american worker info

A large proportion of the detentions in Operation Return to Sender have been Mexicans, which is logical given that most undocumented migrants are Mexican. According to immigration expert Raúl Delgado Wise of the University of Zacatecas, Mexico is now the world champion in exporting its own people, with 11 million Mexicans currently residing in the United States. The migratory drain on Mexico's population shows up in demographic statistics, where 800 townships now register negative growth.

The reason for this massive out-migration is clear. Mexico is not producing enough decent jobs for its people -- and the United States is hiring. Between 2000 and 2005, Mexico lost 900,000 rural jobs and 700,000 in industry. President Felipe Calderon got off to a bad start in his attempt to reverse this trend. Government statistics for the first two months of his administration showed a loss of 178,370 jobs in the formal sector. The future doesn't look any rosier. A recent Bank of Mexico business survey projected 615,000 new jobs this year, representing a drop of 300,000 compared to last year and far short of the estimated one-million-plus jobs needed to absorb the number of Mexicans who enter the labor market every year.

The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.

As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”

Ron Jacobs: ...you made a clear and concise equation. You essentially stated that if the fruits of immigrant labor wasn't illegal, than neither should the producers of those fruits. Would you mind elaborating on that statement?

Nativo: All serious economists recognize that labor produces value. This is the basis for the comment above. If all workers (labor) produce value, wealth for the country, immigrant workers do so to a greater degree. They do not enjoy a collective bargaining agreement, vacations, pensions, health insurance, etc.

“Free trade” and “globalization” are the guises behind which class war is being conducted against the middle class by both political parties. Patrick J. Buchanan, a three-time contender for the presidential nomination, put it well when he wrote that NAFTA and the various so-called trade agreements were never trade deals. The agreements were enabling acts that enabled U.S. corporations to dump their American workers, avoid Social Security taxes, health care and pensions, and move their factories offshore to locations where labor is cheap.

Paul Craig Roberts in the subscriber's edition of CounterPunch Vol.

WHAT GOES ROUND COMES AROUND HOW THE WOMEN TITLE HOLDERS SEIZED THE WIND MILLS ON THE HALDIMAND TRACT

MNN. July 27, 2006. Last January we were called by a Mohawk resident from the community of Tyendinaga who lives at the source of the Grand River . He told us about a huge business development. The "Melancthon Wind Mill Farm" was being built on Haldimand Tract land without the knowledge of the owners, the Six Nations. They want to use our wind to make energy for sale to non-native people.

Two Women Title Holders from Akwesasne and Kahnawake then sent out an objection to this invasion of Kanienke:haka/Mohawk territory by a corporation, the Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. Along with this we attached a map, the Haldimand Proclamation and the Mohawk Manifesto with all the laws and precedents to support our objection.

The project for Integration of South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA, by its initials in Spanish), is swiftly but silently moving forward. IIRSA is the most ambitious and encompassing plan to integrate the region for international trade. If completed in full, the project would connect zones containing natural resources (natural gas, water, oil, biodiversity) with metropolitan areas, and both of these with the world's largest markets.

From August 31-September 1, during the 2000 South American Presidential Summit in Brasilia initiated by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the InterAmerican Development Bank (IADB) presented its "Plan of Action for the Integration of South American Infrastructure." In essence, it formed the foundation for what would become IIRSA, an ambitious plan to facilitate regional and global trade by carrying out physical projects and effecting changes in legislation, statute, and national regulations.

Despite the anti-communist ideology behind the Cold War, the US economy benefited greatly from socialistic programs that began in the New Deal while the core of the US economy remained firmly rooted in capitalism. The combination of a capitalistic core and a socialist infrastructure produced one of the greatest prosperities in human history, relatively free of oppressive exploitation. Within limits, the US was undeniably the freest and riches society in the world. With such a wondrously successful system, it was a puzzle why Americans were told by their leaders to fear communism since the whole world was trying to copy the US. Even the USSR was copying the US model with the ideological modification of state capitalism at the core. Where the USSR erred was that it failed to allow a consumer market of small entrepreneurs, a mistake China is now avoiding.

In a world operating under the rules of political economy, the idea of a global cartel for labor, to be known as Organization of Labor-intensive Exporting Countries (OLEC), can help to level the playing field between capital and labor. It is a timely political concept with important positive economic implications in this age of deregulated finance globalization. In finance capitalism, both capital and labor are viewed as mere commodities, not unlike other basic commodities, most notably oil. All commodities command a price in the market by their sellers exercising fair pricing power. They do this by withholding supply from the market until the price is right and fair. If OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) members can form a global cartel for oil to control and raise oil prices in the global market for their collective benefit at the same time claiming benefits for the global economy, low-wage manufacture exporting countries can also form a similar cartel for global labor to control and raise wages worldwide with a long-range strategy that would be good for the global economy.

World trade is now a game in which the US produces dollars by fiat and the rest of the world produces things that fiat dollars can buy. The world's interlinked economies no longer trade to capture a comparative advantage; they compete in exports to capture needed dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts and to accumulate dollar reserves to sustain the exchange value of their domestic currencies. To prevent speculative and manipulative attacks on their currencies, the world's central banks must acquire and hold dollar reserves in corresponding amounts to their currencies in circulation. The higher the market pressure to devalue a particular currency, the more dollar reserves its central bank must hold. This creates a built-in support for a strong dollar that in turn forces the world's central banks to acquire and hold more dollar reserves, making it stronger. This phenomenon is known as dollar hegemony, which is created by the geopolitically constructed peculiarity that critical commodities, most notably oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil. The recycling of petro-dollars is the price the US has extracted from oil-producing countries for US tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel since 1973.

As Chile's largest student strike in more than 30 years continues, a mountain of hitherto ignored problems in the educational system is becoming apparent.

The story and motives behind this 3-week-old unrest are simple. Chile's prosperity has been unequally shared. Other sectors enjoy a higher standard of living, while politicians still have an unpaid debt to the underprivileged.

Chilean law guarantees 12 years of education to all its citizens, but the education offered lacks quality.

The Chilean educational system has been in a crisis for more than 16 years, with a teaching model that has become outdated and not concerned with producing future professionals ready for the workforce, as well as creating a gulf between the private and public educational systems.