Another 'same old same old' story dressed up to look like something new.

Still not providing the promised, what was it now? Oh yes:
quick reaction to the hot story leading other media.

WHich today would have to be, I think:

US economy slows to a crawl (G&M) or, with a little more "context" - which was another thing 'promised'- from the New York Times:

The economy grew more slowly in the third quarter than at any time since early 2003, held back by a deflating housing market.

The Commerce Department reported this morning that the nation’s gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of just 1.6 percent from July through September. That preliminary estimate compares with a rate of 2.6 percent in the second quarter and the robust 5.6 percent pace recorded in the first. The figures are seasonally adjusted.

The slowdown in the third quarter was worse than economists were expecting. The consensus forecast compiled by Bloomberg News was for 2 percent growth.

The stock market opened lower on the news, with major indices falling by about 0.5 percent in the first minutes of trading.

A major question hanging over both the economy and the political campaign this fall has been just how severely the slump in housing would drag down growth. The Commerce Department’s report, which will be revised twice in coming months as more complete data becomes available, shows that the drag was indeed substantial.

I guess the editors at Tyee just don't 'get' it!

This fence, more than even the fraudulent protectionist duties that are springing up, like the softwood fiasco, gives the lie to the 'globalization' argument behind NAFTA and free trade.

We were told that North America needed to create a single economy to compete with the EU. This was the main argument to persuade us to sign up.

I point out that Europeans all but abolished their borders as a precondition of membership. Workers and everybody else need only show that they are Europeans to move freely throughout the Union.

If the Americans were being truthful about their intentions, we certainly could not be 'strengthening' border controls. It works absolutely against the principle.

Economic blending requires free movement of everything, repeat everything without restrictions. Increasing restrictions just shows clearly that we've been lied to. No doubt remains.

So, what truth does this particular lie point to?

I love how slanted some journalism is - "Bush approves 700 miles of new fencing on the Mexican Border" -

Bush didn't want this fence at all - it was his house and senate that forced him to swallow the fence. In fact Bush said this fence was a waste of money!

Personally, I think the fence is a good idea - but get your facts straight here. Write and informed and balanced story.

Alcibiades - little do you know that Bush saved the economy. Bernacke and the Federal Reserve were wanting to push rates even higher - political pressure helped lead to the freeze.

Housing is weak - that is what happens when an independent reserve raises overnight rates from .5% - 5.5%....

The U.S. Economy is adjusting to these higher rates and will push forward in 2007.

Bailey - you haven't been to Texas or Southern California have you?? I travel to Texas and New Orleans often.

If you had, you would understand the problem. They are the majority of the un-skilled workforce in Texas and California. All under the table. They give birth to kids who get birth right citizenship. They stay forever and clog up the health care and education systems. Premiums are way up.

You really don't know what you are talking about. Immigration is a good thing - however - uncontrolled chaos is not.

Capitalism/ Mabellbc

Have you looked at this lately:

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Some save!

seems that Georges' best friend, the guy who runs Mexico is against the fence. The guys who hire workers from across the border for peanuts must wonder where they are going to get their cheap labour. One poster said George was against the fence but had to do it. well just who runs the House and the Senate down there, at least for the next few day. Don't know, spell republicans. and of course George could always veto the erection

Capitalism is right, Bush has been dragging his heels against his own party on this one, I suspect the timing of this is to help his party win the next elections. Of course the Mexican government is against this, they might actually be forced to start dealing with their own issues and if their people can’t cross the border, they might start demanding that their own government starts getting their act together. Plus the Mexican Army stationed on the border will lose a lucrative business.

The US does need to limit the numbers crossings illegally, provide an amnesty for anyone that is working and is not a criminal, fix their totally mangled legal immigration system and adopt a guest worker program so Mexican’s can come to work there and receive some protection.

Capitalism/Mabellbc is, like a stopped clock, right at least twice every 24 hours.

Just like a stopped clock, the workings aren't.

Robert Frost couldn't have been more clear:

Â*
SOMETHING there is that doesn’t love a wall...

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Frost obviously thought his neighbour an idiot for wanting a stone wall between his apple orchard and the other pine forest.

There was another Bill Bush signed just yesterday which allows him to declare martial law wiping out the safeguards against Federal military intervention in internal affairs. Maybe the increased border security is really about keeping Americans in. Could the legislation be the October Surprise? The scenario could be...steal the election again...people take to the streets...call in the troops.....send the trouble makers to the concentration camps.

http://www.uruknet.biz/?p=m27769&hd=0&size=1&l=e

Alcibiades:

Just because we have different perspectives doesn't mean facts are not facts.

I am a Conservative in Canada - but I am not a fan or George Bush. There was huge pressure in the US to secure the border - and Bush wanted little more than a guest worker program - ultimately leading to citizenship.

This was not good enough for Americans. The Senate partially agreed but Congress wasn't having any of it. They comprimised on increased guard presense a fence and a modified guest worker program, where citizenship is less likely.

