Thesis

The mental status soldiers tend to come home with leave them unable to relate to their friends and family with a void instead of life's purpose. More severe still are the veterans that are slowly slipping into solitary and depression because of their inability to regenerate back into a "peace time" society.

Immigration

After reading articles about illegal immigration and from my personal knowledge on the subject it made me realize that there is a problem in America with illegal immigration, but Sb1070 and other laws that want to divide our country is not the solution. This country has a need for cheap and unwanted labor to be done. Illegal immigrants who come to this country to work and with hope of a better life would rather have visas, permits, or some type of proper documentation than crossing the border illegally. These hard working people called “aliens” go through rough times crossing the border illegally. In some cases many have lost their lives, love ones; have gotten rapped, kidnap, and even worse scenarios when crossing the borders illegally. Work permits can allow the government to keep track who is coming in and who is going out. Work permits will reduce discrimination against the color race group. Work permits might even help reduce crimes. If illegal immigrants feel the support from the government then they might help track down drug dealers or other crimes. The U.S citizens are not paying for illegal immigarnts to be in this country, in fact, illegal immigrants benefit the U.S economy, business, and consumers. Work permits will provide a more secure and productive environment. People, in the long run, will benefit from the work permits given to illegal immigrants, resulting in a better future. The U.S government should make it is easier for people to obtain work permits.

Here is very interesting article that gives view sense on the brutal and dangerous situations this illigal immigrants go through when crossing into the U.S borders illegally: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/01/0123_030123_border.html

SB1070: Nazism

The Senate Bill 1070 is almost a mimic of Hitler during the holocaust. SB1070 is Nazism, a races discriminating law against a huge group of humans. During the Great Depression, Nazism blamed the Jewish people as a whole for its failures. When people failed, they tend to have in implosive reaction on blaming someone for its failures because they feel fear when they don’t know what is coming next; this is what’s happening now in Arizona. Do to the financial crisis in America, Arizona felt the anxiety to blamed illegal immigrants and, so therefore, they enforce an outrages discriminating law against the “aliens”. Like if SB1070 would get rid of the financial crisis, well, truth is that large amount of U.S economy comes from the cheap labor and the unwanted jobs illegal immigrants do in this country. So why did the unethical SB1070 law get passed? Well, the justifications are many, mainly blaming the federal government for not doing it’s job in securing Arizona. The creators of SB1070 claims “the federal government has failed to live up to its Constitutional duty to protect Arizona against invasion and domestic violence”. Arizona made huge mistake on creating, passing, and enforcing Sb1070.

OP ED

OP-ED English 1A.8

What About Taxes

By Yessica Valverde

Published April 30, 2011

Let’s think about the long run instead of the short run for few quick seconds. How can America get out of this financial crisis that was started by bad decision making from banks, loan lenders, real state sellers, wall street, board of directors, subprime mortgages, stock derivatives, the government, and even the consumers? Let me first say that America’s financial crisis and the causation of it should teach us that everyone gets greedy when there is giving a chance to make more money.

Well first lets analyses the main reason that cause this financial crisis, which is selfishness and greed. People made wrong choices because they were only thinking about there own personal well-being. In other words, everyone was just thinking about making that “mullah”, especially the banks, board of directors, and the investors. In the article “Trading Financial Risk and Jobs” by David Barboza, he states, “this financial system has made credit more available and increased borrowing and consumer spending, causing the U.S. consumer debt to triple since 1988”. Banks were giving out loans to home buyers even when the bank loan lender knew the home-buyer could not afford the monthly payments or the house period, but yet, they gave out undisclosed loans to pretty much anyone that was asking for one. Once again this an example how greedy everyone was; the lender was thinking about the points s/she was making on all this undisclosed loan transactions which at the end of the day would be rewarded with more money by the board of directors. The real state sellers were making huge amounts of profits because they were selling house like hot bread. The banks and real state companies were teaming up working together to make as much transactions as possible.

Wall Street drove the board of directors on bad greedy decision-making. In the article Structured Finance states “wall street created a system of structured finance that involved lending without using capital (money), enabling a small amount of money to leverage (control) bigger and bigger investments”.  There were so many loans to keep track of. The big picture was you had a bunch of a loans, which was investors money, that were thrown in a bucket which than was sold to another investor. The investor who bought the bucket of loans was giving an estimated probability of high chance of returned profit. What the bank didn’t mention to these investors was that these loans were basically giving to anyone who asked for one and the probability of people paying back the loans was unknown. The results of that were home owners losing their homes, investors losing their money, banks closing down, businesses going bankrupt, the government spending huge amounts of tax money on helping out these banks, job lost, consumer debt, and many mad people; in other words, our financial crisis. Everyone was spending more than what they had/made.

The solution to our financial crisis is an increase on taxes, which would be direct on top incomes, middle-income, and everyone else.

