STOCKTON, Calif. - Since illegally crossing the Mexican border into the United States six years ago, Ángel Martínez has done backbreaking work, harvesting asparagus, pruning grapevines and picking the ripe fruit. More recently, he has also washed trucks, often working as much as 70 hours a week, earning $8.50 to $12.75 an hour.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Martínez, 28, has not given much thought to Social Security's long-term financial problems. But Mr. Martínez - who comes from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico and hiked for two days through the desert to enter the United States near Tecate, some 20 miles east of Tijuana - contributes more than most Americans to the solvency of the nation's public retirement system.
Last year, Mr. Martínez paid about $2,000 toward Social Security and $450 for Medicare through payroll taxes withheld from his wages. Yet unlike most Americans, who will receive some form of a public pension in retirement and will be eligible for Medicare as soon as they turn 65, Mr. Martínez is not entitled to benefits.
He belongs to a big club. As the debate over Social Security heats up, the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year.
While it has been evident for years that illegal immigrants pay a variety of taxes, the extent of their contributions to Social Security is striking: the money added up to about 10 percent of last year's surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it doles out in pension benefits. Moreover, the money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections.
Illegal immigration, Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, noted sardonically, could provide "the fastest way to shore up the long-term finances of Social Security."
It is impossible to know exactly how many illegal immigrant workers pay taxes. But according to specialists, most of them do. Since 1986, when the Immigration Reform and Control Act set penalties for employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, most such workers have been forced to buy fake ID's to get a job.
Currently available for about $150 on street corners in just about any immigrant neighborhood in California, a typical fake ID package includes a green card and a Social Security card. It provides cover for employers, who, if asked, can plausibly assert that they believe all their workers are legal. It also means that workers must be paid by the book - with payroll tax deductions.
IRCA, as the immigration act is known, did little to deter employers from hiring illegal immigrants or to discourage them from working. But for Social Security's finances, it was a great piece of legislation.
Starting in the late 1980's, the Social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect - sometimes simply fictitious - Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the "earnings suspense file" in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.
The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990's, two and a half times the amount of the 1980's.
In the current decade, the file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.
In 2002 alone, the last year with figures released by the Social Security Administration, nine million W-2's with incorrect Social Security numbers landed in the suspense file, accounting for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5 percent of total reported wages.
Social Security officials do not know what fraction of the suspense file corresponds to the earnings of illegal immigrants. But they suspect that the portion is significant.
"Our assumption is that about three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes," said Stephen C. Goss, Social Security's chief actuary, using the agency's term for illegal immigration.
Other researchers say illegal immigrants are the main contributors to the suspense file. "Illegal immigrants account for the vast majority of the suspense file," said Nick Theodore, the director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "Especially its growth over the 1990's, as more and more undocumented immigrants entered the work force."
Using data from the Census Bureau's current population survey, Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, an advocacy group in Washington that favors more limits on immigration, estimated that 3.8 million households headed by illegal immigrants generated $6.4 billion in Social Security taxes in 2002.
A comparative handful of former illegal immigrant workers who have obtained legal residence have been able to accredit their previous earnings to their new legal Social Security numbers. Mr. Camarota is among those opposed to granting a broad amnesty to illegal immigrants, arguing that, among other things, they might claim Social Security benefits and put further financial stress on the system.
The mismatched W-2's fit like a glove on illegal immigrants' known geographic distribution and the patchwork of jobs they typically hold. An audit found that more than half of the 100 employers filing the most earnings reports with false Social Security numbers from 1997 through 2001 came from just three states: California, Texas and Illinois. According to an analysis by the Government Accountability Office, about 17 percent of the businesses with inaccurate W-2's were restaurants, 10 percent were construction companies and 7 percent were farm operations.
Most immigration helps Social Security's finances, because new immigrants tend to be of working age and contribute more than they take from the system. A simulation by Social Security's actuaries found that if net immigration ran at 1.3 million a year instead of the 900,000 in their central assumption, the system's 75-year funding gap would narrow to 1.67 percent of total payroll, from 1.92 percent - savings that come out to half a trillion dollars, valued in today's money.
Illegal immigrants help even more because they will never collect benefits. According to Mr. Goss, without the flow of payroll taxes from wages in the suspense file, the system's long-term funding hole over 75 years would be 10 percent deeper.
