Having hit his stride in the polls, Barack Obama seems to clutch
the teleprompter less tightly these days. He looked relaxed as he
addressed the subject of “immigration reform” on Tuesday and even
attempted a semi-cavalier joke at the expense of those concerned
about America’s porous borders. “Maybe they’ll need a moat,” he
said, dismissing their calls for more border security. “Maybe they
want alligators in the moat.”
George W. Bush had broached the idea of de facto amnesty
shortly before 9/11, then the subject vanished. A joke about
alligators in moats wouldn’t have been welcome in the days after
Osama bin Laden hit the country. But now that he is gone, Obama can
make one and try his hand at the issue of illegal
immigration.
In his speech in El Paso, he downplayed concerns about
border insecurity while insisting that he has responded to them
effectively: “the truth is the measures we’ve put in place are
getting results. Over the past two and a half years, we’ve seized
31 percent more drugs, 75 percent more currency, 64 percent more
weapons than ever before. And even as we have stepped up
patrols, apprehensions along the border have been cut by nearly 40
percent from two years ago. That means far fewer people are
attempting to cross the border illegally.”
Would he have done any of this on his own without the
political backlash to open borders? No, but he sounds at times as
if he did. He followed, not led, on the issue, yet says those who
saw a problem on the borders where he didn’t are still crying
wolf.
The crowd to whom he was appealing with his moat joke
found his listing of border security accomplishments beside the
point. As he began to say that he had complied with requests to
build a fence, an audience member shouted, “Tear it down.” As he
referenced those calling for more measures, another audience member
shouted, “They’re racist.”
Later in the speech, Obama invited this audience to “add
your voices to this debate” and “sign up to help at
whitehouse.gov.”
Obama presents himself as a forthright leader of
“immigration reform” even as he avoids defining reform in open
terms. Still having to follow the public a bit, he has to couch his
calls for what amounts to selective amnesty between vaguely
reassuring lines about the importance of enforcing the law and the
“responsibility” that illegal immigrants bear. This sounds like he
wants current laws enforced, but he doesn’t, at least not
consistently. He considers these laws unjust and wants them
discarded. That’s what is meant by reform.
Another rhetorical sleight of hand in the speech was to
mix the issue of illegal immigration into a safer enthusiasm for
America as a nation of immigrants. To oppose “reform” that
accommodates illegal immigration is not to deny the benefits of
legal immigration. But Obama tries to leave that
implication.
“[T]he flow of immigrants has helped make this country
stronger and more prosperous. We can point to the genius of
Einstein, the designs of I.M. Pei, the stories of Isaac Asimov, the
entire industries that were forged by Andrew Carnegie,” he said, as
if to place the flow of illegal immigrants on the same
plane.
One would think a speech in El Paso might have honed in on
the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico, but Obama seemed more
interested in talking about immigrants in the high-tech industry,
as if the issue under discussion was whether or not to let geniuses
from India and Asian countries work at Google.
“We should make it easier for the best and the brightest
to not only stay here, but also to start businesses and create jobs
here. In recent years, a full 25 percent of high-tech startups in
the U.S. were founded by immigrants,” he said. “That led to 200,000
jobs here in America. I’m glad those jobs are here. I want to see
more of them created in this country. We need to provide them the
chance.”
Opposition to “comprehensive immigration reform” is hardly
stuck on that issue, but it is easier for Obama to push on open
doors like that one than to talk about the real problems of an open
border.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 5.12.11 @ 6:18AM
While Obama was making that speech, the Department of Homeland Security was dropping deportation orders in Texas by the thousands. It is estimated that in the Houston, Texas district alone, 17,000 illegals will have their deportations stopped.
This is typical Obama. Come before the public claiming you're doing everything you can, while working behind the scenes for totally different results than you pronounced before the public.
In essence, Obama is a pathological liar on a grand scale and this alone will ensure he's a one term quasi-President.
http://www.chron.com/disp/stor.....69978.html
Massive backlog of cases
Opponents of illegal immigration were critical of the dismissals.
"They've made clear that they have no interest in enforcing immigration laws against people who are not convicted criminals," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for strict controls.
"This situation is just another side effect of President Obama's failure to deliver on his campaign promise to make immigration reform a priority in his first year," said U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "Until he does, state and local authorities are left with no choice but to pick up the slack for prosecuting and detaining criminal aliens."
Gonzalez called the dismissals a necessary step in unclogging a massive backlog in the immigration court system. In June, there were more than 248,000 cases pending in immigration courts across the country, including about 23,000 in Texas, according to data compiled by researchers at Syracuse University.
SpiralArchitect| 5.12.11 @ 2:11PM
And even as we have stepped up patrols, apprehensions along the border have been cut by nearly 40 percent from two years ago. That means far fewer people are attempting to cross the border illegally
Total Lie.
Links about us cutting action along border:
http://www.google.com/search?h.....aql;=&oq;=
http://www.local2544.org/
btims| 5.12.11 @ 6:39AM
Simply saying "illegal immigration bad", "legal immigration good" is simplistic and does not address many of the concerns of the American people.
Most (nearly all) Americans want English as the official language. Most Americans do not want Islamic Sharia Law creeping into our hometowns via lawyers and lobby groups pressuring city hall.
And as far as questions, is Mexico going to empty itself out, sending all their peasants to the US? Why? This is not normal immigration, it is national economic/social policy of the govt of Mexico.
In 1965, the US govt passed laws to give foreigners the final say as to who and how many of them come to the USA. The American people are not in control. The political elites and their constituency of foreigners (potential immigrants) are the ones controlling US immigration policy.
That's why what we as the American people say, have next to no influence on the matter.
john| 5.15.11 @ 2:23PM
An INS friend tells me that 1000nds of Somalis (illiterates and who think running water is a miracle) come in under the guise of " family reunion" sponsored by Somalis already living here. A DNA test done by the INS shows that 90% is lied about, the INS knows about it and does NOTHING about it, according to my INS friend!
Dave| 5.12.11 @ 6:44AM
We can point to the genius of Einstein, the designs of I.M. Pei, the stories of Isaac Asimov, the entire industries that were forged by Andrew Carnegie,"
A lot of Mexicans in that list!
alice moore| 5.12.11 @ 6:57AM
Dave, all of them were legal as well.
Dave| 5.12.11 @ 7:16AM
Good point Alice. Here in the People's Republic of Maryland, our esteemed Governor just signed into law in state tuition for illegals! There is going to be a terrible price to pay for having millions in this country that have no allegiance to the USA or emotional attachment to our history, and have no interest in being Americans. When I see Mexican flags on cars and trucks I want to puke. You want to speak Spanish and be a Mexican? I know a good place you can go to do that!
Bob K.| 5.12.11 @ 7:53AM
And not one of them was eligible for "affirmative action" either.
How about that!
Occam's Tool| 5.12.11 @ 2:22PM
Einstein came to the US AFTER winning the Nobel. Not a hard choice on immigration law.
Dee See| 5.12.11 @ 7:34AM
"We are using MASSIVE third world
immigration to destroy British culture
once and for all ---forever."
-TONY BLAIR
(Daily Mail cited by Alan Watt online)
----And so Europe, so America.
In a nation with a REAL unemployment rate
surely pushing 20%, HOW can we afford the
probably 30 MILLION (unofficial, hence REAL, figure) illegal workers and
their welfare support?
We need to STOP being shy about rebuking
and exposing NOT the poor, put upon underpaid serfs
---but those who use them.
THEY are complicit in the unfolding destruction
of our country no mokre ---NO LESS.
And for those of us who didn't catch it the first time, NOT ONLY is Arizona about to be carved
up into a mini-Mexico 'buffer zone' ---BUT
Janet Napolitano has secretly signed some
80 MILLION Mexicans into 'trusted traveller'
(ie green card lite) status.
NONE of this getting ANY sustained critical
attention from Rockefeller fronts ---such as A.S.?
And beyond this, remember, the globalists
deliberately steered even their cheap manufacturing needs away from south of our border ----and ACROSS the Pacific to the awesomely genocidal RED Chinese realm.
The state of Mexico as we write speaks for itself.
Now, go to the mirror and whisper --'TREASON'
three times.
HUAC meets NUREMBERG 2012.
SPREAD THE WORD
Melvin| 5.12.11 @ 7:54AM
How do you remove National identity from the argument? By diluting the National identity, with a massive influx of citizens preferably from third world countries, and who are uneducated.
This does two things. It reduces in what being an American or Englishman is, because the government allows the third world citizen to retain and even foster their birth countries identity.
Secondarily it puts a economic burden upon the legal citizens by the government giving away massive amounts of tax payers dollars or pounds in social services.
Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown allowed East Africans to immigrate to England in massive numbers and now the amount that England is paying for social services has become economically unsustainable because there is more takers than producers.
George Bush and Barrack Obama are ditto with England because the same immigration policies are drowning the United States in economic debt, in which California is the poster child for massive social services debt brought upon by the massive influx of illegal border crossers form Mexico. The National identity of being a US citizen and Californian is being replaced with the chant of, "California will return to Mexico as it's newest State of Azitlan."
Melvin| 5.12.11 @ 7:58AM
I almost forgot. I'm beginning to think about England's and the United States immigration policies or lack of being similar in nature.
It almost seems that this is something that the Globalists and the United Nations cooked up. Because at the time the United States and England were considered to be the richest industrialized Countries.
