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This Article Explains Why Apple Makes iPhones In China And Why The U.S. Is Screwed Henry Blodget | Jan. 22, 2012, 5:30 AM | 3,191 | The manufacturing processes of Apple and other electronics companies have come into sharp focus of late, with the revelation of more details about what life is like for the Chinese workers who make the world's gadgets. When one reads about these working conditions--12-16 hour shifts, pay of ~$1 per hour or less, dormitories with 15 beds in 12x12 rooms--the obvious assumption is that it's all about money: Greedy manufacturers want to make bigger profits,...

Fifty people have been accused of conspiring to sell the identities of hundreds of Puerto Ricans to illegal immigrants on the U.S. mainland in the largest single fraud case ever for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, authorities said Wednesday. Hundreds of birth certificates, Social Security numbers and driver's licenses were sold for up to $2,500 a set as part of a black market ring based in Puerto Rico that operated from since at least April 2009, according to ICE Director John Morton. (SNIP) About 80 percent of the documents involved were sold by Puerto Ricans whose names were on them,...

China REQUIRES all foreign investors to give up their technology to them for the "right" to build goods there. Obama-seized GM can deny it till the cows come home, but it's still a lie. Dismantling America, chunk by chunk, piece by piece. Anybody see the tyrant-in-chief's body language, facial expressions and hand gestures, not to mention his words, at his Ohio press conference today? He simply can't hide his hatred for America. The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America -- read it. GM deal moves electric car development to China -- a 'shakedown'? USA Today (hat tip Van)...

Praying for their full recovery.

Formerly Great Cities All Over America Are Turning Into Open, Festering SoresJanuary 1, 2012 Once upon a time, the people of the United States constructed beautiful, shiny cities from coast to coast that were the envy of the entire globe. We had the largest and most vibrant middle class that the world has ever seen and life was quite good in America. But now all of our prosperity is coming crashing down and many of our formerly great cities are turning into open, festering sores. Unfortunately, we are drowning in so much debt that we can barely even slow down...

Republicans and Democrats, liberals as well as conservatives, have bought into anti-Chinese trade demagoguery. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that tariffs against China are a "key part of our 'Make It in America' agenda." During his 2010 campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called his Tea Party-backed Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, "a foreign worker's best friend." In a recent news conference, President Obama gave his support to the anti-China campaign, declaring that China "has been very aggressive in gaming the trading system to its advantage," adding that "we can and should take action against countries that are keeping...

Communist China is this month celebrating its tenth anniversary of joining the World Trade Organization. The subtitle ought to be China's tenth anniversary of cheating the United States. The globalists talked us into supporting this cozy trade relationship with China by getting U.S. manufacturers and farmers to salivate at the prospect of gaining access to the world's biggest market. China, on the other hand, joined the WTO to implement its plan to grow into an economic superpower the same way the United States became powerful in our pre-New Deal century, i.e., by protecting local industries and financing our government with...

Republicans and Democrats, liberals as well as conservatives, have bought into anti-Chinese trade demagoguery. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested that tariffs against China are a "key part of our 'Make It in America' agenda." During his 2010 campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called his tea party-backed Republican challenger, Sharron Angle, "a foreign worker's best friend." In a recent news conference, President Barack Obama gave his support to the anti-China campaign, declaring that China "has been very aggressive in gaming the trading system to its advantage," adding that "we can and should take action against countries that are...

"...Bale, who plays crime-fighting superhero Batman, and a camera crew from CNN were jostled by men in plainclothes in Dongshigu village in eastern Shandong province, where activist Chen Guangcheng has been under house arrest for 15 months, according to a video released by CNN on its website. "Why can I not visit this man?" Bale asked several security officers, while they were pushing him. "You know, I'm not being brave doing this," Bale told CNN. "The local people who are standing up to the authorities and insisting on going to visit Chen and his family and getting beaten up for...

... Never before have so many of the unemployed owed their job loss, not indirectly at all, but quite obviously directly, to the intentional, conscious directives of their president and his direct appointees, the czars and cabinet secretaries who have launched a direct frontal assault on industry after industry ever since their appointments. Consider: Car Dealers: In 2009, though everyone knew that the problems dooming Chrysler and General Motors were their enormous property and property tax obligations caused by too big, too old, factories, and their utterly unsupportable labor and pension costs, Barack Obama ordered the closure of over 3000...