Yet to immigrants, the lack of retirement benefits is just part of the package of hardship they took on when they decided to make the trek north. Tying vines in a vineyard some 30 miles north of Stockton, Florencio Tapia, 20, from Guerrero, along Mexico's Pacific coast, has no idea what the money being withheld from his paycheck is for. "I haven't asked," Mr. Tapia said.
For illegal immigrants, Social Security numbers are simply a tool needed to work on this side of the border. Retirement does not enter the picture.
"There will be a moment when I won't be able to continue working," Mr. Martínez acknowledges. "But that's many years off."
Mario Avalos, a naturalized Nicaraguan immigrant who prepares income tax returns for many workers in the area, including immigrants without legal papers, observes that many older workers return home to Mexico. "Among my clients," he said, "I can't recall anybody over 60 without papers."
No doubt most illegal immigrants would prefer to avoid Social Security altogether. As part of its efforts to properly assign the growing pile of unassigned wages, Social Security sends about 130,000 letters a year to employers with large numbers of mismatched pay statements.
Though not an intended consequence of these so-called no-match letters, in many cases employers who get them dismiss the workers affected. Or the workers - fearing that immigration authorities might be on their trail - just leave.
Last February, for instance, discrepancies in Social Security numbers put an end to the job of Minerva Ortega, 25, from Zacatecas, in northern Mexico, who worked in the cheese department at a warehouse for Mike Campbell & Associates, a distributor for Trader Joe's, a popular discount food retailer with a large operation in California.
The company asked dozens of workers to prove that they had cleared up or were in the process of clearing up the "discrepancy between the information on our payroll related to your employment and the S.S.A.'s records." Most could not.
Ms. Ortega said about 150 workers lost their jobs. In a statement, Mike Campbell said that it did not fire any of the workers, but Robert Camarena, a company official, acknowledged that many left.
Ms. Ortega is now looking for work again. She does not want to go back to the fields, so she is holding out for a better-paid factory job. Whatever work she finds, though, she intends to go on the payroll with the same Social Security number she has now, a number that will not jibe with federal records.
With this number, she will continue paying taxes. Last year she paid about $1,200 in Social Security taxes, matched by her employer, on an income of $19,000.
She will never see the money again, she realizes, but at least she will have a job in the United States.
"I don't pay much attention," Ms. Ortega said. "I know I don't get any benefit."
Monday, May 14, 2007
Undocumented workers are actually bolstering Social Security
A common and understandable criticism against undocumented workers is that they don't pay taxes and still use public services. It is understandable because people do feel that their limited resources are being threatened by undocumented workers. It is also wrong, as a New York Times article posted on the website of the National Immigration Forum reports.
What would you do if your business competitor hired undocumented workers?
A question to the editor of Fortune asks what you would do if your business comptitor was hiring undocumented workers and undercutting your prices.
On one hand, this business owner has to provide for herself and her family. It's justifiable to report her competitor to the authorities or to sue her competitor. Fortune Small Business has blog and is inviting comments. There aren't any as I type this but you can expect heated responses, many along the lines of "file suit" or "report them to the feds."
On the other hand, undocumented immigrants are here so that they can earn money to provide a better life for themselves and their families. If we had computer programmers on H1B visas (skilled worker visas, requiring at least a bachelor's degree) from Central or South America, we would likely say that these folks were pursuing the American dream, just as our ancestors were. If we were more honest with ourselves, we might consider that NAFTA has worked very well for our businesses, but it isn't really providing Mexicans with living-wage jobs (and it's also outsourcing a lot of our jobs to Mexico). If we were more honest with ourselves, we might remember that this country rightfully belongs to the Native Americans (and that some parts were acquired after a war with Mexico), who were dispossessed and made strangers on their own land. In a sense, we are the illegal immigrants.
So, FSB readers can debate this situation all they want. But it is a symptom, not the problem itself. We have a systems issue, not a personal issue of unscrupulous businesspeople hiring undocumented workers. We need a systems-level solution.
Dear FSB: I have the same problem you mentioned in "Blowing the Whistle on Illegals." I own a floor-covering store, and a competitor has taken a lot of business from me because he hires illegal immigrants and can do everything cheaper. What can I do to stop this? --Name withheld, Georgia
Dear Georgia: If you don't plan to sue your rival, as the entrepreneur in our story did, you can report him to the feds. The president of Golden State Fence in Riverside, Calif., just got sentenced to probation for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. Send a letter to the Special Agent in Charge of your regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office (ice.gov).
