Category: Guest Authors

Pop Growth Outpaces Housing Starts

By Joe Guzzardi

The nation’s housing shortage, 6.5 million homes, is an out-of-control crisis, according to CNN’s dire warning last month. Between 2012 and 2022, 15.6 million households were formed. During the same period, 13 million housing units (9 million single-family homes and 4 million multi-family homes) were started. Of the 13 million, 11.9 million were completed (8.5 million single-family homes and 3.4 million multi-family homes).

In 2021’s second half and the first part of 2022, the fast-paced building spurt continued. Then, with the Federal Reserve determined that slowing inflation was essential, interest rates including those on mortgages rose, and housing demand cooled. Builders backed away from single-family housing starts. The solution to the shortage, CNN predicted, would be to triple the single-family home housing starts which would, within three or four years, close the existing 6.5 million shortage, and keep up with new demand.

The CNN story mentioned, but did not elaborate on, the shortage’s cause: in 2022, the U.S. saw the last decade’s highest annual household formation level with 2.06 million new households. Population growth, long ignored by Congress and the establishment media as toxic and unmentionable, drives the need for more development. The equation between ever-more people and the need to build homes for them is obvious, but unmentionable. Accelerating growth remains taboo because the subject will eventually come around to immigration, an even more uncomfortable topic.

The math that the Census Bureau and other federal agencies provide is inarguable. Every year, more than 1 million permanent residents enter the U.S. Another 1 million arrive on temporary employment visas. Whether they return to their home countries or not, they need housing during their visa’s term. Since Biden’s inauguration, his administration’s open border policy has welcomed about 5 million asylum seekers, with millions more to come before the president’s 2024 re-election bid.

Add more than 2 million gotaways — the 1.2 million to date that Customs and Border Protection knows about and the roughly million certain to elude border agents in the next 18 months. During the Biden administration’s four years, between 10 and 15 million legal permanent residents, guest workers, asylum seekers and gotaways will need housing. The Census Bureau predicts that by 2060 the nation’s immigrant population will rise from its current 14.3 percent to 17.1 percent of the total U.S. population.

The powerful pro-growth lobby maintains a $60 million Capitol Hill presence, and Congress’ informal motto is “the more, the better,” especially if it makes donors’ wishes come true. The list of negatives that over-development worsens is long. Among them are biodiversity loss, carbon emission increases and overcrowding. At the top of the list, however, are water shortages, a problem so acute that the Biden administration has proposed cutting the Colorado River’s water allotments delivered to California, Arizona and Nevada by as much as one-quarter. The Colorado River provides drinking water to 40 million Americans and irrigates 5.5 million agricultural acres.

With water running low and development an increasing environmental scourge, a responsible federal government would comply with the requirement to weigh the environmental effect on any new policies it enacts; opening the Southwest and Northern Borders would be such a policy. The National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act require an environmental impact study. But like U.S. immigration laws, the Biden administration ignores the federally mandated obligation to conduct environmental impact studies, perhaps because it knows that the results would be catastrophic to developers and to Biden’s commitment to mass immigration.

Immigration and births to immigrants are the biggest population growth drivers in the U.S. As long as the status quo continues, housing demand will be impossible to fully satisfy. Good luck to builders tackling that challenge, especially in the increasingly dry Southwest, and good luck to the established neighborhoods that will have to cope with the quality-of-life-altering sprawl that overdevelopment creates.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts.

Pop Growth Outpaces Housing Starts

Giant Cruise Ships Bad For Environment

By Joe Guzzardi

The cruise ship industry puts out beguiling advertisements intended to attract more customers on board. Showing couples in summer wear, sipping cocktails and looking out over the ocean to watch the setting sun as they sail off to a distant, romantic destination, ads appear everywhere, from television, social media and movie previews to subway cars.

A closer look at the cruise ship business and its harmful effects on the ecosystem paint a far grimmer picture than advertisements convey. Hakai Magazine, an online publication that focuses on science and society in coastal regions, created the route of the Oceanic Topaz, a fictional but representative cruise ship, on a seven-day journey from Seattle to Alaska. The weeklong trip stopped at various ports like Juneau, Ketchikan and Victoria, before returning to Seattle.

This year, an estimated 700,000 passengers will depart Seattle on hundreds of different cruises. Travelers’ voyages are on increasingly massive ships that house, feed and process the waste of upward of 4,000 passengers. From 2015 until today, the average weight of a major line’s new cruise ship was 164,000 gross tons — more than twice the size of a ship built during the 1990s. The Symphony of the Seas weighs a staggering 228,081 gross tons.