Pentagon planners have plenty to deal with these days – Iran in search of nuclear-weapons technology, suicide bombings in Afghanistan, and the final pullout of US troops in Iraq potentially leaving behind a security vacuum in the Middle East. But in war games in Washington this week, US Army officials and their advisers debated three nightmare scenarios in particular. Here are the doomsday visions that Pentagon planners have been poring over....

China-geddon: A China crash will be scarier than Europe Venky Vembu Dec 2, 2011 Say you’re at a railway station, waiting for the slow train to eurogeddon. You’ve been told that the eurozone is in deep trouble with all those piles of debt, that it will fall apart inevitably, dismembering the euro and inflicting pain and misery around the world. Months go by, and although there’s a lot of shunting and hooting, and lots of frenetic activity, the eurogeddon train doesn’t steam in. You begin to grow impatient, and wonder if the train is coming at all. And then in...

Playing baseball games without keeping score. Parents not allowed to cheer for one side or the other at basketball games. Refusing to use red ink to grade tests because it's too jarring. No dodgeball. Participation trophies. Telling kids, "You're special," without their doing anything to show they're special. Newsflash: You may be special to God, your mommy, and your teacher just because you were born, but the rest of us aren't impressed. The world doesn't owe you a living, a promotion, or any special consideration at all. The people who tell you otherwise are doing it because they think you're...

Mayor Mitch Landrieu and other city leaders deemed the sweep of Duncan Plaza and eviction of protestors a success Tuesday morning, just hours after New Orleans police disbanded the high-profile encampment. In a move that had been forecast for days, dozens of officers fanned out across the public square in an early morning operation, forcing out more than a hundred people, some of whom were homeless, and others who identified with the "Occupy NOLA" movement.Landrieu, speaking at a City Hall news conference, said he thought the police sweep was "well-timed and well-organized." One person was arrested, while dozens of others...

HARTFORD —— City officials say Occupy Hartford protesters must leave their encampment at the corner of Farmington Avenue and Broad Street by 6 p.m. Tuesday. Hartford Police Chief Daryl K. Roberts said protesters camping at the area they've named Turning Point Park have been notified that they risk being arrested after the deadline passes. "I don't anticipate any trouble, but I will take appropriate corrective action," Roberts said.

About a month ago, I posted in regard to what I called “the euthanasia of the saver.” This comment had to do with the fact that nominal interest rates in the United States for financial investments such as bank certificates of deposit and bank savings accounts—the kinds of investments traditionally employed by retired persons and small savers, who wish to gain income without exposing their funds to great risk of capital loss—now fall considerably below the rate of inflation, and hence the real (or inflation-adjusted) yield on such investments is negative. That is, the nominal payoff is insufficient to offset...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks suffered a sixth straight day of losses on Wednesday as frustration over the euro zone's debt crisis, coupled with weak Chinese factory data, further dented investor sentiment. U.S. data painted a mixed picture and showed little reason for optimism. New jobless claims rose last week and consumer spending barely increased in October, while another report showed new orders for durable goods, which include long-lasting manufactured items such as refrigerators, rose.

Mexican Trucks Are On Our Roads by Phyllis Schlafly November 9, 2011 Phyllis Schlafly After years of negative votes in Congress and the opposition of the American people, on October 21 Barack Obama allowed the first Mexican truck to cross the border at Laredo, Texas and head north to deliver door-to-door service of its load of industrial equipment. This implemented an agreement quietly signed by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in Mexico City on July 6 with Mexico's secretary of Communications and Transportation. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) calls this deal a major anti-jobs program, saying: "We're literally taking good jobs here...

The Southern Nevada Health District has raided an organic farm picnic destroying the organic produce, which was classified by them as bio-hazard material. The raid at the highly regarded and reputable Quail Hollow Farm, which sits in the picturesque Moapa Valley of Southern Nevada took place place after a tip off of the event because some of the food was not ‘certified’ in the correct state.

