Feds expected to boost rates by a quarter-point

Fox News

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is expected to hike interest rates another quarter point today. But after 18 months in which the Fed has been pushing rates higher to keep inflation under control, the central bank appears to be getting close to the end of its rate increase campaign.

However, there is a divergence of opinion among economists on just when the rate increases will cease. One group thinks the Fed will stop after two more rate increases, while analysts who are more worried about inflation think the central bank could raise rates perhaps four more times.

"The Fed is looking at an economy right now that is growing strongly with upside risks to inflation," said Lyle Gramley, a former Fed board member and currently senior economic adviser at Schwab Washington Research Group, a financial advisory firm.

"... is growing strongly with upside risks inflation"

How often have we heard these words uttered from Alan Greenspan? "The economy is strongly recovering"

Tell that to General Motors and Ford... Kodak... Sony... and all the other companies that had to do massive layoffs and/or went out of business because they could not afford to keep operating in the consumer could not afford to keep buying products.

The federal government treats the interest rates like it is a totally separate entity from everything else. Every time that the interest rate goes up, it causes a cascading effect in the economy.

state and local governments suffer because of increased on operating expenses and lower tax base thus forcing them to raise taxes and fees to compensate

overall operating expenses on businesses are increased, forcing businesses to reduce operating costs and lay off employees as well increasing the price of goods and services

the price of fuel increases make it more expensive to get goods to market and the cost is passed on to the consumer

resulting in massive layoffs, businesses closing

consumers being tighter on the dollar purchase less which forces more layoffs and business closures

state and local governments again feeling the pinch from lack of revenue, raise taxes and fees again to compensate (citing the example when Oregon was the top in unemployment in the nation)

So could somebody please explain to me how making things more expensive is actually a good thing.

Judge Clears Way for Border Fence Construction, Environmental Groups Opposed

Fox News
SAN DIEGO — A federal judge on Monday lifted the final legal barrier to completing a border fence meant to thwart illegal immigrants in the southwestern corner of the U.S.
The project comprises 14 miles of additional fencing in San Diego. In September, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived all laws and legal challenges to building the final 3 1/2-mile leg through coastal wetlands to the Pacific Ocean.
The Sierra Club and other environmental groups had argued that Chertoff lacked the authority to do what he did.
The proposal calls for adding two fences to an existing barrier made of Navy landing mats. A maintenance road would be built between the primary and secondary fences, along with lights, sensors and cameras.

how much do you want to bet that they will do just like the Oregon prisons... spend millions of dollars for the prisons but forget to allocate money to run them.

girls are nurses... boys are technician

KATU
Portland school officials float same-sex school idea

PORTLAND, Ore. - A proposal discussed at a meeting Tuesday night would dramatically change Portland's schools.
The idea is to separate the boys from the girls, putting them each at different schools, something private schools have been doing for years.
Harriet Tubman in northeast Portland is one of the schools that could become an all girls public school under the plan. The boys would be sent to Jefferson.
The way it would work is that girls from grades 7 through 12 would be sent to Harriet Tubman, where their education would be focused on health occupations.
Boys who are the same age would go to Jefferson, where the curriculum would focus either on leadership, arts or technology.
what would be the point of separating the boys and girls and in particular focusing on the old adage of "girls would focus on health occupation" and "boys on leadership, arts or technology".
What are we trying to do return to the 50s? This is so Ozzie and Harriet. So what's next? Poodle skirts!
I vote no, I do not think it's a good idea... what do you think?

Immigration Protesters Go after Employers

The Seattle Times

LAKE FOREST, Calif. — The white van eases into a liquor-store parking lot and is swarmed by 30 Hispanic day laborers who begin intense job negotiations with the driver. Within seconds, another wave of people descend on the van. Mostly white and middle aged, they snap pictures as they cite federal labor laws.
"If you hire illegal workers, we'll put your picture on the Internet," warns Robin Hvidston, a property manager who became an immigration activist after being alarmed by the number of Hispanics she saw in her Orange County community.
Their method: Take photos of construction bosses and anyone else picking up day laborers, then post the photos on Web sites (such as www.wehirealiens.com and www.operationshameonyou.org), sometimes including home addresses and license-plate numbers. They also give their footage to immigration officials.

Their objective is twofold: to shame businesses into not hiring illegal immigrants and to force the government to enforce immigration law.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials evaluate the groups' phone tips and footage, but often their reports are not verifiable enough to prompt an investigation, said Bill Riley, ICE's chief of work site enforcement.

