Warren Buffett proposed in 2003 the idea of “import certificates“–an adjustable tariff to balance the US trade deficit. I think the idea has some merit–but needs some adjustments to work properly. One problem is that imports of capital improvements (i.e. machinery used in a BMW plant) are treated exactly the same as imports of consumer goods. That might be handled by allowing payment of the import certificates to be adjusted according to the depreciation schedule of major capital items. If BMW imports equipment for a factory in the US with a 10 year depreciation schedule, they might purchase a bundle of import certificate futures coming to maturity over 10 years.

I think the idea of import certificates also can be applied to achieving a sane immigration policy.
Peter Brimelow has previously proposed that the US should have a goal of zero net immigration.
I think that goal is interesting–but it needs to be considered with the fact that many immigrants to the US are relatively young people that will produce offspring that will be US citizens-and that many emigrants are retirees that are going back home where there social security checks will stretch further. There may be room for use of some kind of futures market to help with this situation.

Still, we could have a market in immigration certificates that would work. Each emigrant that that leaves the US for another country would get paid the amount that immigrant of a similar age is willing to pay to come to the US. For folks nearing retirement age, they might be qualified to have sufficient means to support themselves in the US and a payment sufficient to cover the shortfall between the social security contributions of the emigrating population and the likely social security receipts of that population. Illegal aliens leaving the US and non-citizen green card holders could get some kind of partial credit in proportion to their stay. Immigration certificates could be seen as a kind of option to obtain citizenship-that could be combined with requirements to learn English, live in the US without criminal activity(and perhaps obtaining an insurance policy that assures that should a prospective immigrant be incarcerated or become ill, the US taxpayer won’t be footing the bill). One nice feature if immigration certificates, is that if someone finds the US just isn’t to their liking, they can get a big part of their investment back–and thus con jobs and exploitation of immigrants could be minimized.

There are big blocks of the US population that are deeply dissatisfied with the direction the US government has taken in recent decades. An immigration certificate scheme would give them a realistic chance to make a new start elsewhere-and would let the powers that be of the US select the kind of population they really want. It would instantly solve the problems of infrastructure creation related to population growth driven by immigration. I suspect that a regime with immigration certificates would still have substantial immigration-but it would have a fundamentally different composition and would be balanced by emigration that would be more substantial than we have now–and would be largely voluntary.

If we combined import certificates and immigration certificates, the incentives created for US workers could change rather dramatically. We might actually wind up with a population that really wants to be in the US–and the US could return to its roots as a nation of citizens.

What is more interesting is the unintentional but more revealing subtext, inaccessible to the author, incapacitated as he is by status, position and, appropriately enough, chauvinism. Holder’s speech revealed the potential conflicts facing a civil rights movement-turned-industry by Barack Obama’s stunning, rapid rise.

Those who most fear the reality of a “transformation” to a “post-racial” America are those who’ve most benefited from the decidedly racial nature of recent American politics–again, embarrassingly demonstrated with Obama’s success. The end game of affirmative action and discrimination-through-litigation is revealed as long overdue. The intent of the “conversation” about race, now more than ever, is to delegitimize that challenge by declaring it unfit for conversation.

If we should start taking seriously the “post-racial” nature of Obama’s rise, we might start asking that it mean something beyond assigning a professional and political premium to certain individuals based on Obama’s myth of “race and inheritance.” But the obvious advantage that race played for the inauthentic son of slavery and segregation contradicts the myth. The notion of a white American jackboot forever on the neck of our culturally most powerful–black Americans–was questionable before Obama’s remarkable campaign and the ecstatic reception of his inauguration. Now it is farcical.

But it isn’t only that Barack Obama renders the white/black reparations dynamic absurd. The nascent Diversity State finds itself too soon and too totally triumphant. The bogey of white oppression threatens to become no longer plausible, and those groups assigned varying stature within the hierarchy of grievance are already eyeing one another uneasily.