Mimi| 5.12.11 @ 7:55AM
We've always had "PROBLEMS" , every country has them and somehow they always get solved. NOW we have a fiscal hemorrhage and a PRANCING KID for President! The immigration problem is now escalating to DRUG WAR chaos....and jokes from the PRANCING KID about moats and alligators ! Even the Democrats are getting scared and worried....How can they even think of NOMINATING him , let alone asking the WISED - UP folks to re-elect him. It is TIME to stop the bleeding, change coarse, and RECTIFY mistakes. Pitifully I see no "SMARTS" coming from this Whitehouse!
Melvin| 5.12.11 @ 7:58AM
Juveniles electing a juvenile.
qwilly| 5.12.11 @ 8:01AM
It is impossible for a non citizen to have a real concern for what real AMERICAN CITIZENS FEEL. Sorry mr president you werent so blessed.
Mel Torme| 5.12.11 @ 8:05AM
"To oppose "reform" that accommodates illegal immigration is not to deny the benefits of legal immigration."
How about " to oppose amnesty (call it what it is) is not to condone letting > 1 million third world people into America every year either."
I can see that the Spectator.org folks put a different headline, on the index page, for your article than what you wrote, so maybe I am speaking to them, not you, Mr. Neumayr:
I don't think it's helpful at all to Americans to import entire Somali villages to Minnesota. A large majority of the legal immigration is from countries of the third world. Let's just disregard the economics of this (people signed their "family reunification"-imported parents up for disability and such the day after they get their green cards) and the huge costs for the already-worthless government schools (trying to teach Americans while the other 1/2 the class doesn't know English), etc. Disregard all that by taking the idiotic advice of Mr. Ross Kaminsky, the hedge-fund trader (though he's been right on other subjects). But, just humor him here for a minute.
We still have the problem of people from many other cultures turning American into a Yugoslavia. Yes, they lasted 40-50 years over there, but only due to a tyrannical leader (Mr. Tito). Oh, wait, you've got one of those ... ?
Most Americans want America to remain America - it's not all about economics, even if the economics did make sense, which is false.
Oh, did I mention that many of the Moslem LEGAL, PERFECTLY LEGAL, immigrants turn out to hate what the US stands for, especially that pesky 1st Amendment. What do you get from that? A few "homegrown" "American" terrorists are enough to ruin anyone's day and cause our oppressive FEDS to have another reason to impose the rest of the Big Brother program (they're almost done anyway).
Both of you - George and Ross - just not bright enough to see the whole picture, are y'all?
Mel Torme| 5.12.11 @ 8:06AM
Dang, I meant to turn that bold off much earlier.
Let me do a test here.
Bob K.| 5.12.11 @ 8:08AM
No one mentions anymore that these Hispanic immigrants go to the head of the "affirmative action" line.
And we can't forget the clearly Caucasian Hispanics (not necessarily immigrants either!) with Hispanic surnames who have traditionally exploited these mixed race immigrants in the countries they rule south of our border. They also qualify for "affirmative action."
This helps to create high level and mid level jobs for them in the new exploitation industry we need here in the USA to keep these poor non-caucasian Hispanics "down where they belong" (like they were back home) in the new low paying jobs our industry needs to compete with China.
Mel Torme | 5.12.11 @ 8:08AM
oh, got it ... had a downslash in the end-bold instead of an upslash. fixed here.
**************************************
"To oppose "reform" that accommodates illegal immigration is not to deny the benefits of legal immigration."
How about " to oppose amnesty (call it what it is) is not to condone letting > 1 million third world people into America every year either."
I can see that the Spectator.org folks put a different headline, on the index page, for your article than what you wrote, so maybe I am speaking to them, not you, Mr. Neumayr:
I don't think it's helpful at all to Americans to import entire Somali villages to Minnesota. A large majority of the legal immigration is from countries of the third world. Let's just disregard the economics of this (people signed their "family reunification"-imported parents up for disability and such the day after they get their green cards) and the huge costs for the already-worthless government schools (trying to teach Americans while the other 1/2 the class doesn't know English), etc. Disregard all that by taking the idiotic advice of Mr. Ross Kaminsky, the hedge-fund trader (though he's been right on other subjects). But, just humor him here for a minute.
We still have the problem of people from many other cultures turning American into a Yugoslavia. Yes, they lasted 40-50 years over there, but only due to a tyrannical leader (Mr. Tito). Oh, wait, you've got one of those ... ?
Most Americans want America to remain America - it's not all about economics, even if the economics did make sense, which is false.
Oh, did I mention that many of the Moslem LEGAL, PERFECTLY LEGAL, immigrants turn out to hate what the US stands for, especially that pesky 1st Amendment. What do you get from that? A few "homegrown" "American" terrorists are enough to ruin anyone's day and cause our oppressive FEDS to have another reason to impose the rest of the Big Brother program (they're almost done anyway).
Both of you - George and Ross - just not bright enough to see the whole picture, are y'all?
Bob K.| 5.12.11 @ 8:44AM
Mel,
Do Somalis qualify for "affirmative action?"
Melvin| 5.12.11 @ 10:16AM
Yes, all people residing in the United States other than a Straight, white male, have some sort of protected classification, as deemed by the Federal government or State.
Derek Leaberry| 5.12.11 @ 8:17AM
Not all conservatives are economic determinists or worship at the altar of absolute free enterprise or absolute free markets. Conservatives should fight to conserve the historic American nation, Western Civilization and Christianity and devotion to Austrian economics, Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman be damned.
Bob K.| 5.12.11 @ 8:46AM
Thanks for this reminder Derek! Spoken in the tradition of true conservatism!
Michael Tomlinson| 5.12.11 @ 8:21AM
I trust the alligator more than Barack Obama or any Democrat.
Michael Tomlinson| 5.12.11 @ 8:29AM
I think it is time we returned to the bipartisan policies of moderate Republican President Dwight Eisnehower that were heartily endorsed by Bill Clinton's political mentor Democrat Senator J. William Fullbright.
Kishego| 5.12.11 @ 4:19PM
Amen to that M.T. !!
Hillel| 5.12.11 @ 8:30AM
Go down to Home Depot and watch the "shape-up "for construction and gardening jobs. As a pro-globalist,I prefer to call this "internal outsourcing"
Lullabys, Legends and Lies| 5.12.11 @ 8:39AM
President Obama said: "Maybe they'll need a moat," he said, dismissing their calls for more border security. "Maybe they want alligators in the moat."
Are you kidding me, Sir? We've built something like 5% of the border fences so far, and you think we're worried about a moat filled with alligators surrounding it? That's funny, Sir!! We can't even build a damn fence!! How in the World do you think we could finish a fence, while at the same time, digging a moat next to it, and filling that up with water, while at the same time, collecting enough alligators to make it even remotely threatening to illegal immigrants. With the super terrific efficiency of the Union Government Workers and planners we have today, we'd probably get the alligators first, and then have no place to put them. PETA wouldn't like it if we left thousands of alligators lying in the desert of the U.S./Mexican border, dying a horrible death from dehydration, while waiting for the moat to be finished and filled with lifesaving water!! "We're on an Union mandated coffee break, you got a problem with that alligator? Yeah, that's what I thought!!"
Maybe we do want a moat filled with alligators some day, it doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, but we want the damn fence built first!! Don't be a wiseass Sir, it's unbecoming to the Office of the President of the United States of America!! But it comes as no shock to anyone, once again!! Save the stupid jokes for next year's Correspondence Dinner, Sir!!
Al Adab| 5.12.11 @ 11:26AM
In one sense we do want a moat, a moat of Law in our nation of laws, welcoming those who respect our society and culture and choose to meld with it. At the same time a moat of law preventing those who use the immigration mantra to excuse their lawless acts of migration from continuing their course of action.
Everything this President does from this date forward is simply campaign rhetoric. His words are not law and clearly not policy. He is campaigning, nothing more.
SpiralArchitect| 5.12.11 @ 2:18PM
Use endangered 'gators of some sort...then the area would be federally protected - ha ha
Intelligent Design| 5.12.11 @ 8:51AM
Of the millions of illegals who have infiltrated the U.S. by walking across the Mexican border, how many are Muslim terrorists? Just a very small fraction would equal a few hundred, who are now here planning attacks on our airports, rails, public buildings, nuclear plants, power transmission lines, and hospitals. I wonder if the Obama administration intelligence people have an estimate of the number of potential terrorists who are here. If not, why not? If so, what are they doing about it?
Suppose there are 200, and they have acquired explosives. Then suppose they have a coordinated attack planned, to simultaneously plant bombs in major airports, where people are lined up for the TSA to search them. What impact would this have on our economy? How many thousands would be killed?
Meanwhile, Obama ridicules those who are concerned, and makes demagogic, idiotic statements. Perhaps Obama is mentally incompetent?
Michael Tomlinson| 5.12.11 @ 10:17AM
What's worse we've increased the number of legal visas for Muslims. This is outrageous when they're at war with US.
Occam's Tool| 5.12.11 @ 2:25PM
You know, NOBODY is really up in arms about Indian Hindus coming to this country to live, or Taiwanese.
It's dug-dealing vicious illiterate criminals (not just because they are illegally coming in) from our Southern neighbor that are the problem. Obama is a swine.
