Monthly Archives: March 2013

Immigration reform has taken new steps this year as President Obama has revived talks around creating effective immigration legislation that leads to the pathway for citizenship for the 11 million immigrants currently undocumented in the U.S.

**I recently changed two of my sources…my 2 new sources are: Huffington Post & Fox News, along with my original sources, Immigration Policy/Impact, The National Journal, and the New York Times

All sources emphasize a comprehensive immigration legislation plan that includes a pathway to citizenship by 1. Waiting in line for 8yrs (before obtaining permanent residency), 2. Paying a fine and back taxes 3. Passing background checks and 4. Learning English and the history of the United States. However, some sources argue a lot more for immigration reform from the standpoint of lawmakers.  While the others arguments more center around an immigration reform that reflects the ideals and realities of the millions of undocumented immigrants.

The National Journal covers the debate around immigration reform in a broad sense. It looks into the core and the importance behind creating changes in the current immigration laws. One example of this is an article titled “Democrats Dilemma on High Skilled Immigration Reform.”  This article argues for more H-1B visas given to foreign citizens, which will then increase the rate at which green cards are distributed.  This will result in  those educated in the U.S. given the opportunity to stay here while also attracting more immigrants.  Lastly, both groups will ultimately be allowed to live and work legally.

Immigration Policy/Impact argues many of the same points as The National Journal except Immigration Policy/Impact discusses immigration in a more relaxed and laid back tone of voice, while still making brilliant points as to the massive importance of a new immigration legislation. An example of this is an article titled “Skilled Immigrants Come Through All Immigration Channels.” This article basically states that immigrants complement native born workers; and also reforms in immigration is needed to provide opportunities for immigrant entrepreneurship in order to spur innovation and job creation.

The New York Times and Huffington Post (HP) offer similar reports on the debates of immigration reform.  Both sources share the decisions and plans from Washington as well as contributing blog posts from everyday people. However,  NYT more discusses immigration reforms for all immigrants, while HP leans more towards the discussions of immigration and the effect on Latino’s.  For eg: a NYT article titled “Illegal Immigrants Actually Hurt the U.S. Economy,” asks the question, if deporting the 11 million undocumented workers mean more jobs, lower taxes, and a stronger economy? An economist, Giovanni Peri, concludes that undocumented workers do not compete with skilled laborers, instead they complement them.  Another difference between HP and NYT reporting is that, HP does not only speak about reforms and how the government is going about creating those reforms, but they also discuss the rights of immigrants, the daily lives of immigrants as well as their struggles and concerns that helps to influence aspects of the legislation.  An example of this is the article titled “Congress Must Address Real Roots of Immigration,” that explains the main factors that drive many immigrants to illegally migrate to the U.S.

Fox News offers all the facts and information surrounding the new immigration legislation, but mostly, only from what lawmakers and the President decides.  A great example of this is the article titled “House Reps Push Specific Immigration Changes, Say Reform is Not A Race,” in which several Reps focused more on improvements in the visa system for immigrants who graduate from American schools and dealing with immigrants who came to the U.S. as children.  In addition, the article goes on to say that House Leader Cantor also supports the Senate plan for stronger enforcement of border security, employment verification, and a guest worker program as part of reform plans. Fox News is essentially making the point that, the House Reps are more cautious before passing any form of immigration legislation. The Reps want to carefully look into the current laws to understand what is going on.

Another example of Fox News bias reporting, from the point of view of only Washington, is an article titled “Reps Rip Obama Immigration Plan; Rubio Calls it Dead on Arrival.”  This  demonstrates that House Reps does not agree with and criticizes the White House plan on immigration reform that would allow immigrants to become permanent residents within 8yrs.

While reading through the various gay rights articles on the five new srouces that I chose, I realized that there is a wide range of ways to handle the issue.  One of the conservation sites I had chosen, The Weekly Standard, doesn’t have an article focusing on gay rights since December of 2012.  The most recent article that the other conservative site that I chose, National Review Online, wrote was on February 26^th 2013, focusing on why the CPAC should accept the gay conservative groups.  (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/341420/goproud-or-go-home-daniel-foster).  Ironically, this article seemed to be in favor of homosexuals, given that they are conservatives as well.

What surprised me the most was one of the liberal sources that I chose: CNN.  CNN focuses on the more renowned gay rights issues.  For example, there was an article about Carly Rae Jepsen dropping her boy scouts performance (http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/05/carly-rae-jepsen-drops-boy-scouts-performance-over-gay-rights/?iref=allsearch), there’s an article about Obama and the nation coming to a general positive consensus about same-sex marriage (http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/01/politics/same-sex-marriage-shift/index.html?iref=allsearch), but for the most part, that’s as far as CNN goes.  They focus on the big stories, with a few opinion articles here and there.