"Nobody gets work on the days they come," said Fernando Gomez, a day laborer.
Gomez, 30, from Michoacán, Mexico, said he and most day laborers he knows came to the U.S. illegally.
"But someday we will be legal," he said. "We just want to work. We didn't come to do anything bad to anybody."

I think this is a wonderful idea... hit them where it hurts…. In the pocket book.

Just like putting the photos of Johns that solicit prostitution, employers who solicit and hire illegal immigrants should be published and we should no longer do business with them.

Tough Immigration Bill up for Vote

The Seattle Times

WASHINGTON — Driven by the rising anger of constituents, House Republicans are pushing ahead with tough legislation to tighten control of U.S. borders and clamp down on the hiring of illegal immigrants —without offering new avenues for such immigrants to find lawful employment. why should that be our priority, especially when we have high unemployment in the United States anyways?

President Bush and Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman have implored House leaders not to take up what they call an "enforcement-only" bill, arguing that such a punitive measure could jeopardize years of Republican outreach to Latinos greed... they are only concerned about how many votes that they can get and they don't care how they get them. Believe it or not, there was actually a time when politicians ACTUALLY were concerned about the welfare of the American people

Under the bill, employers would be mandated to confirm the authenticity of employees' Social Security numbers against a national database of legitimate numbers. All illegal immigrants apprehended at the border would have to be detained, and deportation processes would be streamlined.

Latino political organizations are incensed by the bill. Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, says the measure would overwhelm the nation's jails and law-enforcement agencies without effectively stemming the flow of illegal immigrants.

The business lobby is not happy, either. Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has expressed disappointment that there is no temporary-worker program and called the bill's mandate on employer verification impractical and unrealistic.

I still fail to understand why we're more concerned about Latinos and Hispanics over any other group.

It makes me wonder if the old "follow the money" rule applies here

"A bad policySaturday's protest and subsequent name-calling illustrate the great divide when it comes to illegal immigration for the state"

Toodburn Independent

The Woodburn Independent wrote a very nice article which I recommend describing the "Carousel of Information" event held recently in the Woodburn .

"…They don't deserve it, haven't earned it and they denigrate the efforts of those who have done it the right way. This "hand it out by the bucket-full" mentality is wearing thin with many Oregonians and offers a full-tilt example of what has gone wrong with this country's immigration policies."

"The fact that several state agencies were in attendance Saturday, offering to help get people signed up for programs and assistance, continues to send a convoluted message -- "you're breaking the law, but we'll take care of as many of your needs as we can."

"You stole our land and we want it back"

This is a phrase that illegal aliens have started chanting. Claiming that the United States had illegally taken over their territory such as Texas, California and Oregon and they want it back citing the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
I will admit that I am not a historian and that this was the first that I ever heard of this treaty, so I decided to do a little research and thanks to the Montery County Historical Society, I found a copy of the treaty which you can view at this link.

" The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the Mexican War, was signed on February 2, 1848, by Nicholas P. Trist for the United States and by a special commission representing the collapsed government of Mexico. Trist disregarded a recall to Washington, and negotiated the treaty in violation of most of his instructions. The U.S. Senate reluctantly approved the treaty.
Under the treaty, Mexico ceded to the United States Upper California and New Mexico (including Arizona) and recognized U.S. claims over Texas, with the Rio Grande as its southern boundary. The United States in turn paid Mexico $15,000,000, assumed the claims of American citizens against Mexico, recognized prior land grants in the Southwest, and offered citizenship to any Mexicans residing in the area."

Again, I'm not a historian or legal expert and I will be looking into this in more detail after finals week, but from the jest of what I'm getting from this is that the United States and Mexico were at war and Mexico lost.

"they want it back", even for the sake of argument if these territories were returned, they would be returned to the Mexican government, not the people.

So I would take that under consideration before I make such a claim especially since the major reasons cited for being here is because of the lack of opportunities and tyranny from their homeland.

Is Eugene ready for this type of REVENUE enforcement?

Robin's Commentary

If history repeats itself, when the voters vote down another tax for public safety, as in the past, they will find other ways of raising money. Usually through citations.

This may come in the form of officers pulling over more people for minor violations or they may try a new tactic by using technology known as photo radar and red light cameras. It's

although not so new to law enforcement, red light cameras and photo radars are started to show up in more and more cities throughout the United States such as Portland and Medford


As any street cop will be the first to tell you, the majority of the felons that are captured from traffic stops for a minor traffic infringements such as a burned-out taillight etc..

Photo radar of the other hand is an automated system whose only job is to send you a ticket in the mail in which you have to prove your innocence.

