a large grower of onions, Stanley Farms, alleging that it mistreated them and paid them less than it paid the Mexicans. 

The suit is one of a number of legal actions containing similar complaints against farms, including a large one in Moultrie, Ga., where Americans said they had been fired because of their race and national origin, given less desirable jobs and provided with fewer work opportunities than Mexican guest workers. Under a consent decree with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the farm, Southern Valley, agreed to make certain changes. 

With local unemployment about 10 percent and the bureaucracy for hiring foreigners onerous — guest workers have to be imported and housed and require extensive paperwork — it would seem natural for farmers to hire from their own communities, which they did a generation ago. ...

Mr. Stanley, like other farmers, argues that Americans who say they want the work end up quitting because it is hard, leaving the crops to rot in the fields.  

But, in response to this normally unanswerable crops-rotting-in-the-fields argument, the New York Times article printed two paragraphs of sheer racist hate-filled common sense economic analysis that normally you only read in the most disreputable rags:

"... farm work, like other difficult labor, could be made attractive to Americans at reasonable cost, and that farmers should not be excused from doing so. 

“There used to be lots of American pickers who moved around the country,” he said. “But wages have stagnated and conditions have deteriorated, and agriculture is unwilling to make these jobs attractive. Think of trash collection. That’s not very appealing, either. But if you offer a decent wage and conditions, people do it.”

Who dared say such evil?

"Jim Knoepp of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group that has campaigned against the guest worker program..."

This could get fun.

Liberals debate whether Mark Zuckerberg is too weasely or just weasely enough

Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg is becoming the face of the Gang of Eight's immigration bill.

From the hometown San Jose Mercury News:

Herhold: Mark Zuckerberg needs to take Politics 101 

By Scott Herhold 

Mark Zuckerberg is an extraordinary young man who at age 28 has achieved things that most people in Silicon Valley can only envy. He also has a lot to learn about politics. 

You may have read how Zuckerberg's political group is funding TV spots on behalf of Senators Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Mark Begich, D-Alaska, taking stands that many tech industry veterans would privately decry. 

The idea is to give the politicians political "cover" in exchange for supporting key immigration proposals that Facebook wants, primarily a loosening of H1B visas. 

The TV spots laud Graham for fighting Obamacare and commend Begich for working to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. 

Neither of those messages is central to the thinking of Silicon Valley. In fact, they would irritate a lot of Facebook users and managers. 

In adopting Machiavellian tactics, Zuckerberg has done more than upset his core constituency. In a real sense, the Facebook CEO has raised questions about what he and his company stand for.

Mustela silicona

"It's incredibly cynical," says Phil Trounstine, my former colleague and the co-founder of the political website Calbuzz. "It makes people believe that it's all just a game. And it's not a game. People are struggling for real stakes.' 

Here's the rule about politics that all Zuckerberg's billions have not taught him. Political opponents forgive self-interest. They don't understand the jab in the eye. 

A Midwestern politician critical of tech has no problem understanding why a Silicon Valley company would push hard for more favorable tax treatment. That's self-interest. 

If that same company wants to engage in hardball tactics over something that has little to do with its bottom line -- let's say, an oil pipeline -- then eyebrows are raised. 

You can fashion a short-term rationale for what Zuckerberg and his political group, FWD.US, are doing. But the people who practice politics most intelligently keep a long-term perspective. 

"From Zuckerberg's perspective, if he wants to get moderation out of a Republican, he has to help protect that Republican from a challenge from the right," says political consultant Rich Robinson. 

"But it's a hugely dangerous game. Ultimately, he wins the battle and loses the war." 

Meanwhile The New Republic, which is now owned by Chris Hughes, the WASP gay Facebook billionaire who managed one of Obama's social media campaigns, champions:

Mark Zuckerberg's Cynical, Necessary Washington Strategy 

Shorter version: Zuckerberg's ends justify his means!

One of the few effective freedoms of expression you are still allowed to have in the mainstream media is to not like Mark Zuckerberg, to make clear that Zuckerberg gets on your nerves. We're not being allowed to have a debate on about 90% of the likely effects of the immigration bill, but this flurry of respectable interest in whether or not Zuckerberg will triumph politically on immigration is a rare positive development for supporters of effective free speech and self-government.

Post gay marriage

Now that the biggest issue in the history of the world, gay marriage, is winding down, what's next? Here's a big story in the New York Times tonight on what might be the next burning issue for ten or twenty years:

Changing Sex, and Changing Sports Teams

By IAN LOVETT 9:24 PM ET

California could become the first state to guarantee that transgender students are allowed to play school sports on teams that match their gender identity.

Rector and Richwine weigh in on fiscal cost of amnesty

Out today, from Robert Rector and Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation:

The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer 

By Robert Rector and Jason Richwine, Ph.D. 

May 6, 2013 

... As noted, at the current time (before amnesty), the average unlawful immigrant household has a net deficit (benefits received minus taxes paid) of $14,387 per household. 

During the interim phase immediately after amnesty, tax payments would increase more than government benefits, and the average fiscal deficit for former unlawful immigrant households would fall to $11,455. 

At the end of the interim period, unlawful immigrants would become eligible for means-tested welfare and medical subsidies under Obamacare. Average benefits would rise to $43,900 per household; tax payments would remain around $16,000; the average fiscal deficit (benefits minus taxes) would be about $28,000 per household. 

Amnesty would also raise retirement costs by making unlawful immigrants eligible for Social Security and Medicare, resulting in a net fiscal deficit of around $22,700 per retired amnesty recipient per year. 

In terms of public policy and government deficits, an important figure is the aggregate annual deficit for all unlawful immigrant households. This equals the total benefits and services received by all unlawful immigrant households minus the total taxes paid by those households. 

Under current law, all unlawful immigrant households together have an aggregate annual deficit of around $54.5 billion. 

In the interim phase (roughly the first 13 years after amnesty), the aggregate annual deficit would fall to $43.4 billion. 

At the end of the interim phase, former unlawful immigrant households would become fully eligible for means-tested welfare and health care benefits under the Affordable Care Act. The aggregate annual deficit would soar to around $106 billion. 

