Posted on 10/12/2001 9:19:58 PM PDT by Ron C.
BTW, passports don't seem to be much of a problem for some of these guys. Take Dr Ayman Mohamed Rabie al- Zawahiri (AKA Sami Mahmoud El-Hifnawi AKA Amin Othman), for instance. He carries Swiss and French passports under the name Amin Othman, according to the Egyptian government, as well as his original Egyptian passport (number 1084010). Egyptians on the most-wanted list also claim he uses a Dutch passport in the name of Sami Mahmoud El-Hifnaw.here
In October last year, two months before the Securicor buyout, it was fined more than $1.5m (£1m) for allowing untrained employees, some with criminal records, to operate security checkpoints at Philadelphia international airport. Fourteen had criminal backgrounds that included drug dealing, kidnapping, firearms offences, aggravated assault and theft. Three executives pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud-related charges.The company agreed to pay $1.2m in fines and costs for falsifying training and background checks, and was ordered to pay $350,000 to 38 airlines. It was placed on probation for three years.
Ten months ago, Securicor made an initial payment of $185m for Argenbright to its Atlanta parent, AHL Holdings, with the final price to be based on this year's performance.
Frank Argenbright, 53, who founded AHL in 1979, received $2m for delivering the deal and was appointed chief executive officer of Securicor's US security operations. He retains 53% of AHL, worth an estimated $62m, and stands to gain a bonus of up to $3m this year.
When I worked for companies that were traditional American friendly I was a good performer. When at one of the "other" foreign preference companies, it made me hate getting out of bed in the morning.
I interviewed at one wafer manufacturer that was dominated by Indian types, and quickly observed they were bumbling along and in need some competent expertise. The hiring manager could hardly conceal his anti white bias so I told him he had wasted half a day of my time and walked out.
Get out of Californicate and your life gets back on track pretty quickly.
Note the date of the article.
U.S. accuses Securicor firm
12/10/01 14:09
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Securicor-owned airport security operation has been accused by federal prosecutors in Philadelphia of hiring screeners with criminal records and of violating federal rules at 13 major airports.
In court papers made public on Thursday, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia accused Securicor subsidiary Argenbright Holdings of potentially jeopardizing public safety and asked that the firm be found in violation of its probation for previous violations.
"Even though it was sentenced less than a year ago for an astonishing pattern of crimes that potentially jeopardized public safety, and despite this court's order requiring it to fully implement all of the terms of its probation, defendant Argenbright has failed to do so and in fact has committed additional violations of the type which resulted in its prosecution last year," the court petition said.
Argenbright, America's largest airport security firm, was fined $1.2 million in October 2000 for numerous violations at Philadelphia International Airport, including falsifying records, performing inadequate background checks, and hiring airport workers with criminal records.
According to court papers, the company, among other things, has continued to hire pre-departure screeners at the Philadelphia airport who have "disqualifying" criminal convictions.
The government also alleged that Argenbright had violated FAA regulations at 13 airports, including Dulles International outside Washington, Logan in Boston, New York's LaGuardia, and Dallas-Fort Worth.
Argenbright president Bill Barbour said on Thursday he was puzzled by the new allegations and said the company planned to contest what he said were inaccuracies contained in the court papers.
"In light of the recent positive audit of our company by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), we are puzzled by both the timing and substance of today's actions by the U.S. attorney," Barbour said in a statement.
Barbour said nearly all of the alleged violations occurred before the company changed its practices to meet FAA concerns.
The latest charges leveled against the Atlanta-based company were made public on the same day that the U.S. Senate unanimously approved an air security bill that would put airport baggage screening in the hands of federal workers.
The move comes in the wake of the Sept. 11 hijack attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. More than 5,000 people were killed.
But as bad as that possibility is, equally deadly is the policy of government to allow greedy corporate employers to decimate the economy of the US through the destruction of the job market for Americans.This is a losing issue for us in a number of ways:
The painting of corporations as greedy is counterproductive. When conservatives start making that argument, it enables to political left to persue their agenda of pushing anti-business legislation, punishing tax rates, social engineering through environmental regulations, and so on.
You say that corporations are greedy. They are not. Corporations are neutral. They may have greedy people in positions of power within the corporation, but they are not greedy in and of themselves. There are greedy people in all aspects of life, and it is unlikely to be changed by the laws we pass.
Besides, when you start in with the populist speil about the corporate boogeyman, you are fighting the war on the turf of the collectivists, the socialists, the communists, the Democrats, and their minions in the upper echelons of big labor. You fall into the same trap that northeast Republicans have fallen into. There, Republicans have often acted like Democrats, only not quite as extreme. You know them as RINOs. When having to choose between Democrats and faux-Democrats, the voters end up going with the "real thing" more times than not. The same priciple applies here, and should have been one of the lessons learned from the Buchanan campaign of 2000. When faced with candidates that sell the anti-corporate line (traditionally favored by the collectivists), those voters who decided to cast their vote that way went for the real enchilada- a leftist like Nader or a leftist like Gore.
