Here’s a food update from New Orleans, and they’re talking about tacos, not gumbo or boudin.

NEW ORLEANS - For proof that Hurricane Katrina is transforming the ethnic flavor of New Orleans — and creating altogether new tensions — look no further than the taco trucks.
The trucks are a common sight in barrios from Los Angeles to New York, but controversial in a city still adapting to a threefold increase in Hispanics since Katrina. [ Katrina brought a wave of Hispanics , By JOHN MORENO GONZALES, Associated Press, July 3, 2007]

The city is becoming Nuevo Orleans, as forecast by Mexicans who like the idea of taking over another American city. They have arrived and are cranking out jackpot babies to get family citizenship and easy access to welfare benefits

In the recent immigration debate, one of the clichés that was hardest to shake was the assumption that Mexico is a terribly poor country. In reality, it’s above the world average in per capita GDP (measured in purchasing power parity terms).

Now comes words that Mexican telecom monopolist Carlos Slim has blown past Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to capture the top spot on the World’s Richest Man chart, with $67.8 billion. Considering that most of Slim’s wealth comes from monopoly operations within Mexico, while Gates extracts money from around the world (the rest of the world’s economy is four times bigger than America’s), and the Mexican economy is only 1/11th as big as America’s, then Slim piling up a nest egg equivalent to $3,000 per family of five in Mexico is quite a feat.

As the great traveler Alexander von Humboldt observed two centuries ago, “Mexico is the country of inequality. Perhaps nowhere in the world is there a more horrendous distribution of wealth, civilization, cultivation of land, and population.”

Here’s another excerpt from my review in the Washington Times of economist John R. Lott’s Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don’t

Dr. Lott is an even more fecund generator of plausible explanations than is Dr. [Stephen D.] Levitt [author of the bestseller Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything]. For instance, he suggests in Freedomnomics:

- The big mark-up on restaurant drinks stems from customers tending to linger longer over beverages than food, tying up valuable tables.

- The introduction of secret ballots lowered voter turnout. Why? They reduced vote-buying and thus voting. Crooked political operators could no longer be sure they got the votes they paid for.

Dr. Lott offers so many fascinating theories that Freedomnomics‘ ideas-per-page ratio is more daunting than that of the frothy Freakonomics, which Dr. Levitt’s writing partner, journalist Stephen J. Dubner, optimized to not tax tired travelers’ oxygen-deprived brains at 35,000 feet.

Is each of the hundreds of ideas in Freedomnomics true? Dr. Lott offers 63 pages of notes, but a more convenient solution would be for authors to post their footnotes on the Web with links to supporting papers.

Like Dr. Levitt, Dr. Lott is more an ardently creative thinker than a dispassionately judicious one. They are both apt to fall in love with their novel ideas and overlook alternatives. Yet, ultimately, so what? Ichiro Suzuki, the great singles hitter of the Seattle Mariners, doesn’t drive many runs home, but he gets rallies started. Similarly, while Dr. Lott and Dr. Levitt are better at provoking controversies than at magisterially resolving them, they play valuable roles.

Dr. Lott argues that Dr. Levitt and Mr. Dubner “portray America’s free market as a cut-throat environment in which consumers are constantly swindled by so-called experts. Habitually attributing economic anomalies to some kind of scam, the pair don’t seem to realize that market forces exist that punish dishonest behavior.” This is somewhat overstated — Freakonomics is too attention-deficit disordered to have much of a theme beyond promoting Dr. Levitt as a “rogue” genius. Nonetheless, Dr. Lott’s chapter on how the market encourages good behavior by penalizing bad reputations is insightful.

Still, Freedomnomics raises a fascinating conundrum it doesn’t answer. If the free market is so wonderful, how in the world did Freakonomics become the nonfiction publishing sensation of the decade?

Maybe the book market rewards truth-telling less than helping customers feel good about themselves? To paraphrase the famous quote by Adam Smith about butchers, bakers, and brewers with which Dr. Lott launches Freedomnomics, “It is not from the benevolence of the economist, the journalist, or the publisher that we expect our cheesy bestsellers, but from their regard to their own interest.” [More]

Seven immigrant doctors and one doctor’s lab technician wife have been arrested in the three recent attempted car-bombings in Britain, much to the befuddlement of the New York Times. Back in 2003, I wrote a VDARE column on how immigration can spur elite anti-Americanism. The parallels with the doctors plot aren’t perfect, but it can help you understand the psychology.

In 1917, patriotism in the U.S. was at a fever pitch. World War I had spread across Europe and Americans harbored deep concern about their future.

Too few in the United States speak of patriotism any more. That’s why on Independence Day I recommend you look at the living photographs taken during before and after the war by Arthur S. Mole and John D. Thomas.

In one of their photos, titled “The Human U.S. Shield” 30,000 soldiers assembled at Camp Custer in Battle Creek, Michigan. The photo symbolized the strength and security of our national borders. See it here.

Other Mole and Thomas pictures, all using humans to form their subjects, include the Liberty Bell, the American flag, an American eagle. See them here.

To VDARE.COM’s readers, I wish you a safe and happy Independence Day. We have had a wonderful year on the immigration reform battlefield. More and greater triumphs await us. Sincerest thanks to all of you for making our successes possible.

Steve Sailer writes on his own blog, (which I’m linking to, rather than cross-posting, because of the tricky code in the Amazon and Paypal donate links) that it would be a Good Thing to send him money, a conclusion I heartily endorse.