In the retirement phase, the annual aggregate deficit would be around $160 billion. It would slowly decline as former unlawful immigrants gradually expire. 

These costs would have to be borne by already overburdened U.S. taxpayers. (All figures are in 2010 dollars.) 

The typical unlawful immigrant is 34 years old. After amnesty, this individual will receive government benefits, on average, for 50 years. Restricting access to benefits for the first 13 years after amnesty therefore has only a marginal impact on long-term costs. 

If amnesty is enacted, the average adult unlawful immigrant would receive $592,000 more in government benefits over the course of his remaining lifetime than he would pay in taxes. 

Over a lifetime, the former unlawful immigrants together would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services and pay $3.1 trillion in taxes. They would generate a lifetime fiscal deficit (total benefits minus total taxes) of $6.3 trillion. (All figures are in constant 2010 dollars.) This should be considered a minimum estimate. It probably understates real future costs because it undercounts the number of unlawful immigrants and dependents who will actually receive amnesty and underestimates significantly the future growth in welfare and medical benefits.

Mark Zuckerberg's Save the Billionaires fund

Reid Hoffman, $3,100,000,000

The new tech firm lobbying group FWD.us has played a major role in writing the Gang of Eight's immigration legislation to make it easier for technology companies to import foreign computer programmers to drive down the ruinously high cost of American labor. I thought it would be fun to rank the names on FWD.us's "Our Supporters" page by net worth.

 $66,000,000,000 Bill Gates, Chair of Microsoft & Gates Foundation

 $15,200,000,000 Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft

 $13,300,000,000 Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook

 $8,200,000,000 Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google

 $3,100,000,000 Reid Hoffman, Co-Founder of LinkedIn

 $2,700,000,000 John Doerr, General Partner at Kleiner Perkins 

 $2,700,000,000 Elon Musk, CEO SpaceX and Tesla Motors

 $2,000,000,000 Sean Parker, Founders Fund

 $1,500,000,000 Ron Conway, Special Advisor to SV Angel

 $1,200,000,000 Jim Breyer, Partner at Accel Partners

 $760,000,000 Mark Pincus, Founder, CEO Zynga

 $600,000,000 Drew Houston, Founder and CEO of Dropbox

 $559,000,000 Reed Hastings, Founder and CEO of Netflix

 $400,000,000 Matt Cohler, General Partner at Benchmark

 $400,000,000 Kevin Systrom, Co-Founder of Instagram

 $345,000,000 Chad Hurley, Co-founder and CEO of AVOS

 $300,000,000 Max Levchin, Co-founder of PayPal, Chmn of Yelp 

 $230,000,000 Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!

 $200,000,000 Andrew Mason, Co-founder of Groupon

 $100,000,000 Josh James, Founder and CEO of Domo

 ? Aditya Agarwal, Vice President of Engineering at Dropbox

 ? Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder of The Social+Capital Partnership

 ? Ruchi Sanghvi, Vice President of Operations at Dropbox 

 ? Brian Chesky, CEO and Co-founder of Airbnb

 ? Chris Cox, Vice President of Product at Facebook

 ? Paul Graham, Co-founder of Y Combinator

 ? Joe Lonsdale, Partner at Formation 8

 ? Mary Meeker, General Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

 ? Dave Morin, Co-founder and CEO of Path

 ? Hadi Partovi, Co-Founder and President of Code.org

 ? Alison Pincus, One Kings Lane Co-Founder

 ? Keith Rabois, Partner at Khosla Ventures

 ? Hosain Rahman, CEO and Founder of Jawbone

 ? David Sacks, Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Yammer

 ? Brad Smith, General Counsel of Microsoft

 ? Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology & Strategy Officer at Cisco

(I'm not promising that these are the best and most up to the minute net worth estimates, but they're what I came up with quickly.)

It just doesn't pay to be a billionaire anymore.

I mean, if America's tech billionaires and mere centimillionaires (hectomillionaires?) can't lower programmers' salaries immediately, what possible economic incentive will they have to continue to be rich? It's Econ 101, people!

Please take a moment to thank the Friends of Mark Zuckerberg for somehow carrying on despite having to pay their employees such exorbitant wages that they are forced to bribe Gang of Eight senators with free campaign commercials just to get more H-1B visas. Just think how much richer these poor billionaires would be if the U.S. didn't exist and they didn't have to therefore share so much of their wealth with their employees because the border keeps them from fully utilizing the global reserve army of the unemployed to grind down their workers' pay.

Mark Zuckerberg becoming face of the Immigration Bill

Why is Mark Zuckerberg spending so much time and money pushing the Gang of Eight's immigration bill? 

Because the 28-year-old Facebook founder needs the money. He needs to hammer down his American programmers' salaries with more H-1B visa foreigners to keep his net worth up. For a terrifying moment last year, Zuckerberg's wealth dropped from 11-figures to only 10-figures. Remember, money is how these guys keep score. Zuckerberg had to endure the humiliation of showing up on the 2012 Forbes 400 list with a net worth of only $9.4 billion. There are a lot of people with 10-figure net worths (1,426 according to Forbes in 2012).

Fortunately, the Zuck is back over the $10 billion mark lately, so he can hold his head up when he walks down the street, but you have to feel for the poor guy.

Actually, you don't. In fact, a lot of people find Zuckerberg annoying. And that's why it's critical that Mark Zuckerberg replace Marco Rubio as The Face of the Immigration Bill.

Rubio has been promoted relentlessly by the media because he's non-threateningly cute, a boy band singer-dancer (the subliminally ethnic one) in a suit. He doesn't look cunning, so it's easy to still like him when he gets caught telling a another lie about what's in the bill. How can you expect a nice boy like Rubio to keep track of all those details? He means well. You can tell just by looking at his symmetrical features.

Personally, I kind of like Zuckerberg, but my approval is a pretty good contra-indicator. (I should have started the world's simplest marketing research company: just show me two new products or two new ads, and whichever one I prefer, you should junk it, immediately.)

I think Zuckerberg is, by the standards of software nerds, a good looking guy, but he increasingly strikes a lot of folks as a green-eyed, fair-skinned jerk. It doesn't help his image that it seems likely that, deep down, he's probably a Republican (he hosted a Chris Christie fundraiser). And a lot of people are growing sick of Facebook. Oh, and, yeah, there's an entire movie already about what a monster he is.

