Baby Boomers - this one's for you

I thought this article might make your blood boil.  It's from the Sacramento Bee and ran in my local paper this a.m. Sorry for the length of it.

Peter Schrag: Guess who will have to help with your retirement?

By Peter Schrag -

Published 12:00 am PST Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Question: Who are the five biggest California homebuyers these days?

Answer: Garcia, Hernandez, Rodriguez, Lopez and Martinez.

No, this isn't a joke or a fantasy. According to Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California, those were the five most common names of California homebuyers in 2005, the most recent year for which he has data. In the nation as a whole, four of the 10 most common homebuyers' names are Latino. Five years ago it was two out of 10.

The story, of course, is evidence for a much larger point: Immigrants don't just "pile up" as unskilled, undereducated burdens on the economy like so many Peter Pans who never grow up or change. They learn English, get jobs and buy homes.

And as boomers retire in the coming generation, those immigrants and their children represent the core of California's labor force and, ultimately, much of the nation's as well.

We therefore better see their education not as a cost but as an investment in the economy and as support for the boomers in their retirement -- helping to pay for pensions, Social Security and Medicare -- and giving them the wherewithal to buy the homes that for many boomers represent their largest chunk of savings.

There are about 200 seniors for every 1,000 working-age residents in California. By 2040, there'll be more than 350 for every 1,000. The numbers are even starker for the nation as a whole.

But Myers, in his important new book "Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America," due out next month from the Russell Sage Foundation, makes a set of other arguments as well.

• Mexico's fertility rate has declined from 6.8 births per woman in 1970 to 2.4 births in 2000, which is just above the replacement level, making it likely that in another decade or two, there'll be many fewer young adults to migrate.

• As immigrants, legal and illegal, have gone to other parts of the country, California's share, while still the nation's largest, has declined sharply.

• Meanwhile, the percentage of foreign-born residents both in California and in the nation, while still rising, is rising much less steeply than it did between 1970 and 2000 or had been forecast a few years ago. Some 27 percent of today's California residents are immigrants, which should taper off at about 30 percent in 2030.

• As the percentage of foreign-born residents who've been here 10 years or more increases, many more of them will become integrated into the middle-class economy and join the ranks of the Garcias and Hernandezes who are buying homes.

All this, of course, speaks directly to the national immigration debate, which, as Myers notes, is still stuck in a largely static view of immigrants.

"When immigration is a new event," he writes (as it is for much of the nation), "all the immigrants are new."

That shocked Californians in the early 1990s, when voters passed Proposition 187, seeking to deny education and other public services to illegal aliens. It shocks people in Georgia, North Carolina and Iowa now.

And while illegal immigration, and sometimes any immigration, still angers some Californians, at least for now there's been a change in attitude. A survey last year by the Public Policy Institute of California found 58 percent of Californians regarded immigrants as an asset to the economy, while 35 percent thought they were more of a burden on public services.

The problem, as Myers notes, is that recent immigrants, though a declining percentage of the whole, "overshadow and mask the upward advancement of previous arrivals. Citizens have simply extrapolated past conditions into the future, ignoring the fact that settled immigrants grow older, assimilate and make economic gains."

Many of the arguments about contemporary immigration echo arguments about Poles, Italians, Greeks and Hungarians of a century ago. They were of inferior stock, would never be educable, were prone to crime and disease and would contaminate the Anglo-Saxon stock that made the nation great.

There are major differences between then and now. There were more jobs for unskilled labor; there was no public social welfare system or any assumption that all young people had to finish high school and, in most cases, be educated for at least two years beyond. Because of geographical distance, ties to the old country were harder to maintain.

But what today we call Anglos includes all those Poles and Italians, some of whose descendants are now voicing the same complaints that other Americans made about their immigrant great-grandparents a century ago.

There are few unskilled jobs providing decent wages as in the first half of the last century. But the projections for the coming decades indicate a labor shortage both in this country and other developed nations that can be met only by immigrants from the underdeveloped world. And that, as Myers says, demands a grand bargain between generations and ethnicities, especially about education, like none that this country has ever made before.