Steve A| 5.12.11 @ 8:59AM
The thing that needs an alligator filled moat around it is America's Credit Card. Imposter Conservatives & Liberals led by Obama have trashed it. Time for the adults to come in & take control.
Anthony| 5.12.11 @ 9:24AM
George, Had I written this article, my first sentence would have been markedly different from yours. It would have been, "Having decended lower than any president in recent history, with his mockingly distasteful comments about moats and alligators...."
Obozo is a destroyer. His Texas speech was one huge lie. He willfully ignores the destruction that open borders are doing to the border states as well as the rest of America because destruction is what this man is all about.
Obozo and the Ds need all the illegal votes they can get, and this is exactly what all the B.S. is aimed at. The left delights in watching America being devoured from within, as parasites are wont to do.
They talk about comprehensive reform, yet like the oil crisis, they raise straw dog arguments that don't require immediate solutions. Obozo mocks "drill baby drill", yet had we done this 20 years ago, we'd be in great shape. Same thinking applies to the amnesty issue.
While Obozo 's demand for comprehensive reform enters its 4th decade, in the mean time, millions of illegals are pouring into America because he won't close the borders without the reforms in place, how convenient.
Obozo's response to the oil crisis as well as the amnesty issue can be summed up by paraphrasing the great Sarah Palin, "Stall baby stall"!!!
Michael Hawke | 5.12.11 @ 9:29AM
This is just another chapter in Obama's strategy of dividing America on the lines of race. He cares only about advancing his radical political agenda.
http://www.californiahawke.com.....l-divides/
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 9:40AM
" as if the issue under discussion was whether or not to let geniuses from India
and Asian countries work at Google."
I'm undecided as to whether to laugh or get angry. I'll start with laughing. hahahahaha!
Are there smart Indians working in IT? Sure. There are also smart white males working in IT. LOTS of them! In fact, at the time Bill Gates came to power, the smart,geeky white IT guy was an American stereotype. Only problem for big business was:
They wanted to be paid decent, market wages for their valuable work.
So Bill Gates and the founder of Google who are busy counting their billions freaked out over the notion that a white guy who works 12 hours a day might be able to afford a condo in the bay area after a mere 50 year mortgage. SOMETHING had to be done.
So they imported cheap Indian labor. They started out with the best and brightest because it represented a major cost savings ($150K salaries down to $90K) But now... they're happy to just bring in someone with a fake master's degree from a $400 "school" in a Mumbai home after 6 months of reading a Java book and insist the local American IT "train" them.
In addition, Indian immigration is a twofer politically: Cheap labor for republican crony capitalists and non-white "diversity" voters for the socialist utopia. As Lenin put it: The capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with. I only HOPE that happens to the Harvard graduates trying to save money this way... In the very least, many of them are losing their McMansions to the collapse of the housing bubble.
In the meantime, it sometimes takes one, even two, white male IT workers to supervise the "genius" Indian labor. Hahaha! In some ways, it's rather funny. Go to glassdoors sometime and see reviews about Goldman Sachs. The company has IT based in India and spends millions sending non-Indians back and forth to check their work.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know that "immigrants" comprise X% of new startups. Perhaps it has something to do with the requirement that companies dealing with government and major businesses have to be non-white male owned? Or that many of these startups are just shells to bill out foreign labor?
Funny story: A major company getting taxpayer subsidies used a startup company in Ohio claiming to have lots of native Indian labor do their programming. It cost $30 million bucks. The contractor secretly funneled the work to India and charged $120 an hour (guess how much the programmers in Mumbai saw of that?) Then, they produced awful code that was supposed to replace 3000 applications but only replaced 8. And those 8 applications run poorly. In the meantime, they could have paid local American workers out that sum for 10 years.
Is it any wonder that the right has has a hard time winning elections when they treat their own electorate like peasants? Do we really need multi-million dollar CEO's who are hired because their brother-in-law is on the board and then have a secretary rewrite org charts and mission statements?
Bob K.| 5.12.11 @ 10:14AM
Right on Polish Knight!
And we have so called conservatives who want it to be this way!
Capitalism is an economic philosophy not a political one. Same for Socialism in all it's ramifications. Conservatism and Liberalism are political philosophies. Some unthinking devotees of the two economic philosophies often cross over into to the political philosophies and inadvertently cause confusion. Other, more cynical ones with agenda, do it deliberately. We often see the latter here, especially from the Capitalists.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 10:30AM
Socialism tends to be an political philosophy because it requires government to impliment it's policies. On the other hand, while capitalism may appear to favor a free market, economic clout allows, and even requires, certain companies to buy political favoritism to achieve their goals. (Try buying a house without a Realtor (TM) or a cheap coffin without a mortician's $2000 surcharge.)
In the case of cheap labor and saving a buck at the expense of the taxpayers who foot the bill for illegals' children's medical care and education, that falls on colluding capitalists. There's no denying it. And while the left often takes environmental regulations to an extreme or even cynically exploits them for political gain, they were necessary because companies thought nothing of poisoning the water of thousands of men, women, and children to save a few bucks. Literally.
RWinks| 5.12.11 @ 1:30PM
It's difficult to know where to start with you, PK. Political favoritism is not a feature of Capitalism, it's a bug----a bug in ALL governing systems. Rent seeking applies to all human endeavors. Rent seekers will try to get the government to interfere in the market in their favor whether a Monarchy, dictatorship, or Chicago Municipal Government.
Capitalism isn't even a "system". It is simply free people trading among themselves for their mutual benefit. Yes, it works much better if there is a stable means of exchange, a system establishing clear title and a means to settle disputes, but it is still just free people engaging in voluntary trade. For you to so viciously condemn freedom and it's defenders because of the crimes of a few----"companies thought nothing of poisoning the water"----is infuriatingly stupid.
Virtually all IT company executives are big supporters of Democrats. How does that make Republicans "crony capitalists"? Democrats outnumber Republican Crony Capitalists in NY and DC at least 4 to 1. Check the political contribution lists if you don't believe me.
You are right about one thing. Socialism is not an economic system. It is very good at concentrating power in the hands of whoever controls government. This, no doubt, explains it's continued popularity after more than a century of spectacular failure in promoting human well being.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 1:42PM
Using that argument, why do we need police at all? Since most people aren't going to poison water or kidnap and molest children, why bother enforcing such laws? It's just a few jerks that will commit such crimes so why not just allow everyone to shoot their guns at random for fun?
Or do you think fascism is better than freedom?
Indeed, the "bug" is in the details. We want government to protect people's rights and, in the words of the constitution, provide for the general welfare such as roads (you think public roads are ok, don't you?) but at the same time it has a tendency to become corrupted and get carried away.
Indeed, as you point out, most IT company execs are big supporters of democrats which makes the defenders of crony capitalists seem rather naive as much as a white male leftist saying he hates white males because he supports the Party.
In any case, my points about the Indian offshoring and even Chinese manufacturing offshoring reflect a major "bug" in capitalism: American companies look the other way at slave labor and environmental destruction by sending it overseas. In the case of IT, they wind up harming their own companies and customer service "Hello, this is Peggy. Can I help you?" by sending it over to cheap labor without looking at value. Or LIE through their teeth and demand more H1B's issued because they claim there's a "shortage" of high tech labor while simultaneously claiming they should pay less because there's an oversupply of it. Bastards.
Then, when I don't run to their defense to join the army at cheap pay in order to defend "freedom", they get surprised. "How about a draft of cannon fodder? Harvard students will be exempt, of course. If they don't serve their master of freedom, shoot them to death. Slavery is freedom!"
Yes, I agree, Socialism is like crack cocaine. It's evil and encourages the creation of a monstrous state. But then again, raw dog-eat-dog capitalism is unacceptable too. Government is dangerous, but anarchy is a lot more so. Libertarians still think we should have pay roads everywhere and tolls on sidewalks and open borders. Not gonna work.
In other words, I don't think there's an easy solution to all this. I don't think starving to death in the street to vote for another McCain to open up the borders and send over jobs to India so that rich leftist IT CEO's get richer is something I want to do. So shoot me.
SpiralArchitect| 5.12.11 @ 2:48PM
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
-John Adams, Journal, 1772
US diplomat & politician (1735 - 1826)
Excellent link for some enjoyment -
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/John_Adams/
Bob K.| 5.12.11 @ 6:35PM
PK,
I agree with your 2nd paragraph entirely.
I still argue that Capitalism and Socialism are Economic systems. They both seek to control the financial systems of the state which is a different thing entirely from the political parties that seek to control the state itself. In the US and Western Europe there are parties of the Right and of the Left, or if you will, Conservatives and Liberals or Progressives although, over the years the definitions of these terms have changed as the definition of all words do. These are just a couple of reasons why we have confusion over this issue.
We are having a long and acrimonious and costly debate over who will control our Nation or state, if you will. Will it be the "Right" or the "Left." People who support the "Right" naturally gravitate to Capitalism as the preferred economic system and people who support the "Left" naturally gravitate to Socialism as their preferred economic system. But as I noted above there are crossovers and these crossovers are based on personal interest and are not at all based on what is best for all citizens of the state. The "true believers" who are in a minority in these parties believe otherwise but they tend to wield much power in the parties.