Mark Zuckerberg's GOP and Dem sock puppet sites

Mark Zuckerberg's Republican site

Mark Zuckerberg's Democratic site

Eventually, Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg's new immigration group lobbying for lower salaries for American tech workers, FWD.us, might get around to giving a facelift to one of the websites it set up for its twin Republican and Democratic sockpuppet subsidiaries. When that happens, the naked contempt with which Zuckerberg and his fellow billionaires view the American two party system won't be quite so blatant. But, in the meantime, enjoy Zuck's view of the profound struggle between Team Red-Blue versus Team Blue-Red.

As FWD.us spokesdroid Kate Hansen explained, "Maintaining two separate entities, Americans for a Conservative Direction and the Council for American Job Growth, to support elected officials across the political spectrum -- separately -- means that we can more effectively communicate with targeted audiences of their constituents."

The red-blue website features a commercial of Marco Rubio making a pitch for the Gang of Eight and an ad Zuckerberg is running for Lindsey Graham about what a conservative tough guy Lindsey is, which doesn't mention immigration. The idea is to persuade conservative voters in South Carolina that Lindsey, in general, has "our back," which would imply that they should support his Gang of Eight efforts because he knows best.

The blue-red website features a Lindsey-like ad for Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) that serves as a quid pro quo for Begich supporting the Gang of Eight in return for Zuckerberg running this ad in Alaska to convince blue collar Alaskan voters that he wouldn't stab them in the back, so they can trust him when he votes for the Gang of Eight's plan.

Are Libyans culturally enriching Italy?

Christopher Caldwell writes in the Financial Times:

Much commentary about immigration to Europe is written as if no reasonable person could possibly care who, specifically, a country’s residents are and where, specifically, they come from. In an age of debt this indifference is not reasonable. No matter Italy’s demographic make-up decades from now, it would be quite natural for the “new generation” of multi-ethnic Italians to ask why they should pay for a decadent “old generation” that carried out its fiscal misdeeds before they (or their parents) were even in the country. 

Another problem is that Italy is the land of Dante’s The Divine Comedy and the Sistine Chapel. It might be possible to convince an American or an Australian to believe (or to say) that a big arrival of migrants will be a cultural “enrichment”. It is a harder case to make in Italy, even in the 21st century. Immigration may enrich Italy in many ways, but is unlikely to do so culturally. It is just as unlikely to do so fiscally

When I did the Backpack Tour of Europe in 1980, I came to the same conclusion as just about all those young aristocrats who did the Grand Tour of Europe in the 18th Century: Italy is the best country to visit as a tourist.

And, it's less the old stuff (although some of it, like The David and the Pantheon, is as great as advertised). It's the Italians. I don't think I'd want to live there, but Italy is a great place to visit.

As for the notion that the world will be better off when Italy is filled up with Libyans ...

NAABP (National Association for Advancement of Billionaire People) buys Gang of Eight

From the New York Times:

Tech Firms Take Lead in Lobbying on Immigration 

By ERIC LIPTON and SOMINI SENGUPTA 

WASHINGTON — The television advertisement that hit the airwaves in Florida last month featured the Republican Party’s rising star, Senator Marco Rubio, boasting about his get-tough plan for border security. 

But most who watched the commercial, sponsored by a new group that calls itself Americans for a Conservative Direction, may be surprised to learn who bankrolled it: senior executives from Silicon Valley, like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, who run companies where the top employees donate mostly to Democrats. 

The advertising blitz reflects the sophisticated lobbying campaign being waged by technology companies and their executives.

You know, having one red-blue sock puppet website for Republicans and one almost identical blue-red sock puppet website for Democrats isn't really that sophisticated. I've defended Zuckerberg in the past, but he just exudes weaseliness. Sophisticated he ain't.

Granted, Aaron Sorkin's and David Fincher's reasons offered in The Social Network for depicting the Zuck as a weasel weren't that convincing, but still, you've got to admit that there's something going on if two extremely talented middle-aged filmmakers feel inspired to make a fine movie about what a weasel you are when you are only 26-years-old.

There's something about Zuckerberg that inspires animus, so the more he becomes the face of Immigration Deform, the more trouble it's in. (By the way, the comments on the NYT article are ferocious, and they aren't even very ad hominem yet.)

They have managed to secure much of what they want in the landmark immigration bill now pending in Congress, provisions that would allow them to fill thousands of vacant jobs with foreign engineers. At the same time, they have openly encouraged lawmakers to make it harder for consulting companies in India and elsewhere to provide foreign workers temporarily to this country. 

Those deals were worked out through what Senate negotiators acknowledged was extraordinary access by American technology companies to staff members who drafted the bill. The companies often learned about detailed provisions even before all the members of the so-called Gang of Eight senators who worked out the package were informed. ...

Now, along with other industry heavyweights, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the technology companies are trying to make sure the law gets passed — which explains the political-style television advertising campaign, sponsored by a group that has revealed no details about how much money it gets from its individual supporters.

What are the laws regarding obvious quid pro quos like these TV ads for Rubio and Lindsey Graham?

The industry also hopes to get more from the deal by working to remove some regulatory restrictions in the proposal, including on hiring foreign workers and firing Americans.

That should be FWD.us's motto: "Firing Americans since 2013."

... Rob Jesmer, a former top Republican Senate strategist who helps run the new Zuckerberg-backed nonprofit group that sponsored the Rubio ad, insisted that his organization’s push is based on the personal convictions of the executives who donated to the cause and who believe immigration laws need to be changed. Those convictions just happen to line up with what their corporations are lobbying for as well, he said. 

“It will give a lot of people who are educated in this country who are already here a chance to remain in the United States,” Mr. Jesmer said, “and encourage entrepreneurs from all over the world to come to the United States and create jobs.”

No. It's a myth that these billionaire entrepreneurs are magnanimously bringing poor Asians to America to start companies to compete with them.