Increasing taxes will create more jobs and reduce unemployment. Many people don’t realize this but the roads we drive on and policeman who secure are personal belongings are all being pay by the tax money our government collects. If we reduce taxation as the “Ryan Proposal” says than we will have less money to fund organizations, union jobs like fireman, construction jobs, policeman, and more. If we increase taxes, like the “people’s Budget” from the congressional caucus proposes, we would all benefit from it if the government actually distributes the money properly. The sad reality is that even if  we do raise taxes there is high chance that the government will make wrong decisions in what areas to fund, because everyone gets greedy.

SB1070

This law is very upsetting! This law gives people the power to discriminated and be unfair to others. In what kind of sick world are we leaving in? What are we teaching the children, to what be races to every none white looking person. Check this out:  "A person who violates this section is guilty of a class 1 misdemeanor and is subject to a fine of at least one thousand dollars, except that a violation of this section that involves ten or more illegal aliens is a class 6 felony and the person is subject to a fine of at least one thousand dollars for each alien who is involved". What are they thinking! People we are humans and have feelings. This country is made up of many different cultures, race, etc... and we have built and will continue to built relationships with many people who surround us; this law makes people against each other. So if you are friends with your neighbor for many years and you know he is here illegal, you can be charge with a misdemeanor for giving him a ride to the hospital; oh and if his illegal family is rides a long too then you are screwed with a felony if you a cop see you with some Mexicans. You can get arrested even if there was no cause to get this officer's attention besides the fact that the people you were riding with looked brown! There has to be something done to help the immigration problem, but this is definitely not the proper way to do so. Is not like these illegal immigrants don't want visa's, permits, or some time of proper documentation; they go through rough times crossing the border illegally. In some cases many have lost their lives, love ones; have gotten rapped, kidnap, and worse crossing the border illegally. Check this ridiculous rules: http://www.azleg.gov//FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/50leg/1r/bills/sb1070p.htm&Session_ID=102

Hopefully Things get Better

The financial crisis makes me nervous. All the job lost and unemployment really sucks! When I hear some of my friends, who have graduated with a four year degree, complaining that they can't find any jobs within their career, really worries me. I get a headache thinking about if all these hard work in school is going to actually pay off. I am hoping it will. The financial crisis situation actually pushes me to try harder because if it is hard to find a job after college than I better be really good at what I'm doing. In other words, I have to try to be the best because there is a lot competition out there. It would be great if the government and business can create more jobs. I think one of the way of actually creating more jobs would be by raising taxes on everyone. Union jobs are great, such as: policeman, courts, fireman, construction, military and much more. When the government has money to support all these government jobs, well, not only we have less unemployment, but we also create a more productive economy. A really interesting article by Paul Krugman really caught my attention on the subject of raising taxes to get out of the financial crisis. I recommend everyone to read it: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/opinion/25krugman.html?_r=1

Inspiring CEO - John Stumpf

John Stumpf is the CEO of Wells Fargo.  He leads one of the largest banks and financial services companies in US. It is said that he is respected for his leadership performance and honesty. During 2008 financial crisis, he send letters to the shareholders, where he said, “We made some mistakes but kept our credit discipline...It will be a rough year for our economy and our industry. Consumer loans will continue under stress, chargeoffs [uncollectible debt] probably will continue to rise." Wells Fargo has preform and progress stronger than most other banks from the financial crises.  In my opinion, John Stumpf has demonstrated what a good leader and CEO he is. No one or nothing is perfect but overcoming your mistakes and doing something about it shows a lot about your character. John Stumpf has shown care for Wells Fargo. Before the recession 2008, he was elected to Wells Fargo’s Board of Directors in June 2006, the  Chief Executive Officer in June 2007, and has been President since August 2005. John Stumpf  became the Chairman for Wells Fargo & Company in January 2010.

Factors from Los Angeles Times and Guardian.co.uk and Executive Pay Watch:

• He received $11.4 million in 2007
• Stumpf received $9 million in total compensation in 2008
• Stumpf's base salary increased 17% in 2008 to $878,920
• His pay package declined in 2008 because he received no non-equity incentive plan compensation in 2008, compared with the $4.2 million he received in 2007.
• Other pay, including such items as company contributions to retirement accounts and relocation expenses, declined 45% to $242,167 during the year 2008
• Stumpf's personal pay package is asharp increase on his $9m earnings a year ago and his remuneration of $11.5m before the credit crunch began in 2007
• In 2009, Salary:5,600,000; Stock Awards: 13,083,000; Pension: 2,584,000; other Compensation 72,786
• He earned $18.7m  after executive pay disclosures by the top US banks 2010

In my opinion and as you can see Mr. Stumpf is doing pretty well! Maybe this is the KEY FACTOR why he is motivated for Wells Fargo to keep succeeding! I would be too!