I was starting to feel sorry for George W. Bush because he'd been so sad after he apologized in his memoir for his Ownership Society wrecking the economy. But, he's got family business to take care of, preparing the ascent of Jeb's kids:
Bush to host conference on immigration
DALLAS (AP) — Former President George W. Bush is set to give opening remarks at a conference on the benefits of immigrants to the U.S. economy.
The Tuesday conference is hosted by the George W. Bush Institute and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. It is part of a Bush Institute initiative on finding ways to achieve a 4 percent gross domestic product growth.
No mention of 4 percent gross domestic growth per capita.
A book the institute released over the summer notes immigrants help grow the economy by increasing the labor force
See?
and filling niche jobs.
Mass immigration to fill niche jobs -- what could make more sense?
George, I can't start to miss you if you don't stay away.
I wonder if this is some kind of explicit deal George and Jeb worked out around 1998: George would get to run for President in return for letting in lots of illegal Mexican aliens, whose kids would vote for Jeb's kids?
Or maybe George H.W. wrote that stuff into NAFTA about ruining the poor Mexican corn farmers to pave the way for Jeb's election?
Okay, okay, I admit it's conspiracy theorizing to imagine that George H.W., George W., and Jeb might ever get together and talk about what's best for the Bushes and how to make it happen, so forget I ever said it. That was just crazy talk.
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george w bush - the presidential living embodiment of the three big, bad I's - insolvency, incompetence and immigration.
or four if you list 'interventionism', too.
His legacy gets even worse. That in itself must be a skill.
As Bill Maher would say, now that he's back, he needs to go away again...
So the Bush Clan does own the GOP! Wish the whole Bush family would contract leprosy from their Illegal Immigrant friends.
"Filling niche jobs"? How about the presidency? If ever there was one, the presidency is the all-time Number One niche job. What's Vicente Fox doing these days?
Proposed neologism for what's going on with mass immigration's dyssolution (another neologism) of what remains of our republic and core people: Serfing USA!
I read somewhere that George W. was so impressed by Mark Steyn's book America Alone that he recommended it to his staff.
An odd choice for Open-Borders Bush given that Steyn is hardly glowing in his assessment of mass non-Western immigration and multiculturalism.
Dear God, what will it take: garlic, a stake thru the heart? What kind of wood does the stake have to be?
The poor mexican corn farmer was slammed by his own government's devaluation of the peso(before the ink on the north american free trade agreement was even dry), not the 50 Billion dollar trade surplus that Mexico garnered from nafta.
The Federal Reserve has actually studied the impact of immigration on the economy. See "Is the United States Bankrupt?" (
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/06/07/Kotlikoff.pdf)
"CAN IMMIGRATION, PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH, OR CAPITAL DEEPENING SAVE THE DAY?
Many members of the public as well as officials of the government presume that expanding immigration can cure what they take to be fundamentally a demographic problem. They are wrong on two counts. First, at heart, ours is not a demographic problem. Were there no fiscal policy in place promising, on average, $21,000 (and growing!) in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits to each American age 65 and older, our having a much larger share of oldsters in the United States would be of little economic concern.
Second, it is mistake to think that immigration can significantly alleviate the nation’s fiscal problem. The reality is that immigrants aren’t cheap. They require public goods and services. And they become eligible for transfer payments. While most immigrants pay taxes, these taxes barely cover the extra costs they engender. This, at least, is the conclusion reached by Auerbach and Oreopoulos (2000) in a careful generational accounting analysis of this issue."
Bush believes that continue population growth increases consumer demand and more economic growth. Take Texas, the oil boom has led to come paying jobs in Midland but Texas still has its old cheap labor illegal immirgant let in. Under Bush and a lot of Perry first term, the poverty rate skyrocket in Texas now its dropping since less Mexicans are coming in.
Well, also automation and Robots may kill millions of jobs handled by illegal immirgants. Bush is behind time. In 2020 maybe at least 30 percent of the farmwork done by illegal immirgants might disappear. Robots and machines could even effect maid jobs and janior jobs and construcation. The heyday of bringing in at least 4 to 5 million people illegality under Bush's watch may end because of automation. What would the Bushes do if about 2 million illegal immirgants went home to Mexico because their is no work.
