Meet the New 'Illegals': White Collar Criminals

Posted by Edmundo Rocha, XicanoPwr.com at 12:56 PM on March 24, 2009.

There is always a touch of irony when a citizen of the United States complains about immigration. But now. As a Latino and a person of color, we no longer have to worry about those little things like, “driving while brown.” However, since the argument used against the undocumented by the nativists (Pat Buchanans, Lou Dobbs, et al) is that this is a Nation of Laws, well, two can play this game, bitches! Lets go through their arguments. According to nativists:

“Illegals” do not want to assimilate:
Old Illegals
In Pat Buchanan’s book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, he wrote that “millions of Mexicans are determined to retain their language and loyalty to Mexico. They prefer to remain outsiders.” [Buchanan, p. 28, 2006]

New Illegals
Partyin’ like there’s no tomorrow -

Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp - received $1.6 billion from the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) hosted lavish parties at a Southern California golf tournament it sponsored.

American International Group (AIG) - after receiving it’s first bailout, $85 billion loan, corporate executives, and representatives of various AIG subsidiaries, were partying in style at the posh St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort. You would think they saw the error of their ways, you know, assimilate. Nope. despite all the up-roar and receiving an additional $40 billion in bailout money, they couldn’t resist. AIG executives threw another party, but this time in a luxury resort outside of Phenoix Arizona.

Wells Fargo - after receiving $25 billion in TARP Funds, corporate exec wanted to use those funds to throw a party to recognize the top performing mortgage representatives at their an annual recognition event at the Wynn Las Vegas Resort. Once the new media and the us commoners spoke out against these “out of touch,” (code for assimilate) fat cat CEOs, they canceled that event, but that didn’t stop the 40-person team meeting that was held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.

The Big Three automakers - before begging Congress for $25 billion and already aware of the uproar AIG had caused, flying commercial was just not their style. They decided to fly to the nation’s capital in private luxurious jets to make their case to Washington.

Bank of America - with $45 billion in TARP funds already received, Ken Lewis, CEO, defended his use of private jets when he when went to go see New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. He asserted, “I don’t talk about how we get around. I travel in the most efficient way for shareholders.” I guess that includes the $127,643 he used in personal trips too.

Citigroup Inc - - Vikram Pandit, CEO, plans to spend about $10 million from the $45 billion of TARP funds to build new offices that would include a sub-zero fridge for him and his lieutenants.

Immigrants do not pay taxes
Old Illegals
Americans believe that undocumented immigrants are exploiting the United States’ economy. There is a widespread belief that “illegals” do not pay taxes. Such workers and their employers avoided paying between $242 million and $449 million a year in income and payroll taxes for Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance.

New Illegals
The same thing could be said about the New Illegals, 13 companies receiving billions of dollars in bailout money owe a total of more than $220 million in unpaid federal taxes. It said one recipient of bailout money had almost $113 million in unpaid federal income taxes from 2005 and 2006. A second recipient owed almost $102 million dating to before 2004. Another was behind $1.1 million in federal income taxes and $223,000 in federal employment taxes.

Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for TARP, told a Congressional hearing that if an executive signed a contract knowing that information about unpaid taxes was false, “that would potentially be a crime.”

Immigrants steal jobs away from Americans
Old Illegals
We’ve always heard people scream about how immigrants “steal jobs from real citizens.” Nativist organizations like Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), claiming that immigrants take jobs away from native-born Americans. Recently, the blog Room for Debate, the blog for the New York Times, had a group of experts weigh in on the recession and competition for lower-wage jobs between native-born workers and immigrants, both legal and illegal. CIS once again said they were. It has gotten so bad, even Canadians are being blamed.

New Illegals
As unemployment continues to rise throughout the US, the reasons we are told for the high unemployment rate range from a “soft economy” to a lack of consumer demand. However, little attention is devoted to the impact of multinational corporations on the work force within the nation. A huge factor that is shrinking the American workforce is that the white collar criminals are stealing people’s livelihood by outsourcing to their jobs to foreign shores. Corporate America has and continues to turn its back on the American worker. According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, part of the funding from the bailout package GM received will be used for the Brazilian plant.

“It wouldn’t be logical to withdraw the investment from where we’re growing, and our goal is to protect investments in emerging markets,” he said in a statement published by the business daily Gazeta Mercantil.

Those jobs Americans didn’t want to do before this economic crisis, well, in order to survive, many professionals are sucking up their pride and are now competing with the undocumented.

It’s not just corporations, its also the people from Wall Street that are ruining companies and bringing about countless of jobs losses, while lining their pockets with billions of dollars through market manipulation.

Soon after taking Jim Cramer to task, a few days later, Jon Stewart exposed the dangers of short-selling, the practice of betting on a share-price decline, which brings in huge profits for certain hedge funds. “Daily Show” correspondent Samantha Bee gets money manager Andrew Horowitz to admit that short-selling can ruin a company, therefore, laying off it’s employees. The sad truth is, it is all legal because as Samantha Bee puts it, “Just because you robbed the grave doesn’t mean you killed the guy.”

We are in this mess due to calculated schemes by sinister and greedy minds that conspire to exploit naïve entities to quench their thirst of money and power. For every exploited family there are these conspirators profiting and solidifying their grip on a disparity that benefits them at the cost of others.

Stanford Law School reported that a total of 210 federal securities class actions were filed in 2008, a 19 percent increase over the 176 such class actions in 2007, and a 9 percent increase over the average of 192 such class actions between 1997 and 2007.

Pinnacle Development Partners and its principals indicted for a $69 million ponzi scheme that defrauded over 2,000 investors in 33 states.

Parish Economics - Albert Eugene Parish Jr., a former economics professor at Charleston Southern University, and his investment advisory company, Parish Economics LLC, indicted for defrauding hundreds of investors of $50 million. The SEC complaint alleges that as many as 300 companies and individuals had invested with Parish. One of his clients included his former employer.

Bruce C. Kramer - charged for a $40 million ponzi scheme to “feed a lavish lifestyle that included a Maserati sports car and extravagant parties.”

Bernard Madoff - who may face 150 years for running a $65 billion fraud that fleeced thousands of investors, including Palm Beach retirees, trustees of Yeshiva University and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who lost his savings and his foundation’s assets.

Now that white-collar crime is running rampant and white collar criminals are the new illegals, white folks might start worrying about being accused of “driving while white,” if so, The Daily Show’s Larry Wilmore offers some advice on what to do.

Tagged as: immigration, xenophobia, nativism, wall street, white collar criminals, investment fraud

Edmundo "XP" Rocha is a social worker, freelance writer, and publisher and editor of the blog Para Justicia y Libertad.