I also know that not all of the jobs given to H-1B visa holders correspond to jobs that otherwise would have gone to Americans. My company has several programmers hired on these visas, and the reason we have them is the Americans who applied for the jobs were unqualified AND wanted even more money. The choice is not between them or an American, the choice is between being able to do the job at a price that would allow us to win contracts and get the work, and us not (and without those contracts, there goes this American's job, and the jobs of the 95% of my company that are citizens). Maybe you then say, if every company faced the same thing, then it would not be a problem, and I would say then that this would mean that doing work would cost more overall, which would mean that less work would be done. It is a balancing act that is not as simple as the populist mantra makes it seem, and many people sense this intuitively. As such, making this appeal turns them off the way Al Gore's "I will fight for you" calls turned me off.
This is a legitimate issue, however. The H-1B visa program has spiraled out of control as you have pointed out, and there are security issues that go beyond questions of employment. In other words, the policy you are driving for is the right one, but I implore you to press upon everyone you know in the party to come up with another way to drive the point home and sell it to the voters.
Your good work raises some interesting issues.
5.56mm
I'm most thankful for your thoughts, particularly the part about "another way to drive the point home and sell it to the voters." In addition, I'm painfully aware of the problem you cite in that many Americans who apply for the jobs are simply unqualified - and want more money than temporary H-1B employee will gladly take.
My problem isn't so much with smaller companies that must compete with greater intensity than the behemoth corporations like Hewlett Packard (the example pointed to by author of the email.) My mega-corp-employer has laid off the experienced and hired lower priced H-1B in place of greater ability. That ‘plays' as bald-faced greed - and sheer stupidity - but hides more.
Next week, I was told, I'll be offered for the fifth time a buy-out, two years of full pay - if I'll just go away (I won't.) Yet, the company has a severe shortage of my expertise - filling that shortage with far less capable H-1B hires, while studiously ignoring several Americans who have repeatedly applied and are of top caliber, experienced in the sciences needed. This again, appears as sheer greed and stupidity. But it is much, much more than that.
These corporations are led by wholly incompetent CEO's and boards (business wise) that are noted for links to far-left organizations and their activities are openly destructive to the corporations - and successfully so. (As their means covered a ‘boom' period.)
The problem you point to is how to call a spade a spade without hurting the cause of conservatism and fair and competent business interests. We are watching a nation being destroyed from within by corporate socialists - while their pals in government write law to assist in their efforts.
I agree with you. What the GOP has to do is come up with better terms to describe the problems we've outlined here - and tell it like it really is. At the same time however, I would like to see the GOP attract more Democrats and union members, while making life easier for the smaller businessman like myself and the mid-sized companies that are having a hard time. The solution isn't importation of labor - it is proper education and training - and exposure of not only greed (real,) but purposed destruction of successful major corporations.
All too well I remember the great schools within these corporate giants - that were destroyed, and eventually virtually eliminated. Now they complain they can't find qualified? No - sorry. That doesn't wash. They did want less expense, and capitalized on it, but they also wanted an excuse. Meanwhile the American worker is paying for their folly, and missing the bottom line intent and purposed means to an end.
I think some help may be coming, but not near enough of it - Congress and the President seem almost oblivious. There are promising questions over the visa issue - but we'd better keep a sharp eye on what Congress actually does - while we view with scepticism what they say. In addition, we have to begin exposing more of corporate stupidity (where it exists) - as well as what I believe is purposed subversion, that has led to excuses which cover up the socialist-means used to undermine our society and its productive might.
Thanks much for your feedback, Hugh. It was the best of the bunch! 8^)
Hugh, thank you for saving me the time it would take to type out everything that you said, I couldn't agree with you more.
Ron, when I read words like "greedy corporations" and have these corporations blamed for every ill found in America, the hairs on the back of my neck begin to rise, it sounds so familiar.
Greed built the American economy, the extraction of greed and the elimination of the ability of individuals to amass personal wealth is what makes communism, as a political system, an economic failure.
Corporations answer to investors, ordinary people who wish to participate in the corporate dream of growth through aggressive expansion, and these investors walk away from the corporation if it fails to meet their requirements for a return on their investment.
I believe that the whole H-1B visa program is about to slow itself way down as a result of the combined impact of the war, and the economic downturn we are currently experiencing. US employers will do the right thing in the face of a recession, they will endeavor to put America back to work, not for any other reason than greed; unemployed Americans cannot purchase the products that these corporations "peddle".
If I remember correctly, prior to the current economic downturn, the US had an unemployment rate of less than 4%, that fact, coupled with the information that US firms heavily recruited overseas for trained help during the boom, tells me that damned near everyone who could and was willing to work, was working. There will always be a certain percentage who, for one reason or another, will not work.
I agree with Hugh 100% on the dangers of using terminology that can be easily construed as socialist when speaking of American business.
That's my rant, not as well thought out as Hugh's, and not as eloquent, but hey! it's a second language to me.
Luis
We are watching a nation being destroyed from within by corporate socialists - while their pals in government write law to assist in their efforts.The problem in a nutshell, made worse by the fact that most people immediately put socialists and communists out of their mind when they think about corporations, since the presumption is that corporations and those of that mindset are adversaries.
Before we can win this battle, we have to clear this ground, and get people to see that corporations can be controlled by adversaries to our way of life, and have people start using due diligence in this regard. If we win the information battle here, and get people to see what is happening, we won't even need to change the laws. The companies that are advancing the subversive causes will lose their business IF we figure out how to get people to see, and when they lose their business they lose their money and their power.
So, this foreign company was in charge on the day and for months before!
Do you have a qucik easy way to find out the stockholders names?
The company does business in a lot of Arabic countries.
Perhaps its stockholders are Arabic?
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