Fortress India: India builds wall around neighboring Bangladesh to keep out immigrants
On the subject of the Alice in Wonderland world of American journalism and academia. WSJ has an interview with Harvey Mansfield in which he claims there are two parties in American politics. The American party and the "European" party. Which party is the "European"? Is it the party which gets the majority of white votes. Nope. The party which gets the majority of the black and the latino votes is the "european" party. Only in america.
The Crisis of American Self-Government
Harvey Mansfield, Harvard's 'pet dissenter,' on the 2012 election, the real cost of entitlements, and why he sees reason for hope.
'We have now an American political party and a European one. Not all Americans who vote for the European party want to become Europeans. But it doesn't matter because that's what they're voting for. They're voting for dependency, for lack of ambition, and for insolvency."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323751104578149292503121124.html
In 2025 George W Bush goes to the Chamber of Commerce their response sorry the robots are cheaper.
Bush has been all but in hiding for the last four years. When does he stick his nose out? To push for more immi-vasion. Shows you what he cares about more than anything else, doesn't it? The Worst President Ever is free to go fuck himself.
I actually think that this is a huge bst for the pro-enforcement side. In the public's mind, left and right, his name is associated with miserable failure. No one on the planet is more likely to embrace a policy because George W. Bush spoke up in its favor. Bush could make Santa Claus unpopular.
Bush's approach to government amounted goodies for everyone with no one expected to pay for them. Hispanics got full-on pandering including over support for bilingualism, Open Borders and the promise of Amnesty. The rich got tax cuts paid for by nothing. Corporations got cheap labor, "free" trade, and unlimited outsourcing. The poor got food stamps. The elderly got Medicare Plan D. People concerned with education go the NCLB mirage. Construction workers and the middle class go the housing bubble. The aspiring got illusions about the "ownership society". Wall Street got the license to kill (America) via financial deregulation. Neocons got fantasy wars to "democratically transform the Middle East".
It was all very nice and popular. Handouts (of one form or another) for everyone. It even politically worked. As I have stated Bush may have never won an election other than by accident, but he did do better than other Republicans.
However, it was a substantive disaster and a massive one. In real life, Bush failed at home, abroad, and on the border. He didn't just fail a little, he failed on a scale unmatched by any president since Hoover (Truman was actually less popular when he left office).
Why did Bush fail? It was all based on the idea that something for nothing actually works. Open Borders flooded America with poor people naturally aligned with the Democrats. Americans (of all races) were relentlessly forced out of the labor force (before the Crash of 2008). The poor of committed Democrats expanded steadily. The Bush tax cuts did nothing for growth but expanded the national debt. Bush's philosophy of outsourcing every job gutted the U.S. economy (and gave the Midwest to Obama). Bush's determination to replace every American worker with a cheaper immigrant crushed millions of workers who might have voted Republican in 2008 and 2012. Food stamp dependency exploded under Bush creating at least 14 million "natural Democrats". Medicare Plan D was never paid for (and still isn't) expanding the deficit. NCLB failed (Congress can't mandate achievement any more than it can change the Golden Ratio) but expanded Federal education spending.
Financial deregulation and the housing bubble ended with the worst crash since 1929. The economy has yet to recover and voters have yet to forgive the Republicans. Why should they? How many Republicans have even admitted that Bush's policies brought down America?
Of course, Bush's foreign wars were a debacle. A long story and beyond the scope of these comments. However, only a very delusional person could have ever thought that Iraq was a likely candidate for creating a liberal democratic nation committed to human rights, the rule of law, a market economy, peace with Israel, and amenable to large, permanent U.S. bases. It sounded nice, but ended in ruin. Of course, that the norm for Bush.
As with many of the old rich who mean well, he thinks that helping the downtrodden is very American, and the decent thing to do. And is sorta is.
Except that the helping comes at the expense of some other downtrodden people, who happen to be American already. That many of them are black only makes it more poignant.
Mass immigration to fill niche jobs -- what could make more sense?
Niche jobs?
Fast food, lawn care, janitors, ... etc.
So niche jobs mean jobs formerly held by teen, college students, and blacks?
The Bush family looked at all the nepotism and crony capitalism and general larceny that their Mexican elite friends got away with, so they decided it would be more fun to rule over Mexicans than these annoying, uppity, egalitarian Anglos.
It's crazy talk to say "George W. Bush" and "strategy" in the same sentence.
How does this prove he owns the GOP? That's like saying that because Steve gives speehes at the HBD foundation he founded that he controls population studies.
What the first 4 guys said. Any organization that has him come to speak is ipso facto corrupt/stupid.
