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So, today I had the supreme pleasure of going to the “Get Motivated” seminar that, if you listened to the traffic report this morning, you probably heard all about. Now, I’ve been to this before for work, so I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting into…again.

If you’ve never been to one of these, well, you can only imagine. As a self admitted left-wing nutcase, I don’t generally fit in too well with the uber-conservative, fundamentalist Christian pep-rally that these things generally tend to be. Case in point, Zig Ziglar (yes, that’s the name of their big-hitter in the usual motivational lineup) dismissed evolution in a single stroke. He was pretty passionate about that one. And everyone applauded…’cause most of the audience, apparently, are science fearing sheep.

But, after countless rolls of the eyes from remarks ranging from “you don’t need college; all you need is educational tapes for your car,” and “get rid of the current tax-code, including the ‘death tax’ in favor of a flat 17% tax system,” something decent finally came along.

Colin Powell, someone I’ve never listened to much, took the stage and embarked upon a one-hour journey of the current foreign policy landscape, the crises of the past, and diplomatic solutions for the future. I won’t go into tremendous detail, but I can assure you that he’d pass for a very handsome Democrat on matters of US foreign relations. None of this war-mongering mumbo-jumbo. He had real concerns, real passion, and sane thoughts (not that he would have necessarily had otherwise). It was refreshing to hear such sense coming from a former member of the Bush administration. I have to say that, at the end of the day, that was the best political speech, nay, speech of any sort that I have probably ever witnessed. So, two cheers for Mr. Powell.

I hate wading into these waters of immigration debate because they are filled with so much ire and hate borne of frustration from all sides of the table. However, the scapegoat argument (in my belief) is over costs. So, placing all notions of morality, humanity and tolerance aside, what are the actual costs of illegal immigration in quantifiable dollars? For that, I don’t have a concrete answer. But, complicated economies aren’t as directly proportional as saying person “a” received “x” amount of dollars in state benefit, so must therefore be “x” dollars in debt to the taxpayers. That is far too simplistic.

I’m not an economist, so I won’t make my own assumptions about what the taxpayers’ true balance sheet reflects in regards to illegal immigrants. But, I will summarise a few key points from an excellent article in the April 7, 2006 edition of Business Week.

Firstly, the assumption that illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes is patently false. Except in a few states, such as Oregon, every time you buy a pack of gum, a percentage of the cost goes to local and state governments – sales tax. Illegal immigrants pay sales tax like any other consumer in this country. One of the principles of a sales tax is that it is supposed to, in theory, proportionally relate one’s tax burden to one’s discretionary income. But, then again, that is the role of taxes, is it not? So, while many illegal immigrants might not pay anywhere near as much sales tax as, say, Bill Gates, they are at least contributing to the governments’ overall revenue systems. After all, we all buy groceries and go to the occasional movie.

We pay tax when we rent or own property. This is a major source of revenue for state and local governments, and whether you pay on your own property, or rent from a landlord, these costs are a very real benefit to the overall tax system. Again, these burdens are borne by illegal immigrants just as they are by you and me.

Many illegal immigrants, the majority of whom are employed, do end up giving part of their income to the federal government. According to the Business Week article, which cites a study conducted by Standard & Poor’s, the US Social Security Administration “maintains roughly $6 billion to $7 billion of Social Security contributions in an “earnings suspense file” — an account for W-2 tax forms that cannot be matched to the correct Social Security number. The vast majority of these numbers are attributable to undocumented workers who will never claim their benefits.”

In fact, that Social Security money that is left unspent, alone, could cover half of the public school tuition burden created by the 1.8 million children of illegal immigrants in the system, according to Business Week.

But these arguments assume that any person is nothing more than an economic burden to a society. None of these arguments even begin to explain the economic benefit we all see as a whole from the presence of undocumented workers.

Consider this: if every person in this country were to make at least the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour, would the companies that had previously been paying less for illegal labor internalise the resulting cost difference? You can bet your boots they wouldn’t. Everything from produce to new home prices would increase as a result. The same effect we see from free trade agreements with developing nations applies right here at home. Lower production costs result in lower consumption costs. Is that a good thing? It depends on whom you ask. But, I can assure you that every person living in America would be affected.

