When it comes to selecting/electing our leadership, the citizenry has not applied the standard of "be faithful in a small thing before we trust you with a larger thing." Therefore we get the same destructive policies from our federal government that have wreaked such havoc on Chicago, Detroit, etc . . . basically by over-burdening the producer class in order to buy votes from the dependent class. Policies that have failed on a city level and failed on a state level cannot possibly succeed on a national level. But here we are, with a group of leaders who view their job requirement in two simple terms: Use the Fed to paper over problems, then "fling blame and duck shame."

Sure, they have bought some time. But as Todd Harrison said, "We bought the cancer and sold the car crash."

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Without new immigrants, many metropolitan areas such as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh and St. Louis would have posted flat or negative population growth in the last year.

Heh - and what do all of these (and may other "dying" areas) have in common? Well, among other things, they're all "deep blue".

But holy mackerel, KD - the punch-line of that article is entirely about "buying more coke"...

Hack wrote..

Mark Mather, an associate vice president at the Population Reference Bureau, noted that political efforts to downsize government and reduce federal spending could also have a significant impact on future population winners and losers.

Since 2010, many of the fastest-growing U.S. metro areas have also been those that historically received a lot of federal dollars, including Fort Stewart, Ga., Jacksonville, N.C., Crestview, Fla., and Charleston-North Charleston, S.C., all home to military bases. Per-capita federal spending rose from about $5,300 among the fastest-growing metros from 2000 to 2010, to about $8,200 among the fastest-growing metros from 2011 to 2012.

"Federal funding has helped many cities weather the decline in private sector jobs," Mather said.

Spit.

Pittsburgh has virtually no Mexicans or other central Americans. As immigrants, there are mostly educated Asians. Chicago, as I understand,has tons of Mexicans. The author of this piece doesn't even get the facts right.

Yes I have said multiple times here that the government view is that immigration is necessary to keep expanding the population base because government promises only work when the base of the pyramid expands. I wonder what GDP would have been ex illegal immigration?

Kyle Bass mentioned this I think in the Q and A session after his talk about the aging population in Japan. Someone mentioned immigrants to replace the aging population and Kyle basically responded from where, the Japanese don't care for a lot of races and what does more workers do for wages?

Europe is doing the same thing. Their imports are mostly Muslim and ours are mostly Catholic. Not calling that a win but it could be worse.

Currencies are not the only thing that gets debased. We are debasing our population as well as we go down the tubes.

I like the addiction analogy. To recover from addiction, the addict needs to step way back and concentrate on recovery, not expansion of his world. To recover requires a concentrated effort on recovery. Presidents and politicians refuse to understand that to fix the problems they have created, they need to withdraw and concentrate of fixes.

Some of these places that are losing population need to lose population. Rural living is a cheap oil phenomenon. It isn't the future. And I'm not a peak nick at all. But dirt cheap oil is gone.

Oh, I saw this morning that the yield on HY bonds has dropped to about 5.5%. This is not commensurate with the risk, but is the result of MMT at the Fed (as well as borrowing as a fiscal policy). This will not end well.

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But while Pittsburgh saw a more than 50 percent increase during that same time, the city's overall Hispanic population lags behind many areas in the eastern part of the state. The city's Hispanic population went from about 4,400 people in the year 2000 to 6,964 residents in 2010, a number that was not enough to overcome its overall population loss.

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/loca....

Seems hispanics are helping staunch the rate of population decline at a minimum.

In general, we can afford to loose more people, hopefully not the ones in the workforce.

I'm early, but beware the ides of march

The drug dealers need to find new clients to replace the ones that are dropping dead and broke.

KD: another excellent piece and very timely with regards to what Kyle Bass has indicated in Japan. (I liked his comment about Japan being 'the most xenophobic country in the world.)

The facts are quite obvious at this point and President Obama has ZERO intention of turning off the immigrant spigot...so how do we, as a people do that?

In the fox article you referenced, this quote caught my eye:

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Immigrants are innovators, entrepreneurs, they're making things happen. They create jobs," said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, at an immigration conference in his state last week. Saying Michigan should be a top destination for legal immigrants to come and boost Detroit and other struggling areas, Snyder made a special appeal: "Please come here."

So what, America doesn't have enough entrepreneurs? I find the Governer's quote quite insulting to Americans.

Speaking of entrepreneurship in the Middle East - all GCC countries are much more protective of their 'turf' than the US. It takes an act of Allah just to set up a company in most of the GCC countries. Also, it is incredibly expensive and risky and you will never be fully accepted. Also, if your local partner rips you off, you can pretty much forget about a court dealing with it equitably. Oh the stories I could tell if someone wasn't most likely intercepting my posts and emails. That will have to wait until i am back stateside....someday.

So yeah, I am a little*****ed off when I see a US State governor begging for other people to come in and compete against fellow Americans.

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"Immigrants are innovators, entrepreneurs, they're making things happen. They create jobs," said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, at an immigration conference in his state last week. Saying Michigan should be a top destination for legal immigrants to come and boost Detroit and other struggling areas, Snyder made a special appeal: "Please come here."