"Dear God, what will it take: garlic, a stake thru the heart? What kind of wood does the stake have to be?"
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
laughing out loud for real at this one. bravo sir.
Is that Karl Rove's hand I see still moving George's mouth?
Where was all this hate back in 2004, when it could have done some good?
Risto
Bingo!
Risto
"Where was all this hate back in 2004, when it could have done some good?"
At www.iSteve.com
Yes. Thank you.
You get extra points for being right, right?
Risto
Not certain what would have happen if Kerry won, since the Dems were also involved in the housing messed. Maybe, the Republican Party would be different.
Where was all this hate back in 2004, when it could have done some good?
Risto
Right here.
"Where was all this hate back in 2004, when it could have done some good?"
I posted anti-GWB posts to RedState and got to around 75 posts (not just comments) before they kicked me off. Around that time, on r/w blogs, FreeRepublic, etc., opposing GWB wasn't exactly popular. Didn't see too many others getting my back. In fact, the only one I can think of off the top of my head was Michele Catalano.
Anywho, back to the present.
In case anyone wants to do something now, here's one fairly easy thing you can do:
1. Search Google News for stories where Jeb/GWB hype immigration.
2. Look up the reporter on Twitter.
3. Challenge the reporter for not asking about Jeb's/GWB's family motivations for increasing immigration. And, keep doing it and encourage others to do it.
4. Search Twitter for those who the reporter talks with, and point out to them that the reporter won't respond to you.
Well, Grover Norquist is just as bad on immirgation but now on the right he is a hero because he's against tax increases. Why being against tax incrases and bad on immirgation make you a hero I don't know. There are people that agree with him on taxes but hate his guts on Islam and immirgation in general.
Finally, Ronald Reagan is probably the worst villian on this, granted he was smarter on other issues than Bush. California was lost once Reagan issue the IRCA Act, he created the barrios of Los Angeles and West Anaheim and Santa Ana with the signing of a pen.
He reminds me of a cat pestering a canary.
No matter how much you 'punish' and scold the cat for its sins, the cat keeps doing what mother nature intended it to do.
In short, the cat is ineducable. No amount of training or persuasion will change anything.
I think when he said "bring 'em on", he ws talking about illegal aliens.
To be fair to Bush, in many cases he happened to come along at a time when various things were already happening and were going to happen anyway regardless of who was in power - kind of like Obama coming in in the midst of the recession. In many cases he backed policies intended to ameliorate what was happening. For example, with the hollowing out of American manufacturing, Bush countered with tarriffs and dumping cases that successfully saved the American steel industry from Chinese lead liquidation and transfer to Asia, His tax cuts, while undoubtedly slanted to the rich, were very pro-natalist and provided normal families a break of thousands of dollars just for being married or having a few kids, It was hard for them not to slant to the rich given where income distributions had gone during the 1980's and 1990's. NCLB allowed the creation of charter schools which give an out from NAM's for urban white parents from failing school districts and an alternative to the shrinking Catholic schools system whch have been in terminal collapse since around 1993 due to the second wave of urban demographic transformation (the first were the changes wrought by black rioting and from busing in 1966-1974).
As to illegal immigration, the real shock of this occurred in the mid to late 1990's, not under Bush. I still recall in the summer of 2000, visiting my family's small Indiana town of Bremen and finding it suddenly overrun by Mexicans when just 5 years earlier it was 100% white. When I asked what had happened, I was told the local owner of the major factory in town had died, and that his sons, who had moved away, had inherited it, fired most of the American workers, and brought in Mexicans to replace them just because they could make more money. Bush had nothing to do with that, and that is the story of illegal immigration all over the country in a nutshell. When Californians complain about Mexicans, it must be understood that there haven't been white people picking fruit and veggies since the 1930's. What happened in California politically and demographically in the early 1990's wasn't so much from illegal immigration as from white outflow caused by the collapse of the aero-space industry and the crisis in the computer chip industry (remember that?) and the ripple effect of that throughout the California economy. The recession of 1990-1992 was primarily a California recession, and the end result was an ongoing outflow of white Californians to other western states with more economic promise. These people were replaced as voters and residents not by a swarm of Mexicans, who in the main don't vote (and who in the main were accomodated by new construction in the inland empire, high desert, and central valley), but by a swarm of homosexuals and "creative" types who now completely dominate LA and San Francisco which provide the Democrats their atatewide margins. Look at San Francisco election returns as an example.