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Is this a bunch of hogwash or what? And like whose going to be able to retire when the time comes with the outrageous cost of living we're now enjoying?

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Send them right on home to build their own country!  We don't need them and certainly don't want them.  I hope every lending institution that has made loans to these people that are here in our country illegally are arrested and thrown into jail for aiding and abetting illegal aliens...  These people are by no means an asset to our country or economy.  They are tearing the culture of our country right to the core!  How dare Peter Schrag say that they are going to support the baby boomers in the future!  They are trying to tear our Social Security System apart.  They have no right to any benefits in this country now or ever.  We want them out.  I don't know what part of illegal he doesn't understand... Our Ancestors came to America legally and assimilated to the American way of life, learned to speak English and loved America their adopted land. They did not walk the streets of "our" country wrapped in the flags of the country of their birth.  Back then they probably would have shipped them right back home.  As far as their fertility rate I see them everyday hauling around pretty much no less than four children! My daughter works around a midwife clinic and told me that she went into a clinic the other day and saw a Mexican couple that had two sets of twins, one set about 6 years old, another set  about 4 years old, and a young child in a car seat, and pregnant again with twins.  Neither spoke a word of English!  Now that's birth control?  She said she felt like giving them her billfold and saying thanks for being in America!  After all they aren't paying for the care they are getting...  These people are a drain on our health-care system and every other avenue of the American system.  Tell them to go back to their home country and get an education.  Americans don't want to pay for that either!

That is outrageous!  All those Poles, Greeks, Italians, Hungarians, etc. did not SNEAK in to the country and live here illegally.  They did not demand that signs be put up, and products labelled, and phone messages made, in Polish, Greek, Italian, Hungarian, French, Gaelic, German, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, or any other language.  They actually learned English.  Only the illegals, and the fool Hispanics that support them, think they should have all these concessions.  I guess they don't believe they are smart enough to learn a language and blend in, huh...and they wonder why we don't want them here...

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He may be right in one respect,some of the legal ones,not working off the books,may in future be supporting some of the older ones in California,that they let come in from Mexico.With the whites being shoved out of California at the rate of 100,000 a year,they wont be supporting us.Are there really even a few legal ones in that state?Most of these people use more of our tax money,than they even earn.This story doesnt make me angry.Its a bunch of hogwash,written in the hope some people might believe it,and get worried about being a boomer,and welcome them in.NEVER!Expensive illegal immigrants are whats wrong with our country today.They are like locusts.They affect everything in this country thats wrong,from healthcare,energy prices,natural resoures.48,000 americans a year are killed,or maimed by them,Can you imagine how much better it would be without the approximately 30 million in this country?It costs taxpayers about 10,000 for each anchor baby.Some of them have said we will be working for them soon.If the bill the Senate is working on now passes,we will end up with about 100million more!

This is the same as saying "lets give the country to whoever has the wherewithall to take it" It says even though they are illegal they are here now so lets make them comfortable for our sake. Its the same as kissing the invaders ass so they don't kill you. This guy Meyer is one sunofabitch and if he ended up in my foxhole I'd have to kill him so he doesn't give us up to the enemy.

I say Bullshit ! lets take our country back !

GOD bless America, not Montezuma bless America !

Well said, bedrock!  If this is truly the case, the only hope is that only they will be left in California, the ones on other parts of the country will flock there en masse, and a huge quake will separate that land from the rest of us.  As for Reenie's comparison to lucusts; not bad, and I like to remember what happened to the "locust-like" aliens in Independence Day...

 

Enough is enough!  This is MY country, my ancestors fought for it, and I will NOT hand it over to crooks that can't even fit in or learn the language, that haven't the slightest idea what being an American really is.  We need to send them all home, NOW.  The cost can't possibly be more than they use in any given year.  Round them up, get fingerprints and DNA to conpare against those that try sneaking back in, and send them back to wherever they came from.  They want citizenship, they have ONE change to apply legally, and any caught sneaking back in are banned forever. 