On the other hand, there is the Huffington Post.  While roaming around the Huffington Post website, I realized that they are an extremely liberal source.  Searching for various articles on gay rights, I found enough to peak my curiosity for weeks.  Any little thing that one could think of, The Huffington Post covered.  Aside from the articles that ranged from rumors, such as the article: “Manti Te’o Gay? NFL Teams Want To Know About Linebacker’s Sexuality, Says Mike Florio” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/manti-teo-gay-nfl-combine-florio_n_2760515.html), to various different polls or opinions such as the article/video “Straight Guys React To Gay Porn” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/straight-guys-react-to-gay-porn_n_2717600.html), they also had all the way to important gay marriage news such as the article “Mississippi Newspaper Defends Gay Wedding Coverage After Homophobic Readers Complain” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/22/mississippi-newspaper-defends-gay-wedding-coverage_n_2735503.html).  Unlike CNN, they didn’t just focus on the big important articles, they focused on the small things as well.

Each of these articles or videos have an importance.  The Huffington Post takes a positive stand point and tries to convey the importance of Gay rights.  Admittedly, they have their fun by making others squirm in their chair while discussing “taboo” subjects and playing into potential rumors, but they do their best to keep the topics light and informative.  These articles lean towards the granting of equal rights.

Good As You, is an opinion based blog page that I had found.  The author uses various articles or instances in the news and reveals her opinion, support, and disagreement on whatever the issue may be.  The author has a wide variety of topics and opinions; however, they all support gays and their rights.

According to the Washington Post, on President Obama‘s fiscal agenda “What I want to try to do is make sure that we’re constantly focused on how we are helping American families succeed.” He had spoken on the phone to two Republican Senators and pushed them on immigration. I can see the President does care about immigrants, he thinks it is not easy; he needs to do something for them. The bipartisan Senate group is drafting a comprehensive immigration bill that would include citizenship for about 11 million illegal immigrants. It will probably come out next month

According to Fox News, the President won praise from two Republican senators on his efforts to overhaul the nation’s immigration system. That was a point in legislation from the Senate that mandates a secure border before the way from illegal immigrant to citizenship. Some Republicans were critical of the President after parts of his immigration proposal were leaked. Republicans accused him of not wanting to do in a bipartisan way.

USA TODAY reported that the proposal would let illegal immigrants become legal permanent residents in eight years. Those 11 million illegal immigrants could apply for a “Lawful Prospective Immigrant” visa. If passed, they could later apply for legal status for their family members who are living in their own country.

March 5 (UPI) Senator Cornyn, facing re-election in 2014, led a bipartisan group of Senators working to draft comprehensive immigration reform, a key element of which is border security

From World Journal-American dream, those illegal immigrants only need a legal paper to go to work without hiding. They also wish to visit their hometown. They came here illegally only because it is so difficult to get a visa to come here legally. They are still waiting the good news from the American government. As the matter of fact, they work much harder than many Americans; the best way would be to let them be legal, working and paying taxes.

This information from five difference publications welcoming immigrants to America has so many problems, the good thing is the government has starting again to seriously solve this problem which encourage smart, hard working people immigrants to the USA!

The European debt crisis essentially began in 2008. Since it’s beginning, the European economy as a whole has been in constant flux, sometimes it is up and oftentimes it is down. 2012 showed the first time that Europe had slipped into recession in three years; there were increased unemployment rates in many countries, including France, Spain, and Italy, as well as many unsettled debts. Many countries have needed to be bailed out by international lenders as well as by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which was put in place this past October as a way to assist countries by means of granting loans and buying bonds.

With the social unrest in countries such as Greece and Italy, and the unemployment rates which have reached a record high, it was been difficult for the euro zone to focus on rebuilding a stable economy. This is especially difficult since the end of 2012 have shown three consecutive quarters of decline. When the largest economies (France, Germany, Italy, and Spain) have shown deteriorating results, it can be difficult to remain hopeful about any sort of recovery.

The articles of CNN and The Wall Street Journal seem highly skeptical about swift recoveries, often stating that even if these countries manage to be bailed out, they will still suffer as a result of what has been lost in exports during the current economic turmoil. Other sources, such as the Munich Eye and the Economist, remain more hopeful. It is predicted that Germany and Spain may be able to escape almost unscathed. The BBC takes a more unbiased approach and admits that while Germany has a better chance than other euro zone countries at a recovery, it will be difficult to do so when measures of assistance and attention are being place on Greece and Italy. Greece, who has threatened to leave the euro zone, and Italy, who’s fate is still generally unknown as a result of Italy’s instability after the gridlock result of recent elections.