1976
Carter - 134K, Ford - 104K
1988
Dukakis - 202K, Bush - 73K
2000
Gore - 242K, Nader - 25K, Bush - 51K
2012
Obama - 302K, Romney - 47K
You won't fool me into thinking a transformation like that is because of Mexicans (who don't vote and don't live in San Francisco) or because of Bush in the 2000's (when the tranformation was complete by 1996).
"It's crazy talk to say "George W. Bush" and "strategy" in the same sentence."
Perhaps the best thing he did was to give us the word "strategery." I use it all the time to mean any sort of hapless, Keystone Cops sort of plan.
My google fu must be weak, I can't find the video clip, but I remember it vividly.
I'm a Johnny Cash fan, and have been since before his big "comeback" albums. I particularly liked his gospel influenced songs, including "When the Man Comes Around."
In '03 there was a video panegyric to George W., which was set to "When the Man Comes Around." My right wing friends ate it up, including the evangelicals (and other sincere if non-evangelic Christians).
IT DROVE ME CRAZY.
First off, while going into Afghanistan was inevitable, staying was not, and was a monstrous foreign policy blunder. Then the whole Iraq thing, which I said at the time was the most costly blunder in American foreign policy history---worse than Vietnam. (I am referencing Enghien's quote.)
Then there was the brute political tribalism overshadowing sincere religious belief. "When the Man Comes Around" is about the Messiah, and say what you will about W, he ain't the Messiah.
So the hate was here, Risto, the hate was here.
@"Fortress India": You know, I quite enjoyed that piece, even though you have to read 'past' the FP's bitter horror at it all.
I should really repent of these hateful Hobbesian lapses of mine-- sometimes I even think all that Adorno "authoritarian personality" crap may have a sliver of truth (do I internalize my father's raging certainties where I know it's wrong?), but if somebody says, "If you cross this border unannounced, we'll shoot you," and then they shoot you, is that really so wrong?
Not that I'm applying that reasoning to East Berlin, say. If you're leaving East Berlin, you've got Plato, Socrates, and Jesus Christ on your side. Liberty is a transcendent good.
But to take a 15 year old to a (presumably arranged) marriage? What a dumb chump. To cross the fence, furthermore, in full bridal regalia?
Sigh. Even Jesus must hate me for saying this, and George Romero will be dispatching a zombie ASAP to devour me, because this kind of wickedness is what "Dawn of the Dead" is all about, but: give the putzes a Darwin Award.
Let India be the shopping mall for Indians! (Brahmins--well, anyway . . . ) Gotta love a fortress.
Well you do have some points there, San Fran was not influence as much as La but La was influence more by changing demographics and they were not all gay. La was a swing county but it is now 48 percent hispanic and only 28 percent white and 14 percent asian. Both hispanics and asians vote Democratic. Also, a lot of the illegal immirgant population of La entered before 1980 and according to Fair about 350,000 were at least legalized under Reagan. Orange is another example not too many liberal or gay people outside of Laguna Beach were interested in Orange County Bush only received 59 percent and Romeny according to win every vote for account only 51 percent. Both hispanics that came early to the OC during Reagan and Clinton were legalized and so are their children and grandchildren like La its now 34 percent hispanic.Also, the OC is now 18 precent Asian, so hispanic and Asian changes in population count as much as liberal or gay people.
Pete Wilson received 67 and 63 in Orange and San Diego in 1994, yeah its the demographics baby not just liberal whites or gays.
He means replace niche people. Our kids, our posterity, our nation. For money. Except the invaders won't create net wealth.
Leave it to a neocon to advise national suicide in the name of anti-racism and cash.
Gore Vidal said it took everything he had inside him not to make it his last act on earth to arrange for a White House invitation and then gun Dubya down in cold blood. He admirably mastered his civic passion. I don't think, however, that his political opinion is confined only to the late writer. Meaning, don't bet on a GOP landslide in the next two or three election cycles. The stink isn't off. It hasn't even begun to go away.
CHIHUAHUA CITY, Mexico — The North American Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994, has been the key driver of Mexico’s economic and social transformation of the past 20 years, analysts say.
NAFTA at first brought an explosion of low-skill-labor factories to the Mexican side of the U.S. border. By the mid-2000s, the trade pact had triggered an increasingly sophisticated manufacturing base that now reaches across Mexico’s 31 states.
