America's Assimilating Hispanics
The evidence shows they are following the path of earlier immigrants.



As immigration reform moves through Congress, one claim by opponents is that this time immigration is different because the country's latest arrivals aren't assimilating. On the contrary, however, the evidence overwhelmingly shows that today's immigrants are acculturating and moving up the economic ladder like previous generations.

The media's tendency to report "averages" in educational attainment, English-language skills, income and other traditional measures of assimilation can make it difficult to determine whether immigrants are making gains. Since Latino immigration continues, averaging together the poverty rates or homeownership levels of large numbers of people who arrived recently with those who have been here for decades can provide a skewed view of progress.

Measuring assimilation properly requires following the same immigrants over generations. And the good news is that longitudinal studies that take this approach show that Latino immigrants have made gains similar to other groups who preceded them.

Consider the claim that Hispanic immigrants are rejecting English in favor of a separate Spanish-speaking culture. Census data from 2005 show that only one-third of immigrants in the country for less than a decade speak English well, but that number climbs to nearly three-quarters for those here for 30 years or more.

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A 2007 Pew study of 14,000 Latino adults showed that while just 23% of immigrants report being able to speak English very well, "fully 88% of their U.S.-born adult children report that they speak English very well. Among later generations of Hispanic adults, the figure rises to 94%."

All of this follows the traditional three-generation model of linguistic assimilation that characterized European immigrants in the last century. Typically, English is the dominant language of the second generation, and by the fourth generation fewer than a quarter can still speak the immigrant tongue.

Educational progress among Latino immigrants is also evident, and it too fits a pattern shown by previous ethnic newcomers. Nearly half (47%) of foreign-born Hispanics lack a high-school diploma, but that number falls to 17% among their offspring. And 21% of second-generation Hispanics are college graduates, compared with 11% of foreign-born Hispanics residing in the U.S.
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Latino immigrants who have been in the U.S. for three decades or more are also more likely than recent arrivals to own a home, live in a family with an income above the federal poverty line and marry outside of their ethnic group—all common measures of assimilation. According to 2012 Census data, the median household income for second-generation Hispanics is $48,400, versus $34,600 for Hispanic immigrants and $58,200 for all groups.

A Pew report from February on Hispanic and Asian immigrants—who comprise about 70% of foreign born adults in the U.S.—found that the second generation of both groups is more likely than immigrants to have friends outside of their ethnic or racial group, to say their group gets along well with others and to think of themselves as a "typical American." Pew also noted that "second-generation Hispanics and Asians place more importance than does the general public on hard work and career success."

Like many Mexicans today, Italian immigrants who came in large numbers in the late 1800s and early 1900s valued work over education. Italy had one of the highest illiteracy rates in Europe at the time—62% in 1871—and illiteracy was especially pronounced in southern Italy, where most Italian-Americans trace their ancestry. In 1910, just 31% of Italian immigrants aged 14 to 18 were enrolled in school, compared to 48% of the Irish and 56% of the Jews. Today, Italian-Americans exceed national averages in educational attainment and income.

Fears that the newest arrivals are overrunning America and changing it for the worse have a long pedigree. "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs," wrote Benjamin Franklin in 1751.

Big Ben wasn't paranoid, but he was living with a flood of German immigrants into Philadelphia. Street signs were printed in German, and German-language newspapers proliferated. In 18th-century America, you could travel from Pennsylvania to Georgia and speak only German.

It's true that many on the left promote a separate Hispanic identity, but their impact is small compared to the great assimilating maelstrom of American culture and economic life. The stultifying attractions of the welfare state are also a barrier to upward mobility, but that is best addressed with reforms, not by limiting immigration. Despite fears and much bad data, immigrants continue to be the American asset they have always been.

"I think we have gone beyond the point where we are getting diminishing returns, in addition, the corrosion of professionalism within the USG and the naked politicization of some of the elements have done much to erode my faith in it."

Knowing you GM, that says quite a lot.

Detroit To Dump Retiree Health Costs On ObamaCare

By JED GRAHAM, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
 

 Posted 09:18 AM ET
 
 
The federal government isn't among the creditors Detroit has turned to for mercy, but U.S. taxpayers will bear a large share of the cost of its restructuring.
 
High on emergency manager Kevyn Orr's to-do list: slash health care outlays for thousands of early retirees by shifting them to ObamaCare.
 
Detroit spent $177 million on health benefits for 19,000 retirees last year but figures it can cut that to $28 million-$40 million a year.
 
Part of the savings would come from paring supplemental coverage for retirees age 65 and older, most of whom already get Medicare.
 
But the federal government will pick up much of the slack for early retirees through age 64, who will be eligible for subsidized coverage as long as household income is less than 400% of the poverty level.
 
The news is hardly surprising. While the Motor City is an early mover when it comes to shifting early retirees to ObamaCare, it's not alone and the road for doing so has been well-paved.
 