The reality is that billionaires just want code-fodder. The number of H-1B visa workers who will prove competition for the Zuckerbergs is negligible. You can see the evidence for that in a different NYT article this weekend:

From "Silicon Valley's Start-Up Machine" by Nathaniel Rich in the NYT Magazine about essayist Paul Graham's Y Combinator boot camp for entrepreneurs:

Several years ago, Paul Graham — whom everybody calls P.G. — began to film the interviews he and his partners held with prospective Y.C. inductees. When reviewing the footage, he focused on the interviews with start-ups that ultimately failed. Like any savvy marketing executive, he wanted to isolate patterns that portended ill, which he called “negative predictors.” He was already aware of a few — investors tended to be biased against older founders, for instance. “The cutoff in investors’ heads is 32,” Graham says. “After 32, they start to be a little skeptical.” And Graham knew that he had his own biases. “I can be tricked by anyone who looks like Mark Zuckerberg. There was a guy once who we funded who was terrible. I said: ‘How could he be bad? He looks like Zuckerberg!’ ” 

... But after ranking every Y.C. company by its valuation, Graham discovered a more significant correlation. “You have to go far down the list to find a C.E.O. with a strong foreign accent,” Graham told me. “Alarmingly far down — like 100th place.” I asked him to clarify. “You can sound like you’re from Russia,” he said, in the voice of an evil Soviet henchman. “It’s just fine, as long as everyone can understand you.”

This was bad news for Strikingly’s David Chen, who moved in 2005 from Guangzhou to the United States to attend high school at Houghton Academy, in upstate New York. He spoke English fluently but struggled to pronounce words like “build,” “mobile” and, most ominously, “strikingly.” Yet Chen had clearly established himself as the fledgling company’s impresario and spokesman. ... 

One week before Demo Day, Graham told the Strikingly founders that Chen’s accent was too strong. The quiet, reserved Bao — who spoke less frequently than either of his partners despite being the group’s only native English speaker — would have to deliver the pitch instead. Bao denied that he was anxious, but as he tried to memorize the pitch, he grew even quieter than usual. “I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m comfortable with public speaking,” he admitted. 

Tavon, Tavon likes his money / He makes a lot they say

Tavon White,
Black Guerilla Family bushman

From the Washington Post, a follow-up to the popular story about inmate Tavon White impregnating four guardettes:

Baltimore jail case depicts a corrupt culture driven by drugs, money and sex 

By Theresa Vargas, Ann E. Marimow and Annys Shin, Saturday, May 4, 4:12 PM 

Inside a gray brick fortress, past a barbed-wire fence, two women in prison guard uniforms traded words about their pregnancies. 

“Did he tell you we was having a son?” Tiffany Linder asked, according to court documents recounting the conversation. “Did you know about our baby?” 

Chania Brooks said she didn’t care about that baby. That was their child, not hers. 

“We having one, too,” she said. “So what?” 

The two 27-year-old correctional officers at the Baltimore City Detention Center were sparring over an inmate who prosecutors said left both women with a permanent reminder of their allegiance to him. 

To investigators, Tavon White is a thug who has been in and out of jail since he was 18, most recently on charges that he shot a fellow drug dealer four times. 

He is allegedly a high-ranking “bushman” in the Black Guerilla Family, a gang with a reputation for not just killing its enemies but also burning down their homes.

I don't think they mean
this kind of Bushman

Huh?

A "high-ranking 'bushman' in the Black Guerilla Family"? (The Black Guerilla Family is the nationwide prison gang founded by Prof. Angela Davis's future death row boyfriend George Jackson at San Quentin in 1966.)

What the ...

Is this a joke?

"Bushman" was the name of the famous gorilla in the Lincoln Park Zoo. When he was rumored to be dying in 1950, 120,000 Chicagoans came to pay their respects to him in one day. Bushman is currently stuffed and on display at Chicago's Field Museum. I've seen him at least ten times. From WBEZ, the NPR station in Chicago:

Bushman the Original Gorilla

Time magazine had called him “the best known and most popular civic figure in Chicago.” Now he was dead, and the city mourned. 

His name was Bushman. He was a gorilla. ...  

Bushman eventually topped out at 6'2" and 547 pounds.

The Lord of Lincoln Park became the most famous zoo animal in the country. Bushman was featured in magazines and newsreels, on t-shirts and postcards.

I suspect somebody is pulling somebody's leg over this whole Black Guerilla Family / Black Gorilla Family confusion, which I've theorized helped inspire the fine 2011 movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes. But I can't say who is yanking whose chain. This sounds like a racist joke that some old white cops made up and that the nice Washington Post reporters were too refined too grasp, but what do I know?

Bushman and fan at Field Museum

Other articles in local Baltimore media say a "bushman" is either "middle-ranking" or "relatively senior" in the Black Guerilla Family. Assuming that positions within the Black Guerilla Family leadership are indeed named after famous gorillas, I wonder what the top rank in the BGF is. Perhaps Kong?

Back to the Washington Post:

But during his three years at the state-run detention center, White, 36, was allegedly a figure who commanded respect, not only from fellow inmates in jumpsuits but also from many of the women in blue collared shirts and pressed slacks guarding him. Thirteen of them allegedly smuggled cellphones and drugs inside their hair, lunches and underwear for the man they called “Bulldog” or “Tay.” One tattooed his name on her neck, another on her wrist. 

Four have carried his children. 

... Just weeks before the two pregnant guards talked about the children they were expecting, a third allegedly pondered possible names for her son. 

“What if I name the baby King?” Katera Stevenson, 24, asked in a wiretapped call to her sister recounted in the affidavit. “I like the name King. King Tavon White.” 

Maybe he'll do even better within the BGF hierarchy than his daddy Bushman Tavon has done, and someday will be known as Kong King ...

... The inmates vastly outnumber the 625 guards, who make a base salary of $35,000 to $45,000 a year but can earn considerably more through overtime. They receive five to six weeks of training before entering — without any weapons to protect themselves — what one former guard calls “a city within a city.” ...

The corruption extends far beyond the 13 women charged, the affidavit suggested, with one inmate estimating that as many as 70 percent of the corrections officers were compromised. ...

Chania Brooks’s hands were shaking. She had just seen an inmate get attacked by a fellow gang member, blood spilling from his head, the affidavit said. 