The European Commission has admitted that the recession will likely continue well into 2013 and states that the highest hope for recovery is in 2014. Much of the issues concerned with the debt crisis are a result of over-spending within some of the euro zone’s larger economies, specifically Spain and France. Though these countries are on the list of those which will recover quickly, like Greece, they are also in danger of putting the rest of the euro zone in greater danger. Neither has been able to meet their deficits and the Commission has considered extending them, which, though it may help in the long run, will only serve to weaken the economy in the near future.

The European Stability Mechanism continues to work within the 17 countries of the euro zone, buying bonds, granting loans, and cleaning up the banking systems, but it has been made quite clear that all progress will be slow as a result of the major infrastructure issues.

As swiftly as Germany is predicted to recover, it may need to move things along more quickly than originally anticipated, as the state of the economy may be a factor in whether or not Munich is able to host the 2022 Olympic games. The country may not be chosen if it is obvious that the economy is still in turmoil, and Germany may have to remove it’s bid if it is found that it does not have the wherewithal to withstand the cost of hosting.

From the early 2000’s up and until about 2007 the United States housing market was at its peak and house prices were higher than they’ve ever been before. Then in 2008 the nation hit a recession, the economy was at its worst that’s it’s been in ages. Almost everything factored into this recession and took a fall because of it. The housing market was one of the key things that was impacted and still up to this day it hasn’t been the same. For a generalization on how the mortgage crisis was caused its actually pretty simple- the price values on properties were higher before, so therefore the mortgages were higher. Now the value of the properties decreased thus leaving some mortgages higher than the actually value of the property. For instance let’s say in 2006 you purchased a home for $800,000 with $700,000 of the cost being paid via mortgage. Now in 2013 the value of the house is only at $500,000. Within that timespan only $50,000 was paid towards the mortgage. What this means is that your mortgage to be paid is at $650,000 and the value of the property is at $500,000. Your mortgage is now higher than the value of your home, not leaving enough equity for the banks to fund it which leads to your property being foreclosed.
Several factors were factored in to the up rise of the mortgage crisis. Besides the state of the economy and the nation being in a recession, one of the main reasons was being that prior to 2007 the housing market was in a boom. Houses were selling for much higher than they originally were and value of homes was at its highest in history. At this time banks made it easier for one to access money with low mortgage interest rates. People were able to borrow a lot of money, while paying lower monthly payments on a smaller interest rate. Everyone who could of afforded it was buying homes and thus there houses were used as collaterals for the mortgages. When the house prices stop going up and started to make a fall downwards, homeowners realized they wouldn’t be able to afford their house. Now they were left with only a few choices – wait for the bank to foreclose the home, renegotiate their mortgages, or simply increase their income. Out of these foreclosures became the most popular and it was happening to a lot of people. The only problem was that the banks weren’t getting back the amount of money they originally lent out because the home values fell dramatically. The banks were taking large losses which led us to this mortgage crisis. With banks realizing they are losing out on money they became very hesitant to loan because they didn’t know if they would ever get their money back.
The major aspect of all this comes from the fact that when one took out a mortgage from a bank, it didn’t stay there. Banks would sell the mortgages to investors for securities and bonds in order to get their money back. But because of drastic drops in values it isn’t fair for the investors who would lose a ton of money because of something they had no knowledge of. Current federal cases are underway that could have banks paying as much as $250 billion back to investors to compensate them for buying the mortgages.

The housing market seems to be making a comeback at least according to Yahoo, CNN, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Reuters. Each publication had a different way of covering the topic. Yahoo, CNN and The Huffington Post seem to cover the topic from a perspective that seem geared toward the average consumer. Forbes and Reuters geared their content towards business people.  The difference is seen in Forbes decision to lead off the discussion with an analysis of Fortune Brands Home & Security experiencing profits because of the housing market regaining strength. Reuters followed suit with an angle dealing with the Federal Reserve. Each publication varied on their sources, however each managed to seek out a profession market analysis or economist for their interviews. This brief analysis shows how different publications write for different readers.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/rebound-housing-creating-another-bubble-170506273.html

http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/26/news/economy/housing-recovery/index.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/01/usa-fed-evans-idUSL1N0BSMSV20130301

http://www.forbes.com/sites/zacks/2013/02/20/fbhs-shares-take-off-with-housing-market-turnaround/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jed-kolko/is-your-housing-market-bo_b_2624852.html

Hello,

I realized I did not post my final list of sources.

They are the following:

Yahoo, CNN, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Reuters. The Wallstreet Journal needed to be omitted because of limited access and MSNBC did not have the content needed.