ICE spokeswoman Pat Reilly says the agency has never heard of any tipster being sued by someone he turned in for hiring illegals. But if you are worried that your identity may become known, call ICE's anonymous toll-free hotline at 866-347-2423.
On one hand, this business owner has to provide for herself and her family. It's justifiable to report her competitor to the authorities or to sue her competitor. Fortune Small Business has blog and is inviting comments. There aren't any as I type this but you can expect heated responses, many along the lines of "file suit" or "report them to the feds."
On the other hand, undocumented immigrants are here so that they can earn money to provide a better life for themselves and their families. If we had computer programmers on H1B visas (skilled worker visas, requiring at least a bachelor's degree) from Central or South America, we would likely say that these folks were pursuing the American dream, just as our ancestors were. If we were more honest with ourselves, we might consider that NAFTA has worked very well for our businesses, but it isn't really providing Mexicans with living-wage jobs (and it's also outsourcing a lot of our jobs to Mexico). If we were more honest with ourselves, we might remember that this country rightfully belongs to the Native Americans (and that some parts were acquired after a war with Mexico), who were dispossessed and made strangers on their own land. In a sense, we are the illegal immigrants.
So, FSB readers can debate this situation all they want. But it is a symptom, not the problem itself. We have a systems issue, not a personal issue of unscrupulous businesspeople hiring undocumented workers. We need a systems-level solution.
Film about Kamikaze pilots sparks pacifist response
TOKYO: A film celebrating World War II kamikaze pilots and written by the nationalist governor of Tokyo has opened in theaters, sparking more of a pacifist than a patriotic response from audiences.
The movie debuted Saturday, at a time when the Japanese government is edging toward a vote on revising its U.S.-drafted Constitution, which has strictly limited military activities for six decades following Japan's World War II defeat.
"For Those We Love," written by Shintaro Ishihara, a 74-year-old writer-turned-politician, tells the true story of a restaurant owner who became a mother figure to many of the young men as they trained to crash explosives-laden aircraft into U.S. warships.
Tome Torihama's restaurant at Chiran on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu was a home away from home for the trainees, mostly in their teens and early 20s, who were preparing to make the ultimate sacrifice as Japan tried desperately to avert a U.S. invasion in the final months of World War II.
Though Ishihara is known for patriotic policies, including introducing compulsory singing of the national anthem in schools, members of the audience took away a different message from the ¥1.8 billion, or $15 million, production.
"It made me think we should never go to war. War is terrible, and all it leaves behind is bitterness," said a 58-year-old businessman, who only gave his name as Hiro, after watching the film in a Tokyo theater.
The director, Shinjo Taku, has said he had no intention of glorifying the extreme policies adopted in wartime Japan.
"In a word, I think the military leaders of the time were despicable," Taku told reporters Tuesday. "They took these pure, inexperienced young men and sent them off to die. I think they should take responsibility for that."
He and Ishihara have insisted there were differences between the wartime kamikaze and contemporary suicide attackers, but others say the two phenomena have common threads.
"The similarities in the selection of young men to carry out these one-way missions and the methods used to convince them cannot be ignored," said Linda Hoaglund, one of the makers of "Wings of Defeat," a documentary film about the kamikaze set to be screened in Japan later this year.
A Japanese vice admiral, Takijiro Onishi, initiated the desperate strategy of having pilots fly their planes into U.S. ships when Japan was on the verge of losing control of the Philippines.
The success of the first kamikaze attack off the island of Leyte in 1944 led to the recruitment of more men for such missions.
"The suicide attacks were an inevitable result of Japan's prewar militarism," said Hiro, a businessman. "It was a kind of religion."
More than 2,000 planes were used and 34 U.S. ships were sunk by Japanese suicide attacks in the last few months of the war, according to a Japanese encyclopedia.
One 80-year-old who lived through wartime bombing said it was hard for those who did not remember the conflict to understand it.
"I don't really feel proud of them," Kunimitsu Suzuki said of the pilots after watching the film. "I think with the education they had, they were forced into it. They felt there was nothing else they could do."
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Cheney plays the hawk on Iran
David Sanger reports for the IHT that US Vice President Dick Cheney has delivered a public warning to Iran, on the deck of an aircraft carrier just off their coast. I get the feeling that US neoconservatives would like very much to attack Iran. They cannot be allowed to succeed in harming our relations with Iran further. Americans should write their representatives in Congress...
