Just Something to Think About

Back shortly after the Reagan era, when the Immigration and Reform Act of 1986 was signed in and fixed all the shortcomings of migrants just entering the US....within two or three years....Jose # 1 entered into the US via Mexico, from El Salvador, and became an illegal and undocumented worker in the US.  He had a job, under the table, and worked for warehouse clean-up team....making $2 under the minimum wage. 

A year or two passed, and Jose #2 arrived in the US....illegal and undocumented.  He convinced the clean-up crew for the warehouse to hire him for $2.20 less than minimum wage, and Jose #1 was let go.  Jose #1 went on and found another job....making less than minimum wage. 

A year or two passed, and Jose #3 arrived in the US....illegal and undocumented.  He convinced the clean-up crew for the warehouse to hire him for $2.25 less than minimum wage, and Jose #2 was let go.  He went on to compete against Jose #1, and took his job.  Jose #1, sought better work in Michigan.

A year or two passed, and Jose #4 arrived in the US....illegal and undocumented.  He convinced the clean-up crew for the warehouse to hire him for $2.30 less than minimum wage, and Jose #3 was let go.  He went to compete against Jose #2, who gave up and moved to NY City.

Year after year, a new Jose arrived.  Year after year, that Jose displaced the old Jose.   Altogether, these 10 to 15 million illegal and undocumented workers....make less than the minimum wage and save literally billions in the pockets of well-to-do Americans.  Guys hire Jose to do work, that minority Americans won't do....for less than the minimum wage.  Everytime that a threat comes up to lessen the Jose affect, you can depend on Congressmen and Senators to save the Jose, and his fellow-Joses.

But decade after decade, the Joses are now in such abundance, that they compete against the original Jose folks, and the second wave, and the third wave.  So we now have plenty of Joses....to do minimum wage work, for half the price. 

Are we really doing them a favor? 

Trump and Homelessness

It's a fairly decent page one story this morning.....Trump says he's ready to take on LA, Seattle, and San Francisco. If the cities can't do the job, and the state governments just stand by with nothing accomplished....well, the feds will do it. Correct attitude? I doubt it.

But he could bring three curious measures to the table and really put the city governments of the three cities (all run by Democrats) in serious jeopardy.

First, he could send in a task force and just say accepted drug-use on the streets....won't be accepted by the federal government. You could go and detain 500 heroin users (requiring some judge in the middle) to hold and force rehab upon a guy. 500 out of thousands? Well, the week or two after this....you'd go and suggest more task force members are coming and unless they (the drug group) evacuate the three cities....they will be hauled off. That 'scare' would be enough to do serious talk of leaving the three cities.

Second, he could put 'hurt' and 'pain' into the drug market, and start upping the charges on dealers. It wouldn't take much take down a hundred dealers in San Francisco. They'd be replaced in a matter of hours....but you could have a second group of federal cops ready to go, and haul them off as well. You could even go and create a special wing for dope dealers at some federal prison and make it a pretty tough sentence to suffer through.

Third, you could go and start a long discussion in public about mental health, and the crappy attitude of just letting these folks suffer. Eventually, it'd trigger the public to accept facilities and life-time stays. I know.....it's something people dislike, but the idea of letting thousands of nutcases wander around and possibly be a threat to the public is not that great of an idea.

 And here is the curious thing....the 2024 likely contender for the Democrats is the current California governor (Newsom). If Trump resolves the problem ahead of him? Newsom is toast....he won't be able to get any real support in 2024.

What I Expect on 26 October 2020

I expect the Trump camp to come out with one last political advertisement.....a 60 second piece, with dramatic music in the background, and the word 'socialism' appearing on the screen.  Then roughly 55 images will appear on the screen dramatizing the negativity of socialism. 

Scenes of San Francisco's homelessness situation will flow into this. 

Then at the very tail end of this ad....mostly seen via Twitter and Facebook (yep, he'll save millions avoiding the networks)....it'll ask the question, 'is this what you want?'