So, what is the real argument? I have presented some cases for how illegal immigrants do in fact contribute financially to our economy, but I haven’t heard much in the way of similar discussion in my daily life. I don’t believe, after all, that the debate is even truly about cost in dollars and cents. On the surface, sure, but it is really deep-seated in fear, xenophobia, and racism. Those are pretty strong suggestions, I realise, but there is a history of such emotions not just in our American culture, but in practically every human culture that has ever existed.

The Irish immigrants to the United States have undergone tremendous social persecution, as did the Japanese, Chinese, Italians and many, many others. And let’s be serious, though we talk about illegal immigration, we all know that Mexican nationals are at the center of this topic, though they only account for roughly half of the undocumented individuals in our country.

I plead with you to pause the hate-mongering, be it against foreigners in this country, or against those who sit at the other end of the ideological table, and consider the true costs of your arguments.

Soapbox dismounted.

Looks like Saxton’s put the goober back in gubernatorial. BlueOregon posted a photo of one of Saxton’s campaign fliers:

Apparently, spelling is not on the Saxton agenda. Anyhow, please feel free to use the banner at the top that I was able to quickly throw together. Spread the word and get this man a job as Oregone’s leader.

Adfreak.com posted a story that covers not one, but three of my favorite subjects: Canada, advertising and Bush bashing. It’s a sweet sweet world.

Here’s the skinny: Simplyaudiobooks.ca launched an outdoor campaign in Toronto that’s pretty self-explanatory and catchy, though a tad bit cliché. It came to Simply Audiobooks’s attention that Lakehead University in Canada had also been running a “Yale Schmale” campaign (get it?). All of a sudden, it began to look like a lot of profit was being gained at the expense of President Bush.

Well, in true fashion, the Canadian company worried that such a message wasn’t appropriate after all. Simply Audiobook’s CMO stated beautifully, “We quickly realized we had to pull the billboards to minimize the potential for offending our friendly neighbors to the south.”

I love the good nature of Canadian society (though I generally hate generalizations). I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Bush. And advertising is my addiction. I’m glad to see all these things converge in one happy package.

According to a story on NPR’s Day to Day, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (which is a hell of a lot harder to pronounce than “Khatami” or even “Great Satan”) has been itching to get his story told. So, he’s telling it in the form of a blog, and I wouldn’t be surprised if President Bush has nabbed his RSS feed. You can read up on Ahmadinejad’s thoughts at ahmadinejad.ir.

The site has a curious appeal, I must admit, but the Iranglish can get a bit hard to follow after a while. However, there are some catchy phrases, such as, “with hope in God, I intend to wholeheartedly complete my talk in future with allotted fifteen minutes.” Granted, it’s cruel to mock another’s English when the mocker has never even bothered to look at the mockee’s native language.

I have to admit that, as a budding blogger myself (but with nowhere near the middle-eastern country leadership experience), his blog is not a bad idea. I’ll be curious to read it from time to time. Afterall, the first step to solving problems is through communication, and an AdSense account.

Well hello everyone. Today was a bit on the crazy side. So, it’s been once year since Bush went into Iraq and a year since the great people of Portland took the streets in protest. To celebrate the anniversary, we all went back on the streets and protested again. I think it was more of an excuse for the entire city to get out and enjoy the fabulous weather. No, actually, the folks around here are pretty serious about things. I got some great shots, and the one above is just one of them. Since I am away from Eugene, I’m having to do all of this by hand. Good old notepad. So, I don’t have time to get everything up. But, there should be massive updates when I get back into town. I wanted to share a bit with you now, though. Hope all is going well. Enjoy your spring breaks!

Looks like Measure 30 failed. For those of you not in Oregon, it was a much needed ballot measure which would have increased taxes to help keep some of our state’s vital services from drowning…which is what’s been happening. Anyhow, it’s sad and disgusting that people are more concerned about a few extra pennies in their multi-million dollar bank accounts than they are about the welfare of their own house. It’s a beautiful state out here, I assure you of that. But it’s becoming harder and harder to keep it that way. Kids are getting substandard education, thousands are going needlessly hungry (proud to say that we have the highest hunger level in the nation) and libraries and other vital public services are either scaling back or scraping for cash. Makes me sick, quite frankly. Well, enough ranting, just wanted to let you know what’s going on out here. Take care.