Last month, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — Obama's chief of staff when the law was passed in 2010 — disclosed that the Windy City would shift 30,000 early retirees to ObamaCare. Last year, retiree health care cost the city $109 million, but that's projected to balloon to $500 million within a decade.
 
Sheboygan County, Wis., also has crunched the numbers and envisions saving $286,000 in the upcoming fiscal year by shifting early retirees to ObamaCare's exchanges starting Jan. 1.
 
ObamaCare's crafters intended to provide an alternative to employer-provided coverage for retirees, which had long been in decline.
 
The law set aside $5 billion to offset employer costs from June 2010 until the launch of the subsidized exchanges at the start of 2014. The funds, to reimburse 80% of per-person claims between $15,000 and $90,000, were exhausted by December 2011. New claims were rejected.
 
About half of the employers who signed up for the program were government entities, including the city of Stockton, which has sought to dump retiree health care in bankruptcy proceedings.
 
Stockton public employee retirees recently agreed to accept $5.1 million in a lump sum, which is equal to just 2% of their lost health benefits.
 
The Early Retiree Reinsurance Program was described by the Department of Health and Human Services "as a bridge to the new health insurance Exchanges."
 
The implication was that employers would cross that bridge by shifting coverage to the federal government come 2014.
 
While relatively few government entities have declared such an intention, it seems logical to expect many to make that move in the next year or so.
 
As governments struggle with massive liabilities for pension and health benefits, court rulings have lent support to the contention that pensions are protected under state constitutions. On the other hand, rulings in a number of states have found no such protections for health benefits.
 
In a recent column, former Comptroller General David Walker wrote that ObamaCare presented "a huge opportunity for states and localities in desperate need of fixing their long-term finances."
 
He predicted: "The overall tax burden will shift, and in ways that Americans in other more fiscally responsible states may not appreciate."
 
Walker also warned that the influx of older, high-cost patients into ObamaCare would put upward pressure on premiums and make it less likely younger workers would sign up.


Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/061813-660353-detroit-chicago-shift-retiree-costs-to-obamacare.htm

The low information voters are in for a bad time when the bills finally come due.

Thank you for that piece GM.

second post

Money to burn
The muddle-headed world of American public-pension accounting
 
 
SLOWLY but surely the cost of America’s public-sector pension promises is becoming clear. Last year the best estimate of the shortfall was more than $4 trillion. To deal with its deficit, a giant Californian pension fund, CalPERS, recently announced plans that will increase contributions by employers (in effect, taxpayers) by up to a half, starting in 2015-16.

Final-salary pension costs have risen for decades because workers are living longer and the retirement age has barely budged. The bill was disguised in the 1980s and 1990s by good asset returns. But dismal equity markets have since forced many private providers to close final-salary schemes to new members and switch to less lavish defined-contribution plans.

This shift has hardly happened in the public sector, in large part because the accounting treatment is so different. Devin Nunes, a Republican congressman, recently revived a bill to move to a more conservative accounting approach.

Failing to recognise the true cost of public pensions builds up all sorts of problems, as an academic paper last year made clear. As pension funds become more mature (i.e., more of their members are retired) their asset allocation should, in theory, become more conservative. After all, the fund has to worry more about paying benefits immediately and has less scope to gamble that riskier assets will deliver long-term growth.

Sure enough, mature pension funds in Canada and Europe and in America’s private sector all follow this approach. But more mature American public plans have riskier portfolios than less mature equivalents. In its latest “Global Financial Stability Report” the IMF worried that American funds had increased the riskiness of their portfolios, “exposing them to greater volatility and liquidity risks”.

The explanation for such Behaviour is not hard to find. American public-sector schemes discount their liabilities by the expected return on their assets. The riskier the asset mix, the higher the assumed return—and the lower the bill appears to be.

This is an odd way of thinking. Suppose a car company borrowed $10 billion in the form of a 20-year bond to build a manufacturing plant and planned to pay off the debt with the profits from running the plant. The car company will assume a higher return on capital than its financing cost (otherwise it should not build the plant). But it still has to recognise the $10 billion bond liability on its balance-sheet. It cannot say it owes only $2 billion because it expects a very high return.

The reason is clear. If the plant fails to earn a high return, the firm will still be liable to repay the bond. Similarly, if pension schemes fail to earn a high return on their assets, they still have to pay benefits. Final-salary pensions are a debt-like liability.

When private-sector companies account for their pension schemes, therefore, they discount liabilities with a corporate-bond yield. Lower yields have pushed up liabilities and led to big deficits. Moody’s, a ratings agency, will in future use a long-term bond yield to discount American public-pension schemes, resulting in much larger liabilities than before.

Even if you use the expected-return methodology, the discount rate used by public-sector pension funds should fall. That is because all pension funds tend to own some bonds, and low bond yields mean low future returns. But the paper finds no link at all between the discount rates used by public-sector funds and the level of bond yields.

The motto seems to be: if reality is challenging, just ignore it.

The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) did change the rules for public pension funds last year. But the revised rules still throw up absurdities. In a paper for theFinancial Analysts Journal, Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Rochester argues that by destroying assets invested in cash a scheme can reduce its deficit by increasing the expected return on remaining assets. “A plan can sometimes improve its funding status by literally burning money,” he remarks.

