US citizens scramble for food aid - 11 Feb 09

The number of unemployed Americans continues to rise and some are now struggling to put food on the table, becoming increasingly dependent on food stamps to help them get by.

Food stamps are a state-subsidised programme that helps people with a low income buy food at lower prices. But for many US citizens it may not be enough to help them weather the economic crisis, as Lucy Keating discovers in the US town of Knoxville in Tennessee.

We the People: Lou Dobbs and Insourcing Jobs.

Insourcing is the opposite of outsourcing; that is insourcing (or contracting in) is often defined as the delegation of operations or jobs from production within a business to an internal (but 'stand-alone') entity that specializes in that operation. Insourcing is a business decision that is often made to maintain control of critical production or competencies.
According to PR Web, insourcing was becoming more common by 2006 as businesses had less than satisfactory experiences with outsourcing (including customer support).
To those who are concerned that nations may be losing a net amount of jobs due to outsourcing, some point out that insourcing also occurs as a major surplus. According to a study by Mary Amiti and Shang-Jin Wei, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and many other industrialized countries more jobs are insourced than outsourced. They found that out of all the countries in the world they studied, the U.S. and the U.K. actually have the largest net trade surpluses in business services.
So the measure of fear created by Lou Dobbs of Outsourcing jobs from America is Justified?
when Dobbs testified before Congress, it was not just a case of preaching to the choir, or even the blind leading the stupid. It was vivid proof of Goethe’s famous dictum, “Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.”
Let’s take a look close at Dobbs’s testimony. It was long on impressive-sounding claims based on apparently authoritative statistics. But virtually every seeming fact that Dobbs cited is flat wrong.
Dobbs said that free trade is costing America jobs. With the unemployment rate now at only 4.4 percent, it’s hard to see what he is complaining about. Nevertheless he stated that
Since the beginning of this new century, the United States has lost more than three million manufacturing jobs. Three million more jobs have been lost to cheap overseas labor markets …
That’s a total of six million jobs. According to the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, there today are only 6.7 million unemployed people in the U.S. to begin with. So just what is Dobbs promising? That if we had pursued protectionist trade policies, we’d have six million more jobs -- leaving only 700 thousand people unemployed? That would put the unemployment rate at less than one half of one percent -- a tiny fraction of the lowest unemployment rate ever achieved in history.
Surely this sets a new high water mark for sheer absurdity in the long history of political promises to provide more jobs.

Dobbs also declared that Salaries and wages now represent the lowest share of our national income than any time since 1929. Corporate profits have the largest share of our national income than at any time since 1950.
The claim about salaries and wages is so deceptive as to very nearly be a lie. Dobbs ignored the fact that for many of the years following 1929, companies paid only salaries and wages, and no fringe benefits such as pensions or health care. In the modern economy, fringe benefits are a significant portion of total compensation. Today, the income share of total worker compensation -- wages and salaries plus benefits -- is higher than in any year prior to 1967, and lands in about the middle of the narrow range in which it has since fluctuated.
Know with Insourcing more than five million Americans now receive a pay check from a foreign firm. We the People travels to a former US manufacturing town to see how 'insourcing' is changing the face of one small community.

We the people: Blind side of Lou Dobbs Part 1.

More than five million Americans now receive a pay check from a foreign firm. We the People travels to a former US manufacturing town to see how 'insourcing' is changing the face of one small community bringing jobs and how cities economic has being rebuilt by foreign firms. That's a totally misleading from Lou Dobbs stated that Outsourcing taking jobs from Americans but he does not reflected the creation of Insources Jobs and How cities has being rebuilding their Economy. Let's get the true on the Global Economy.

Many Extremists, Xenophobics, conservative Citizens saying deported them all 12 millions. Rounded up and put them in a plain or a bus. Undocumented get out.
Why those people reacting that way? Why is so much ignorance and bigotry on this complex and sensitive issue? Why Media do not exposed the both sides of Immigration?

Immigrants are willing, how will we assimilate them?

THE QUESTION: If 'all politics is local,' how has the illegal immigration issue impacted Lake of the Ozarks?

I have a unique perspective on this issue, having been an employer and business owner for several years here at the lake.

From 1994 until its sale in 2000, I was the owner/operator of the 51 room Days Inn Lake of the Ozarks in Osage Beach.

From the moment we took over the operation until the time we sold the franchise, we experienced the nightmare of recruiting and retaining employees.

We tried paying more to our employees than our competitors.

We instituted a later starting time for the convenience of our employees.

We offered a company paid lunch for all employees on Fridays. We had an employee of the month program that paid bonuses to the winner.

We offered flex time so that employees with children could take off from work to attend school meetings, doctor visits and child related errands.

Our franchise was one of the first hotels to offer company-paid health insurance for our employees.

The end result of all these innovative employee programs was that in our last year of operation (2000) we experienced a turnover of 61 employees in 11 months!

During the six years we owned the hotel, we never knowingly hired any illegal immigrants. After selling the hotel, I heard through the grapevine that some hotels would contract with employment services that provided non-English speaking Russian and Mexican housekeepers.

Hiring through these employment services was a way around the immigration laws, but those employers using these services knew that these folks were most likely undocumented, illegal immigrants.

Herein lies the dilemma for the lake area businesses ' not enough locals are willing to work in the hospitality/restaurant industries and manual labor positions. A sharp influx of illegal immigrants willing to work, appreciative of the pay and low turnover rates for the employer makes hiring them attractive to the business owner.

There is a dark side to the hiring of illegal immigrant workers. There have been cases where unscrupulous business owners have hired illegal immigrants for the sole purpose of exploiting them by not paying minimum wage, not withholding federal/social security/state income taxes or unemployment insurance.

There have been documented cases of illegal immigrants being warehoused in large numbers in small apartments or houses here at the lake.

They are virtual prisoners of their employers, constantly threatened with being reported to INS or USCIS for deportation if they do not comply or if they complain.

Local law enforcement says that while they have seen an increase in the number of illegal immigrants here at the lake, they have been involved in no more criminal activities than the rest of the population.

I do not believe that the illegal immigrants living at the lake take jobs from anyone. They, in fact, fill a void in the pool of workers unwilling to work in the lower paying jobs of a resort area.

Either we find a way to document the illegal workers living here and make them taxpaying citizens or employers at the lake must pay all workers a starting salary of between $12 to $20 per hour.

In the coming years, the number of illegal immigrants arriving at the lake will most likely increase along with the rest of the country.

Four million illegal folks are already here. As a nation of immigrants ourselves, we must find a way to turn this into a win-win situation for both the United States and these people seeking honest work.

I believe that the vast majority of illegal immigrants want to work hard, provide for their families and anyone of us would do the same given the same set of circumstances.