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Interesting press publications: WSJ....Lou Dobbs.

Lou Dobbs Takes On the World
The good thing about his demagoguery: It can't be taken seriously.

BY DANIEL HENNINGER
Friday, March 5, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

Not too long ago, the people who watch Lou Dobbs's evening business program on CNN tuned into see someone who looked just like Lou Dobbs ranting about free trade and corporations that outsource jobs--"Exporting America," he calls it. This didn't compute. The Lou Dobbs everyone thought they knew was a font of economic reason.
Every night of the week now, no matter how big or small the rest of the day's news, the Lou nobody knew finds time to kvetch about outsourcing, "cheap overseas labor" and about a Nafta free-trade agreement that flung open the door to "illegal aliens" whom he's happy to routinely identify as "Mexicans." On a recent program, as if he were doing talk radio at 2 a.m. in Youngstown, he said, "Many critics of Mexico's economy refer to what's called the mañana syndrome, putting off work until tomorrow," as his introduction to some unrelated remarks by Alan Greenspan.
He's got a Web site that lists "more than 350 corporations we've confirmed are exporting America." He reads letters from viewers who wonder "why are we importing beef." The new Lou mocks Adam Smith and David Ricardo--"economists who lived 200 years ago." He invites in liberal Democrats, such as Senators Hillary Clinton and Max Baucus, to share ideas on a "plan" to keep America's jobs "at home."
Old admirers are aghast. It's as if whatever made Linda Blair's head spin around in "The Exorcist" had invaded the body of Lou Dobbs and left him with the brain of Dennis Kucinich. No public figure has moved so far left so fast since the transfiguration of Arianna Huffington. So who is this wild and crazy guy in the dark suit, white shirt and dark tie and where did he come from? Since Lou Dobbs is on television, I can't answer who he is, but I think I know where he's coming from.
For starters, Lou Dobbs isn't an economist; he's a television performer. As such what Lou is doing would satisfy economic rationalists from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman. "Exporting America" has little to do with economics but everything to do with Lou Dobbs's economic self-interest.
Every program that appears on the broadcast networks and on 46 cable channels--from Animal Planet to all-news cable--is measured for audience size by A.C. Nielsen. And Nielsen purports to tell its network clients whether a program's audience rises or falls every 15 minutes. Because advertiser revenue tracks the mercury in Nielsen's audience barometer, TV executives can quote these ratings from memory--for their own and each competitor's programs. It is a competitive, brutal, even crazy market. But it's the market Lou Dobbs has to swim in.
While most TV viewers seem to understand the crypto-reality of the ratings when sitcoms get pulled off the air, even sophisticated viewers lull themselves into thinking cable news is, you know, news, that it's somehow above the grimy cash-flow imperative to "deliver audience" that rules prime-time on NBC or CBS. But if that were true, Connie Chung would still be on CNN.
Now, all that said, it is entirely possible that Lou Dobbs fell off his horse on the road back from Space.com, and now believes with the faith of Saul of Tarsus that outsourcing is the root of all evil. But as an economic rationalist, I have to believe that Lou Dobbs is ranting nightly about "cheap overseas labor" as a pure ratings play. It's about the money. And it makes perfect sense: Companies outsource to protect their market share, and Lou attacks outsourcing to protect his market share.
What's weird is what a lonely fight it turns out to be. On the programs I've watched, hardly anyone, including CNN, seems willing to join master and commander Lou on his three-masted outsourcing schooner.
This Tuesday, after Lou described "the shipment of hundreds of thousands of high-tech jobs to cheap foreign labor markets," a CNN reporter's piece on the outsourcing of computer jobs bowed in Lou's direction, then quoted an industry source who says they still can't meet the demand here for programmers. Later, after Lou teed up Ohio's manufacturing job losses, a CNN reporter found evidence to blame Ohio itself--its crummy educational performance and an uncompetitive tax structure with nine income-tax brackets. (If this amazing even-handedness keeps up, CNN will be the network letting us decide.)
Lou's guest was the hyper-liberal Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, once a stronghold of unionized mining. But Sen. Baucus was a globalized moderate compared to his host. After Lou grumbled about "corporate America" having responsibilities "that extend beyond a quarterly profit statement," the Montana liberal said, "We can't as Americans bury our heads in the sand, we cannot put up barriers." Lou ended the show by arguing with two letter-writers who disagree with him.
The next night, Lou's guest was Hillary Clinton, who like Sen. Baucus sensed the need to emigrate from Louville. Lou noted that "your husband's administration was a leading proponent" of free trade, as if outing an Albigensian heretic. Lou attacked something called Tata Consultancy in Buffalo, "a well-known outsourcer." "I know they outsource jobs," the senator replied with the patience of Job, "but they've brought jobs to Buffalo. You know, outsourcing does work both ways." Lou wanted to know if John Kerry has been strong enough on "stopping outsourcing." The senator offered a reassuring answer yes and added, "I'm not in favor of putting up fences around the country." As the show ended, Lou announced that the French Senate had voted to ban Islamic headscarves.
The ratings are up and we hope they stay up. On two hours earlier than "The Factor," Lou Dobbs doesn't get in the way of any basketball games. And unlike O'Reilly, "Exporting America" is a boatload of straight-faced fun. And I think Lou Dobbs knows it.
 