Noticing there really seem to be no economists, who have studied the effect of nationwide de-industrialization on a nation's economy. How is that possible? There seems no economic study, as to what happens when a nation sends their manufacturing away all at once. Seems pretty basic. What happens when a rich, productive nation, eliminates the means by which it created that production, and generated that wealth.

Have you got $500,000 (£312,000) to spare and hail from anywhere but America? If so, one Charles Schumer of New York wants you to get in touch. That half a million dollars, according to Schumer, one of New York's two Democratic Senators, could be part of the answer to the country's housing crash. Schumer and Mike Lee, a Republican Senator from Utah, are trying to drum up support for legislation that will entice foreigners to invest €359,000, C$508,000, 78m yen or 3.1m yuan in US residential real estate. And the sweetener: a visa to live here as long as you...

<p>Today, millions of smart, hard working Americans are flipping burgers, waiting tables or working dead end retail jobs not because they want to, but because they have no other options. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 14 million Americans are currently unemployed and another 9.3 million Americans are currently "underemployed".</p>

In his 2010 book "No Apology," Mitt Romney has a lot to say about China, much of it unfavorable. He writes of Beijing's "brutal repression and incarceration of dissidents." He decries the brazenness of Chinese enterprise, with its "rampant theft of intellectual property from Western businesses." He warns that China's "aggressive pursuit" of cyber-warfare capabilities has made it "the most active cyber-combatant in the world." He details the ominous Chinese military buildup in combat aircraft, submarines, and ballistic missiles. He laments the communist government's willingness to shield the odious regimes in Iran and Sudan from international sanction. Nevertheless, Romney's criticism...

Why did the White House cancel a Rose Garden bill-signing for the Free Trade Agreements, opting instead for a behind-closed-doors event? On Tuesday, the White House issued a press release announcing that “On Friday, October 21st, President Obama will sign the Korea, Panama and Colombia Free Trade Agreements and the renewal of Trade Adjustment Assistance for workers in the Oval Office before making remarks in the Rose Garden. In his remarks, President Obama will underscore that these trade agreements will significantly boost American exports, support tens of thousands of American jobs and protect labor rights, the environment and intellectual property....

- China on Friday issued a harsh rebuke of an anti-dumping complaint filed by U.S. solar firms, warning the United States not to take protectionist measures that could harm the global economy. Seven U.S. solar manufacturers on Wednesday asked the Obama administration to impose duties of more than 100 percent on China solar imports, which they said were unfairly undercutting U.S. prices and destroying American jobs. The controversy comes at a sensitive time in U.S.-China trade relations, which are plagued by U.S. concerns over market access in China, Beijing's treatment of intellectual property rights, and raging debate over the value...

By Andy Xie 10.14.2011 14:52 Underground Rumblings, then a Financial Quake Private, real economic activities are on shaky ground as high-rate loans, speculation and the state sector surge A real business does not go bankrupt simply because it can't borrow money. But a money-burning speculator does. This fact explains why it's wrong to blame the recent wave of private company bankruptcies in Wenzhou on China's monetary tightening and credit squeeze. The real story is that the companies speculated with borrowed money, and lost. Excessive monetary expansion from 2008-'10 rewarded speculation through asset inflation. The Chinese government's economic stimulus, launched in...

ROME (AP) -- Italian police conducted raids Monday throughout the country against suspected anarchists and their sympathizers following riots in Rome that marred a march against Wall Street greed, a top security official said. Interior Ministry Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano told Sky TG24 TV that the crackdown targeted far-left suspects. He gave no details because the operation, which included house searches, was still being carried out.

NAME, NAMES and if possible put thier offenses.

Call it the Cain canon. Starting in 2005, Herman Cain has penned a weekly syndicated column. Week after week, he shares his opinions on the political issues and policies driving the news. The portrait that emerges from reading them over the years is consistent with the charismatic figure who has captured the momentum in the GOP presidential race. With the column’s common-sense attitude, blunt phrases, and occasional jokes, you can practically hear Cain saying the words. Sometimes he has said the words: “sneak-a-taxes” and the Chilean model both have column cameos. And while Cain doesn’t shy from hammering away at...

<p>SEATTLE (AP) - Police are arresting Occupy Seattle demonstrators who refuse to remove their tents from the city's downtown Westlake Park.</p>

Dear Friend, In this video commentary, I discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement. The demonstrations will turn against Obama and will further undermine his chances of re-election. I explain why. Tune in!

