A new study about the effects of immigration on U.S. employment supports the long-standing arguments of immigration advocates: Rather than displacing American workers, immigrant labor actually makes our economy stronger.

Raghavan Mayur, president at TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, follows unemployment data closely. His firm owns owns the TIPP polling unit, a polling partner for Investors’ Business Daily and Christian Science Monitor. Based on household surveys the real unemployment rate is 22%.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/bjW9Zv

So, when his survey for May revealed that 28% of the 1,000-odd households surveyed reported that at least one member was looking for a full-time job, he was flummoxed.

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium Blogger

After months of modest gains, the U.S. economy lost 125,000 jobs during June. That’s the worst jobs-related news this year. Without serious action soon, the struggling U.S. economy is going to get even uglier. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama’s economic team was slow to recognize the severity of the jobs crisis, and now seems unable to get Congress to actually do something about it.

Two critical Wall Street reforms, once declared dead by U.S. megabanks, are suddenly close to Congressional approval. As the House and Senate iron out the differences between their financial overhauls, it now appears that lawmakers are finally willing to ban banks from gambling with taxpayer money by implementing a strong Volcker Rule, and to end taxpayer subsidies for risky derivatives operations.

Is Wall Street and our government merely trying to buy time? Are they staving off the inevitable? A recent article by Henry Blodget says that in 1930, Americans did not yet know they were in the beginning of the Great Depression. Within his article, he links to a collection of New York Times clippings from early 1930 compiled by Dan Alpert of Westwood Capital. A quick comparison of the stock market after the 1929 crash actually shows that it rebounded within six months to what he calls a “hope” rally of 48%. But the Stock Market didn’t hang around there for long. It steadily declined, and eight months later, had hit a new low. The “Hope Rally” high was 294.07, while the eventual bottom was 41.62.

The job market in its worst state since the Great Depression and is putting tremendous strain on millions of Americans. Without action from Washington, D.C., the unemployment rate will remain elevated for years to come, and almost certainly above 9 percent through the end of 2010. Public esteem for economic policymakers isn’t doing so hot either. There are several simple steps that President Barack Obama and Congress could take to create jobs, but of late, neither have shown much interest in doing so.

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger

Last week, the U.S. Senate rejected a plan that would have broken up the nation’s six largest banks firms into firms that could fail without wreaking havoc on the economy. Even though the defeat reinforces Wall Street’s political dominance, there is still room for a handful of other useful reforms, like banning banks from gambling with taxpayer money and protecting consumers from banker abuses. After looting our houses, banks are now pushing for the ability to bet on movie box-office receipts, and will keep trying to financialize anything they can unless Congress acts.

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger

Congress returns from its April recess this week with financial reform at the top of its to-do list. With millions of Americans still bearing the brunt of the worst recession in 80 years, Congress needs to start protecting our economy from Wall Street excess, and repair the shredded social safety net that has allowed the Great Recession to exact a devastating human cost.

Big banks are an economic parasite

by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger

Next week, the debate over financial reform will begin in earnest when Congress returns from its Easter break. Both political parties are gearing up for a major fight, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. An out-of-control banking sector has cost the economy over 7 million jobs since 2007, and without major reforms, Wall Street could repeat this disaster in just a few years’ time. But thanks to Wall Street’s lobbying might, all of the necessary reforms are currently in jeopardy.

It looks like the Democratic Leadership will get its wish, a sprawling “health care reform” bill, mostly focused on changes to the health insurance system that deliver many millions of new customers to the health insurance industry. The Democrats are making many upbeat claims about this bill, calling it historic and claiming that it will produce affordable “universal” health care coverage for Americans, and for 32 million more than are covered by insurance today, while blithely ignoring the contradiction between these two statements. There have been many recent analyses of these claims, and I won’t add another one here. The analysis of the FDL team authored by Jane Hamsher, contrasting mythical claims about the pending bill with “the truth,” is the best of the analyses of the bill I’ve seen in the past few days.

So, assuming that the Leadership’s HCR legislation passes the Senate and moves to the President’s desk for final approval, I’d now like to look forward and ask where the Democrats stand politically in the wake of their nearly one year investment in painstakingly crafting their “health care reform” bill. To put it crassly, what will they have to run on that means something to most, or, at least, a large number of voters?