Vice President Dick Cheney used the deck of an American aircraft carrier just 240 kilometers off Iran's coast as the backdrop Friday to warn the country that the United States was prepared to use its naval power to keep Tehran from disrupting oil routes or "gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."
Little of what Cheney said in the cavernous hangar bay of the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, one of two carriers whose strike groups are now in the Gulf, was new. Each individual line had, in some form, been said before, at various points in the four-year-long nuclear standoff with Iran, and during the increasingly tense arguments over whether Iran is aiding the insurgents in Iraq.
But Cheney stitched all of those warnings together, and the symbolism of sending the administration's most famous hawk to deliver the speech so close to Iran's coast was unmistakable.
It also came just a week after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked briefly and inconclusively with Iran's foreign minister, a step toward re-engagement with Iran that some in the administration have opposed.
Cheney's sharp warnings appeared to be part of a two-track administration campaign to push back at Iran, while leaving the door open to negotiations. It was almost exactly a year ago that the United States offered to negotiate with Iran as long as it first agreed to halt enriching uranium, a decision in which Cheney, participants said, was not a major player. Similarly, the speech Friday was not circulated broadly in the government before it was delivered, a senior American diplomat said.
"He kind of runs by his own rules," the official said.
When President George W. Bush ordered the two carriers into the Gulf late last year, senior administration officials said it was part of an effort to gain some negotiating leverage over the Iranians. At about the same time, American military personnel began capturing some Iranians in Iraq, and some of them are still held there.
American officials have also been pressing European banks and companies to avoid doing business with Tehran, in an effort to make it more difficult for the country to recycle its oil profits.
Oil seemed to be on Cheney's mind Friday, when he told an audience of 3,500 to 4,000 American service members on the Stennis that Iran would not be permitted to choke off oil shipments through the waters of the region.
"With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike," he said. "We'll keep the sea lanes open. We'll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. We'll disrupt attacks on our own forces. We'll continue bringing relief to those who suffer, and delivering justice to the enemies of freedom. And we'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."
Some experts on Iran have questioned whether the threats that administration officials occasionally deliver to Iran aid or undercut the diplomacy with the country.
"The problem with the two-track policy is that the first track - coercion, sanctions, naval deployments - can undercut the results on the second track," said Ray Takeyh, an Iran scholar at the Council of Foreign Relations and the author of "Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic."
"There are some in Tehran who will look at Cheney on that carrier and say that everything Rice is offering is not real. What's real, to their mind, are the coercive policies Cheney is describing. This is a case where we are trying to get through negotiations what, so far, we couldn't get through coercion."
The symbols of coercion were part of the backdrop on the Stennis: Cheney spoke in front of five F-18 Super Hornet warplanes.
Cheney also repeated his arguments about the danger of early withdrawal from Iraq.
The United States remains at odds with Iran over its uranium-enrichment program, which Iran says is for peaceful nuclear energy, but which America and its Western allies say is intended instead to produce atomic weapons.
Administration officials have also said that weapons are being smuggled into Iraq from Iran and that insurgents may be getting training in bomb-making and bomb-placing techniques in Iran. The Iranian government denies sponsoring or encouraging terrorism.
Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Graham Bowley contributed from New York.
Vice President Dick Cheney used the deck of an American aircraft carrier just 240 kilometers off Iran's coast as the backdrop Friday to warn the country that the United States was prepared to use its naval power to keep Tehran from disrupting oil routes or "gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."
Little of what Cheney said in the cavernous hangar bay of the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, one of two carriers whose strike groups are now in the Gulf, was new. Each individual line had, in some form, been said before, at various points in the four-year-long nuclear standoff with Iran, and during the increasingly tense arguments over whether Iran is aiding the insurgents in Iraq.
But Cheney stitched all of those warnings together, and the symbolism of sending the administration's most famous hawk to deliver the speech so close to Iran's coast was unmistakable.
It also came just a week after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked briefly and inconclusively with Iran's foreign minister, a step toward re-engagement with Iran that some in the administration have opposed.
Cheney's sharp warnings appeared to be part of a two-track administration campaign to push back at Iran, while leaving the door open to negotiations. It was almost exactly a year ago that the United States offered to negotiate with Iran as long as it first agreed to halt enriching uranium, a decision in which Cheney, participants said, was not a major player. Similarly, the speech Friday was not circulated broadly in the government before it was delivered, a senior American diplomat said.