The order now threatened by diversity is not pre- but post-civil rights. That minority became synonymous with oppressed, and “underrepresented” synonymous with denied, once only enhanced the power of the dominant minority, which extracted concessions from a still comfortable majority (that could still afford them and held an expectation of final conciliation). Smaller minority groups were content to follow the leader and accept a subordinate position. But what happens to that dynamic in a “post-racial” (”post-white”) America where the majority of individuals have a birthright claim against the white plurality and no sense of obligation toward a black population that is culturally dominant, politically favored and stubbornly lagging in professional and scholastic achievement?

It was therefore Holder’s purpose to preclude any challenges to black America’s position atop the hierarchy of grievance. Black equality is more than simple equality. Holder is here to defend the primacy of his faction as the vanguard of a revolution now triumphant:

In addition, the other major social movements of the latter half of the 20th century — feminism, the nation’s treatment of other minority groups, even the antiwar effort — were all tied in some way to the spirit that was set free by the quest for African American equality. Those other movements may have occurred in the absence of the civil rights struggle, but the fight for black equality came first and helped to shape the way in which other groups of people came to think of themselves and to raise their desire for equal treatment. Further, many of the tactics that were used by these other groups were developed in the civil rights movement.

By more false accommodation he allows that feminism, anti-war protests and other minority rights movements “may” have happened without the black civil rights movement–insinuating that they probably would have not. When Holder goes on to assert that black history is too little studied, and that “African American history is American history”, he declares that black history is more than American history, and greater than any other group’s American history.

More

Does it seem like Mexico’s complaining about America has clicked up a notch recently, particularly in relation to the ongoing war against the criminal drug cartels? First it was the accusation that America’s Second Amendment was to blame for all the guns in Mexico, and now Presidente Calderon is grousing about corruption… in the United States (!)

The Mexican president has blamed US “corruption” for hampering his nation’s efforts to combat violent drug cartels. [...]

Calderon acknowledged some Mexican officials had helped the cartels but said the US should ask itself how many of its own officials were implicated.

“It is not an exclusively Mexican problem, it is a common problem between Mexico and the United States,” he said.

“I want to know how many American officials have been prosecuted for this [corruption].”
[Mexico condemns US 'corruption', Al Jazeera, March 3, 2009]

What a phony. Everyone knows Mexico is riven with corruption from top to bottom. Bribery is deeply embedded in Mexican culture, beginning with kids who bribe their teachers to get better grades and proceeding throughout the society. A former top drug cop (Noe Ramirez) was arrested last fall for working for a cartel, and he’s not been the only the highly placed person working both sides by a long shot (e.g. presidential guard Arturo Gonzalez Rodriguez and officials in the Attorney General’s office). Endemic, historic police corruption has made the drug war enormously more difficult and required the use of the army.

Mexican whining about guns is also tomfoolery. Even Mexophile writer Sam Quinones recently reflected in Foreign Policy (State of War), “When I lived in Mexico, its cartels were content with assault rifles and large-caliber pistols, mostly bought at American gun shops. Now, Mexican authorities are finding arsenals that would have been incomprehensible in the Mexico I knew.”

Indeed, the report to Mexico prepared by Gen. Barry McCaffrey found materiel not available in your local gun store:

The outgunned Mexican law enforcement authorities face armed criminal attacks from platoon-sized units employing night vision goggles, electronic intercept collection, encrypted communications, fairly sophisticated information operations, sea-going submersibles, helicopters and modern transport aviation, automatic weapons, RPG’s, Anti-Tank 66 mm rockets, mines and booby traps, heavy machine guns, 50 [caliber] sniper rifles, massive use of military hand grenades, and the most modern models of 40mm grenade machine guns.

My opinion: the Mexican shooting war against drug cartels is not going well, and Presidente Calderon is beginning to lay down the spin for his government’s future failure.

He says the drug violence is a “shared problem” which is diplomat-ese for “It’s America’s fault.” The $1.4 billion in military aid from the American taxpayer via the Merida Initiative will be deemed too little, too late when Mexico becomes widely recognized as a failed state.