Great article. I have been suspecting the same of this Lou Dobbs guy. He is purely playing it for the ratings.
 
Good article but Lou ain't goin anywhere

Although i agree with the article, i feel that Lou is discriminating skilled immigrants in the greatest possible extent. The problem is most americans agree to his ranting even though he doesn't make any sense. Sometimes his sensible guests argue that he's wrong about unemployment. At that point he would just call "CUT" so that the guests points don't go forward. The fat son of a b!tch claims that 13 million americans are unemployed. Moron should know nearly 3/4ths of that count is due to laziness and food stamps. He is so despicable, that i have stopped watching CNN in the evenings.
 
Re: Good article but Lou ain't goin anywhere

Originally posted by Indian_in_USA
Although i agree with the article, i feel that Lou is discriminating skilled immigrants in the greatest possible extent. The problem is most americans agree to his ranting even though he doesn't make any sense. Sometimes his sensible guests argue that he's wrong about unemployment. At that point he would just call "CUT" so that the guests points don't go forward. The fat son of a b!tch claims that 13 million americans are unemployed. Moron should know nearly 3/4ths of that count is due to laziness and food stamps. He is so despicable, that i have stopped watching CNN in the evenings.
Click to expand...

Absolutely agree. Lou Dobbs is a very anti-immigrant person. he did his best to disgrace immigrants and mislead average american on immigrant issues.

as to his so called "exporting america" program, he is just more concerned about creating jobs in India and China rather than losing jobs in US.
 
Nice article with a sense of humor

The presidency: Way too important to entrust to Americans



Bill Maher

is host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher

Arnold Schwarzenegger recently said he supported a constitutional amendment to allow
foreign-born Americans to run for president. At first I was puzzled by the California governor's
interest in this issue, but then I discovered a little-known fact about the man: He was born in
Austria. You'd never know it from hearing him talk, but then he is a highly skilled actor.

And he makes a good point: The U.S. Constitution is full of silly, outdated stuff about separating
church and state and not putting you in jail without a trial. It's full of lots of 18th-century slang.

And one of the silliest things of all is the part where it says foreigners can't be president. Arnold's
right. The problem with presidents today is that they come off as a little too - American. We've got
that whole cowboy "bring it on" thing goin'. What we need is a presidency injected with a little
sensitivity and worldly sophistication. And who better to deliver that than the grab-and-grope
action hero from Jingle All the Way? Schwarzenegger mentioned the German-born Henry Kissinger
as someone who would have made a great president had the Constitution not stood in the way -
as if that ever stopped Kissinger.

Quite frankly, I think of foreigners as more educated and more socially progressive when it comes
to issues such as abortion, euthanasia, birth control, the environment, religion, marriage,
materialism, nuclear disarmament, poverty, human rights, and life on Earth as we know it. They
generally speak at least two languages and have, by definition, traveled outside the United
States.

