Thread: 'DROP DEAD': NY Times to Unemployed Americans

'DROP DEAD': NY Times to Unemployed Americans


By Roy Beck, Sunday, October 5, 2008, 7:10 PM

OK, I'm having a little fun with the famous headline from another NY paper in the 1970s about Pres. Ford's reaction to NYC's request for a bailout. But essentially "Drop Dead" was the NY Times editorial board's response to rising American unemployment on Friday. The callousness of the media elite toward U.S. working stiffs continues to amaze me.

We lost another 159,000 non-farm jobs in September.

But the NY Times wants another 550,000 foreign workers and their families!

ON SAME DAY, TIMES EDITORIAL & HORRIBLE JOB NEWS
Last Friday on the same day that the feds announced another 159,000 jobs lost from our economy, the Times editorial wept that Congress has not helped Sen. Menendez (D-N.J.) and Rep. Lofgren (D-Calif.) increase permanent immigrant green cards next year by 550,000.

Buying into the myth that this would be "recapturing" green cards that didn't get used in previous years, the Times considers 550,000 to be a "modest" number:

"Recapturing visas is a modest fix that should have been made a long time ago." -- New York Times editorial, 3OCT08

The folks at the Times don't seem to understand that "ceilings" imposed on various kinds of greencards are not "floors." And they aren't entitlements.

If we have a diving economy with more and more people out of work, it shouldn't matter what the ceiling is for immigrants, we shouldn't be bringing in anywhere near the total "allowed" under the law. In fact, it makes sense to bring in nobody under current conditions.

Keep in mind that the 550,000 greencards proposed by the Times for next year are IN ADDITION to more than 1 million greencards already approved, not counting the hundreds of thousands of TEMPORARY work visas that already are authorized.

HERE ARE THE AMERICANS ABANDONED BY NY TIMES
In order to call for still another 550,000 foreign workers and their families, the New York Times has to turn a totally callous heart toward these Americans:

9.5 million officially unemployed Americans who are seeking a job but can't find one at all.
6.1 million additional Americans who are working part-time jobs but who would like a full-time job.
The kind of twisted sense of economics that would cause the New York Times to think their advocacy for a half-million more immigrants next year wouldn't affect these 15.6 million hurting American workers is the same kind that has thrown our financial markets in such disarray. It is an economics divorced from human and society needs.

While Rome burns, the New York Times editorialists fiddle with innovations and novelties in the immigration system, always convincing themselves that giving away a hundred thousand U.S. jobs here and a hundred thousand U.S. jobs there really won't be noticed by the American families who have lost their main or sole income.

Over the last 12 months -- while the Times' friends in the federal government added another 1 million immigrants -- 2.2 million more Americans became officially unemployed.
Another 1.6 million were forced from full-time jobs into part-time jobs.
Did it really make sense to bring in 1 million immigrants under those conditions?

Where is the compassion in that?

And as bad as the overall statistics are, some groups of Americans are being hurt far worse:

Official unemployment for Hispanics stands at 7.8%.
For Black Americans -- 11.4%.
For teenagers -- 19.1% are looking for a job and can't find one.
Does bringing in another million immigrants (plus the 550,000 increase advocated by the Times) seem a wise way to ease the hurt among those groups?

Oh, I forgot, according to the Times, bringing in additional immigrants at more than triple the number of U.S. jobs lost in September is only a "modest" inconvenience. Perhaps from the ivory towers of the Times, that is what an American losing a job looks like.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA.



http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusab ... icans.html

Follow the world money.

Another telling editorial from Roy. The New York Times has lost so much credibility, and this is due to much more than just the Jayson Blair fiasco.