"He kind of runs by his own rules," the official said.
When President George W. Bush ordered the two carriers into the Gulf late last year, senior administration officials said it was part of an effort to gain some negotiating leverage over the Iranians. At about the same time, American military personnel began capturing some Iranians in Iraq, and some of them are still held there.
American officials have also been pressing European banks and companies to avoid doing business with Tehran, in an effort to make it more difficult for the country to recycle its oil profits.
Oil seemed to be on Cheney's mind Friday, when he told an audience of 3,500 to 4,000 American service members on the Stennis that Iran would not be permitted to choke off oil shipments through the waters of the region.
"With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike," he said. "We'll keep the sea lanes open. We'll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. We'll disrupt attacks on our own forces. We'll continue bringing relief to those who suffer, and delivering justice to the enemies of freedom. And we'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."
Some experts on Iran have questioned whether the threats that administration officials occasionally deliver to Iran aid or undercut the diplomacy with the country.
"The problem with the two-track policy is that the first track - coercion, sanctions, naval deployments - can undercut the results on the second track," said Ray Takeyh, an Iran scholar at the Council of Foreign Relations and the author of "Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic."
"There are some in Tehran who will look at Cheney on that carrier and say that everything Rice is offering is not real. What's real, to their mind, are the coercive policies Cheney is describing. This is a case where we are trying to get through negotiations what, so far, we couldn't get through coercion."
The symbols of coercion were part of the backdrop on the Stennis: Cheney spoke in front of five F-18 Super Hornet warplanes.
Cheney also repeated his arguments about the danger of early withdrawal from Iraq.
The United States remains at odds with Iran over its uranium-enrichment program, which Iran says is for peaceful nuclear energy, but which America and its Western allies say is intended instead to produce atomic weapons.
Administration officials have also said that weapons are being smuggled into Iraq from Iran and that insurgents may be getting training in bomb-making and bomb-placing techniques in Iran. The Iranian government denies sponsoring or encouraging terrorism.
Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Graham Bowley contributed from New York.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Ethiopia and Starbucks reach licensing agreement
One of my friends once said, "Starbucks is evil." Well... they're far from the worst company around, although they could improve their purchasing practices significantly.
Ethiopia had been seeking to trademark Ethiopian coffee, arguing that this would enable their farmers to charge higher prices - and mind you, coffee farmers are not exactly gouging the rest of the world by charging high prices. Starbucks was earlier reported to have opposed that deal, and for some reason I didn't post this on my blog.
Now, however, Ethiopia and Starbucks have reportedly reached an agreement of some sort. BBC has a brief report dated May 3.
Some trade groups argue that this new agreement will force them to raise coffee prices to an uncompetitive level. Of course they would say that. But, perhaps they have a point. Businesses are smart, and will no doubt find other areas to reduce costs, but if coffee prices went up significantly, would we in the West, who are used to cheap coffee, still pay? Or, what if it meant that the wages paid to baristas went down?
For me the answer is clear. Pay the coffee farmers a fair price that enables them to provide for their families, and which will enrich their local economies. After that, we can work the rest of the details out.
Ethiopia had been seeking to trademark Ethiopian coffee, arguing that this would enable their farmers to charge higher prices - and mind you, coffee farmers are not exactly gouging the rest of the world by charging high prices. Starbucks was earlier reported to have opposed that deal, and for some reason I didn't post this on my blog.
Now, however, Ethiopia and Starbucks have reportedly reached an agreement of some sort. BBC has a brief report dated May 3.
The two sides agreed in principle to sign a licensing and marketing deal which recognises the importance of Ethiopia's speciality coffee beans.
Cultivation of the coffee bean first began in Ethiopia, and the country has been seeking to trademark its best-known coffee beans.
However, US officials have argued that the plan is not economically viable.
Ethiopia and UK charity Oxfam claimed Starbucks was attempting to block plans by the African nation to trademark its Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe coffee beans.
But the coffee chain giant denied initiating opposition to the trademark application, insisting the decision to do so was taken by the US National Coffee Association (NCA).
The NCA had warned that if Ethiopia succeeded in obtaining the trademarks, it may price its coffee beans uncompetitively high.
'Positive change'
Ethiopia hopes to substantially lift the income of its coffee farmers through the trademarking plan.
"The eyes of Africa will be on this agreement, which could even set a precedent for further deals beyond Ethiopia in the future."