They're also less likely to wear spurs and a 4-foot-tall, lime-green Styrofoam cowboy hat to an
international conference and call everybody they meet there "Shooter"! Foreigners can't run for
president? I believe only foreigners should run for president.

American presidents are like American beer - bland, watered down, and advertised to us as if
we're morons. They come from boring places such as Hope, Ark., Yorba Linda, Calif., and that town
in Texas where President Bush was born: New Haven, Conn.

Face it, the presidency is a lousy job. And who does lousy jobs we don't want anymore better
than foreigners?

The guy we've got doing it now works only part time. He spends half the day raising money from
mining companies and the other half telling schoolchildren that al-Qaeda wants them dead, and
he's in bed by 7!

The average Frenchman knows more geography than we do. The average Japanese knows more
math. And the average Guatemalan is already here, cleaning your house and taking care of your
kids. If we can trust them with our children, why not the White House? They can run it and clean it.

As a history buff, I've noticed that of all the worst presidents in U.S. history, every single one was
an American. Doesn't anyone see a pattern here? Nixon, Carter, Hoover - down the line - all
native-born Americans. Which only goes to show that sometimes ethnic profiling - well, sometimes
it's just a matter of common sense.

Just once I'd like my president, the nation's president, to be like one of those presidents Italy
always has, with the expensive suits and the permanent tan and the Versace mistress, and
there's photos of them canoodling on a boat, but nobody cares, because hey, that's amore. Our
guy gets impeached. In Italy, the stock market goes up.

It comes down to this: British people just sound better than we do. When they ask Tony Blair
about weapons of mass destruction, the stuff he pulls out of his hat always sounds so much
better than the stuff Bush pulls out of his hat. We're Americans; don't we deserve the best?

It's too late to undo the injustice that kept foreign-born presidential timber such as Madeleine
Albright and William Shatner out of the White House. But think of the future!

The job of president is just too important to be left to an American.


This first appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
 
USCIS AT WORK!

Immigration Worker, Chilean Plead Guilty to Selling Phony Work Permits


By Larry Lebowitz, The Miami Herald Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Mar. 10 - A U.S. immigration employee and a Chilean accomplice pleaded guilty Tuesday to selling at least 110 phony work permits to other illegal immigrants.

Isidro Guerrero Fernandez, 32, and his twice-deported street recruiter, Miguel Raggio, 50, generated more than $1 million from the scheme, according to investigators with the Department of Homeland Security inspector general.

Guerrero, who was studying to become a Homeland Security special agent at the time of his arrest, is looking at five to seven years in prison based on the plea terms and sentencing guidelines.

Raggio, who was deported as recently as 2000 for illegally entering the United States, is looking at four years in prison. U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan set sentencing for June 11.

Prosecutor Marie Villafana said Raggio and a third defendant would recruit illegal immigrants who needed work papers to stay in the country and obtain jobs.

Raggio would pick up the bribes, ranging from $5,500 to $6,500, at a fast-food restaurant across from the Immigration and Naturalization Service building. Guerrero would take the clients to the front of the line and produce their photo IDs.

Most of the false papers were sold to illegal immigrants from Argentina, the Middle East and Africa, said Homeland Security agents Brian Dennison and Jennifer Duey.

Guerrero and Raggio forfeited cars, cash and luxury goods.

Remaining defendant Vivian Ciarrochi is scheduled to start trial on April 4 -- even though she confessed to agents and wore a wire to help them make a case against Raggio.

-----
 
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Zero sum game

Check out this article on the NY Times regarding Ashcroft weighing granting of asylum to abused women.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/11/politics/11IMMI.html

While the intention is laudable, what is interesting is the naivity regarding potential abuse (or is it PC?) on part of the mainstream media coupled with the complete ignorance of the fact that with BCIS, it is always a zero sum game. Every sop is invariably to the detriment of EB applicants.
 