Developers in China are struggling and it's about to get much worse because China Construction Bank Raises Mortgage Rates for first time borrowers according to the Wall Street Journal. Channel News Agency Asia reports Credit crunch in China hurts property developers The co-founder of SOHO China, one of the nation's leading developers, is worried Beijing's efforts to cool the sector are hurting sales and threatening to send some debt-laden property developers to the wall. "In my sixteen years as a developer this is by far the most challenging year I've ever had, in terms of what we could sell," Zhang,...

(Just Yesterday) Barack Obama asserted that Martin Luther King, Jr would have supported the Occupy Movement. If so, he would have found himself in the midst of some strange bedfellows:In a move that may redefine the term “strange bedfellows,” the American Nazi Party issued an official (endorsement) of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement on Sunday afternoon. The announcement put the organization, a self-described “National Socialist” political party, in company with the Socialist Party USA, which explained its own support for the left-wing protesters in a nationwide (Communist Party Occupy Wall Street Conference Call 10/11/11) last Tuesday night, crediting organized...

Hat tip to Chris Moody for this clip. This comes from a film called Early Warnings. It shows a 1979 protest in New York on the 50th anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash. See if the vibe isn’t familiar:

(The New Republic) For liberals, who have watched the Tea Party's rise with a mixture of dread, incomprehension, and envy, the Occupy Wall Street protests seem Heaven-sent. Here at last are our ideological shock troops, come to put the undeserving rich in the dock and reclaim populism from government-bashing conservatives. An elated Paul Krugman cheers on the anti-Wall Street demonstrators for scaring the bejesus out of the plutocracy that supposedly runs America. Nevermind if the protesters are "inept, incoherent and hopelessly quixotic," Eugene Robinson tells us, what matters is that the people finally are rearing up to demand economic justice....

Okay, you can lift your lower jaw off the floor. I haven’t joined the dark side: My problem isn’t economic but lexical. I do hate capitalism — the term. As you know, in the eyes of many, “capitalism” has become both a four-letter word and the target of such. For example, New York Magazine questioned a group of Wall Street protesters on October 2 and found that 37 percent believed capitalism was “inherently immoral.” If you find this unremarkable for Woodstock-meets-Wall Street rabble, consider a 2009 Rasmussen poll showing that “only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than...

France Plans On Closing Italian Border During G20 Due To Concerns Over Public Order Nick Jardine Oct. 17, 2011, 12:26 PM Image: AP Following this weekend's violent protests in Rome, French authorities have announced that they plan to close the Franco-Italian border during the G20 summit at the beginning of next month. The plan is to keep large protest groups away from the event. Il Messaggero reports that the potential dangers to public order raised by the holding of the summit in Cannes has forced the authorities to shut the border while the G20 is going on. AGI reports that...

Yep, the Occupy Wall Street movement is not just in the business of marching for an obscure anti-wealth, anti-capitalist agenda, but is also in the business of raising money, as they are now harboring nearly $300,000 in their bank account. According to the Associated Press: Nearly $300,000 in cash has been donated through the movement’s website and by visitors to the park, said Bill Dobbs, a press liaison for Occupy Wall Street. The movement has an account at Amalgamated Bank, which bills itself as “the only 100 percent union-owned bank in the United States.” Donated goods ranging from blankets and...

Students in a Texas public high school were made to stand up and recite the Mexican national anthem and Mexican pledge of allegiance as part of a Spanish class assignment, but the school district maintains there was nothing wrong with the lesson. Wearing red, white and green, students had to memorize the Mexican anthem and pledge and stand up and recite them in individually in front of the class. That didn’t go over well with sophomore Brenda Brinsdon. The 15-year-old sat down and refused to participate. She also caught it all on video. I just thought it was out of...

One Idaho couple's property rights battle with the government has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Mike and Chantell Sackett bought land in Priest Lake, Idaho, to build their dream home in a residential development. As the Sacketts were preparing to build, however, the Environmental Protection Agency blocked them. EPA officials informed them their property is protected wetlands and accused them of violating the Clean Water Act. The agency then threatened to fine them $37,000 a day. "Bullying, that's what the EPA does," Chantell Sackett told Spokane, Wash., TV station KXLY.