Oxfam
The poverty stricken country is heavily reliant on coffee bean exports, and about a quarter of its 80 million people are involved in the industry.
Oxfam welcomed news of the licensing agreement between Ethiopia and Starbucks, adding it could add momentum to the country's trademarking project.
"This action by Starbucks could represent a huge step towards a real positive change for the 15 million Ethiopians who depend on coffee for their livelihood," the charity said.
"The eyes of Africa will be on this agreement, which could even set a precedent for further deals beyond Ethiopia in the future."
Some trade groups argue that this new agreement will force them to raise coffee prices to an uncompetitive level. Of course they would say that. But, perhaps they have a point. Businesses are smart, and will no doubt find other areas to reduce costs, but if coffee prices went up significantly, would we in the West, who are used to cheap coffee, still pay? Or, what if it meant that the wages paid to baristas went down?
For me the answer is clear. Pay the coffee farmers a fair price that enables them to provide for their families, and which will enrich their local economies. After that, we can work the rest of the details out.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
A scathing take on Warren Buffett
David Weidner, writing for Marketwatch, gives a scathing take on Warren Buffett. And I do mean scathing. He does make some good points, though...
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Here's hoping that Warren Buffett isn't with us as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. for much longer, or at least that he has a change of heart. The world will be better off.
Nearly a year after Buffett pledged to give $37 billion of his personal wealth to charity, the 76-year-old and his shareholder flock at Berkshire shot down a series of do-gooder proposals that would have required the company to spare some profits in the name of social responsibility, and maybe saving a few lives.
Buffett and his followers believe it doesn't matter how you make your money, as long as you give it away when you're dead. Embrace businesses such as PetroChina Co. Ltd - which arguably is aiding the genocide in Darfur by investing in the Sudanese government's oil explorations -- or risk that extra penny a share in profit.
St. Warren is like a poker player who has won all of the chips, but hands you one or two to keep playing just so he can take them from you again.
PetroChina connection
Last year, I criticized the attention paid to Buffett for his pledge that his estate would hand over most of his wealth when he died. The billionaire gave a generous gift, but giving and sacrifice are different qualities often confused by observers in the media (this columnist included). See full story.
Today, little seems to have changed. At the urging of management, shareholders last weekend voted down resolutions to require more disclosure of the company's political contributions and also to reverse the actions of a Berkshire subsidiary, PacifiCorp, believed to be endangering salmon populations and lowering water quality in the Northwest.
But it was a resolution calling for Berkshire to sell a $3.3 billion stake in Beijing-based PetroChina that caused the biggest uproar. The PetroChina subsidiary in Sudan pays the government for the right to produce oil there. Those payments, human-rights advocates say, support the Sudanese government and its military efforts.
Shareholder Judith Porter stood before 27,000 investors at the company's annual meeting in Omaha, Neb., and told Buffett that dumping the Berkshire stake "will send a signal to China and to the Sudan that there are costs for continuing this destruction," according to reports.
Buffett defended the investment by arguing that it's the Chinese government that's condoning the actions in Darfur. Furthermore, he said, even if Berkshire divested or Buffett complained, it wouldn't matter.
"PetroChina in no way tells the Chinese government what to do," Buffett was quoted as saying. "We have no disagreement with what PetroChina is doing." He could see "no effect whatsoever in Berkshire Hathaway trying to tell the Chinese government how to conduct their business."
Hey, if you could make a few bucks dealing with someone you know is helping hide a serial killer, why say anything? It probably wouldn't help, right?
Before all you Buffett fans write me to complain, know this: When it comes to investing, it's one thing to follow an unrivaled businessman and investor. When it comes to moral decisions, Warren Buffett should not be your choice. This isn't to say that he does not have a better track record than his peers in American business, but to say that Buffett is in business for himself and his shareholders.
Everyone else can wait until he's dead.
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Here's hoping that Warren Buffett isn't with us as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. for much longer, or at least that he has a change of heart. The world will be better off.
Nearly a year after Buffett pledged to give $37 billion of his personal wealth to charity, the 76-year-old and his shareholder flock at Berkshire shot down a series of do-gooder proposals that would have required the company to spare some profits in the name of social responsibility, and maybe saving a few lives.
Buffett and his followers believe it doesn't matter how you make your money, as long as you give it away when you're dead. Embrace businesses such as PetroChina Co. Ltd - which arguably is aiding the genocide in Darfur by investing in the Sudanese government's oil explorations -- or risk that extra penny a share in profit.