Thanks to our founding fathers we live in a Republic but it is run in a large part in it's various jurisdictions as a democracy. This and the rise of populism are also contributors to our confusion.
buckeyeman| 5.12.11 @ 1:07PM
Both capitalism and socialism are first and foremost political philosophies. The natural state of Man is to labor for his own and his family's benefit. The land that he clears and the crops that he grows are his and no one else's. The food, shelter, tools, clothing, and other goods that he produces are his, but sadly, are always subject to theft by others. "Government" grows from the reality of humans living in social groups and requiring rules to protect their mutual interests. The foremost of these rules is protection from violence and theft.
Capitalism is the political philosophy that requires the government to defend the concept of private property and all its derivatives. Private property is not just land, baskets, and flint arrowheads, but ALL the products of one's labor. That means intellectual property, the results of risk taking and investment, and savings. Capitalism also requires the government to defend the freedom of individuals and entities to travel freely and to enter into voluntary agreements which are free from force or fraud.
Socialism is the anti-particle that destroys all the freedoms of capitalism. "Crony capitalism" is a lie, a term of art used by the left to mislead the masses into equating true capitalism (protection from force and fraud) with its very opposite. Crony capitalism requires the use (or threat) of force and/or the use of fraud and is, by its very nature, the product of anti-capitalist political philosophy.
Under capitalism I am free to invest or not in a business. If I don't like the company's product, its business plan, or the CEO's salary I can sell my stock. If the company fabricates its business reports (such as ENRON did) then they have committed fraud and I must rely on the government to prosecute them.
"Crony capitalism" occurs when the government takes (steals) my property and gives it to someone outside the proper role of government. Thus, police functions are typically part of the proper role of government but purchasing General Motors with tax dollars (or credit), defrauding the bond holders, and paying off the union members (with wealth stolen from me and others) is not remotely the proper role of government.
If you don't recognize the essential political nature of capitalism and its evil antithesis, socialism, then you have not thought very deeply or clearly on this topic.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 1:31PM
Your simplistic argument ignores the situation where crony capitalism and big government or even socialism work hand in hand. Consider the "free market" Chinese that many manufacturers get their products from. If you want to poison the well where children drink from, fine, just be sure to slosh some money over to the local warlord's office. Don't like it? Go ahead and sue. It will cost you your life's savings but for them, it's a tax writable business expense.
Want to "voluntarily" get an iphone? Go and buy one. Don't forget to get a $100 per hour lawyer to review the user agreement. You do read all of those don't you? If you don't, then you have limited legal rights enforced by the state. If you're a millionaire, that shouldn't be any problem. Heck, you have a lawyer on hand at all times to review all the many new complex corporate documents you're asked to approve, right?
Saying you have the right to not do business with Microsoft or big oil or realtors is easier said than done. When a small private farmer in the above example tries to do business and doesn't like the terms of the agreement, he has to find a new buyer or seller quick before his crops go bad. When a big corporation does it such as big banks holding onto millions of foreclosed homes in "shadow inventory", they can drive up prices artificially. Don't like MSword? Good luck getting a job as many employers demand a resume formatted by it. Don't want to buy a house from a Realtor(tm)? Good luck when they have 80% of the market. Play the game monopoly sometime and see how long the free market lasts. While it's a simplistic game designed from the beginning for that purpose (to prove how a monopoly is inevitable), it has a point.
In fact... big businesses LOVE regulation despite what we hear here because it's a way of them thinning out smaller animals in the herd that might compete with them. If you don't have a lot of money for lawyers or HR departments to comply with regulations (such as GE writing their own tax laws), then you'll go under while they just keep their business expenses lower than their net sales.
Oh, one more thing: I love reading about the police and them protecting property. Most police spend their time figuring out ways to write tickets to generate revenue. If you call them that your car is stolen, they'll unenthusiastically take a report. However, the do their best job when it comes to big corporations enforcing their copyrights and property rights. When their high powered lawyers order some guy with a lunch cart to stop selling "burgers" because they copyrighted that term, you can't really argue too much with them that's silly (their lawyer is paid a million, yours a thousand) so you'll do what they say otherwise the nice policeman will shoot you if you don't move your cart from the street.
In the meantime, the streets of Mumbai are filled with starving children and homeless. Then again, so is much of the capitalist paradise USA. For all the talk we hear of how great our capitalist benefactors are, shouldn't we demand something of them? Yes, I know that we should be glad to breath the same air as them, but shouldn't they be grateful that society allows them to retain their position? At least the queen of England shows that basic respect.
Occam's Tool| 5.12.11 @ 2:30PM
PK,
I like your writing style. Very convincing.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 4:25PM
Thanks. I guess I've been sharpening it up over 25 years of USENET. One bad thing though: I developed an awful bad spelling habit.
It's truly a wondrous age we live in when people can practice their writing and delve down into a topic and discuss it beyond a few drive-by swipes in the "letters to the editor" in the old newspaper rags. Who does that anymore? I don't know since I haven't read an editorial page in years (no exaggeration. I really haven't.)
Bob K.| 5.12.11 @ 6:49PM
AMEN!
buckeyeman| 5.13.11 @ 12:23AM
Sorry PK, but I don't like your writing style. First, you responded to my post by slandering my brilliant analysis as being "simplistic":
"Your simplistic argument ignores the situation where crony capitalism and big government or even socialism work hand in hand."
Well, I didn't ignore that situation at all, in fact my whole point was that "crony capitalism", big government, and socialism are ALL anti-capitalistic. I just re-read my own post for about the fifth time and my argument that "crony capitalism", big government, and socialism are all anti-capitalist is right there in black and white. How did you miss what I wrote?
Your "very convincing" writing style then meandered from Chinamen poisoning children's drinking water (?) to iPhone user agreements to regulation-loving Big Business to police speed traps to copyrighted hamburgers to starving children in Mumbai to the flippin' Queen of England.
Maybe it's just me but I can't figure out WTF you're even talking about. Are you seriously stating that "much of the capitalist paradise USA" is "filled with starving children and homeless"? I travel a bit and haven't seen anything remotely like this anywhere from coast to coast. I don't like speed traps either but I don't want a society where there aren't any police at all. You mock the USA as a "capitalist paradise" but we actually have a pretty nice lifestyle here. I visited East Berlin in 1970 and I think the "workers paradise" of the Marxist Soviet Bloc was far more worthy of mockery.
What is it, exactly, that you want? More government? Less government? Better government (we'd agree on that)? Occam -- I usually like your posts and you seem to understand this stream-of-consciousness skreed so maybe you can jump in here and interpret for me what PK is trying to say.
PolishKnight| 5.13.11 @ 10:32AM
Hello Buckeyeman. It's ironic that you appear annoyed at me for slandering your argument as simplistic and then turn around and say that my argument is too complex. There's a lot of things I hate about the left but I have to give them credit sometimes: The best arguments are the ones that work. That doesn't mean I want to play dirty like they do, but I sometimes take an unorthodox approach to communication.
Your claim that the bad effects of capitalism are "anti-capitalistic" is a way of basically trying to define away the problem. That's about as simplistic as it gets. I hear that same argument from socialists. Just as soon as they get all the power in their hands, they'll transform from opportunistic, amoral power-hungry monsters into perfect ethical administrators of a "true" socialist society.
The burden falls upon you to elaborate on how you logically intend to get from X to Y. If there's a big government socialist in the heart of every capitalist, that's a real problem. Don't you think? It's also something I love to rub in the face of smug socialists. They think that as soon as their leader gets the world to drink cool aid, then they'll get that ride on the comet. It's very disheartening to them when I point out in terms they understand the fundamental flaw in that thinking.
Just as you recognize that the police serve a useful function in writing speeding tickets, you can also see where they can become annoying and even abusive. I'm saying the same thing about many ideas that socialists have hijacked. Why not pull the rug out from underneath them and redefine the agenda? You also need to be realistic. In theory, a perfect capitalistic society is possible but that's about as realistic as a perfect communist one. So we need to consider the electorate and the limits of human morality and reasoning in coming up with a personal political viewpoint. That's what I'm in the process of doing.
Yes, I am saying that much of the capitalist USA is full of starving children and homeless. OK, maybe not starving (food is pretty cheap but housing a big problem.) This is an indictment both of modern socialist welfare state that claims to provide resources to solve that problem and the free market defenders who tell us that this problem should be solving itself. Well it's not. And people see it. Either you address it or the socialists will just hang the problem like an albatross around the so-called free market's neck. There are plenty of neighborhoods in the states that look like a third world country. Drive a few blocks in the wrong direction and you'll see them! If you're a wall street broker used to taking risks in the stock market, then it's ok to have employers who make layoffs every 5 years and markets fluctuating all over the place with opportunities for wealth and losers out of their homes. But for the rest of us, it's not a paradise. That's just how I feel and a lot of other people feel. You can tell us that we're out of the conservative club, but Obama is working on importing more members of his club and it's the "free market" that's giving him a free pass to do so.
Indeed, this very article we're talking about is an example of how the free market alone isn't going to result in any paradise. They will happily dump chemicals in the water or trash the country into a latin america marxist hellhole if they can get away with it to make a short term buck.
In answer to your question about what I want: What a refreshing question! I think we need "better" government but that of course is up to interpretation. It's important we don't become the party of no. That means really good solutions to the problems the left has grabbed onto (or even created.) It also means maybe throwing the ultra wealthy to the, er, alligators. Or at least keep it on the table. Maybe that might help motivate them to be more honest.
I'm off to a wedding but will try to check on this page later. Have a good weekend.
PolishKnight| 5.13.11 @ 3:46PM
Free Internet in the hotel room. Nice.