She needed advice, so she went to get it. Not from a supervisor. From White.
“I abandoned my post,” Brooks said in an intercepted call between her and White. “I said, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ I thought he was going to have to go 911.” 

Brooks has denied the charges against her, including the allegation that White fathered her child. ... 

Documents that investigators recovered from the Black Guerrilla Family detail how its new members are taught to target specific officers. Look for women, they are told, with “low self-esteem, insecurities, and certain physical attributes.” 

The manipulation of young female officers often starts with a smile or a brief conversation, said a former inmate very familiar with the gang’s tactics. Then the inmate slips the guard a few hundred bucks in exchange for bringing him a pack of cigarettes. 

“Once that door is open, you find your way in,” said the former inmate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of safety concerns. “It’s a hustle game.” 

The gang also recruits relatives, girlfriends and fellow gang members without criminal records to apply for positions as correctional officers to establish a network of operatives within the prison walls, he said. 

As many as 80 percent of correctional-officer applicants in the central region, which includes Baltimore, do not make it through the background investigation, said Binetti, the corrections spokesman. 

Among those who do, women seem to dominate. More than 60 percent of the corrections officers in Baltimore’s jails are women, Maryland officials estimate. 

By comparison, women make up 37 percent of the guards in the District, a D.C. Corrections Department spokesman said. 

Regardless of the jurisdiction, officials say, all guards receive training on how to deal with the con games they will encounter inside prisons. They are warned how easily a compliment can turn into a favor, which can turn into an obligation. 

Jon Galley, a top Maryland corrections official, said he likes to show trainees a copy of a how-to guide, confiscated from an inmate’s cell, that lays out how to win over guards. The two pages of tips include dropping a “kite,” or love note, confessing to the officer that the inmate “felt a connection to her, that she was beautiful.” ...

Soon after White was born, court records show, his father began serving a life sentence for murder, and his mother struggled with drugs. He was raised largely by his grandparents and lived for a time in McCulloh Homes, a bleak public housing project in West Baltimore, said one family member. 

His own troubles began early, court records show. He was expelled from middle school in eighth grade. By 19, he was a convicted murderer who would spend seven years behind bars. 

It isn’t clear when his alleged gang ties began. His most recent charge — attempted murder — stems from a fight with one of his “boys” over a cocaine sale in 2009, according to court documents. White was charged with firing four bullets at close range into the man’s ankle, thighs and buttocks. 

White, prosecutors said during his trial in December, wanted to make sure there was no doubt about who was in charge. 

“Lesson learned: One shot at Tavon White’s ego gets you four in the body,” Assistant State’s Attorney Katie O’Hara told a Baltimore jury as White watched calmly from the defense table. 

But White’s attorney, Melissa Phinn, raised doubts about the credibility and consistency of testimony from key witnesses, and the jury deadlocked on the attempted-murder charge. They had done the same in an earlier trial. 

Now White is awaiting a third trial, scheduled for June, at the maximum-security North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland. Last week, he pleaded not guilty in federal court to racketeering, money-laundering and drug-dealing charges. 

What his criminal history doesn’t reveal, a family member said, is the loyal grandson and doting father who attended PTA meetings, accompanied his children to church and took them to Six Flags and Sesame Place. (In January, White called his grandmother Bessie Timmons from the detention center to tick off the due dates of the guards he had impregnated, according to the affidavit.) 

In jail, he played chess and read novels, court records show. Between prison stints, he cleaned swimming pools and packed boxes for a moving company. 

That is what he was doing when he met Danielle Hall at a Wendy’s down the street from McCulloh Homes. The two moved in together and had a daughter, who is now 7. 

“Tavon will always be a good guy in my book,” said Hall’s mother, who asked not to be identified by name, because of safety concerns. She said she was floored by the allegations that White was a gang leader at the detention center but not by his appeal to so many of the female correctional officers. 

“He’s a hunk,” she said. “He’s got a mean-looking body, a body that’s all that, that says, ‘Catch me if you can.’ ” 

Jennifer Owens had her diamond ring and her flashy cars and the name of the man who had provided them tattooed on her neck, according to the indictment. The 31-year-old correctional officer, who lives in Randallstown, drove around in two ­Mercedes-Benzes allegedly financed by the gang leader, one black and one white. 

In return, she gave him two children in two years. 

“Like really, who the f--- does that?” Owens said in an intercepted call to an unidentified woman in October. She called herself dumb but also said, “I don’t regret it.” 

Several former detention center guards said White could not have run such a large criminal enterprise without the help of higher-ups, tacit or explicit. But none have been implicated. ...

The challenge will be changing the culture of a place where, according to the affidavit, the names of 14 female guards were scrawled on a wall along with the price they allegedly charged for sexual favors: $150. 

... At least one of the 13 officers charged had been accused of gang ties at the detention center before. In 2008, inmate Tashma McFadden sued officer Antonia Allison, 31, for allegedly allowing a group of inmates who belonged to the Bloods to attack him in his cell. McFadden was stabbed 32 times; Allison, who denied having gang ties, remained on the job. Allison could not be reached for comment. 

Investigators were told that White and other gang leaders had informal agreements with jail officials: They would reduce violence inside the detention center and, in exchange, officials would “turn a blind eye to contraband smuggling and actively protect White and the [Black Guerilla Family] by warning them of investigations,” according to the affidavit. 

All 13 correctional officers who are awaiting trial have been suspended without pay.

In other words, still nobody has been fired.

The case against them could take two months to lay out for a jury, prosecutors say. 

No matter what happens in court or at the jail in the months to come, one fact remains indisputable: Tavon White ensured his legacy. 

Tiffany Linder is due any day.

What is she going to name him? Emperor White?

So, what's the over-under line on how many years this kid will wind up incarcerated?

I'm just not in the right business

From the New York Times:

Karzai Says He Was Assured C.I.A. Would Continue Delivering Bags of Cash 

KABUL, Afghanistan — The C.I.A.’s station chief here met with President Hamid Karzai on Saturday, and the Afghan leader said he had been assured the agency would continue dropping off stacks of cash at his office ...