St. Warren is like a poker player who has won all of the chips, but hands you one or two to keep playing just so he can take them from you again.
PetroChina connection
Last year, I criticized the attention paid to Buffett for his pledge that his estate would hand over most of his wealth when he died. The billionaire gave a generous gift, but giving and sacrifice are different qualities often confused by observers in the media (this columnist included). See full story.
Today, little seems to have changed. At the urging of management, shareholders last weekend voted down resolutions to require more disclosure of the company's political contributions and also to reverse the actions of a Berkshire subsidiary, PacifiCorp, believed to be endangering salmon populations and lowering water quality in the Northwest.
But it was a resolution calling for Berkshire to sell a $3.3 billion stake in Beijing-based PetroChina that caused the biggest uproar. The PetroChina subsidiary in Sudan pays the government for the right to produce oil there. Those payments, human-rights advocates say, support the Sudanese government and its military efforts.
Shareholder Judith Porter stood before 27,000 investors at the company's annual meeting in Omaha, Neb., and told Buffett that dumping the Berkshire stake "will send a signal to China and to the Sudan that there are costs for continuing this destruction," according to reports.
Buffett defended the investment by arguing that it's the Chinese government that's condoning the actions in Darfur. Furthermore, he said, even if Berkshire divested or Buffett complained, it wouldn't matter.
"PetroChina in no way tells the Chinese government what to do," Buffett was quoted as saying. "We have no disagreement with what PetroChina is doing." He could see "no effect whatsoever in Berkshire Hathaway trying to tell the Chinese government how to conduct their business."
Hey, if you could make a few bucks dealing with someone you know is helping hide a serial killer, why say anything? It probably wouldn't help, right?
Before all you Buffett fans write me to complain, know this: When it comes to investing, it's one thing to follow an unrivaled businessman and investor. When it comes to moral decisions, Warren Buffett should not be your choice. This isn't to say that he does not have a better track record than his peers in American business, but to say that Buffett is in business for himself and his shareholders.
Everyone else can wait until he's dead.
US Sunnis and Shiites sign intra-faith code of conduct
I'm not sure if this story is active on the Caspers Star Tribune website, so I'm posting the text below. The original link is here. It is my hope that Muslims in the West will continue such intra-faith measures, that they will learn to make accomodations to Western culture in a manner consistent with their faith, and that Western culture will accomodate to Muslim culture.
Muslim leaders are trying to strengthen Sunni-Shiite ties in the United States, hoping to head off conflicts between the faith's two major sects and get American Muslims to focus on common problems.
With sectarian divisions fueling violence in Iraq, Sunnis and Shiites in the U.S. are increasingly wary of a spillover effect. In one public example, leaders from both traditions have launched "Intra-faith Code of Honor" campaigns in three cities with major Muslim populations.
So far, 20 Sunni and Shiite leaders in Southern California have signed the first such code. The document denounces "takfir" _ the labeling of another Muslim as a nonbeliever _ forbids hateful speech about revered figures and urges debates at the scholarly level, not the street level.
Similar agreements are expected to be completed this month in Detroit and Washington, D.C.
"As technology has made information from across the globe and information from historical conflicts more available, people have been pondering their self-identity," said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council, which is helping organize the effort. "That has brought a requirement to appreciate the nuances, but it's also brought challenges."
Those include questions over how prayer is conducted, said Dr. Maher Hathout, spokesman for the Islamic Center of Southern California, which eschews Sunni or Shiite labels. The honor code urges congregations to follow worship traditions of whichever groups is in the majority locally, an issue that has arisen over the Shiite custom of combining some of Islam's five daily prayers, Hathout said.
Another concern is keeping virulently sectarian literature from the Middle East out of American mosques.
"As much as we can make clear the Muslim-American identity is not a natural extension of the Middle East, the better off we'll be," he said.
Other steps under discussion include gathering national Sunni and Shiite leaders, workshops at mosques and political analysis of Middle East trends "so people are not caught off guard," Al-Marayati said.
Although no reliable data exists, it is presumed America's estimated 2 million to 6 million Muslims are 85 percent to 90 percent Sunni and 10 percent to 15 percent Shiite, reflecting the global breakdown. Conflicts have been few, scholars say, in part because this country's Muslim population is relatively small. Plus, immigrant U.S. Muslims tend to be prosperous and are melding into society instead of clustering in poorer neighborhoods, which has caused conflict in Europe.