One for our Indian friends

Listing, so you need not register!
March 11, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Great Indian Dream
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
ANGALORE, India

Nine years ago, as Japan was beating America's brains out in the auto industry, I wrote a column about playing a computer geography game with my daughter, then 9 years old.
I was trying to help her with a clue that clearly pointed to Detroit, so I asked her, "Where are cars made?" And she answered, "Japan." Ouch.

Well, I was reminded of that story while visiting an Indian software design firm in Bangalore, Global Edge. The company's marketing manager, Rajesh Rao, told me he had just
made a cold call to the vice president for engineering of a U.S. company, trying to drum up business. As soon as Mr. Rao introduced himself as calling from an Indian software firm, the U.S. executive said to him, "Namaste" — a common Hindi greeting. Said Mr. Rao: "A few years ago nobody in America wanted to talk to us. Now they are eager."
And a few even know how to say hi in proper Hindu fashion. So now I wonder: if I have a randdaughter one day, and I tell her I'm going to India, will she say, "Grandpa, is that where software comes from?"

Driving around Bangalore you might think so. The Pizza Hut billboard shows a steaming pizza under the headline "Gigabites of Taste!" Some traffic signs are sponsored by Texas Instruments. And when you tee off on the first hole at Bangalore's KGA golf course, your playing partner points at two new glass-and-steel buildings in the distance and says:"Aim at either Microsoft or I.B.M."

How did India, in 15 years, go from being a synonym for massive poverty to the brainy country that is going to take all our best jobs? Answer: good timing, hard work, talent and luck.

The good timing starts with India's decision in 1991 to shuck off decades of socialism and move toward a free-market economy with a focus on foreign trade. This made it possible for Indians who wanted to succeed at innovation to stay at home, not go to the West. This, in turn, enabled India to harvest a lot of its natural assets for the age of globalization.

One such asset was Indian culture's strong emphasis on education and the widely held belief here that the greatest thing any son or daughter could do was to become a doctor or an engineer, which created a huge pool of potential software technicians. Second, by accident of history and the British occupation of India, most of those engineers were educated in English and could easily communicate with Silicon Valley. India was also neatly on the other side of the world from America, so U.S. designers could work during
the day and e-mail their output to their Indian subcontractors in the evening. The Indians would then work on it for all of their day and e-mail it back. Presto: the 24-hour workday.

Also, this was the age of globalization, and the countries that succeed best at globalization are those that are best at "glocalization" — taking the best global innovations, styles and practices and melding them with their own culture, so they don't feel overwhelmed. India has been naturally glocalizing for thousands of years.

Then add some luck. The dot-com bubble led to a huge overinvestment in undersea fiber-optic cables, which made it dirt-cheap to transfer data, projects or phone calls to far-flung places like India, where Indian techies could work on them for much lower wages than U.S. workers. Finally, there was Y2K. So many companies feared that their
computers would melt down because of the Year 2000 glitch they needed software programmers to go through and recode them. Who had large numbers of programmers to do that cheaply? India. That was how a lot of Indian software firms got their first outsourced jobs.

So if you are worried about outsourcing, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that a unique techno-cultural-economic perfect storm came together in the early 1990's to make India a formidable competitor and partner for certain U.S. jobs — and there are not a lot of other Indias out there. The bad news, from a competition point of
view, is that there are 555 million Indians under the age of 25, and a lot of them want a piece of "The Great Indian Dream," which is a lot like the American version.

As one Indian exec put it to me: The Americans' self-image that this tech thing was their private preserve is over. This is a wake-up call for U.S. workers to redouble their efforts at education and research. If they do that, he said, it will spur "a whole new cycle of innovation, and we'll both win. If we each pull down our shutters, we will both lose."
 
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Originally posted by Pineapple
Zero sum game

Check out this article on the NY Times regarding Ashcroft weighing granting of asylum to abused women.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/11/politics/11IMMI.html

While the intention is laudable, what is interesting is the naivity regarding potential abuse (or is it PC?) on part of the mainstream media coupled with the complete ignorance of the fact that with BCIS, it is always a zero sum game. Every sop is invariably to the detriment of EB applicants.
Click to expand...