Forgot to say: No need to be sorry about not liking my writing style. Or were you not really sorry?
buckeyeman| 5.14.11 @ 12:39PM
PK, Hope the wedding went well. I was messing around on my yacht 'til after dark but I'm back this am. Actually it wasn't so much your writing style per se but your thinking style. You seemed to skip from one idea to another without much discernable connection. OK, so I'm not sorry that I don't like it but I am sorry if you can't think better than that (I suspect you can and you're toying with us, but only you know for sure). From your other posts I had the notion that you are not a far leftist but I actually did have some trouble figuring out what you like and don't. Throwing jabs at both the left and the right is OK and maybe fun but where does that leave us?
We all realize that blogging is not going to change anything, but for me (as apparently for you as well) it helps to clarify and refine my own thinking. So let me address a few points you advanced.
First, it wasn't "ironic" that I complained about your "simplistic" comment and then further complained that your argument was too complex. It is entirely consistent. I'm not an economist but I believe that economics can be understood by non-economists. This becomes easier when broken down into simple concepts, at least for me.
So if I clear a patch in the jungle and plant yams, and tend the yams, and weed the yams, why should my lazy neighbor to the east be permitted to steal my yams when they're ready to harvest? Why should my left leaning neighbor to the north be permitted to steal my yams and "redistribute" them to my lazy neighbor to the east? If I don't get the benefit from my own labor then I will either just quit planting yams and hope to steal some from my industrious neighbor to the west until we all end up fighting and/or starving, or I will revert to subterfuge and try hide the products of my labor from the thieves. You probably find this paradigm hopelessly "simplistic" but I think it cuts through the fog of intentional nonsense created by leftists to keep people from understanding they are being robbed.
You appear to believe that the left and right are more or less equivalent. I don't.
"I hear that same argument from socialists. Just as soon as they get all the power in their hands, they'll transform from opportunistic, amoral power-hungry monsters into perfect ethical administrators of a "true" socialist society."
In my world of reality, PK, it's just the opposite. The statists seek to beguile the masses with dreams of utopia and pretend to be ethical administrators until they grasp power and show themselves as the power hungry monsters they were all along.
Our founding fathers knew this. I think they feared that there is a "big government socialist" lurking in the hearts of many. Their solution was to limit the power of the government. Sadly, we have strayed from that wisdom.
I still don't buy the hungry/homeless schtick. The social "safety" is so huge you just can't really be hungry unless you choose to be. The homeless are mostly alcoholics, drug users, or mentally ill. We used to institutionalize the mentally ill until court decisions back in the '70's prohibited this.
You sound like a disgruntled IT guy who is pissed at and frustrated with your employers/employment status. My vantage point is as an employer of about 65 mostly professional people. It's a constant struggle to keep them in line. We had to take away their internet access to keep them from looking up recipes and such nonsense during work. So there's two sides to every story.
"They will happily dump chemicals in the water..." Where did you get the idea that capitalism is the same as anarchy? My view of capitalism, as expressed earlier, is that it is a political/economic system that recognizes private property and seeks to protect it. But capitalism is a POLITICAL system. That is, its purpose is to regulate interactions between and among citizens and their government. Polluting the air, water, or whatever affects the freedom of others and, within reason, it is the proper role of government in a capitalist society to regulate activities which could cause it.
On a thinly related note, you IT guys will never get my respect until you come up with a system that will allow me to easily and quickly change the line spacing on my word processor. All this whining about outsourcing jobs to India, but what have YOU done to solve this. This was the easiest thing to do on a typewriter but is virtually impossible with Microsoft Word. I'm undecided regarding whether this represents a failure of capitalism or socialism (I tend toward the latter 'cause Gates is such a Commie) but it needs to be fixed and it needs to be fixed NOW. Don't whine about your girly little IT job until you have created a fix so that I can space my lines how I want them and when I want them. And while you're at it, if I want the first letter of the first word of any given line capitalized, I'll PUSH THE FREAKIN' SHIFT KEY. Have a nice day.
Occam's Tool| 5.12.11 @ 2:31PM
And PK, your comments about the Police are spot on. I always liked the South Park PD motto, "To Harass and Annoy."
RWinks| 5.12.11 @ 3:53PM
Pretty good at attacking straw dogs, aren't you? Like most Leftists you leap to absurd conclusions. I described poisoning water as a "crime". Oddly enough, I think enforcement of the law should be directed at CRIMINALS and not punish everyone.
I write a comment that defends freedom and you accuse me of being a Fascist. You should educate yourself. Fascism pretty well describes Obama's crony capitalism, also his habit of ignoring the Law.
As for that line in the Preamble spelling out the purpose of the Government, it's not an enumerated power. Anyway, "welfare" in the 18th century didn't mean the Dole. They considered such as "alms" and a private and religious duty not in the purview of Government.
I don't know who the defenders of corruption such as "crony capitalism" would be unless you mean politicians. Of course no one would seek favors if the government had neither the power or inclination to dispense them. Though those who would use government power for their own ends have always been with us, their effects were limited as long as American leaders thought the Government was one of limited and defined power. A hundred years ago the Progressives decided the old limits didn't apply. As government power grew, so did corruption. One line in a 600 page bill can spell the death of an industry. Everyone must join the game in self-defense.
Today we have a totalitarian government and must depend on the benevolence or inattention of bureaucrats to not destroy our lives. Bureaucracies and courts are unelected despotisms who rule almost without regard to elected officials. You're right there is no easy answer but I think wrong about Anarchy being worse than government tyranny. Governments murdered more than 100 million of their own citizens over the last century----an incomparable crime.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 5:29PM
I suppose sympathizing with labor (not unionized labor, but labor in general) and not regarding the rights of the ultra wealthy as sacrosanct is crossing a line into leftism just as a guy trying a wine cooler makes him effeminate. :-)
Some of what I wrote is tongue-in-cheek and some not. Don't take it too personally. I was making a play back at you that dramatized me as being an enemy of freedom. It was too tempting.
Let's start with the constitution and enumerated powers. Does this sound familiar?
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"
That's big enough to drive a hippie VW bus through.
Whether you're right or not, it doesn't change the fact that most people disagree with you including me. If some poor guy is on the street and homeless and really didn't mean to get there (he lost all his money in a stock market crash or his house was underwater and the bank foreclosed and he lost his job, etc.) and he sincerely wants to just get back on his feet and get back to work, most of us think he should have a RIGHT to go to the state to help him out for that time. If there's a sick person who can't work, we don't want them to die on the street. OK, back in colonial times that may have been the norm but today, we think that's the sign of an uncivilized hellhole our capitalist masters outsource to.
So either face it or let the leftists take the issue, like with environmentalism, and then abuse it to hell.
Welfare has become a tool for unwed mothers to basically get the state to be their husband and become SAH spouses to Obama. Ronald Reagan, you know, Reagan? He actually expanded benefits while pushing fathers out of the home in an attempt to get the men to just find work and get these women off the dole. Instead, they just become unwed mothers. Really smart there gipper!
It's funny that many religious agencies are also morally and financially unable to deal with the problem. They can't tell women to stop having children on welfare (that would be encouraging abortion, contraception, or even sterilization) but at the same time, the homeless problem continues.
Regarding bureacracies and the courts. It's funny because they're a function of free markets in a way: The legal profession exists to define itself and it's practitioners more benefits. Have you read your mobile phone agreement? Check out the South Park episode: CentIpad. This is an excellent example of an unchecked industry going haywire but it can happen with any industry.
The wealthy, like the media, are a hidden undeclared branch of government and should be subject to checks and balanced. We've gotten some check on the media with the internet. With the wealthy, well, they seem to be loving socialism which might indicate that socialism isn't really that bad for them. Which is a problem because if the free market lovers can't hate a monopolistic founder of standard oil that killed the tram system in Los Angeles and the left will ally with them to make a big crony capitalist government, we've got a real problem. Don't we?
Bob K.| 5.12.11 @ 7:09PM
PK is not at all a "leftist." He is a thinking man's conservative.
There was no Conservative movement in the United States until after WWII and it is still undergoing it's growth pains. Liberals or Progressives ran the country from shortly after the Civil War until after WWII even though Capitalism was the dominant economic philosophy for most of that time. Men like Wilson and Roosevelt typified them. Liberalism is in danger now in the US and in Europe. Over those many years many of it's goals were accomplished. Now a reaction, even a revulsion to it's continued quest for power is setting in.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 8:01PM
Leftism comprises a set of dogmas that require adherence almost as faithfully as a, well, Polish Catholic. So it doesn't take too much to not be a leftist when the dogma includes such crazy and often contradictory beliefs such as:
1) Hatred of whites. While Obama's supporters have no problems playing the race card in this very topic (immigration), it's quite clear that the recent immigrants have the attitude that they are going to be entitled to special victim entitlements based upon race with whites as serfs. This is amazing considering that their stated end goal of the Leftist Party is to make a world like Western Europe with the cultural attitudes of Mumbai, Mexico City, and Kenya. Let's see how that works out!
2) Feminism and man bashing. The notion of women's equality does not exclude still requiring men to live up to 1950's standards as the breadwinner. As a result, millions of children are raised in unwed mother homes either on welfare or as latchkey kids sitting around at the door waiting for mommy to get home. This has been so popular with even the right that they send their daughters off to college to become successful professionals.