Touted as inexpensive, all-inclusive vacations, Pacific Northwest cruises deliver thousands of people to the glaciers, fjords and small towns of southeast Alaska. Cruises are an integral part of the Pacific Northwest’s tourism economy, but they bring with them significant environmental degradation and deleterious human consequences. Carbon emissions, wastewater discharges, engine and propeller noise, mountains of trash and an unmanageable tourist influx have had a damaging cumulative impact on the ecosystems of tiny communities. As they move from stop-to-stop, the massive vessels disrupt fish, whales and birds; while docked, residents.

This tourism season, 13 ships will make 291 trips between Seattle and Alaska; the imaginary Oceanic Topaz will begin its journey in Seattle which derives significant economic benefits from cruise passengers. In 2022, cruise tourists spend around $900 million in the greater Seattle area, income that supports about 5,500 jobs. That’s the good news. On the other hand, as an Alaska-bound ship sets sail, its 3,600 passengers go about their daily business of flushing toilets, showering and brushing teeth. Each passenger will produce a daily average of 7 gallons of sewage — also known as black water — and about 66 gallons of wastewater from showers, pools, laundry and other non-sewage runoff known as gray water. For a ship carrying 3,600 people, that amounts to about 400 eight-person hot tubs worth of sewage and over 3,000 hot tubs worth of gray water each day.

A grand ship voyage with dramatic views and promised nonstop fun on board is hard for tourists to resist. But add together the carbon emissions, wastewater pollution, noise impacts, trash, thousands of tourists and the impact on wildlife, and the negative effect of cruising is overwhelming.

The argument for economic gains for small communities is understandable and persuasive. But as the Oceanic Topaz example shows, the regions that host these mammoth floating hotels also have a lot to lose. In 2019, in Victoria, where cruise ships have the option to offload accumulated garbage rather than return it to their home port of Seattle, the equivalent of 100 fully loaded garbage trucks were dumped in the region’s Hartland Landfill.

Pre-COVID, the cruise industry’s aggregate revenue hit $27 billion. The U.S., with its long coastlines and easy access to Caribbean ports, leads the world in cruise revenue. By 2026, cruise revenue is expected to reach $35 billion.

Cruise lines have a powerful presence in Washington, D.C. Unlike U.S. airlines and hotels, cruise lines did not benefit from generous government subsidies since they are not registered in the U.S., and therefore American laws do not entirely bind them. Consequently, lobbying by cruise lines spiked from the average $3.5 million between 2009 and 2019 to $4.4 million in 2020 and $5.3 million in 2021. The objective: to get those floating hotels back on the water after the sharp COVID-19-related decline.

An all-out ban on cruise ships is unrealistic, but daily limits at ports-of-call make sense. Based in part on a 2022 commissioned study that the Juneau Assembly requested and in which 74 percent of residents supported limits, the final approval urged a five-ship limit. But such an obvious idea to at least reduce the adverse outcome for residents and the ecosystem has little chance against Big Money interests.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Find his immigration pieces at Immigration News on Substack.

Giant Cruise Ships Bad For Environment

Mickey Mantle’s Regrets

By Joe Guzzardi

In 1994, a year before his death from alcohol-induced cirrhosis, hepatitis C and inoperable liver cancer, Mickey Mantle gave a remorseful interview to Sports Illustrated. The New York Yankees superstar center fielder and first-ballot Hall of Fame inductee recounted his life as an alcoholic with brutal candor. Mantle admitted that because of alcohol abuse, he ended up “killing himself.”

Except to other alcoholics, Mantle’s confession about how drinking kept him from living a more fulfilling life and ruptured his relationships with friends and family doesn’t square with baseball diamond fame. Mantle began some of his mornings with what he called the “breakfast of champions,” a big glass filled with a shot or more of brandy, some Kahlúa and cream. Yankees’ second baseman Billy Martin, a regular drinking partner, and Mantle would stop at Mickey’s Central Park South restaurant where the bartender blended the ingredients and served them up. As Mickey remembered, the frozen drinks “tasted real good.”

Mantle’s “breakfast of champions” was the first of many drinks he threw back each day. Inevitably, Mickey’s heavy drinking led to long blackout periods. By his own admission, Mantle would forget what day it was, what city he was in and about his commitments to appear at baseball card signing shows, although he eventually showed up. The best man at Martin’s 1988 wedding, Mantle “hardly remember(ed) being there.” One year later, Mantle served as a pallbearer at Martin’s funeral. Billy had been killed in a single vehicle automobile accident on Christmas Day. Although there is some dispute about whether Martin or his friend Bill Reedy drove, no one questions that the pair had been drinking heavily in the hours before the fatal crash.