I'm reminded of what Canada Immigration said to me when I was getting a work permit. "What can you do that a Canadian cannot?" I had a VERY good answer and I WISH DEMAND that US Immigration enforce the same. Unfortunately they do not. Gov. Snyder should be encouraging Michigan kids to become innovators, engineers, etc. Instead the "kids" in Detroit want to turn it into a center for arts and garden on vacant blocks where houses once stood. WTF?!

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In contrast, the Texas metropolitan areas of Dallas, Houston and Austin continued to be big draws for young adults, ranking first, second and fourth among large metro areas in domestic migration due to diversified economies that include oil and gas production.

Texas has low cost of living, no state income tax, one of the best places for business and is not strangled by unions....of course it's a big draw. Oil and gas is big but it is far from the only business in the state. TX has immigrants for sure, but I know several "white" people that have moved there because they have work there.

The Northeast and Midwest has problems of their own doing. Filling the place with immigrants will not fix the structural problems....even if said immigrants are educated "innovators."

We could probably 'steal' 50,000,000 educated Asians with the stroke of a pen... but I guess a porous border is easier.

CA and Illinois are loosing people because of increasing taxes and the cost of living.

When your paying over 12% in taxes at restaurants it's time to avoid the area.

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Chicago, as I understand, has tons of Mexicans.

Yes, Chicago is a sanctuary city.

I'm not sure why that's considered a good thing. Illegal aliens use more resources than they contribute to society, so why are illegals desired? I don't get it.

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The facts are quite obvious at this point and President Obama has ZERO intention of turning off the immigrant spigot...so how do we, as a people do that?

Dogfarm - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/31....

This isn't an important issue to me, but it appears that those supporting immigration reform have a different set of facts than those opposing it. If only he would deport a few banksters.

Deficits don't matter. Even if the size of govt is reduced 50% it will take over 100 years to pay off the debt at the current interest rate and impossible if the rate rises, so it cannot be done. The consensus in govt is to max out the credit card before it is taken away, print and hope it will last long enough to inflate the debt away at the rate it is being increased. The only alternative is to default, which is not any better to govt than printing - the same devaluation will happen in one big step rather than gradually. Regardless of the choice made there is no way to avoid USD devaluation.

So called 'growth' makes it easy for talentless accumulators to get wealthy.

Continuous growth is impossible mathematically unless we find a way to get off of this planet.

The wet dream of the elites is to have millions and millions of new slaves. They see how China has enriched the elite political class by having seemingly unlimited slaves and they want the same. But we can't all live in one place now can we. Just more ****ing ignorance from the elitist plutocrats

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I'm not sure why that's considered a good thing. Illegal aliens use more resources than they contribute to society, so why are illegals desired? I don't get it.

Democrat voters--come on now--you know that.

Gen wrote..

There's no population growth without importing low-skill or unskilled illegal immigrants?

That's seen as a salvation?

Desperate to feed the ponzi... it always leads to unchecked immigration and destruction of the culture.

Europe is turning muslim as we speak... The borders may remain, the lables on the map might still say "France, Spain, whatever.." but it ain't gonna be Europe soon as we all came to know it.

Bert wrote..

Europe is doing the same thing. Their imports are mostly Muslim and ours are mostly Catholic. Not calling that a win but it could be worse.

Good point.

Trades wrote..

CA and Illinois are loosing people because of increasing taxes and the cost of living.

Yep, and how do they respond to the vacuum that's created and the collapsing tax-base that comes along with that??? In CA's case, they open the borders and become more illegal-friendly along with continuing to jack taxes... These governments NEVER shrink, they double-down and milk the remaining tax-paying citizens with increased taxes, fees, tickets, etc.

Interesting Migration flow map: http://www.governing.com/gov-data/census....

On the second thought, is it possible to have a default without devaluation?

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The economic reality is that debt accumulation eventually strangles growth. Debt requires servicing, which consumes funds you would otherwise spend on investment and consumption. As that service rises as a percentage of your income your ability to drive economic expansion dwindles until it reaches the point that additional debt actually makes the economy worse rather than better.

And again, here's the nail.

Accounting 101. I told people for many years to stop voting for Lawyers.

Its all about stepping on the accelerator to escape judgment from the "barabarian hoardes." They know they have screwed over the entire American populace and these little games are to buy a little more time for THEIR exit stategy.

The exit strategy ends badly in all outcomes.

1) The hoarde catches up with them and hangs them for the evil that was performed by Obama, Bush, Congress, Bernanke, and cronies

2) or they step on the accelerator to jump a Grand Canyon of their own making in a car whose true performance has been hampered by EPA and other governmental policies to flee the hoarde. When they reach the summit of the freefall flight then and only then do they realize gravity (mathematics) is controlling this ride and they have taken the expressway straight to hell. I can only hope the vehicle is a Pinto clone and catches fire on the trip down.

I can't help but wonder how many of these bastards will be fleeing the country to evade justice and retritbution after the total collpase.