3) Global warming hysteria. Maybe they're right and the earth temperature will rise a few degrees in a century. So what? Their policies are not designed to stop it but rather to consolidate their control and destroy the west.
4) Big government unions. These unions are like a special Party class reminiscent of Soviet times. If you belonged to the party, you got a nice job. Ever see Moscow on the Hudson? So this shoots to hell their notion that EVERYONE is going to have a wonderful job in Soviet America. This all ties in neatly with 1,2 and 3. The respective members of their groups get the great jobs and the serfs get to live like the untouchables in Mumbai. Or Ukrainians in 1930.
So it's obvious that even if I happen to have sacrilegious beliefs and think that the state should ensure, even if via private mandate, help for the (deserving) poor, public transportation, affordable healthcare, reasonable work conditions and scientific research that doesn't mean I think we should have a big brother state administer it for the primary purpose of getting more power and winning elections. On the contrary, I think the left is actually harming these and other causes via their making things worse to cause a crisis strategy. We ALL know they don't care about the things they do. They just happened to grab onto them and popularize on them while the "party of no" just gets bad press for not coming up with anything. And in a way, they're right. The only time that a Republicans' nostrils seem to flare with excitement is a panic when they talk about raising tax rates on billionaires. "How will Bill Gates afford a super new private jet to go to Mumbai if he loses 1% of a billion dollars?" they shriek. Or letting the left yank their chain on gay marriage while their career daughters wind up going lesbian because they can't find a successful man to ask them out.
Being right is not an excuse for being stupid politically. I've discovered that the hard way, personally.
JP| 5.12.11 @ 10:24AM
Most Fortune 500 firms outsource all of the software developement to India. But, the real cost savings for many firms in the future will come from Cloud Computing. Hardware virtualization in the future will totally re-do how most firms see IT. Not only will a company's data and applications reside on some server farm in India or Brazil. But, so will everyone's desktops and laptops. In the future, all workers will be issued a tablet PC much like an iPad. These devices will automatically connect to the company's "Cloud" via wireless. All that is needed is a wireless connection. And bingo, they are in. There will be no need for desktop support, expensive network admins, WAN admns, or data centers. The cost savings will be huge. And to make matters worse, the federal government will issue tons of regulations to make sure they have control. Whoever controls the data controls the company.
This is where our Brave New World. In order to realize short term financial gains, CEOs will make deals with the devil.
Pecos Pete| 5.12.11 @ 11:02AM
Cloud computing is hype ... the next "hot" item to create a bubble. When the Internet goes down so does the cloud. A simple sun spot or lightening strike could shut down an entire company.
I do agree that control of data is very important for a company. Thus, secure your data in-house and locally, then put it on-line (in a cloud?) for your employees, suppliers and, most importantly, your customers.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 11:17AM
I almost forgot to mention: Most fortune 500 companies are not outsourcing all their software development to India. They are screaming for more H1B's to work inhouse in order to drive down wages for local labor or to engage in layoffs. Thank heavens for our free-market capitalist overlords, eh?
In the meantime, the stuff I've seen in the industry due to these Dickensonian overlords is sometimes hilarious. As I said, sometimes they just blow money on bad technologies and code, proclaim that the project was a "success" and do it again. Coincidentally, their wife's sister just got a high paying gig at the vendor firm...
Cheap software is badly written, used for a year or two, then written again. Either inhouse with (now) Indian middle managers or partly overseas with an American hired to double check each overseas' person's work.
Rather than save money, IT department's budgets are in the red. I've seen the numbers. The managers explain away the rising costs like they were tutored at Enron. They make up imaginary "efficiency" gains in order to justify the increased costs.
It amazes me how they get away with it. I am guessing that it just comes out of the company's profits. Microsoft, for example, could box a turd and ship it and most dumb Americans would buy it because it says Microsoft. "Wow! This new OS crashes 11% less than the old one!" And idiot consumers pay 25 cents a text to AT&T so you could have a team of Mumbai programmers shoveling money into a hole and still make a profit.
Hmmm, there is a similar situation this reminds me: The automobile industry. It also was profitable but as time went on, various forms of corruption and bad management took it down. Yes, unions are bad management since high paying CEO's looked the other way provided their golden parachutes were loaded.
It's just a matter of time before this curry bubble collapses. You heard it here first. I also said in 2006 that real estate couldn't go up forever.
Pecos Pete| 5.12.11 @ 11:25AM
PK: I agree with your comments. I still use a Compaq desktop made in 1998 running Win2000Pro. Very reliable. Of course, I am writing programs/business proposals/letters/etc, not watching TV on the monitor.
Virtually all of the IT departments I deal with are lost in a fog of "technology" and have forgotten that they are in the business of both providing information and protecting that same information. Yep, they are blowing a LOT of money out the back door on complex hardware and software that requires extensive maintenance.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 11:37AM
I'm an IT professional and I have an 11 year old PowerMAC G4 running at home for my email, web, and word processing. Works great. I am going to upgrade it to a hackintosh in the near future because I just want to get more space and it's cheaper to upgrade than buy old style hard drives.
I hate windows, but WindowsXP was usable and pretty fast. Then I got a new Windows7 PC and yikes, what a mess.
So IT management seems to be in a thrash mode (as we say in the industry) when your fixes cause more problems than they fix and your new fixes also cause more problems, etc. I went to industry presentations on new technology including cloud computing and the presenters would also sneak in their slideshow the promise that it would pay for itself by "IT staff reductions." This creates an opportunity for an IT executive to write up a purchase order before his golf game.
Then the stuff comes in and someone has to deploy it. It requires customization. How to do that? They order the staff of 10 Indians to figure it out and then they don't know what they do and they start calling around asking for, well, me to help them out. Oh, wait, I was laid off. Haha! Customers saw their service response times go to hell and outages were all over the place. They then had to rehire, get this, 5 guys to replace me. Many of them white. And the whole place is still a mess.
In the meantime, the products they bought to "replace" their IT department require annual maintenace fees. Apparently, the cloud administrators want to be paid! Oh, and the software for that cloud is obsolete in 3 years so if they want the "new" version, they'll have to burn a whole purchase order for that. Kind of like MSword!
JP| 5.12.11 @ 1:17PM
I've worked on the desktop and server side of IT Operations for 15 years. And desktop and application virtualization solves almost all of the customizations issues you speak of. I've worked with mechanical engineers who use 3D modeling and simulation apps, as well as finance gurus who use customized SAP and reporting applications. Almost all of those application issues were solved via SCCM, Altiris, or Citrix services. Two years ago I was part of a large desktop deployment (some 10,000 PC/laptops and some 6000 applications). You would not believe how almost all of the past problems were overcome through scripting and virtualization. The job was done in under 5 months, even though it was financed for 6. Scary. Four IT specialists from India controlled the entire deployment from India.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 2:40PM
Apples and oranges. Desktop deployments are by their nature very easy and standardized since desktops are rebuilt on a regular basis when employees come and go. It took them 6 months to push out images to laptops? I do more downloading at home! :-)
Business applications and servers that are volatile and are by nature not even touched or breathed on unless a VP signs off is another matter. When one application is customized, often others need to be changed as well and so on. (Lather, rinse, repeat.)
JP| 5.12.11 @ 1:10PM
Pecos I work in IT and I can tell you it is anything but hype. It is already here. Over a quarter of all web traffic is via samrtphones. And all of thier services and Apps are on the cloud. Almost all private firms of any size have already virtualized most of thier server farms. Now, instead of having dozens of racks fill with blade servers, they perhaps just 2, which host all of thier applications, data, and services. And from there, most large firms have already begun moving many of thier applications to private managed services firms (ie firms that host cloud based services). And the mirgation of personal business desktops to virtual desktops is already a reality.
Network infratructure costs alone consume huge portions of IT budgets. Cloud computing reduces those costs (and almost all of the infrastructure jobs). Even for a small cap corporation, a data center costs upwards of $1 million/year to maintain.
If you're a network admin, your days are numbered.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 2:47PM
I'm not a network admin. In regards to the wonders of virtualization: They have severe latency problems especially for databases (the most popular financial application. Doh!) So you send a 100 line query to a VM and it has to go through a hypervisor and OS in order to produce an answer.
I have problems with virtualized servers all the time that don't happen with physical hardware. They show in demos the ability to vmotion one server over to another datacenter with the flick of a switch and no problems. That's the demo. In real life, it doesn't always work out that way and the problems aren't found for a week later after people notice that an application is acting funny because the virtual server moved... but not all of it's files did because the fileserver was in a different network.
Hmmm, sounds like a job for a network administrator after all!
Yeah yeah yeah, cloud computing has promised to get rid of the scourge of humanity: a well paid white male IT worker. Rewrite all the apps to use it. Just as fast as they fixed Y2K (remember that?) And again, lots and lots of latency moving around from cloud to cloud.
All that said, clouds do have a use and I think they're great for high capacity projects with short time windows (such as H&R block during tax filing time.)
JP| 5.12.11 @ 4:56PM
Most of the NASDAQ, DJIA, and Chicago Merc services reside on VMs. Hardware costs have plunged in recent years, and now service providers can scale thier hardware to support multidimensional databases residing on distributed networks. Google for one has almost all of its hardware and data stores on VMs, which are distributed through-out datacenters globally.
