South central and west Texas are experiencing the outer rings of hurricane Alex -- rain, thunderstorms, and rickety internet sat connection. Sat internet here is dependent on the main receiver down in the valley, along the Mexican border, where the inner rings of Alex are saturating everything.
In spite of that, it was hard not to notice the mushrooming of bad economic news -- to the point that today feels like the day we have to face a pretty good chance of something worse than just a double-dip. I join Paul Krugman in his gloom.
One bit of good news: Obama is getting serious. He's not having much luck extending the stimulus -- that, of course, is just the medicine we need. But he's revving up his engines on the immigration issue. The system is, of course, "fundamentally broken."
... That’s why businesses must be held accountable if they break the law by deliberately hiring and exploiting undocumented workers. We’ve already begun to step up enforcement against the worst workplace offenders. And we’re implementing and improving a system to give employers a reliable way to verify that their employees are here legally. But we need to do more. We cannot continue just to look the other way as a significant portion of our economy operates outside the law. It breeds abuse and bad practices. It punishes employers who act responsibly and undercuts American workers. And ultimately, if the demand for undocumented workers falls, the incentive for people to come here illegally will decline as well. ... whitehouse.com