"Remarks by the President to the People of Mexico"

From whitehouse.gov:

Remarks by the President to the People of Mexico 

Anthropology Museum 

Mexico City, Mexico 

9:29 A.M. CDT 

THE PRESIDENT:  Hola!  (Applause.)  Buenos dias!  Please, please, everybody have a seat.  It is wonderful to be back in México -- lindo y querido.  (Applause.)  I bring with me the greetings and friendship of the people of the United States, including tens of millions of proud Mexican Americans.  (Applause.) ...

Despite all the bonds and the values that we share, despite all the people who claim heritage on both sides, our attitudes sometimes are trapped in old stereotypes.  Some Americans only see the Mexico that is depicted in sensational headlines of violence and border crossings.  ... 

We're also seeing a Mexico that’s creating new prosperity:  Trading with the world.  Becoming a manufacturing powerhouse -- from Tijuana to Monterrey to Guadalajara and across the central highlands -- a global leader in automobiles and appliances and electronics, but also a center of high-tech innovation, producing the software and the hardware of our digital age.  One man in Querétaro spoke for an increasing number of Mexicans.  “There’s no reason to go abroad in search of a better life.  There are good opportunities here.”  That's what he said, and you are an example of that.

And, in fact, I see a Mexico that’s lifted millions of people from poverty.  Because of the sacrifices of generations, a majority of Mexicans now call themselves middle class, with a quality of life that your parents and grandparents could only dream of.  This includes, by the way, opportunities for women, who are proving that when you give women a chance, they will shape our destiny just as well as men, if not better.  (Applause.)

I also see in Mexico’s youth an empowered generation because of technology.  I think I see some of you tweeting right now -- (laughter) -- what’s happening.  (Laughter.)  And whether it’s harnessing social media to preserve indigenous languages, or speaking up for the future that you want, you’re making it clear that you want your voice heard.

And because of all the dynamic progress that's taking place here in Mexico, Mexico is also taking its rightful place in the world, on the world stage.  ...  Mexico has joined the ranks of the world’s largest economies.  It became the first Latin American nation to host the G20.

Just as Mexico is being transformed, so are the ties between our two countries.  As President, I’ve been guided by a basic proposition -- in this relationship there’s no senior partner or junior partner; we are two equal partners, two sovereign nations. ... 

And in the United States, we recognize our responsibilities.  We understand that much of the root cause of violence that's been happening here in Mexico, for which many so Mexicans have suffered, is the demand for illegal drugs in the United States.  And so we’ve got to continue to make progress on that front.  (Applause.) ...

And we also recognize that most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States.  (Applause.) I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms, and as President I swore an oath to uphold that right and I always will.  But at the same time, as I’ve said in the United States, I will continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people.  That can save lives here in Mexico and back home in the United States. It’s the right thing to do.  (Applause.)  So we’ll keep increasing the pressure on gun traffickers who bring illegal guns into Mexico.  We’ll keep putting these criminals where they belong -- behind bars.  

We recognize we’ve got work to do on security issues, but we also recognize our responsibility -- as a nation that believes that all people are created equal -- we believe it’s our responsibility to make sure that we treat one another with dignity and respect.  And this includes recognizing how the United States has been strengthened by the extraordinary contributions of immigrants from Mexico and by Americans of Mexican heritage.  (Applause.)

Mexican Americans enrich our communities, including my hometown of Chicago, where you can walk through neighborhoods like Pilsen, Little Village -- La Villita -- dotted with murals of Mexican patriots.  You can stop at a fonda, you can hear some mariachis, where we are inspired by the deep faith of our peoples at churches like Our Lady of Guadalupe.  We’ve got a Chicagoan in here somewhere.  (Applause.)

I reviewed William Julius Wilson's study of Little Village in Chicago for VDARE.

And we’re so grateful to Mexican Americans in every segment of our society -- for teaching our children, and running our companies, and serving with honor in our military, and making breakthroughs in science, standing up for social justice.  As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told Cesar Chavez once, we are “brothers in the fight for equality.”  And, in fact, without the strong support of Latinos, including so many Mexican Americans, I would not be standing today as President of the United States.  (Applause.)  That's the truth.

And so given that is Americas heritage, given that we share a border with Mexico, given ties that run back generations, it is critical that the United States recognize the need to reform our immigration system -- (applause) -- because we are a nation of laws, but we're also a nation of immigrants.  Like every nation we have a responsibility to ensure that our laws are upheld.  But we also know that, as a nation of immigrants, the immigration system we have in the United States right now doesn’t reflect our values.  It separates families when we should be reuniting them. It’s led to millions of people to live in the shadows.  It deprives us of the talents of so many young people -- even though we know that immigrants have always been the engine of our economy, starting some of our greatest companies and pioneering new industries.

Like all those world-conquering companies founded by Mexican-Americans, like ... uh ... like ... Artie Moreno's billboard company!

That’s one of the reasons I acted to lift the shadow of deportation from what we call the DREAMers -- young people brought to the United States as children.  (Applause.)  And that’s why I’m working with our Congress to pass common-sense immigration reform this year.  (Applause.)  I'm convinced we can get it done.   Reform that continues to strengthen border security and strengthen legal immigration, so citizens don’t have to wait years to bring their families to the United States.  Reform that holds everyone accountable -- so immigrants get on the right side of the law and so immigrants are not exploited and abused.  And most of all, reform that gives millions of undocumented individuals a pathway to earn their citizenship.   And I’m optimistic that -- after years of trying -- we are going to get it done this year.  I'm absolutely convinced of it.  (Applause.)

...  Just imagine how much the students of our two countries could do together, how much we could learn from each other.  ...

You are the future.  As Nervo wrote in “La Raza de Bronce,” tu eres el sueño -- you are the dream.  (Applause.)

Viva México!   Viva los Estados Unidos!   Que Dios los bendiga!  Thank you very much.  (Applause.) 

END  

The most surprising aspect of Obama's speech is that it didn't include the world "vibrant."

The worst thing ever: Corporate Collusion or Discrimination?

Just how different attitudes were in the past can be hard to dredge up from one's memory.

For example, today, the topic of corporate collusion -- of big companies teaming up, formally or informally, to charge consumers more or pay workers less -- is of strikingly little interest. If Exxon and Mobil want to become ExxonMobil, well, sure, why not? The free market will make sure everything comes out okay!

