Hillary's Dream: Open Borders!

(written in October of 2016)

Can anyone imagine what the United States would look like in four years, under Hillary Clinton, with open borders, completely ignoring the needs of the American people?

"My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders. We have to resist protectionism [and] other kinds of barriers to market access and to trade."-- Hillary Clinton

This statement by Hillary Clinton was made to a Brazilian bank, Unibanco Itau, in one of her infamous speeches to the banking industry and Wall Street. This is one speech she has taken consistent steps to hide from the American people.

Can anyone imagine what the United States would look like in four years, under Hillary Clinton, with open borders, completely ignoring the needs of the American people? How many millions of people would flood through our borders if the United States had no concerns regarding our sovereignty?

Let's look at the numbers currently representing our immigration system today.

In 2014 there were almost 60 million refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs) around the globe. Put another way, that's one in every 122 people worldwide. Put yet another way, that's roughly the equivalent of the entire population of Italy being pushed out of their homes.

Estimated number of illegals residing within the US today range between 11.4 - 40 million.

In 2014 alone, there were 181 million non-immigrant admissions (primarily tourists, business travelers, and international students).

The Diversity Visa Lottery admits 55,000 people annually.

In 2014, 1,016,518 foreign nationals became lawful permanent residents (LPRs), also known as green-card holders, according to DHS data.

Each year, the USCIS receives and processes about 6 million immigration applications from individuals and employers.

One immigration expert estimated the USCIS will receive at least 160,000 applications in 2014 for the 85,000 available H-1B visas.

Obamacare, has increased health insurance coverage of immigrants, especially noncitizens, at a greater rate than the U.S. born population....

The Migration Policy Institute says the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, has increased health insurance coverage of immigrants, especially noncitizens, at a greater rate than the U.S. born population. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the number of people unemployed in the U.S in 2016 is 7.9 million. Americans forced into part-time work, for lack of full-time jobs, hits 5.9 million. The labor participation rate is at the lowest since World War II. Currently teachers throughout the U.S. are experiencing overcrowding in their classrooms, averaging 40 children per class. As stated in an article by Teach Hub.com, "Classroom Overcrowding: Not Just a Numbers Game," says: "Where we used to lack space, now we now lack seats within rooms. Kids sit on counters, on the floors, wherever they can find a space. Teachers struggle to be heard above the din of 40 plus kids, and kids struggle to hear the teacher and keep up with instruction. While we're racing to the top and leaving no child behind, we're burying them." Is this really the America you imagine? Probably not, but it is the America Hillary dreams about...

According to a report ("Estimated Cost of K-12 Public Education for Unaccompanied Alien Children") from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) that came out in August, 2014:

"The total estimated cost of educating illegal alien minors during the upcoming school year for all states and the District of Columbia is $761,405,907. New York topping the list with $147,731,339, Texas with $77,655,584, California with $63,908,143, Maryland with $67,937,602, New Jersey with $57,698,181, Florida with $56,773,589, and Virginia with $54,182,412."

Now, with just these figures alone, imagine what the United States would be like with open borders. Our education system would fall to overcrowding, our healthcare system, now failing under the Affordable Care Act would implode, our current low employment market would open to hundreds of millions of new individuals searching for jobs. Our communities and neighborhoods would be overflowing with people needing a place to live.

Is this really the America you imagine?

Probably not, but it is the America Hillary and Democrats dream about.

Fed Delivers Christmas Champagne to Wall Street Peter St. Onge

It's Christmas on Wall Street as the long-awaited pivot is here, with Jerome Powell last week announcing the Fed's giving up on inflation and turning to that long-promised recession.

The so-called Federal Reserve dot-plot, which measures Fed members' rate projections, went dovish – meaning inflationary – for the first time since the pandemic.

Bloomberg was downright giddy, trumpeting that the "Great Monetary Pivot of 2024" is nigh. Stocks, bonds, and currencies have all soared, as financial markets filled up the punch bowl just when Joe Biden's election campaign needed it most.

All courtesy of a Federal Reserve that, apparently, has traded in the Paul Volcker baseball cards for a very clever inflation-fighting strategy of let 'er rip and hope for the best.

Indeed, Mike Alfred ventured that Janet Yellen and the big guy himself may have "intervened" with some pointed dialogue with Jerome Powell about their ability to punish the Fed for wrongthink.

Markets reacted like a San Francisco junkie on a UBI, with literally everything going up but the dollar – including gold, which rallied $60 dollars in the space of hours and has remained there since.

As Bloomberg approvingly put it, "virtually no corner of financial markets was left out." It was the biggest one-day rally since 2009.

Why did markets go wild?

Because despite ongoing inflation, Jerome Powell just signaled the green light for a speculative mania. Last year was a lean one on the street, with dark Jerome warning that "pain is coming" as he strangled financial markets to clear room for the federal government to spend everything their dark little hearts crave.

Now Jerome's apparently traded his dark warnings about exuberance with all but begging Wall Street to exuberate away.

The problem is given inflation's nowhere near licked, this is essentially the Fed giving up. I continue to worry about the Fed repeating its catastrophic 1970's stagflation, when it eased in the eye of the storm and setting off another inflationary crisis.

In fact, looking at core inflation, it's merrily running at double the Fed's target. Yet here's Jerome desperately flicking matches on the next tissue-fire boom.

So what's next?

The Fed's praying for a soft landing, the deus ex to save its institutional independence.

The biggest problem is it's not going to work. The Federal Reserve has never, in its 110 years of existence, pulled off a soft landing.

The media hypes it every time. But it's a myth, a mirage, a fairytale to help Wall Street traders sleep. In fact, the Federal Reserve has a single recession play: hike til it breaks, then flood money to bail them out.

The Fed just advanced us to the next stage to the 1970's. What comes next is mass bankruptcies, layoffs, and daily articles about the famous misery index that we thought were a distant memory.

Peter St. Onge writes articles about Economics and Freedom. He's an economist at the Heritage Foundation, a Fellow at the Mises Institute, and a former professor at Taiwan’s Feng Chia University. His website is www.ProfStOnge.com.