He is the same Attorney General that threatened Mobsters when Spitting!

http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2001/agcrisisremarks10_25.htm
 
I want to write a letter to the editor of plain dealer about the third rate treatment that employment based legal immigrants are getting. I need some information on the wide gap between the number of cases received per month and the processing speed.
I know that we have the tracker which has status reports updated on a monthly basis. I am not sure how I can get this data . If someone has any ideas I would appreciate.
 
I have stopped watching CNN totally because of the stupid person Lou Dobb, he is just plain anti-immigrant.

I guess if CNN gets it they should either ask him to stop this anti-immigrant talk or give him a boot.

There was some petition from Sulekha.com website for the same, not sure if they ever got response from CNN.

My new show is O'Reilly Factor at least this guy admits when he is wrong and does not criticize people unfairly.

I am with Lou when he speaks for the illegal immigrants, but atleast he should give credit for the people who have worked so hard to become legal immigrants.
 
Originally posted by forum123
I have stopped watching CNN totally because of the stupid person Lou Dobb, he is just plain anti-immigrant.

I guess if CNN gets it they should either ask him to stop this anti-immigrant talk or give him a boot.

There was some petition from Sulekha.com website for the same, not sure if they ever got response from CNN.

My new show is O'Reilly Factor at least this guy admits when he is wrong and does not criticize people unfairly.

I am with Lou when he speaks for the illegal immigrants, but atleast he should give credit for the people who have worked so hard to become legal immigrants.
Click to expand...

Yesterday, lou invited a environment professor who is strongly against immigration (including legal). you know what, the reason is air pollution and population growth!!! wow, lou is attacking immigrants from 360 angles.

Anther person he invited from california had the following beautiful argument supporting lou's and her anti-immigrant position. she said the company, instead of spending money hiring high skilled alien workers, should invest the money to education of american kids so that their children could take those hi-tech jobs in the future.

lou, good job!!! keep trying!!!
 
Something funny

A couple of weeks ago, I read an orbituary in the Economist, for Eddie Clontz, editor-in-chief of Weekly World News, and a "master of tabloid journalism", who came up with such memorable headlines as 'SEVEN CONGRESSMEN ARE ZOMBIES!' and 'TINY TERRORISTS DISGUISED AS GARDEN GNOMES!'.

Anyway, "Under the pseudonym “Ed Anger”, he wrote a News column so vitriolically right-wing that it possibly came from the left. Anger hated foreigners, yoga, whales, speed limits and pineapple on pizza; he liked flogging, electrocutions and beer. ................ The result of this was that many readers appeared to believe Mr Clontz's stories. Letters poured in, especially from the conservative and rural parts of the country where Ed Anger's columns struck a chord. If a sensible man like Anger kept company with aliens and 20-pound cucumbers, perhaps those stories too were true."

Well, while "Ed" will certainly seem familiar in some of the over-the-top programs and shows on TV today, its important to remember that most viewers are intelligent enough to know what to take seriously. As for the few who do... well.. some people took "Ed" seriously too, so I guess some things just can't be helped. :D

So, relax ......
 
AMISH

Even the Amish are suffering the effects of Security Checks!

Curtesy of "www.visalaw.com"

An unnamed Amish man who went to visit his sick father in Ontario, Canada in December was not allowed to reenter the US because he had no photo identification with him. The Amish, who do not allow pictures to be taken because of the Bible’s prohibition of graven images, have previously been granted photo waivers. However, these waivers have been discontinued due to security concerns.
 
Mercury News / USCIS Workshop

Citizenship information workshop: The USCIS has scheduled a workshop in Cupertino titled,
``Overview of Naturalization.''

The workshop will be from 1 to 3 p.m. April 20, at the Cupertino Senior Center, 21251 Stevens Creek Blvd.
The session will be conducted in English, with Chinese translation.

Although the workshop is free, the public is asked to confirm attendance by calling the reservation line:
(408) 918-3986.


Send your questions to immigration@ mercurynews.com or fax us at (408) 288-8060. You can also write to
us at: Immigrant Experience, San Jose Mercury News, Newsroom, 750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, Calif.
95190. Please include your name, daytime phone number and city of residence.
 
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