5-25-16 Expert Guests for Your Show

1. Lowell Ponte: Union Workers May Lose More than Half of Their Pensions

2. Crista Huff: USITC Report Portrays Lackluster TPP Economic Benefits

3. Michelle Seiler-Tucker: Did Uber Try to Change the World Too Fast?

4. Daniel Greenfield: The Muslim World is a Permanent Refugee Crisis

5. Michael Stumo: U.S. Trade Rep’s Parallel Universe

6. Rabbi Ganz: How to Fix Our Broken Immigration System... Permanently

Union Workers May Lose More than Half of Their Pensions

By Lowell Ponte

407,000 workers – mostly unionized Teamster truck drivers and retirees – learned days ago from the Central States Pension Fund director Thomas Nyhan, that the pensions they were depending on may be cut to “virtually nothing.” Bleeding $2 billion a year that it cannot replace, this fund proposed to the government that it could remain solvent by slashing pension payments by a retirement-crushing 60 percent. The U.S. Treasury’s response: No. Even cutting pensions by 60 percent would not be enough to keep this underfunded fund going for much longer. The cuts must be far deeper, or the cost to workers must be much higher. [more...]

USITC Report Portrays Lackluster TPP Economic Benefits

By Crista Huff

The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) issued its long-awaited report on the potential outcome of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement on May 18, 2016. The report shows the TPP potentially resulting in “small gains in U.S. gross domestic product and a very slight uptick in employment over the 30-year implementation period of the deal.” Here are some of the report’s projected economic results of the TPP... [more...]

Did Uber Try to Change the World Too Fast?

By Michelle Seiler-Tucker

What do the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the Teamsters all have in common? They all want to represent Uber drivers in a burgeoning Uber Driver union bid. Uber, the ridesharing startup which revolutionized the way people move through cities, may have tried to change the world just a little too much. Uber’s drivers are not employees, but rather independent contractors. This allows Uber to keep costs low and grants drivers the flexibility to work when they want. Some drivers, however, want benefits and bargaining power; and this is why the Machinists, Electrical Workers, and Teamsters have joined forces with Uber drivers. [more...]

The Muslim World is a Permanent Refugee Crisis

By Daniel Greenfield

Forget the Syrian Civil War for a moment. Even without the Sunnis and Shiites competing to give each other machete haircuts every sunny morning, there would still be a permanent Muslim refugee crisis. The vast majority of civil wars over the last ten years have taken place in Muslim countries. Muslim countries are also some of the poorest in the world. And Muslim countries also have high birth rates. Combine violence and poverty with a population boom and you get a permanent migration crisis. No matter what happens in Syria or Libya next year, that permanent migration crisis isn’t going away. [more...]

U.S. Trade Rep’s Parallel Universe

By Michael Stumo, CEO of Coalition for a Prosperous America

I listened to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman discuss the Trans-Pacific Partnership yesterday on a business group conference call, after the U.S. International Trade Commission report came out. Despite the fact that the report nullified Froman's entire economic case for the TPP, you would never know it from his talk. Froman created a parallel universe which was enabled by the Business Forward group sponsoring the call. The U.S. International Trade Commission report on May 18 should crush the case for the TPP. The report shows worsening trade deficits and basically no growth or job creation which CPA outlined here. In addition, manufacturing will shrink and lose employment. [more...]

How to Fix Our Broken Immigration System... Permanently

By Rabbi Ganz

Number 1: DON’T build a security fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. It would likely cost hundreds of billions if not trillions and take years to complete. And walls don’t work. Ask Israel. Despite being well armed and technically advanced, they cannot stop Hamas terrorists in Gaza from tunneling under the few miles of border they share. With billions to be made from smuggling drugs and illegals, the many tunnels under the 2,000-mile wall would quickly turn our very expensive barrier into a very sad joke. [more...]