One of the big questions that is asked is, is this law enforcement or revenue enhancement?. Moreover, how much are we paying for the systems?

Well here's the thing that will surprise you... not that much.

It is revenue enhancement, who profits from it and how does it work?

A private company known as Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc. Of Scottsdale, Arizona partners with the local cities by providing the necessary equipment, support and monitoring needed for the systems.
(Information from their web site) (link)
City Provided Services
The city oversees all aspects of the photo detection and enforcement technology through this contract. The city controls the site selection process for both fixed and mobile detection systems. The city pays monthly rental fees for both fixed and mobile detection systems. Fees are also paid for each successfully prosecuted speed and red light citation.
Contractor Provided Services
The contractor pays all costs for vehicle and equipment purchase, installation and maintenance. Van operators are hired and trained by Redflex .
Redflex is responsible for the following:
· process and mail all citations
· provide an expert witness to testify in Court on all contested citations and appeals
· perform process service via a third party subcontractor (Arizona Photo Safety) when defendants ignore the first mailed copy of a citation.
In FY 2003-04, the City paid Redflex approximately $1.4 million for all of the above services. Redflex is not required to report their net profit to the city under the current contract. that's interesting

Photo radar itself is a mobile unit that is in mounted inside of a van placed on random streets. It includes a camera that is connected to a radar gun, which automatically triggers when a vehicle approaches above a set setting.

Currently, photo radar has the following restrictions under Oregon revised statute (ORS) 810.438-439 specifies how photo radar can be used by the authorized cities. It can be used in any one location for no more than four hours a day, can not be used on controlled access highways, and the city must post signs notifying drivers of potential photo enforcement on major routes entering the city.

The photo radar units must be operated out of marked police vehicles by trained police officers.

Law enforcement? Revenue enhancement? Definite moneymaker? Absolutely!

Law enforcement -- can we all just get along?

Register-Guard

Police hope a new property crimes task force will bring some of Lane County's most prolific thieves to justice.
The team is the brainchild of Lane County Sheriff Russ Burger, who pitched the idea to state and city police earlier this year to address the area's high property crime rate, which for years has outpaced that of the state and the rest of the country. gosh, you don't think publicly advertising that you will no longer be responding to burglar alarms and prosecuting?
The other agencies, including Eugene, Springfield and state police, the Lane County District Attorney's Office and county parole and probation, were eager to join in. Of course, were asking for a new tax that we want the voters to pass
The team's secret weapon? Communication. Communication??? That's it??? "It's hard to get agencies together to talk about cases," sheriff's Lt. Randy Smith said. "The goal is really to share information and to apprehend the most prolific burglars and to return as much stolen property as you can."
"These burglars and thieves don't just target one jurisdictional area," Sheriff Burger added. "They cross boundaries." really??? Those dirty bastards

"When someone writes a search warrant for meth, they're probably going to find stolen property," Smith said. "And when someone writes a search warrant for stolen property, they're probably going to find meth." Yah, you think… but I'll bet you that they will not find any Theraflu.

"The team's secret weapon? Communication."
Gee, you know what is odd... I thought that they were working together. Intra-agency communication enhanced by technology, computers in their cars, video cameras and radios.
I did not realize that they were all running independent clubs.

Therefore, the big Woopdi Doo of this story is that the different agencies are going to start talking to each other… Humm…. is it just me, or does this sound pretty lame.

Remember folks, these are the same people that are asking for $49 million and a sales tax.

I will give kudos to Lane County Sheriff Russ Burger for trying to help and should encourage others to come forward with ideas as well.

immigration -- roundtable discussion idea

with another event such as the one this weekend in Woodburn and with people refusing to talk to Daniel along with poor media reporting, I was thinking that wouldn't it be great to have a roundtable discussion on Lars's show

Lars of course could moderate the discussion with the panel to include representatives from the State of Oregon, one or two bloggers such as Daniel from Daniel is right , representatives from PCUN, MEChA and a couple of illegal aliens and/or other supporters of these events to present their views.

it would also be great if some of our representatives would have the GUTS to call in and discuss this issue as well.

Personally I would be very interested in hearing why we should support and defend people who blatantly break the law and why our government is not enforcing the law.


What do you think of this idea?

and Lars, if you decide to do something like this... it would be great if you could put it in your archives so people like myself who work or have school can listen to it later.

so people, what do you think? it would be a lot of work for the KXL staff to put it together and make it happen, but do you think that overall it would be a good idea and that we should encourage them to at least consider the idea?

if you like the idea, send Lars Larson a note at talk@larslarson.com