“What we’re seeing now is a growth of industry in Mexico that requires more engineers,” said Christopher Wilson, an associate with the Mexico Institute at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
“To put a name on it, specifically, we’re talking about automobiles and aerospace,” Mr. Wilson said. “Mexico is now graduating more engineers than Germany every year.”
A 40 percent jump in Mexico’s per capita gross domestic product since the inception of NAFTA has brought with it an increasingly robust middle class.
“What that means is Mexicans are becoming more educated, and there is more investment in children, which is why you are able to see the development of an aerospace sector,” Mr. Wilson said.
Poverty rate nearly halved
About 47 percent of Mexico’s 115 million people live in poverty, down dramatically from the 80 percent rate half a century ago. Today, 98 percent of homes have electricity, and more than 4 million people study at the university level each year.
Through early 2012, the nation of 112 million had an unemployment rate of roughly 5 percent.
The per capita salary of about $15,000 ranks the country 81 out of 195 nations.
North of the border, however, NAFTA’s reputation remains a topic of heated debate. From the onset, when 1992 U.S. presidential candidate Ross Perot, an independent, described the “giant sucking sound” that would be heard if the agreement were implemented, critics have long decried the flight of U.S. manufacturing jobs to Mexico.
U.S. unemployment is running above 8 percent.
Some NAFTA critics point to less publicized impacts wrought by the trade agreement.
“During the first few yeas, there was a massive overhaul of Mexico’s agricultural trade rules through NAFTA,” said Todd Tucker, who heads Global Trade Watch at the Washington-based nonprofit advocacy organization Public Citizen.
“This meant small-scale Mexican farmers were massively displaced by subsidized imports from companies in the United States,” Mr. Tucker said. “That led to overcrowding in cities, as well as new immigration into the United States.”
To address the displacement, the Mexican government attempted to create jobs programs in rural areas. But NAFTA had granted large U.S. companies new powers to challenge such programs on grounds they interfere with potential profits.
One such challenge in 2009 saw a NAFTA tribunal order the Mexican government to pay $77.3 million in damages to the U.S.-based agribusiness giant Cargill, a maker and marketer of high-fructose-corn-syrup products.
““The downside [to the United States], and I say this as a dedicated free-trader, is that Mexico is now on the verge of cutting into the higher-skilled manufacturing, design and engineering jobs,” he added.
“That raises the implication that the U.S. needs to invest in infrastructure, so that … the U.S. higher-skilled manufacturing and design jobs don’t head south.”
Twitter
The last post is sure there are still a lot of rural folks that are poor in Mexico but why should we have to take their people in all the time. If a few jobs make 6 dolalrs an hr and about 10 years old we had plenty of them ourselves 10 years ago and some jobs today in many states just pay around 7.35 per hr.
WHY EXACTLY is Bush so OBSESSED with immigration, especially from Mexico, anyways?
"WHY EXACTLY is Bush so OBSESSED with immigration, especially from Mexico, anyways?"
'cause Rove says he can buy Mexican votes by having a Republican let them into the country.
In your next column Steve, explain why the average so-called "Conservative" supported Bush I, Bush II, and is hankering for Bush III to run.
Face it, Bush, Ford, Dole, Bush II, McCain, Romney, the C-of-C, the WSJ Op-ed page, and the whole Open-borders lobby IS the Republican Party and always has been. Union busting, cheap labor, anything for a buck.
Reagan was the freak, the aberration.
Well, actually Reagan was for more cheap labor compared to Ford or Dole. As for unions Midwest Ford or Kansas DOle were probably less hostile than Reagan who broke up the air traffic controllers. Reagan of course did the legalization process because agri-business needed the workers and he even mention it. The Fords, Doles and Nixons and Eisenhowers were better than the fiscal cons on immirgation or wages.
whiskey wrote, "It's crazy talk to say "George W. Bush" and "strategy" in the same sentence."
Too bad you didn't realize this back in January 2003.
"To be fair to Bush, in many cases he happened to come along at a time when various things were already happening and were going to happen anyway regardless of who was in power..." - Andrew
WTF? After 9/11, Bush could easily have decided to enforce the immigration laws and sealed the border. Instead he decided to invade Iraq.
Bush had power. How he decided to use it, to make two major push's for amnesty - once while the Republicans still had a congressional majority, and once after his mismanagement obliterated that majority - is a matter of historical fact.
Mr. Bush had an impressive record of success as president of the United States, and any policy he advocates should be considered in light of that.
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