At that time, Mexico City may further insist that America’s complicity in creating south-border chaos should obligate us to receive millions of Mexican refugees. And President Obama is unlikely to put the military on the border to keep them out…

In covering the latest developments in the Chandra Levy case (illegal alien felon Ingmar Guandique has emerged as Levy’s suspected killer), the Washington Times reported yesterday that news organizations were “debating whether the words ‘illegal’ and ‘immigrant’ are too loaded to use in an already emotionally charged story. And maybe even racist.” [Levy suspect's illegal status stirs media debate, Jennifer Harper, March 6, 2009 ]

Last February, an internal memo sent by Patrick Tuohy indicated that the WT has planned to drop “illegal alien” and use “illegal immigrant”. Here’s the email memo:

From: Patrick Tuohy
Date: February 25, 2008 4:43:13 PM EST
To: twtnews@washingtontimes.com
Cc: Patrick Tuohy
Subject: Style changes

All:

Here are some recent updates to TWT style.

1) Clinton will be the headline word for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

2) Gay is approved for copy and preferred over homosexual, except in clinical references or references to sexual activity.

3) The quotation marks will come off gay marriage (preferred over homosexual marriage).

4) Moderate is approved, but centrist is still allowed.

5) We will use illegal immigrants, not illegal aliens.

Thanks.

A search of Nexis shows that the newspaper has a long history of using “illegal alien” in their reportage: 2561 hits from March 2004 to March 2009.

Some suspect the explicit change of editorial tone, one month after John Solomon took over as editor, reflects the new editor’s liberal tilt.

With the MSM still in lock-step Obama worship, it is to the blogosphere one must look to find cogent, reasoned critiques of the 44th president.

A particularly fine one was posted on Thursday on the blog Mansizedtarget.com: Obama: Floundering Fast.

I used to be somewhat impressed with Obama as a politician. But it seems increasingly clear that he’s an empty suit.

For starters, his foreign policy rhetoric and strategy are a mess. He’s recently insulted Britain for no apparent reason. He’s pushing for an expanded campaign in Afghanistan, even though it resembles in every relevant way the bottomless pit that Iraq has turned out to be…

And, worst of all, Obama is talking about stocks and the markets in a way that inspires fear and uncertainty. Yesterday, in a press conference, he encouraged stock buying but confused “price to earnings” ratios with “profits and earnings.” What?!?… No one who knows anything about markets would make this mistake. It’s truly amateur night. Literally, everything he has said and done since January 20, 2009 has inspired more fear, uncertainty, and loss in the markets.

Mansizedtarget has reached the same conclusion I did in Does Obama know any Economics? - and makes an interesting additional point:

It’s not just a gaff. This guy has never shown any serious interest in economics for most of his adult life. This lacuna is doubly blameworthy since he spent so many years at the epicenter of the Law and Economics movement, the University of Chicago Law School. …One wonders if Obama has ever read Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, or James Madison.

(Based on Steve Sailer’s study of Obama’s academic history in America’s Half Blood Prince, the anwer is almost certainly no. Silly courses in leftist dogma were already legion in the early 80s, when Obama was in College. There is probably another reason besides grade-shame that the Obama campaign suppressed his transcripts: embarrassment over what he took.)

MST concludes

Now we learn that the wunderkind Obama–who could not be bothered to write a single academic article while pretending to be a law professor at the University of Chicago–can’t apparently give a speech without a teleprompter. When he’s off the training wheels, he says things even more stupid than his prepared remarks as evidenced by his confusion about PE Ratios…now the anti-capitalist “community organizer” is charged with establishing policies to stop the bleeding for an economy in free fall, and he’s reaching for the failed big government solutions (and gimmicks) that were so baleful in the 1970s.

A lot of peculiar Obama traits – like this hostility to the British – will be emerging in the coming months. And the MSM can forget about repressing them.

Get an advance briefing: read Steve Sailer’s book!