This seemed such a startling finding that The Economist asked GASB to comment. Instead of a detailed rebuttal, we received this response: “GASB gave serious consideration to the views of Professor Novy-Marx when developing its new pension standards.” Not serious enough, it seems. American taxpayers must not know whether to laugh or cry.

Economist.com/blogs/buttonwood

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/06/17/egypt-shoots-tourism-industry-in-the-foot/

June 17, 2013


Egypt Shoots Tourism Industry in the Foot



 
Handing over control of a tourist hotspot to a party that loathes tourists is asking for trouble, but that’s exactly what Egypt has just done. On Sunday, President Morsi appointed Adel al-Khayat of the Gamaa al-Islamiyya party as Governor of Luxor, a region home to the ruins of two temples and several monuments, widely known as the “open air museum.”  The party, Gamaa al-Islamiyya, not only holds conservative views against sunbathing, women wearing shorts, and alcohol, but is also responsible for the 1997 attack in Luxor that killed 60 tourists. The New York Times reports:
 

“A fatwa, or religious decree, published on the Gamaa al-Islamiyya’s Web site advised members of the group not to build tourist accommodations. ‘Because tourist villages have aspects that anger Allah, including alcohol, gambling and other forbidden things, building these hotels and villages is considered aiding their owners in sin and aggression, and is not permitted,’ the decision read.”
 
This is a boneheaded move for a country that relies so heavily upon tourism for its economic well-being. Tourism accounts for more than 11 percent of Egypt’s GDP, and 90 percent of Egyptians employed in Luxor work in industries that depend on tourism to stay afloat. The revolution and the political turmoil following it has already dealt a blow to the country’s tourist economy, and this recent appointment will only make things worse. Egypt’s death spiral continues…

http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2013/06/17/left-loses-big-in-arizona-supreme-court-case/

Left Loses Big in Citizenship-Verification Supreme Court Case

June 17th, 2013 - 5:35 pm

Something perverse happened after the Supreme Court’s decision today invalidating citizenship-verification requirements in Arizona for registrants who use the federal voter registration form. The Left knows they lost most of the battle, but are still claiming victory. That’s what they do. Election-integrity proponents and the states are saying they lost, but don’t realize they really won.
 
The Left wins even when they lose, and conservatives are often bewildered and outfoxed in the election-process game.

 


Earlier today, I called the decision a nothingburger. After re-reading the case and reflecting a bit more, it’s clear that the decision was a disaster for the Left and their victory cackles are hollow — and they know it.
 
Worse, conservatives dooms-dayers who have never litigated a single National Voter Registration Act case have taken to the airwaves, describing the case as a disaster which invites illegal-alien voting.
 
In the last year, I’ve litigated five NVRA cases and worked on the preemption issues for years, and there is more to cheer in today’s opinion than there is to bemoan. Those complaining about the opinion don’t understand what the Left’s goal was in this case: total federal preemption. On that score, Justice Scalia foiled them; indeed, the decision today was a huge war won, even if the small Arizona battle was lost.
 
From my time in the Justice Department Voting Section, I can remember intimately the wars over some of the preemption issues decided today.
 
The Left essentially believes that anyone who fills out a federal Election Assistance Commission registration form should be allowed on the rolls, no questions asked. There were complex fights over the “citizen check-off box” issues, with the Left wanting the box rendered meaningless, and conservatives and election-integrity proponents believing a registration cannot be processed until a registrant affirms on the box that he or she is a citizen.
 
Before the decision today, here is what the Left wanted:
 
● Invalidation of Arizona’s requirement that those submitting a federal form provide proof of citizenship with their federal form. Mind you, the citizenship-proof requirement is NOT part of federal law and the Election Assistance Commission does NOT require it in the form they drafted.
 
● Invalidation of state citizenship-verification requirements when a state voter registration form is used (yes, such forms exist separate from the federal requirement) on the basis of federal preemption. They wanted the Arizona case to invalidate all state citizenship-verification requirements.
 
● Automatic registration if a registrant submits a completed federal EAC approved registration form, no questions asked.
 
● Federal preemption on the ability for states to have customized federal EAC-approved forms that differed from the default EAC form.
 
● Federal preemption over states, like Florida and Kansas, looking for independent information on citizenship to root out noncitizens from the voter rolls. Again, the Left wanted the federal EAC form to be the no-questions-asked ticket to the voter rolls.
 
So what is the score on these five goals after Justice Scalia’s opinion today? Election-integrity advocates are batting .800; left wing groups, .200. And the most insignificant issue of the five is the one issue the Left won. Justice Scalia foiled 4 of 5 of their goals, and the 4 biggest ones.

"I cannot find an acceptable reason for Snowden to be divulging our/British spying on foreign leaders at a G8 conference to the Chinese.  Apparently he is giving more to the Chinese as well.  This sure seems like treason to me."

Exactly!