The Incredible Disappearing Border Fence... (Like The Cheshire Cat, Its Gone Poof! Alert)

You didn't answer if it is India or Switzerland that you would rather live.

WTF is that question about? I'll tell you what: I'll choose to live in the same country where my DD-214 document was produced -- the one that has:

- USMC printed in block#2
- Staff Sergeant printed in block 4a
- 09[years] 11[months] 24[days] in block 12c
- Numerous entries in block#13, including a CAR
- a "KBK1" in block#26
- and a "RE-1A" in block#27

Does that answer your question? Because at least when I do not answer all of your questions or points, I do not turn around and have the audacity to make the same requests that, I myself, do not bother to deliver on. You get what I'm saying here, don't you?

My soft spot would be to go to American citizens as the entitlements are a safety net for them ., Yes, it has been abused by Americans and difficult to stop as it has gone on since LBJ.

Was it intentional that you passed this crap off as though I had been the one who had written it? I guess your soft spots do not lend themselves to champion for reducing these things -- socialist program things -- that are too "difficult to stop [because] it has gone on since..."

I believe you need to answer that question and explaine all these entitlements to the CAFTA countrires...

I do not support that shit at all! that's my !@#$ing answer to any question there regarding NAFTA or CAFTA. Still, I'd like you to point out any of the other possible failures with these two agreements; so-called failures that I suggested/pointed out in post#33

Grow up. We had trade long before 1993. You free traders didn't invent it.

I embrace the liberty for people to voluntarily exchange their lawful goods and services with other parties, free of coercion, and with a very limited amount of government intrusion that attempts to modify behaviors and pre-select trading patterns. For this lack of faith in the government to be able to restrain itself from intruding, absent agreements between nations (which also have their crappy concessions attached even though their objectives do, in fact, drastically lower governmental intrusions on net), I'm the one who needs to grow up?

We had trade long before 1993.

And people much like yourself hated it prior to 1993, too.

You free traders didn't invent it.

That's for sure, the desire to make yourself better off than you previously were goes back 5000 years. Specialization and division of labor are concepts that humans developed as our brains developed. What isn't new is the tremendous amount of grief and hurt feelings that resulted when reliable trading partners found new people to trade with and left someone assed out. Class warfare, hand-wringing, and uncomfortable adjustments to change are nothing new in economics. Today, though, some people who call themselves conservatives hide behind government and make that claim that people who understand and have faith in the trade process are not patriotic, that they're "arrogant" and that they're "demeaning". Sometimes the words "greedy" and "predatory capitalist" are also included.

The birthrates of non-immigrant American females is at a non-replenishment rate; many illegal immigrants do pay into Social Security through fraudulent SSNs without ever becoming eligible for benefits; and the surplus money collected from overtaxtion via the payroll's FICA has already been spent (THERE IS NO LOCKBOX, IT'S AN ACCOUNTING GIMMICK!)

This is your first post on this thread. This is a non sequitor statement. Maybe you should clarify the above statement.

I guess your soft spots do not lend themselves to champion for reducing these things -- socialist program things -- that are too "difficult to stop [because] it has gone on since..."

I would love to see all entitlements here at home and abroad stop. Do you think that will happen. If free trade is so good, then why do all the free trade countries need American entitlements? Name me one country that we are engaged in free trade that hasn't accepted an entitlement. Which would you get rid of first, the entitlement for American citizens or the entitlement to foreigners?

Still, I'd like you to point out any of the other possible failures with these two agreements; so-called failures that I suggested/pointed out in post#33

Now, maybe you can connect the New Deal and the UN programs with the so called free trade agreements. Let's take NAFTA. Which country the US, Mexico,or Canada used as their court system closed door, tribunals? Closed door tribunals are the closed door socialist ways of the UN. This is not free trade, this is forced trade for the UN. I much prefer fair trade without all the strings of the UN attached.

I won't answer all of your mudslinging.

Merry Christmas.

I won't answer all of your mudslinging.

Why not? If I can answer your attempted smear at calling me a modern-day progressive-liberal by invoking the name of Kinsley, when addressing me or Deflecting your lame charge that I'm not a good American when you ask which country I'd rather live in, then certainly you can handle some mudslinging yourself, right? RIGHT?!

This is your first post on this thread.

Oh, so now you want to get around to that portion of my post. Are you out of mud, you !@#$?

This is a non sequitor statement. Maybe you should clarify the above statement.

Why do you need clarity on something you've identified as a non starter? In other words, your claim that you need clarity on this is rather odd since you believe that my statements are irrelevant. So, is it ignorance on your part and you want for me to spend my time explaining something you will likely not understand. Or is it that you want me to write something in the hopes that you think i will trip up, leaving you an opening for more mud?

If free trade is so good, then why do all the free trade countries need American entitlements?

You know, from a previous post, that I do not support that the U.S. would make payment to foreign countries in exchange for trade liberalization: let's get that out of the way, yet again. In attempt to answer you question, the only thing that I can reason is that protectionist on the other side of these trade agreements want to be bought off in order to allow the short-term disruptions that occur when trade patterns change. In much the same manner that U.S. farmers, sugar producers, steel manufacturers, auto manufacturers, and the like want to be bought off, too.

Let me know if that explanation needs more clarity or is a non-starter and I may take the time to explain things more in depth; if you can handle it.