However, his suggestion is that you donate directly to him “If tax deductibility isn’t relevant to you.” If it is, and especially if you’re thinking in large numbers, then go here for instructions on how to make a tax-deductible donation earmarked specifically for Steve Sailer.

The Steve Sailer Independence Panhanding Drive!

It’s been a half year since I last rattled the tin cup under your noses. In other words, my friends, I need help, your help. and now we have a little something to celebrate with the demise of the McCain-Kennedy-Bush Axis of Amnesty bill. The papers today say nobody is giving to McCain anymore because of amnesty, so maybe I can divert a little cash my way.

If tax deductibility isn’t relevant to you (e.g., you live outside the U.S.), you might find it simpler to donate directly to me. You don’t need to have a PayPal or Amazon account already to donate, just a credit card. (Or you can E-mail me and I’ll send you my P.O. Box number.)

Paypal and Amazon charge $0.30 per transaction and 2.9% of the total, so I only get to keep 41% of a $1 donation, but 96.8% of a $100 donation!

Anyway, it seems kind of nuts to hit you up while you are at the beach or the barbecue, but, then again, you might be a little drunk and in a mellow mood toward me.

Paul Grier writes at the Christian Science Monitor:

Men in their 30s earn about $5,000 less in real terms than their fathers’ generation did, according to a new study.

Now, I suspect this is actually quite a bit worse than the study indicates. The “market basket” used to measure inflation changes over time with “consumer taste”. In the last generation, we have seen housing costs-and wealth concentration- rise significantly.

That means that while folks might be better able to afford lots of “toys”–or a cocaine or heroin habit, the price of affording to raise a family has risen significantly–and with it folks are less likely to have families.

The earning of a young man relative to his wife’s father is a also major measure of chance of a woman having children. This means that realistic options to have a family are significantly decreasing for many men–and I suspect this is at the root of the resent tendency in American culture towards escapism and extreme risk taking.

Timothy Leary used to mention in his writings that overwhelmingly, the socio-sexual “imprint” of young men is pretty much decided by age 25. What that means is that “nesting” isn’t really a viable reproductive strategy as it was historically. The chance of a young American man having a career track that might effectively contribute to a family by age 25 has declined-so these young men are pursuing alternative, often less constructive strategies.

But since 1973, median family income has been essentially flat, says Jillson.

There is quite a bit of literature on the “1972 productivity slowdown”. I suspect the mid-60’s immigration expansion and the rise of illegal immigration a few years later are major factors here. That deserves serious examination in detail.

I think history will be very unkind to the American political and economic leadership of the last four decades. It is clear that immigration has propped up property values in high-rent states like New York, New Jersey, California, Illinois and Florida–and the immigration is related to the massive migrations of the previously existing American population.

What does it say about a political or economic elite when they fail to maintain an economy that formerly maintained steady levels of productivity increase? Japan, for example has continued steady productivity increase-so it can be done. I think it says the more recent political and economic elites are failures-and that will become more apparent over time. There will be a lot of dirt to fling at both sides of the political spectrum.

David Francis at the Christian Science Monitor writes:

A popular video recently posted on the Internet’s YouTube shows an immigration lawyer talking to a group of business people in May about the process of hiring foreigners for their companies.

“Our goal is clearly not to find a qualified US worker,” says the attorney in the video, an immigration lawyer at Cohen & Grigsby, a firm in Pittsburgh. “In a sense, that sounds funny, but it’s what we’re trying to do here.”

I’ve previously reported on this story.

The fact this story is reaching the Christian Science Monitor means this story is reaching important decision makers in Washington DC. I think many of these folks will have enough survival instincts to understand that being associated with H-1b expansion is a bad thing. However, I suspect that many will be surprised at the utter rage that will be unleashed when the H-1b issue starts to be seriously addressed.

H-1b expansion meant that a significant community of Americans had their world turned upside down-and the issue was largely ignored for years. I think this is part of the reason why for example, the GOP lost their traditional core constituency, college educated white males, in the last presidential election.

I received several cautionary e-mails regarding my recent column:Joe On Immigration Vote–“We Had Them All The Way!

Readers warned me not to be overconfident and to guard against complacency. Let me make abundantly clear that I am under no delusions. I know that we have many more battles to fight. I am fully aware that, as Peter Brimelow predicted, “It has been obvious for some time that this will be a long and terrible war.”

Like myself, other immigration reform warriors remain steadfast. No one has disconnected his Internet, canceled his e-mail or stopped reading VDARE.COM

But let’s not underestimate the magnitude of our triumph. My friend Paul Nachman, in his blog earlier this week correctly pointed out that not all of the Senators who voted “NAY” ” on cloture are our friends.

And Paul offered the post mortems of Rich Lowry and Kate O’Beirne as insider’s views of why the vote went the way it did.

Lowry and Beirne have their opinions on what happened, Paul has his, you have yours and I have mine.

None of them matter.

What counts is this: a 46-53 vote against cloture for us.

Do I wish Sam Brownback were truly on our side? Of course I do. Do I trust him on future votes? Not as far as I can throw him.

But on June 28th, Brownback and some others of dubious credibility, were with us.

The losing side’s whining reminds of football teams who blow the big game: if only the star quarterback hadn’t thrown the key interception, if only the ref hadn’t muffed the call, if only a wind gust hadn’t come up out of nowhere to push the last minute field goal away from the uprights. Then we would have won.

As with the hypothetical football game, all that matters is the score.

And the score, to remind you once more, was 46-53