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That article is a bunch of bull. There is no mention of whether these Hispanics who are buying these homes are legal. I suspect they are. The illegal form will never choose to learn English and adapt so they can make a good life for themselves. There is a huge difference in the caliber of Hispanic immigrants who come here legally and those who sneak in illegally. The article is written in a way that suggests people are against immigration in general. That really is not the case for most of us. We are against illegal immigration. That's what needs to be stopped. I am not willing to make a "bargain" as this article suggests when it comes to education or anything else. Our schools have already been dumbed down so far that students now have an average GPA of 3.0 yet 40% of high school seniors scored below a basic level in math and more than 25% cannot even read on a basic level on standardized tests. Any further "bargaining" will ruin this country completely.

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ConcernedMom, This article is a bunch of bull that I agree with 100%!  The one thing I know for sure is that not all Mexicans buying homes in the U.S. are legal!  They have caught many of them that have had Brokers that have fudged the paperwork to get these people into homes.  Some of these Brokers are in jail.  They can't even estimate how many are out there with illegal loans.  When you have foreclosures coming on the market at a high rate then it has a direct impact one the housing market. 

I'm for putting a halt on any further immigration until we get this Mexican and other than Mexican illegal immigration under control.  That is the only way we can get back on track. 

I wonder how many of the children that are dropping out of school aren't citizens and don't have the ability to read, write, and speak fluent English.  This is just another open declaration that they are refusing to assimilate.  If they had put any effort into learning then they would be able to read write and even come close to coming in with any grade on the standardized test. 

and someday California will fall into the sea...

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Lady Jane, you are correct.  The refusal to assimilate into OUR culture is one of the biggest issues.  ConcernedMom, that is the issue a lot of us have with immigration in general.  I personally have no objection to immigrants that come here legally, learn English, get jobs, study hard in school, and in general do all they can to be productive members of this society.  A large number of Hispanics, including many of the legal ones, simply refuse to do this.  I'm sorry, but if Vietnamese boat people can arrive here utterly destitute, learn to speak English well (when their language is FAR more different from English than Spanish is!), suceed in business, keep the law, raise children that not only pass, but excell in school, act with complete courtesy, etc., then I cannot understand why Hispanics can't manage.  Instead, too many Hispanics push for more and more Spanish-language signs, programs, etc., rudely speak Spanish on a regular basis, and act as though WE are the bigots when we complain.  I actually had a very rude security guard at a Walmart curse at me in Spanish when I asked him to move his vehicle from the loading zone, where he was parked for 15 minutes yakking with his buddies (while supposedly on duty), blocking patrons from loading their purchases without getting soaked.  To the store's credit, I never saw him there again after that night.  When I worked at a hotel, the head housekeeper actually got into trouble for refusing to hire anyone in her department that was not Hispanic, een though a LOT of other applicants came in (I personally collected the applications, so I know this is a fact).  Now, I have to say I have known some wonderful people that are Hispanic, including the maintenance man at the same hotel.  This man is one of the nicest, dearest people you could ever hope to meet.  I also was a choir member under the guidance of a wonderful lady that led the choir, who is actually a legal immigrant, and in my top ten favorite people list.  She is caring, considerate, responsible, etc.  These people are fine, but the other side is those that think that everyone else should kowtow to their culture, take advantage of every special priviledge given based on race, and display a total lack of courtesy.  This is a behavioral issue, but it causes problems with race relations.

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LadyGreenEyes said: Lady Jane, you are correct. The refusal to assimilate into OUR culture is one of the biggest issues. ConcernedMom, that is the issue a lot of us have with immigration in general. I personally have no objection to immigrants that come here legally, learn English, get jobs, study hard in school, and in general do all they can to be productive members of this society. A large number of Hispanics, including many of the legal ones, simply refuse to do this. I'm sorry, but if Vietnamese boat people can arrive here utterly destitute, learn to speak English well (when their language is FAR more different from English than Spanish is!), suceed in business, keep the law, raise children that not only pass, but excell in school, act with complete courtesy, etc., then I cannot understand why Hispanics can't manage. Instead, too many Hispanics push for more and more Spanish-language signs, programs, etc., rudely speak Spanish on a regular basis, and act as though WE are the bigots when we complain. I actually had a very rude security guard at a Walmart curse at me in Spanish when I asked him to move his vehicle from the loading zone, where he was parked for 15 minutes yakking with his buddies (while supposedly on duty), blocking patrons from loading their purchases without getting soaked. To the store's credit, I never saw him there again after that night. When I worked at a hotel, the head housekeeper actually got into trouble for refusing to hire anyone in her department that was not Hispanic, een though a LOT of other applicants came in (I personally collected the applications, so I know this is a fact). Now, I have to say I have known some wonderful people that are Hispanic, including the maintenance man at the same hotel. This man is one of the nicest, dearest people you could ever hope to meet. I also was a choir member under the guidance of a wonderful lady that led the choir, who is actually a legal immigrant, and in my top ten favorite people list. She is caring, considerate, responsible, etc. These people are fine, but the other side is those that think that everyone else should kowtow to their culture, take advantage of every special priviledge given based on race, and display a total lack of courtesy. This is a behavioral issue, but it causes problems with race relations.