But it wasn't always like that. My recollection is that public suspicion of the big boys engaging in cartelization and monopolization was near-obsessive up through the 1970s in leftwing, populist, and federal government circles.

To sniff out evidence of collusion, the government had all sorts of tests, both the equivalent in discrimination law terms of "disparate treatment" (a colleague told me that at a previous job he had to submit his appointment planner to the FTC to prove that he'd never been in the same town on the same day as various counterparts at another company suspected of price-fixing with his company) and "disparate impact" (the government had all sorts of complex formulas involving market shares that it used as prima facie evidence of anti-trust violations).

In the late 1970s, I took an Economics course at Rice that presented the now-dominant view that anti-trust had been overblown and there was little to worry about from mergers & acquisitions. The professor very much believed that he was part of small vanguard of intellectual rebels dissenting from stifling orthodoxy.

I came out of the class a true believer that there was very little need for anti-cartel laws. 

But, a few things started to chip away at my faith. I read a little pre-1911 business history and a standard scene in any new industry was a meeting at hotel among all the competitors, where the most respected industry leader would open the meeting by saying, "Boys, we've got a problem: too much competition, and that leads to price-cutting. All this cut-throat competition just isn't American. Here in America, we cooperate, we get organized. So, what I'm suggesting is ..." This was not a last resort, either, it was the first thing businessmen in nascent industries did. It was, indeed, the American way.

Also, I then studied corporate strategy in MBA school. The main point of strategy is this: You know that Econ 101 example about how a wheat farmer in South Dakota is in a situation of "perfect competition" where he can't make any excess profits because he has countless competitors? Well, you don't want to be a wheat farmer in South Dakota. You want to find or concoct a situation of "imperfect competition" where you enjoy some kind of monopolistic advantage so you can make a higher return on your investment than that poor bastard in South Dakota.

Finally, I got a job and wound up doing some corporate strategy. And it turned out that, just like John D. Rockefeller had explained, competition was awful. My boss negotiated a lucrative merger with our archrival, but the Reagan Administration shot it down because customers complained that we wouldn't cut prices as desperately if the industry consolidated from three to two firms. Our customers happened to be giant corporations with lobbyists, not disorganized nobodies, so their complaints were heeded.

Yet, a dozen years later, the Democratic Administration approved the mergers of Exxon - Mobil and BP - Amoco, which would have been unthinkable to Democrats in 1974, but is largely forgotten today.

But interest in the whole topic of corporate collusion has waned significantly over the last generation. Today, the notion that companies have an interest in coordinating in various ways to make higher profits at the expense of workers and consumers sounds like, frankly, a Conspiracy Theory.  And we all know about Conspiracy Theorists, don't we?

In contrast to current complacency about cartelization and monopolization, we live in age obsessed with rooting out white racism. The real threat in 2013, it appears from reading the newspapers, is not ExxonMobil and the like, but the Ku Klux Klan. 

You might almost think that ExxonMobil and friends like it that way, but that would be a Conspiracy Theory, so forget I ever mentioned it.

Immigration reduction on a roll politically

From the Washington Post:

U.K. Independence Party surges in elections

LONDON — ... The anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party staged a dramatic surge Thursday in local elections in England and Wales, with results on Friday showing voters delivering a brutal whipping to the Conservatives and their junior coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats. 

Political pundits said the results represented one of the strongest showings by a non­traditional party in Britain since World War II, with the gains underscoring the rise of populist and nationalist parties across Europe. 

At the core of the party’s platform are aspirations to withdraw Britain from the European Union and impose new curbs on immigration, and the powerful showing sets U.K. Independence up to be an increasingly influential force in British politics. In recent months, its growing support in national polls had already sparked Britain’s three major parties — the Conservatives, Labor and the Liberal Democrats — to float increasingly strict proposals aimed at stemming the tide of foreigners. ...

“We have been abused by everybody, the entire establishment, and now they are shocked and stunned that we are getting over 25 percent of the vote everywhere we stand across the country,” Farage told the BBC. “This is a real sea change in British politics.” 

The performance by a party Cameron once described as being filled with “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” raised the question of whether its gains amounted to a temporary protest vote or signaled the birth of a more powerful political movement. ... 

In fact, analysts said Labor’s failure to pick up even more seats despite Britain’s prolonged economic malaise suggested that its leader, Ed Miliband, had thus far failed to put the party on a clear victory footing ahead of the 2015 general elections. It also suggested that rather than moving to the political left, a significant portion of Britons unhappy with the current Conservative-led government was instead shifting further to the right. 

This is all perfectly natural during economic hard times, and just shows how bizarre and artificial is the media push for more immigration in the U.S.

LAT: "Obama's sunny speech in Mexico raises eyebrows"

From the Los Angeles Times:

Obama's sunny speech in Mexico raises eyebrows 

The president paints an optimistic portrait of a country rising from its troubles, but many who live with the nation's violence and poverty wonder 'what Mexico was he talking about?'

By Kathleen Hennessey and Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times 

May 3, 2013, 6:08 p.m. 

MEXICO CITY — President Obama on Friday painted a sunny picture of a modern Mexico emerging from its past troubles, an attempt at rebranding that serves the political aims of both governments but clashes with the realities of a country beset by violence and poverty.  ...

The perception of a rising Mexico serves both Obama's and his counterpart's domestic agendas. Obama's push for immigration reform could be lifted by a perception that the causes of illegal immigration — poverty, violence and corrupt institutions — are easing under new Mexican leadership. 

Obama was not subtle in hitting this point, quoting an unnamed Mexican man as saying, "There's no reason to go abroad in search of a better life." The U.S. president expressed new confidence that his immigration push was on track, saying, "We are going to get it done this year. I'm absolutely convinced of it." 

Peña Nieto's reform agenda also could use a boost. After passing laws to overhaul education and telecommunications, he faces an uphill battle in opening up Mexico's energy sector, especially oil exploration, to foreign investment. Such a move has long been taboo here. 

Obama's audience responded with enthusiasm, frequently interrupting him with applause or cheers. But audience members didn't necessarily agree with his assessment. 