In the last 10 years Cisco, HP, and IBM for one have revolutionized virtual computing to a point that it is about to go mainstream. There are still a lot of problems - mainly with security, regulations, and QoS. But, from a technical point of view the future is now.
In the end, money talks. And if a CEO can save a bunch of money by laying off most of his IT staff and IT expenses he will.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 5:42PM
The very concept of VM is for unique applications that require their own OS containers to be able to be failed over to another server or moved for cost reasons. But for google... it doesn't make much sense when their database is based upon cheap, scalable commodity servers distributed worldwide. Why VM something that's already been setup to be redudant at the application level?
Let's look at the logic behind VM and compare it to cloud computing. For those who just came in, Virtual Machines is the concept of taking a computer, such as a desktop or server for some application (payroll) and having the whole computer run as a program on another computer. Then that "program" can be moved to another computer if the computer it's on goes down.
But this begs the question... why are so many VM's being made when a single computer can run several programs. Hmmm?
Oh, wait, because security loves the idea of having every application on it's own machine and doesn't want to play with others. They want to put up a new building for each business even if it's just a single small starbucks or a 5000 person office unit.
So indeed, working out the security kinks in VM and cloud computing is pretty tricky when these people don't want to share computing resources to begin with. I asked friend who works at a big company if they had seen if they could hack into one VM from another and they said "we can't talk about it. That's all I can say."
Yeah, upload those social security numbers for all your customers to Mumbai now! It's safe!
hahahaha!
How are you doing on proving that 25% of web traffic is going through smartphones?
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 5:56PM
Worthy of a seperate response:
"In the end, money talks. And if a CEO can save a bunch of money by laying off most of his IT staff and IT expenses he will."
Yeah, no kidding. If they can save a bunch of money by letting people die in car crashes rather than fix a blinker via an expensive recall, they will. If they can save a bunch of money by poisoning water from their toxic waste, they will. If they can make a bunch of money by selling cigarettes to 12 year old Russian boys and girls, they will.
Yeah, we know what kinds of guys they are. They love money more than anything else. It's amazing that people have so little love and trust for them, isn't it?
I'm just amused that they often are losing more money than they think they save with these boondoggles.
FYI, VMware isn't free. It's thousands of dollars in licensing for each server and the cost of the cheap hardware itself is about that. So to "save" money, they spend about as much as they're saving! Hahahaha! But they get the cool aid at the presentations hearing: "Dear sir. I am a Nigerian prince. If you help me, I can give you a share of my millions..." Oh, wait, different greed. But similar thinking. I've seen several dozen such save-money initiatives that backfired on them. That's ok, the investors and stockholders took the hit. Capitalism at it's best!
The VALUE of VMWare is when you're able to move one server to another virtually when there's an outage. Or to save on power costs and be more green. But money? Not really a lot actually. Even worse, as I said, it continues with enabling the addiction for project managers to get a single server for each application rather than share servers.
And cloud computing? Yeah, back to the mainframe folks! It's IBM all over again! Ever hear of the 11/780? It had thousands of virtual machines on it. In 1980!
1980!
This is SOOO new! How about a round of golf to talk it over? Hahaha!
VM is a dirty way to code. A webserver cluster such as apache or weblogic can run generic applications cheaply and without any licensing. Opensource and free. That's the way the big labs I've worked for do it.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 2:54PM
"Over a quarter of all web traffic is via samrtphones."
OK, I gotta bite on this. I don't buy it. A quarter of ALL web traffic? USA or world?
I suppose it's possible since a lot of smart phones have video and maybe there are losers who pay $40 in data fees to watch Harry Potter at the airport. But come on, really? A quarter of web traffic? How many people have smart phones to begin with or use them in that manner?
Please back that up.
JP| 5.12.11 @ 1:19PM
"When the Internet goes down so does the cloud. A simple sun spot or lightening strike could shut down an entire company."
If the internet goes down 95% of the companies are already screwed. Even analog traffic is now routed through internet backbones. You might get a dial tone, but you won't being to get very far.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 11:02AM
JP, I've been around the block a few times and I have heard it all before. Didja ever hear of something called The Mainframe? It was a big machine that would store all of our data and then you'd pay a usage fee to Compuserve and IBM. How did that work out?
Yeah, sure. Have all your data on a server farm in Brazil or India. The same folks who will kidnap you and sell your organs on the black market if you walk down the wrong alley. Send customer social security data over there. Hackers will probably be able to peer-to-peer download the info and start engaging in ID theft an hour later.
There are services such as "carbonite" out there. I don't use them. Why? It's cheaper for me to just buy two hard drives and run mirroring. Plus, I have a LOT of data.
So companies will be sending terabytes of their valuable customer data over the wire to places that are just a few miles away from where Obama Bin Laden was busted because they think they'll save money. HILARIOUS! Lemme guess: Harvard graduates came up with this! Chai ho!
In the meantime, let's examine the whole paradigm that somehow it will be trivial to replace highly educated, experienced IT workers with someone off the streets of Mumbai yet, on the other hand, a Harvard graduate whose primary job is to manage org charts and write mission statements is irreplacable?!?!
In the meantime, fortunately, as an IT worker I don't care much about customer support when I buy a PC (ok, I never buy one. I build my own). But if I DID care, I wouldn't mind them saving money by having a customer call center in Mumbai put people on hold for an hour and then take an hour to not solve their problems. But others do. Hence, I don't think it's going to work out.
Al Adab| 5.12.11 @ 1:23PM
PK,
Keep up the good work and don't forget it was the Polish knights under Sobieski who road to the rescue of Vienna on Sept. 11, (familiar date?) 1683 against the Ottomans.
A A| 5.12.11 @ 1:24PM
OOPS wrong RODE
Mike 3/505| 5.12.11 @ 9:34PM
"In the meantime, let's examine the whole paradigm that somehow it will be trivial to replace highly educated, experienced IT workers with someone off the streets of Mumbai yet, on the other hand, a Harvard graduate whose primary job is to manage org charts and write mission statements is irreplacable?!?!"
Classic line...may I use it? I'll be sure to quote you of course.
Roy| 5.14.11 @ 1:21PM
No, a Harvard grad whose primary job is to manage org charts is not irreplaceable either.
Nor is a Harvard grad who fixes teeth and wants $3,000 to do a bridge. I can go to India and get it done for $300. Will the American dentist do a better job? Yes. $2,700 better? No.
So go ahead and rant about "people off the streets of Mumbai". You can even try to outproduce them, and you may even succeed. Just keep your hands away from the government guns or you're no different than the parasites of the UAW.
Occam's Tool| 5.12.11 @ 2:27PM
OK, PK. I'm convinced.
Just always leave the door open for the graduates of the Technion and Hebrew U.
PolishKnight| 5.12.11 @ 2:48PM
?!?!?
hunter| 5.12.11 @ 9:43AM
I say build bigger fences, yes and a moat with alligators too. These people have shown they have no right to live in a civilized and free country. I envision armed military along the border too, it can be done, and should be. The American citizens should demand WASHINGTON D. C. be isloated and kept out of the real America. I am sick to death of the tail wagging the dog. Those blood suckers have almost destroyed this country.
Tired Taxpayer PRM| 5.12.11 @ 10:45AM
I agree about the armed military. After all, someone has to protect the alligators!
JP| 5.12.11 @ 10:15AM
There's a nation that has a horrible problem with narco-terrorists. The central government with help for foreigners has secured the capital and surrounding towns and farms. However, the terrorists control many of the rural areas including the northern provinces. Not a day goes buy without reports of soldiers turning on thier commanders, or civilian markets getting bombed. It is not unusual to see mass graves of civilians who were "punished" for not backing the local terrorist commanders. And the terrorists themselves are not some run-of-the-mill peasants with AK-47s. They are well armed, well trained, and operate at night as well as day. These narco-terrorists pose a real problem for the nation's future.
The above paragraph could be used to describe Afghanistan. But, in fact, it describes Mexico. Homeland Security won't tell you, but much of our border now is under thier control. There is only so much State Police, local sherrifs, and Border Patrol can do. What we need to do is obvious. But Obama will continue to play whack-a-mole in Afghanistan. Call it shooting for votes. I'm sure his advisors are telling him that the Spec Ops Command is his ticket to re-election. Who would have thought that the WOT would devolve into an election gimmick. Obama will continue to use SEALS to garner those pesky "independents" ("Obama's no push-over, he can kill as good as any GOP Chickenhawk. What a guy!") and moderates. In the meantime, who knows who is getting through our boders. Call it invasion by other means.
SpiralArchitect| 5.12.11 @ 3:31PM
Sweet deal that Obammer guy has too - he just up an does it... No consult with any one the POTUS should.
Al Adab| 5.12.11 @ 11:29AM
And yet we witness the ederal government activley opposing a State - in the person of Arizona - which is attempting to protect itself from invasion. That is an enumerated power of the Federal government. If the administration refuse to perform one of the duties the Constitution imposes on them what recourse do the states have? How might they act to defend themselves from invasion?
ABNCP| 5.12.11 @ 11:30AM
Any time this disaster of a President makes a speech about anything he is giving: Misinformation, Disinformation, Half Truths or Dammed Lies. If the majority of Americans do not understand that by this time God help us. I don't understand why the Republican Presidential contenders are not calling him out on national media with the obvious falsehoods on a case by case basis. His El Paso speech is full of B.S and if one of the contenders would get off their ass and go for his throat that person would jump into a commanding lead in any poll. BTW I believe this
bozo missed his true calling. He is only qualified to be a late night talk show host. His phony slick smile, his snake oil sales pitch and ability to B.S the public would put him right at the top. After 2012 be afraid Dave, be very afraid.