I just find it funny how they are trying to legitimize themselves with an actual "news" story. Bush did sign the bill - of course he did - any bill has to be signed by the president. This after it has cleared the house and the senate.

I am seldom wrong in my facts. I merely have different interpretations of those facts.

DPL:

Listen my friend - There is a big difference. It is actually comparable to the 2005 Provincial Elections where the NDP referred to the BC Liberals as the Campbell Liberals in trying to exploit his unpopularity.

This was a GOP sponsored bill and you are correct. In fact, it is reported that way in the USA where it is actually supported. People in Canada don't understand the immigration issues because we don't have them - we are ignorant in that regard. You should see some of the neighbourhoods down there!!! You can's support a system where people can jump a border and work for peanuts!! If you let the market forces work, wages will rise and actual Americans will return to the workforce.

This is an instance where the "Bush sponsored Bill" promotes the Tyee's anti-conservative message over "Republican Sponsored Bill"

You said tha Bush saved the economy. That is demonstrably untrue. If you're such a conservative you must read the conservative press. Why don't you check the archives at the Weekly Standard for a little piece entitled:
Guns and Butter
How the Bush administration's fiscal policy has narrowed its options in the realm of foreign policy.
by Irwin M. Stelzer

I'm not going to contribute to your intellectual laziness by posting the link. It's up to you to educate yourself Cappy. The truth is out there - along with that death (pardon me, debt) clock.

The whole debate is a complete waste of time. The powers that be in the US love the illegal Mexican workers in their country. On any given day I have been in any southern state I could have pointed out thousands of illegals doing the crappy work. The point is they work hard, long and cheap. That is why nothing is actually being done to reduce illegal Mexican workers.

If a $50,000 fine was levied for any business employing an illegal was enacted, the issue would go away overnight.

But we are not about see that, are we?

Not until democracy returns to the USA. Leonard Cohen said it was coming.
I haven't seen any signs of its immanent arrival.

Hey there Capitalist. We have no fence as of yet. But we do have people from as far away as Mexico working for small wages around this neck of the woods.

There are people working for less than standard wages building some train line to the airport. and we often see unpaid workers jumping ship in Vancouver.

Peter Drucker once said. The most valuable asset a company has is the workers, and a healthy worker makes it even better. Pay them peanuts and drop them if they get sick only works for so long. Shortage of workers is in the papers daily. Gordon of course cut off the apprentaship programs here in BC.

some of my familylive in lower California , has done for thirty years. The folks they know feel sorry for the Mexican workers who are exploited by the US companies. You are sort of right about the fence. Some of the companies might have to start hiring locals who might expect an almost decent wage. And the leader of a party with the most seats gets to be Premier. just what else would the NDP call the group of BC Liberals/ after all Gordon made a point of saying there was no connection to,the Federal liberals. So why doesn't he call his group what they really are. Right of center.

DPL
I've heard nothing further about that apparent push poll you encountered a few days back.

If anything further pops up I'll try to let you know.

BTW, if you're interested in exploring some other critical options, send me an email at

Alci:

Re: earlier blog

A "stopped clock" may only be correct twice a day, but one that is reliant on digital numbers and programming with "little, depleting or no power " remains at " 00:00 " (aka ZEROS ) across the board...ie wrong/incorrect all the time ....

Adjust your programmng and t-h-i-n-k about it..

Dear Capitalism; Thanks for sharing your insights into the American mind. I seem to recall similar arguments against the EU at the time of it's establishments.

'Imagine!' said the Dutch, 'Cheap Spanish workers will come here!' They did, too, to take advantage of the high wages and secent worknig conditions.

But labour standards were regularized and, surprize! With the freedom to move as they wished, turns out cheap Spanish labour wasn't so cheap anymore, and had to be paid in Euros at home too. Oh, and it seems the Spanish weren't really that keen on life in Holland or Denmark after all. They preferred to live in their own homes with their own families.

Go figure.

I know you Americans are very sure that everybody in the world wants to flood in, but you know, the laws as they are just prevent these workers from being able to go home when the lettuce is all picked. If they go, they have to go through the whole expensive and dangerous smuggling routine again to come back next year.

Another clue might be that, unlike the Europeans, we seem to be exempting foreign workers from minimum wage laws and labour standards here. A very stupid thing to do, in my view.

If free trade were the real goal, wages and standards would be rising in Mexico to match ours. But that doesn't seem to be happening, does it?

I would feel safer if the fence was on Canada's border.

I think that more fence just means more tunnels.

With satellite technology, I'm pretty sure that the border COULD be made more manageable, but at what cost?

Of course Mexico is ready and willing to offer to the rest of Central America what it expects from the US.

It never existed. Immigrants and migrants have been thoroughly exploited after the "freeing" of the slaves. Further, there has never been parity for value of work performed in the USA. The rich/annointed have always gotten more breaks and had more laws written for them. Further, in just this year alone, various levels of governments in the USA have used emminent domain to flatten the castles of 6000 working class and poor people so they could rezone their land for businesses to build parking lots, roads to be widened, etc. This rarely happens to the wealthy on their expansive estates.