Congress approved free trade agreements Wednesday with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, ending a four-year drought in the forming of new trade partnerships and giving the White House and Capitol Hill the opportunity to show they can work together to stimulate the economy and put people back to work. Republicans criticized Obama for taking several years to send the agreements, all signed in the President George W. Bush administration, to Congress for final approval. Many among Obama's core supporters, including organized labor and Democrats from areas hit hard by foreign competition, were unhappy that the White House was espousing the...

... In a speech today, Mitt Romney took an unusual step for a GOP leader. He suggested the United States restrict trade with China over its many predatory tactics that hurt foreign businesses – from stealing patents to reneging on contracts to allowing fake Apple stores to outright bans on certain imports or services. ...

China is continuing its bold economic and geopolitical march through the Caribbean and Latin America, using its growing economic might to dole out grant aid and soft loans to win friends and influence governments, continuing its plans to displace the United States as the region's major trading partner in the not-too-distant future. For two days this week, a large Chinese delegation led by Vice-Premier Wang Qishan spent hours in talks with Caribbean leaders and business delegations. By the time the forum ended in Trinidad's capital of Port of Spain, Beijing had unveiled measures worth $6.3 billion aimed at sealing better...

Ever find yourself not trusting something or someone from the first moment - but not knowing why? For instance the first moment you saw a politician, instantly not trusting them but you just couldn't place why? *cough* John Edwards *cough*. Well that's what I thought the first time I heard about "cloud computing".

Texas evangelical leader Robert Jeffress, the Baptist megachurch pastor who introduced Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit, said Friday afternoon he does not believe Mitt Romney is a Christian. Jeffress described Romney's Mormon faith as a “cult,” and said evangelicals had only one real option in the 2012 primaries. Continue Reading “That is a mainstream view, that Mormonism is a cult,” Jeffress told reporters here. “Every true, born again follower of Christ ought to embrace a Christian over a non-Christian.” Asked by POLITICO if he believed Romney is a Christian, Jeffress answered: “No.” Jeffress's comments represent the first major...

China Forced Abortion Opponent Chen Guangcheng Possibly Killed Beijing, China -- Reports are emerging today that Chan Guangcheng, a prominent human rights activist who had led the fight against forced abortions under the one-child policy in China, may have been killed by Chinese officials. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/07/china-forced-abortion-opponent-chen-guangcheng-possibly-killed/

Just how many American jobs have been lost to subsidized Chinese exports is unclear. Economist Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, estimates 2.8 million from 2001 to 2010. A study by three academic economists concludes that imports from China account for about a quarter of lost U.S. manufacturing jobs from 1990 to 2007; that's almost 1 million jobs. These are both large declines, but they are only a modest fraction of America's present jobs shortfall. The recession cost 8.8 million payroll jobs. These numbers should frame our thinking about China's economic policies. On the one...

Over 65 M completed new homes sit unused in China,  along with public buildings/accompanying infrastructure... If the Chinese property bubble pops... what then? The massive public projects under way in communist China today include sprawling housing developments, retail shopping districts, and 'forests' of skyscrapers. Since they were built to support the country's ongoing economic boom and real-estate rush, all these tower block condos, economic centers, and recently-built neighborhoods should be bustling with hard-working Chinese newcomers from the countryside... or so you'd think.But satellite pictures taken earlier this year revealed that China's odd unused-housing stock glut has only gotten worse, if anything: they indeed...

With the raising of the debt ceiling, the “official” federal debt immediately surged past a new and unwelcome benchmark: The national debt now exceeds 100 percent of the gross domestic product for the first time since the Second World War era. With the debt now at $14.58 trillion and climbing vertiginously every day even as the economy continues to stagnate, it will not be very long before the national debt reaches 200 percent and higher. In fact, with over $45 trillion owed to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid recipients both present and future, the actual size of the national debt...

That's certainly how it sounded, in a CNBC World interview I just watched. Let's roll out a "windfall profit" tax on any and all Buffett outsourcing, formerly made by any eliminated American employees of his. We can call it the "Buffett Tariff"!