SpiralArchitect| 5.12.11 @ 3:32PM
Someone speaking does not assure them of any airtime.
WRJonas| 5.12.11 @ 12:52PM
I guess the President didn't look around while he was entertaining the ElPaso Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
The over 800 miles of border between the State of Texas and the Narco encampment on the south shoreline IS A GIANT MOAT.It is called the Rio Grande, tire, rubbish and free colonias River.
Most of the time it is just a mud wallow for free citizenship seekers and drug mules.
I spoke to a Mexican in the business of importing clay ware and pottery last week which he shipped on a flat bed from Guadalajara. "( big pots 4-5 ft tall) You must have a bad time bringing this stuff across the border ", I said ; "nah I drive right across with the wave of a hand ", he says, " but the Mexican officers tear his truck apart going back. They are really hot to find cash and guns. I imagine a tiny bit of bribery and pay offs help to expedite Mexican justice.
Al Adab| 5.12.11 @ 1:41PM
The Rio Grande (Rio Bravo del Norte) is in many places only inches deep and yards wide. Not much of a river or a barrier. I've crossed it myself in Big Bend park without getting my jeans wet.
MyGirlFriday| 5.12.11 @ 1:22PM
I.M. Pei........(pronounced Pa, with a long a) Sir! Not I.M. Pee ......(as you pronounced in your bucket of lies speech) ! If you intend to site someone Mr. President you should at least know how to pronounce their name. If you really knew of I.M. Pei and his architecture you would certainly know how to pronounce his one syllable name. Oh I forgot, it is your buddy TOTUS who made the error. How about just putting a voice box in TOTUS and you can simply stand up their and lip sink your little buddy's speeches. Then we won't have endure anymore of those Corpsman (pronounced without the "P") moments. God forbid if a Republican called I.M. Pei ...I.M.Pee it would be front page news.
Padoux| 5.12.11 @ 1:26PM
The man is a cad.
CalMark| 5.12.11 @ 1:49PM
Enough of this crap about "geniuses from India and Asia." I've worked with these people in the engineering industry--not computers, but the concept is the same.
Some are very good. Most are not: they are hacks, they are clueless, they have no conception of Western ethics. They get ahead by ruthless maneuvering and racial networks that brazenly exclude white people. They make no secret of their hatred for traditional American values and treat Americans--their hosts--like benighted fools.
They are so successful because a few good ones create a politically correct umbrella effect for the multitude of mediocre to very bad ones.
Smirking Weasel| 5.12.11 @ 2:37PM
Why the hell should we let 'geniuses' from India and Asian countries work at Google? Huge corporate bureaucracies like that should be required to hire American citizens and train them in any additional skills they need. Legal immigrents should be admitted only if they are already wealthy enough to start a new business enterprise and they should be required to hire only individuals that have been American citizens for at least a decade. They should not be allowed to bring along-ever-any family other than a spouse and children 12 or younger, and if they and said spouse divorce, they should be required to pay alimony to the spouse back in their country of origin; the children should be ineligible for any aid, private and public, for higher education.
SpiralArchitect| 5.12.11 @ 3:51PM
Yes, more Gov, more regulations, more oppression! WTF?
wolflen| 5.12.11 @ 2:41PM
alligators won't work..hell PITA will have mass protests-cruelty to animals..
why is there such a push to legalize illegal aliens..? well the most obvious is the 30+BILLION they send back to mexico-it's second largest income flow behind oil-mexico is NOT going to give that up..many have pointed out how our schools are being systematically changed by the mass influx of non-english speaking students..and the drop out rate of 50%+ of high school students (one wonders if the job market can absorb this low educated-non skilled work force-or they will be absorbed by the gang culture-always a pleasant thought)..so the problems with illegal aliens have far reaching implications .. none of which will be cured by "amnesty" - which would only green light several million more to cross the "most secured border ever"
WRJonas| 5.12.11 @ 3:08PM
Which way were you goin' Al ? North to south is a dangerous wade.
martin j smith| 5.12.11 @ 4:08PM
GEORGE: I think Obama should get a free pass to the Bronx zoo.
Intelligent Design| 5.12.11 @ 6:28PM
If Obama really thinks the border is safe, he should go hiking along it for a day or two without the Secret Service. He can greet new illegals as they infiltrate.
Henry P.| 5.12.11 @ 6:39PM
Wow! It has come to this. Our country is under assault and America has a huge "Ignorant Class" that is totally clueless to this fact. America is merely a dart board for the Left. For the most part America is now on Life Support. The Left as well as the Right have been sucking the country dry. So what that America is trillions and trillions of dollars in debt. Big deal. It is just a shell game at this point. Gee, it might be better to be a citizen of Venezuela now. Marxism has worked so well there. America has just tipped over to be a Marxist State. That is simply a fact. We have a regime in the White House that has a viseral hatred of the country. One would think obama would have spit so many times on America now that he would have dried up to a prune. Hugo Chavez, Marxist dictator of Venezuela is slapping his knee saying, "Damn, I didn't think the boy could do it!"
I give America maybe another 12 months before it is wiped off the map. This will happen when most likely a nuclear bomb (or two) will go off inside it. What will happen after that is what is called ANARCHY since there is no social fabric left.
Yes, pretty grim you are right. Reality however is a difficult thing to accept sometimes. Pssst...this is one of those times people.
Oh, I guess I should have left a comment regarding allowing illegal aliens to be given a free pass. Of course, 99.9% of illegal aliens are from Central and South America. I will leave whoever the one person who is reading this post a little look into the future. Hugo Chavez gained power by allowing illegal aliens to swarm into Venezuela. Once there, he gave them the ability to vote. Once that mission completed.....Bammo! Chavez established his Marxist regime. Mmmm. America now has a Marxist regime in its White House. He and the Democrat Party want illegal aliens to become citizens just like Chavez did in Venezuela. Hey people, how is that "Hope and Change" working for you?
Bye bye America. Thomas Jefferson said a Republic can only last about 400 years. Wow, America did a little better than that. Welcoe to Marxism people! Enjoy!
C.K. Amos| 5.12.11 @ 9:34PM
What's not needed is fatalism such as yours. The fight isn't over.
cats1cowboy| 5.12.11 @ 7:40PM
Immigrants follow the law and apply to enter the country. The alien invaders are NOT immigrants, they are criminals.
Negro X| 5.12.11 @ 8:53PM
Obama's immigrant policy can be summed up in two words; ZEITUNI LEECH.
C.K. Amos| 5.12.11 @ 9:33PM
Notwithstanding Obama continually embarrasses me as a man and purportedly the president of my country; and notwithstanding Obama's incivility, divisiveness, childishness and arrogance--personally, I think and have thought for about three years that he needs some intense behind-the-woodshed counseling by a group of real men--I wonder: Not to be punny, does he border on or has he crossed the border of his oath of office and now commits impeachable offense by advocating that foreigners become illegal aliens?
albert constantine, jr.| 5.12.11 @ 9:53PM
I've yet to see mentioned that the statistics that Obama has cited are no indicated that the border is safer. One can just as easily posit that the increased seizure of drugs, weapons and currency over the last 2 and a half years are symptomatic of greatly increased traffic (i.e. they're seizing more of these things because more are being trafficked, not because they're getting more of the static amount). Likewise, fewer apprehensions of people could mean that the Border Patrol has become less efficient, or that fewer people are coming across, but they're much worse than before (e.g. they've got more drugs, guns and currency). The public must be more critical of the subjective conclusions the political leadership attempts to put forth from statistics without context.
Dee See| 5.12.11 @ 11:01PM
---Wonderful piece.
BTW ---as the greatest world nuclear disaster
in history will be spewing radiation for the next
10 months, covered up by the globalist
'eugenics friendly' media, it now comes to light
off the charts radiation is being picked up in back
yard gardens ----in ENGLAND!
TRUE!
And we understand Bill Gates giggles when they
hook him up into his collator.
HAVE FUN KIDS!
Nite| 5.12.11 @ 11:27PM
Obama couldn't lead his own way out of a paper bag, let alone anyone else. He is totally deaf to what the citizens of this country are saying. We welcome legal immigrants, but those who have broken the laws of our country should go back to the end of the line in order to become a citizen.
June| 5.13.11 @ 8:50AM
A moat? Alligators? Hummm! Good idea, Mr. President. Thanks.
Dee See| 5.15.11 @ 11:35PM
Rockefeller front op A.S. has yet to
file a single item on the ongoing Rockefeller/Carnegie/
Ford Foundation's almost century long covert subversion
of our culture and our republic.
(BTW not only are these capstone creep ops
ultra rich and TAX FREE --but now run by
the SAME board of directors)
AS just moments ago we learn that
Fuikishima is, IN FACT, far, far, far worse
than previously admitted by our globalist
'EUGENICS friendly' media ----and that
Bill Gates and UNESCO (RIIA/Rhodes/Rocekefeller set-ups)
are now likely to get their calls for 100 MILLION Americans
to be exterminated by 2100 realized,
EVEN the 'on board' rectum worshippers ----it's now emerging as UNDENIABLE.
"Come out from among them.
Do NOT partake of their sin---"