Name me one country that we are engaged in free trade that hasn't accepted an entitlement.

I don't know. Possibly Canada. But I think the term you should be using is "payment" not "entitlement". Entitlements are used to describe social programs for domestic purposes.

Which would you get rid of first, the entitlement for American citizens or the entitlement to foreigners?

First off, you should know that if I had that kind of influence over legislation, I'd cut all foreign payments and then I would gut nearly all domestic social programs. I write "nearly" because there are some people in society that just simply cannot take care of themselves and were unfortunate enough to have been abandoned by their families. A civil society does not abolish all social programs; there are some social programs that only provide benefits to the truly disabled and vulnerable-due-to-innocenence in our society. Old age, is not an excuse for not preparing or purchasing insurance for your retirement years!

Which country the US, Mexico,or Canada used as their court system closed door, tribunals? Closed door tribunals are the closed door socialist ways of the UN. This is not free trade, this is forced trade for the UN. I much prefer fair trade without all the strings of the UN attached.

What are you talking about?

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. Maybe Santa will get something you really need; I have some suggestions if you need any ideas.

I never said it would. But what I am implying is that they [immigrants] cause them [entitlement programs] to be more solvent than they [entitlement programs] would otherwise be if they [immigrants] were not here.

That simply isn't so. Here is some data to show how immigrants, legal and illegal, are a net loss:

Importing Poverty: Immigration and Poverty in the United States: A Book of Charts by Robert E. Rector

The Impact of Unauthorized Immigrants on the Budgets of State and Local Governments

Immigrants in the United States, 2007 A Profile of America’s Foreign-Born Population

Three questions: 1) how does a population of FICA-taxed workers continue to pay for entitlements -- the costs of which outpace inflation -- when the number of beneficiaries is growing while the population of FICA-taxed workers is declining?;

There are two main entitlement programs: SS and Medicare/Medicaid. In the case of SS, yes it is true that tthe number of workers is declining. In 1950 there were 16 workers for every retiree, today there are 3.3 and in 2030, there will be two. However, immigration is not going to change the aging of our population appreciably. The average age of an immigrant is 29. And immigrants age as well. Here is some data that addresses the demographics of immigration, legal and illegal:

While immigration has a very large impact on the size of the nation’s population, it has only a small effect on slowing the aging of American society. At the current level of net immigration (1.25 million a year), 61 percent of the nation’s population will be of working age (15-66) in 2060, compared to 60 percent if net immigration were reduced to 300,000 a year. If net immigration was doubled to 2.5 million a year it would raise the working-age share of the population by one additional percentage point, to 62 percent, by 2060. But at that level of immigration, the U.S. population would reach 573 million, double its size in the 2000 Census.

The answer to the SS question is either to raise taxes and/or reduce benefits. In 1983 when SS started paying out more than it was taking in, Congress did exactly that, including raising the retirement age from 65 to 67 for full benefits. They will do something similar prior to 2017 when we will be faced with the same situation--only worse.

Medicare’s Financial Condition: Beyond Actuarial Balance

Medicare and Social Security: Big Entitlement Costs on the Horizon

how does an older immigrant who has used a fraudulent SSN to pay FICA taxes, collect benefits at the eligible age?;

I assume you mean an older illegal immigrant? They don't unless Congress decides to make it legal to do so. SS is a pay as you go system. Any "surplus," i.e., the difference between the benefits paid out and revenue, is converted into non-market T-bills[IOUs] and deposited into the SS Trust Fund. The "surplus" is then put into the General Fund and spent. The SSTF represents an unfunded liability, which is why it is part of the $9 trillion national debt under "Intragovernmental Holdings."

3) if an older immigrant has stuck around that long, then wouldn't his/her children be fully integrated into our society and economy and contributing to this entitlement Ponzi scheme?

Again, I assume you mean an illegal immigrant. If the children are born here, yes they would be amcits and be part of the population growth of this country. In fact, their birth rate is much higher than the general population, but so is the out of wedlock births and high school dropout rates. We are creating a permanent underclass.

Unless the life chances of children raised by single mothers suddenly improve, the explosive growth of the U.S. Hispanic population over the next couple of decades does not bode well for American social stability. The dimensions of the Hispanic baby boom are startling. The Hispanic birthrate is twice as high as that of the rest of the American population. That high fertility rate – even more than unbounded levels of immigration – will fuel the rapid Hispanic population boom in the coming decades.

By 2050, the Latino population will have tripled, the Census Bureau projects. One in four Americans will be Hispanic by midcentury, twice the current ratio.

It's the fertility surge among unwed Hispanics that should worry policymakers. Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country – over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly 1 ½ times that of black women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Every 1,000 unmarried Hispanic women bore 92 children in 2003 (the latest year for which data exist), compared with 28 children for unmarried white women, 22 for unmarried Asian women, and 66 for unmarried black women.

Forty-five percent of all Hispanic births occur outside of marriage, compared with 24 percent for whites and 15 percent for Asians. Only the percentage for blacks – 68 percent – is higher. But the black population is not going to triple over the next few decades.

The only bright news in this demographic disaster story concerns teen births. Overall teen childbearing in the U.S. declined for the 12th year in a row in 2003, having dropped by more than a third since 1991. Yet even here, Hispanics remain a cause for concern. The rate of childbirth for teens from Mexico, part of the fastest-growing immigrant population in the U.S., greatly outstrips every other group.

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