Posted on 06/07/2007 6:01:39 PM PDT by freespirited
Tonight's cloture motion has just gone down to defeat. No where near the 60 yea votes needed to cut off debate.
Harry now pontificating on Senate floor.
Perhaps it was because he's trying to "make nice" with the Mexicans & the Mexican vote......
Please, everyone who has an opinion on this, feel free to respond.
Is it just me, or is the release that labor unit costs have risen more than three times the projection (released today) seem an odd coincidence with this “immigration bill”.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-070606economy-story,0,7234386.story?coll=chi-bizfront-hed
U.S. worker productivity grew less last quarter than the government initially estimated and labor costs climbed, giving the Federal Reserve reason to remain concerned about inflation.
Productivity, a gauge of employee efficiency, rose at an annual rate of 1 percent, down from the 1.7 percent pace reported last month, the Labor Department said in Washington today. Labor costs increased 1.8 percent, three times the prior estimate.
The rise in labor expenses, which account for about two- thirds of the cost of producing a good or service, heighten the odds that companies will push up prices, economists said. The figures, along with signs that growth is recovering, make it even less likely that policy makers will lower interest rates.
“There are inflationary pressures coming from the labor market,” said Julia Coronado, a senior economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York, who correctly forecast the gain in labor costs. “Along with the downward drift in productivity, this will be a concern for the Fed.”
Economists had forecast a 1 percent rate of increase in first-quarter productivity, according to the median of 70 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. Unit labor costs, which are adjusted for efficiency gains, were projected to rise at a 1.3 percent pace.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell to 4.96 percent as of 4:50 p.m. in New York, compared with 4.99 percent last yesterday.
With today’s report, Labor also revised figures for the fourth quarter that reflected, in part, last week’s update on gross domestic product and personal income. Productivity rose at an annual rate of 2.1 percent in the fourth quarter, the same as previously estimated. Labor costs jumped 8.9 percent in the last three months of 2006, up from 6.2 percent.
Hours worked fell at a 0.4 percent pace last quarter, the biggest drop in almost four years, compared with a 0.3 percent decline initially reported and a 0.8 percent gain the previous three months. Output rose at a 0.6 percent rate last quarter, the smallest increase since the last three months of 2002.
Among manufacturers, productivity rose at a 2.4 percent rate in the first quarter, after increasing at a 1.9 percent rate the prior three months. Productivity at non-financial corporations, a measure watched by the Fed, rose at a 0.6 percent rate.
For all of last year, productivity rose 1.6 percent, the smallest increase since 1995. Labor costs in 2006 rose 3.3 percent, the most in six years. As recently as 2002, labor costs dropped by 0.5 percent.
A change in how the government accounted for bonus payments and stock options last year explains the seeming first-quarter deceleration in labor costs compared with the previous three months, economists said. The Labor Department included bonuses in both the first and fourth quarters of 2006.
“The increasing importance of employee stock options as a factor affecting labor compensation data has made it harder to estimate unit labor costs and also made this variable much less reliable as an inflation indicator,” Edward McKelvey, senior U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said in a note to clients this week.
After improving from 2002 to 2004, worker efficiency has slid. Productivity rose 2.1 in 2005. The average increase over the previous three years was 3.6 percent.
In the 1990s, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan championed the idea that higher productivity rates would keep a lid on inflation even as the U.S economy was gaining strength and unemployment was low.
Slowing efficiency gains and higher labor costs have raised concern that wage pressures and faster growth could prompt companies to raise prices, stoking inflation.
:)
Look at Post 297 for the latest vote details.
What’s up with Coburn not voting????
There may have been some orchestration of the ‘change’ itself...the amount of treacherous chicanery among **some** of these coward opportunists, like their cowardice and opportunism, cannot be overestimated.
But let us not curse them all, for many are faithfully doing what they can to fight this for all our sakes.
Let us also remember to pray for them. For some—encouragement and health. For some—for repentance and God’s own wrath, not ours.
You’ll be fine...I insist! :)
Dims want this bill to get 12 million new voters. Reps elites want this for cheap labor. Now, if these people are maded legal..are they still cheap? Won't their pay be raised to legal levels? I'm trying to understand what these people are willing to sell my country for.
I am from California and I will gladly contribute to whomever runs against this quisling.
I’m making myself physically ill .......watching Durbin praise poor widdle Teddy.
Well then! Times like this I’m HAPPY I don’t have cable!!!
So it’s over? Or more calls and emails tomorrow? Either way, I am ready to rock!
Why, in the political marass in which he stews, would he piss off the few who have carried his water?
I tell you the second term of Bush was completely politically tone deaf.
lol....you are a wise woman.
OUR Country is trying to be SOLD OUT !!!
DAMN IT, NO !
TIME to STEP UP !!!
Patriots, Freepers, all of us, united, THIS TIME.
Next time, you can be sure they will try again with even more firepower.
Celebrate Today.
For tomorrow, we fight again.
(The White House must be very very disappointed. I am tempted to post the Tom Daschle disappointed photo and photoshop in President Bush standing over his shoulder.)
Tomorrow, we start demanding them to ENFORCE OUR LAWS AND BUILD THE FENCE!!
NEVER FORGET..
Graham, Hagel, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, Specter, Voinovich
..
Thanks for voting to kill this bill. You may have established some basis on which we can now have a civil dialog. I am your constituent. Your Constituent is not the illegal immigrant. If you are confused about this, please resign, for violating your oath of office.
Please take up the issues one at a time. No Omnibus legislation, the incentive for corruption is too strong.
Strengthen the border. Clean up corruption in the upper ranks of the border patrol. Free border agents arrested for doing their job. Increase the penalties for violators. Deport the law breakers. Start charging Mexico for exporting its problems. Stop encouraging unchecked immigration through welfare.
Increase the quotas for guest workers.
Make it clear that if you violate our laws, you will never, ever obtain US citizenship. If you, as a guest is this nation, demonstrate against our Government in a time of war. You will be rounded up a deported on the spot, no excuses.
Apologize to me personally for insulting me by insinuating that my opposition to a bad bill was racist or careless.
Naaaa......continue calling and insist the LAWS ON THE BOOKS ARE ENFORCED!
That fence was FUNDED...and, well, you know the rest of the story...
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