At that point, the last ten million undecided voters will decide and step back from Joe Biden's camp.  There won't be any time left to pop up some ad....condemning capitalism or defending socialism.

Around a year later, some folks will talk about this, and suggest that embracing socialism might not be smart.....but those folks will be pushed to leave the party.  And by the summer of 2022....I see some Democrats discussing moving over to the Green Party, or starting an entirely different Democratic Party. 

Trump and Kim

Step by step...they are still maneuvering this situation toward some conclusion. 

If you figure Trump will likely be around til 2024....it's fairly good odds that some type of treaty will be worked out...that simply says the War is over, and there's a new evolution taking place.  Yeah....a 12-line piece that simply agrees there is no real conflict. 

It won't happen in 2019.  2020 is questionable. 

But it'll open up the door for the US to pull out a certain number of troops (24,000 US troops in South Korea today).  My humble guess is that treaty will open up with 3,000 US troops leaving within sixty days, and another 10,000 a year down the line. 

The end-result will be a small contingent....maybe in the 3,000 range by the end of 2024. 

Trade will be established between the US and North Korea as part of this whole deal.

Some folks will be sitting there in shock....that Trump accomplished all of this, without any intellectual state department folks handling the process. 

Being Irrelevant

I noticed this page two-type story this morning.  The Trump 2020 election national press secretary....Kayleigh McEnany....spoke up on Alyssa Milano (actress)....saying that women (probably men as well) simply "tune out  the Trump critic and that Hollywood's opinions on political issues are irrelevant."

Maybe a decade ago, the opinions of Hollywood types might have been worth something.  In the past decade, the public has generally tired of the juvenile behavior often seen with politics. 

If you are trying to hype your opinion based on your Hollywood status now.....you probably are burning a bridge or two to your career....where a quarter to half of the general public have zero interest in products you produce. 

One Odd Feature of the Two Debates

Maybe it's just me....but after you look at the twenty folks up there...did you kinda notice that that there are only three candidates from the south....and all three are from Texas?

Beto, Williamson, and Castro.  Oh, and there is a virtual unknown mayor from Miramar. 

Southern voters?  Well, here's the thing, there's not a lot to attract you over to Joe Biden, Bernie, or Warren. 

So would you look at Beto as a possibility?  Maybe. 

Hurting the southern vote situation?  I think the VP is absolutely destined to be the loser candidate from Georgia....to help balance black and female voters. 

Its Broke and We Want To Fix It

After viewing roughly 75 minutes of the first debate, and maybe 60 minutes of the second debate, there is this one trend that continues on with the candidates....the system is broke and we want to fix it.  I see five essential problems with this theme:

1.  Most of what they are picking....has been broke not just for the Trump era (since 2016)....but broke for years and even decades.  Yes, they are talking about things that were broke in the Obama era, the Bush era, the Clinton era, the Reagan era, and even back into the Carter/Ford era.  Throughout these periods, the House and Senate shifted back and forth.  Each had a chance to fix problems, and some even came to resolve the issue with a 'fix'.....then came later to realize that the 'fix' actually made the problem into something bigger and worse.

2.  The use of the term 'real' change?  This was used a couple of times in the debates.  Are we talking real change versus fake change?  Is real change even a measurable accomplishment?

3. Why didn't a lot of broke things get fixed in the 2008-to-2016 era under President Obama? 

4.  If you add up the fixing 'cost'.....it gets up into the tens of trillions of dollars.  Where exactly will that money be found?  If you are saying new taxes, and it'll be taken from the companies.....will their product costs shift upwards, and be simply delivered to the customers?

5.  If you go down among Americans and ask them about non-government 'things' which are broke.....they will list out hundreds of things.  The NCAA bowl game process is broke.  The way that cable TV bundling is done, and you are forced to have CNN in the basic package....is probably broke.  Parking fees are broke.  The security process at airports is broke.  The list goes on and on.  An average American will tell you about a hundred things which bother them.....which are broke, and there's just not much going to happen to resolve that. 

Sorry, but we've kinda earned the title of a broke nation.....and apparently are fairly happy with broke things.