Theological divisions between Sunnis and Shiites are less pronounced than, say, those separating Roman Catholics and Protestants, Muslim scholars emphasize. The main dividing line: a disagreement over succession that began after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
In the Detroit area _ home to the nation's largest concentration of Muslims _ Shiites blamed Sunnis for vandalism at Shiite-affiliated mosques and businesses after the execution of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who repressed the Shiite majority in Iraq.
Shiite Imam Hassan Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., the largest mosque in North America, said sectarian tensions are not a serious problem, and most Sunnis and Shiites get along.
At the same time, intra-faith efforts can address the graver problem of anti-Muslim sentiment, he said. Bias incidents against Muslims including harassment, violence and discrimination rose nearly one-third last year to a 12-year high, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"Shiites and Sunnis need to work together so we can face our joint challenges," Qazwini said.
Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, said challenges posed by the terrorist attacks, the first Gulf War and the ongoing war in Iraq have united Sunni and Shiites in the United States more than divided them.
"There's never really been a very strong ecumenical movement in Islamic history that has really tried to forge understanding," he said. "Maybe this is the beginning of it."
Muslim leaders are trying to strengthen Sunni-Shiite ties in the United States, hoping to head off conflicts between the faith's two major sects and get American Muslims to focus on common problems.
With sectarian divisions fueling violence in Iraq, Sunnis and Shiites in the U.S. are increasingly wary of a spillover effect. In one public example, leaders from both traditions have launched "Intra-faith Code of Honor" campaigns in three cities with major Muslim populations.
So far, 20 Sunni and Shiite leaders in Southern California have signed the first such code. The document denounces "takfir" _ the labeling of another Muslim as a nonbeliever _ forbids hateful speech about revered figures and urges debates at the scholarly level, not the street level.
Similar agreements are expected to be completed this month in Detroit and Washington, D.C.
"As technology has made information from across the globe and information from historical conflicts more available, people have been pondering their self-identity," said Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Muslim Public Affairs Council, which is helping organize the effort. "That has brought a requirement to appreciate the nuances, but it's also brought challenges."
Those include questions over how prayer is conducted, said Dr. Maher Hathout, spokesman for the Islamic Center of Southern California, which eschews Sunni or Shiite labels. The honor code urges congregations to follow worship traditions of whichever groups is in the majority locally, an issue that has arisen over the Shiite custom of combining some of Islam's five daily prayers, Hathout said.
Another concern is keeping virulently sectarian literature from the Middle East out of American mosques.
"As much as we can make clear the Muslim-American identity is not a natural extension of the Middle East, the better off we'll be," he said.
Other steps under discussion include gathering national Sunni and Shiite leaders, workshops at mosques and political analysis of Middle East trends "so people are not caught off guard," Al-Marayati said.
Although no reliable data exists, it is presumed America's estimated 2 million to 6 million Muslims are 85 percent to 90 percent Sunni and 10 percent to 15 percent Shiite, reflecting the global breakdown. Conflicts have been few, scholars say, in part because this country's Muslim population is relatively small. Plus, immigrant U.S. Muslims tend to be prosperous and are melding into society instead of clustering in poorer neighborhoods, which has caused conflict in Europe.
Theological divisions between Sunnis and Shiites are less pronounced than, say, those separating Roman Catholics and Protestants, Muslim scholars emphasize. The main dividing line: a disagreement over succession that began after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.
In the Detroit area _ home to the nation's largest concentration of Muslims _ Shiites blamed Sunnis for vandalism at Shiite-affiliated mosques and businesses after the execution of Saddam Hussein, a Sunni who repressed the Shiite majority in Iraq.
Shiite Imam Hassan Qazwini of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, Mich., the largest mosque in North America, said sectarian tensions are not a serious problem, and most Sunnis and Shiites get along.
At the same time, intra-faith efforts can address the graver problem of anti-Muslim sentiment, he said. Bias incidents against Muslims including harassment, violence and discrimination rose nearly one-third last year to a 12-year high, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"Shiites and Sunnis need to work together so we can face our joint challenges," Qazwini said.
Ihsan Bagby, an associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky, said challenges posed by the terrorist attacks, the first Gulf War and the ongoing war in Iraq have united Sunni and Shiites in the United States more than divided them.
"There's never really been a very strong ecumenical movement in Islamic history that has really tried to forge understanding," he said. "Maybe this is the beginning of it."
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