"How nice that he came to give inspiring speeches, but what's happening in Mexico is far from what he talked about today," said Jose Carlos Cruz, a 24-year-old graduate student in international relations who attended the speech. "A really good speech by President Obama, but what Mexico was he talking about?" 

The Mexican economy has begun to slow, and the decrease in illegal immigration is more likely a result of demographic changes, the sluggish U.S. economy and the severe dangers of crossing Mexico than of any improvements inside Mexico. 

In his speech, Obama praised a growing middle class to which the majority of Mexicans belong. Although it is true that Mexico has a strong manufacturing base that has allowed many Mexicans to prosper, economists say the middle class has been stagnant for years. The World Bank says 49% of the population lives in poverty. ...

Yet many among the several hundred people in attendance said he seemed too upbeat about their country. 

"Obama is fantastic, but I believe that today he was talking about another country, not ours," said Rosa Castro, 43, a college professor. "My question is: Who wrote Obama's speech? Enrique Peña Nieto's team?" 

Alberto Rios Lara, 26, who is studying to be an economist, said, "Obama is a great speaker; it's really impossible not to feel excited. However, the reality is different in Mexico. We need more action and fewer speeches." 

According to a recent Pew Research poll, 35% of all 116 million Mexicans would like to move to the U.S.

In a more reasonable world, as former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castaneda pointed out in his 2011 book Manana Forever?, Americans would be moving to Mexico for pleasant retirements (my parents took a look at Lake Chapala in 1967). Castaneda offered a long list of reforms that Mexico should undertake to make Americans less adventurous than old war correspondent Fred Reed feel welcome. He felt that the single most important was that Mexicans should stop using the ethnic slur "gringo."

Something else I've noticed is that it's hard for most gringo politicians and pundits to remember that Mexico has gone through lots of economic upswings before.

In 1946, Jorge Pasquel offered Babe Ruth $1 million
to be President of the Mexican League

For example, Mexico did so well economically during WWII that the Pasquel Brothers spent a supposed $50 million in the mid-1940s attempting to build the Mexican League into a third major league baseball circuit. In early 1946, they paid 18 big league ballplayers, such as Mickey Owen, Sal Maglie, and Vern Stephens to jump their contracts for the big money of the Mexican League. This caused one of the bigger crises in baseball of that era, with the MLB playing hardball in response. The Commissioner threatened to ban for life players who disobeyed the legally dubious "reserve clause" in their contracts.

Today, 67 years later, it seems bizarre to think that the Mexican League once competed with the American League and the National League.

P.S. Most old Sports Illustrated articles are online, and they are often great. Here's Frank Graham Jr.'s "The Great Mexican War of 1946" from 1966:

[Jorge] Pasquel was 39 years old in 1946, when he and his dashing brothers (Bernardo, Mario and the twins, Gerardo and Alfonso) discovered the ramshackle Mexican League. His family had owned a prosperous cigar factory, but he made his own opportunities as a young man by marrying the daughter of Plutarco Elias Calles, President of Mexico, and having himself appointed a customs broker for the Mexican government. His career was tempestuous. He left his wife, killed a man with the pistol he always carried and made enemies as well as a fortune. 

"Pasquel liked baseball," Mickey Owen says, "and he liked being in the limelight. The league gave him a lot of publicity, and it was closely tied in with his pal Aleman's presidential campaign that spring. Raiding the big leagues was a way of showing up the yanquis." 

Pasquel became the league's president and its chief scout ...  Once, when a no-hitter was broken up in the sixth inning, Jorge summarily restored the prize to the pitcher by overruling the official scorer and calling the play an error. The crowd was as overcome by this gallant gesture as if Pasquel had redeemed a lady's chastity. It accorded him a standing ovation, while Jorge beamed in his private box.

... "When our league was struggling to get started," Pasquel said, "major league scouts came down here and stole our players. Why? Because they offered them more money. We're giving those people a dose of their own medicine." 

Pasquel stepped up his raids on the major leagues. ... Later Alfonso Pasquel visited Stan Musial in his hotel room. While Musial, who was making $13,500 a year with the Cardinals, watched in astonishment, Pasquel spread five cashier's checks, each for $10,000, on his bed. This, Pasquel told him, was merely a bonus. While Musial turned the offer over in his mind, Cardinal Manager Eddie Dyer (an old Rickey man) effectively intervened. 

"Stan, you've got two children," Dyer said. "Do you want them to hear someone say, 'There are the kids of a guy who broke a contract'?" 

Musial declined to go to Mexico, but the Pasquels scored their most dramatic coup by hijacking three other Cardinals, Pitchers Max Lanier and Fred Martin and Second Baseman Lou Klein. Lanier was the prize. Considered by some baseball men to be the best pitcher in the National League, he had a 6-0 record with St. Louis when he left for Mexico in June. ...

But the Mexican problem was beginning to solve itself. Attendance, after the novelty of new faces had run its course, quickly declined. There were heavy rains that summer. At critical moments during a night game the electricity would fail. ... Travel was arduous at best, and sometimes hazardous. Landing strips in a few towns were simply open pastures. "It was unnerving," Mickey Owen says. "Coming in for a landing we'd look out and see eight or 10 of those big black Mexican vultures waiting for us. That's one of the things I remember best about Mexico—those vultures." 

... Nor did the American players prove to be the superstars Pasquel thought he had bought. When Veracruz, which Pasquel had stocked with the best players because it was his favorite team, sank into fourth place, Jorge took matters into his own hands. He fired Owen as manager and named as Owen's successor—Jorge Pasquel! 

"It's quite possible I did a lousy job of managing," Mickey says. "But I think the main thing was that Jorge had a sneaky ambition to be the manager himself." 

Pasquel, in uniform, took his place in the third-base coaching box. When he waved his arms, which he did frequently, his 12-karat diamond ring glittered in the sun. The crowd roared its appreciation. Between innings Pasquel retired to the dugout, where a valet, a napkin draped over one arm, served him steaming cups of vegetable juices and platters of chicken or crabs. When he had finished eating, his valet produced a tooth brush, with which Jorge cleaned his teeth. At the end of 10 days, Veracruz still languished in fourth place, the cheers for its gallant leader were not so delirious, and Jorge stepped aside in favor of a man named Chili Lopez.