 

 

Yup, I agree 100%

I grew up speaking Spanish, but now I don't get a chance to speak it as much. It's quite interesting to hear these illegals talking around me.

Here are my observations on illegals and their attitudes:

1) 100% of them are illiterate. They can barely read past 6th grade level, in Spanish.

2) They have no regard for any laws.

3) They are in constant fear of being deported.

I think it all boils down to this:

They want to reap the rewards of being an American, but refuse to shoulder any responsability for their dreams.

 90% of the illegals are Mexicans. The rest are mostly from the poor countries just south of Mexico. A lot of the mainstream media, liberals, and some democrats try to forget that the illegals that enter Mexico through the southern border are treated worse than dogs. A lot of them are shot to death on the spot. Talk about hyprocrites!

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Hector, that is a sad truth thatt we are not supposed to know.  The Mexican "government" wants to send their people here, avoid responsibility for their welfare, help them get here, condemn us as "racists" for complaining, and treat anyone coming into their pathetic excuse for a country like a sewer rat.  I really feel for the decent, hardworking Hispanic people here, for having their image tarnished by these dregs. 

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LadyGreenEyes -  The illegal aliens are here for one purpose and that is to take over the U.S.  Please don't feel any sympathy for them.  They really hate you and any other U.S. citizen.   Please go to this website and see how they feel about you and just how dangerous they are!

 www.wehategringos.com

 

For those that want the illegals to stay I have something for you. I heard a good way to put this in terms they might understand. Let's say that the illegal broke into your home and decided to stay. You could not have them removed from your home. You then had to start supporting them, provide them with food, shelter, education, and health insureance. Then you had to learn their language, so you could communicate with them instead of them learning you lanuage. You have to continue the support once they married and then when they had children. Then you have to extend the support to them. As you can see this continues on until you die. Now if you think that all this is okay then let the illegals come into your home and you take care of them. I and many americans don't want any part of it, I have my own family to take care of for the rest of my life. I don't want my tax dollars going to anyone other than Americans or immigrants that paid their dues to be an American. For all the illegals that march on our streets draped in your Mexican flag, if you are so proud to be Mexican then take your a** back to your country. I myself do not mind immigration, so as long as you do it legally and willing to live the American way and speak our language. If you do that I say WELCOME to the American way of life.

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I really feel for the decent, hardworking Hispanic people here, for having their image tarnished by these dregs.

That's exactly how us lawful Hispanics/Latinos feel. I'm just surprised at the low numbers speaking out against this issue. 

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Hector, do you know about this group?

http://www.dontspeakforme.org/

If not, pass the word.

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Lady Jane, I don't feel any sympathy for the illegals; I feel sympathy for the Hispanic heritage Americans that are tainted by the illegals.  The people that are here legally, doing a job, being good citizens, and having people look at them funny, wondering if they are among the millions of illegals.  As far as the illegals are concerned, they need to be deported immediately.  It worked in the past, and it can work again, assuming the politicians have the guts to act.  Won't hold my breath there...

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Not to "CHANGE THE SUBJECT" but IF IT WASN'T FOR ALL OF THOSE DAMN ABORTIONS---We wouldn't have ROOM nor the JOBS for ALL THOSE DAMN ILLEGALS!!  DAMN IT!!