After Mantle retired, his drinking became, in his words, “really bad.” He went through a deep depression. Teammates Billy, Whitey Ford, Hank Bauer and Moose Skowron were part of his past life, and leaving those guys “left a hole in me.” Mantle tried to fill up his baseball emptiness with nonstop alcohol intake.

The older Mantle got, the more he drank. Family and friends begged Mantle to get help. But Mantle stubbornly refused. Like too many alcoholics, Mantle foolishly convinced himself that he could stop whenever he wanted. But at a charity golf outing for the Harbor Club Children’s Christmas Fund near Atlanta, Mantle hit bottom. He drank Bloody Marys in the morning, and then downed two bottles of wine in the afternoon. At the card show that evening, Mantle embarrassed himself with his obnoxious, drunken behavior. In his alcohol-fueled stupors, Mantle often berated autograph seekers, a shock to his fans who cherished his image as a homey, blond-hair, crewcut Oklahoma kid.

Atlanta was an overdue awakening for Mantle. Finally seeking guidance, Mantle approached his son Danny who had been treated at the Betty Ford Center. Three of Mantle’s four sons and his wife Merlyn were also alcoholics. While Mantle deliberated about checking into the Betty Ford Center, his doctor gave him his MRI results: Mickey needed a liver transplant.

Once at Betty Ford, Mantle confronted his uncomfortable truth. Mantle admitted that, as he told Sports Illustrated, “he really screwed up,” was a lousy family man, and preferred running around with his baseball buddies. Envisioning his life as a sober, responsible Mantle, Mickey had big plans, but did not live long enough to realize them to the fullest. His goal was to stay sober, be strong and make amends. At his final press conference, Mantle said to an audience aghast at his wasted-away body: “This is a role model: Don’t be like me.”

Today, Mantle is remembered mostly for his brilliant baseball achievements: 20 All-Star games, three AL MVP awards including one in his 1956 Triple Crown season, seven World Series championship rings, four AL Home Run crowns, and a first ballot Hall of Fame inductee.

But for the millions of Americans suffering from alcoholism, Mantle’s ability to overcome – although too late to save his life – is a bigger triumph than any of his baseball feats. For more information, go to the National Alcohol Awareness Month website here.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. You can also read his content here. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Mickey Mantle’s Regrets Mickey Mantle’s Regrets

China Perpetrating Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History

By Joe Guzzardi

Customs and Border Protection agents have identified individuals from more than 150 nations attempting, mostly successfully, to enter the United States. Among those aliens, the Chinese are arriving in increasingly large numbers.

The journey for these Chinese is thousands of miles long, costly and dangerous — one that few would willingly embark upon since their futures, once in the U.S., would be uncertain. The Chinese migrants speak little English and have limited work skills. Nevertheless, one Chinese migrant, Zhang Kiayu, began his journey north in Ecuador, then traveled through Colombia, passed through the treacherous Darien Gap where smugglers then coordinated his travel on to Panama before reaching the Mexico/Texas border. Speculation is on the rise that the migrants may be Chinese Communist Party agents. A CCP affiliation would explain who funded the $35,000 Kiayu paid traffickers.

Texas Department of Public Safety Lt. Chris Olivarez said that the spike in Chinese migrants is unusual and “very alarming.” Olivarez blamed the cartels who are, he said, running a “very lucrative business.” During February 2023, there were 1,368 encounters of Chinese migrants versus 55 during February 2022. Since October, just five months into the current fiscal year, the total has grown to 4,366.

Chinese immigration to the U.S. has a long and often turbulent history. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and restrictions that the Chinese government imposed after World War II and the Chinese Communist Revolution limited migration. But after the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 removed the barriers for non-European immigrants, and after China relaxed it emigration restrictions, the number of Chinese immigrants residing in the U.S. nearly doubled from 370,000 in 1980 to 677,000 in 1990. The number doubled again by 2000 to more than 1.8 million before reaching 2.4 million in 2021. The Chinese population has continued to grow. Chinese Americans are the largest Asian origin group in the U.S., and represent the third largest origin group after Mexican and Indian migrants.

There’s an important distinction between then and now, however. The Chinese surging the border are illegal aliens as opposed to earlier waves that, for the most part, arrived in the U.S. through a legal port of entry and held a valid visa. Kiayu and the others released at the Southwest border were given notices to appear for an immigration hearing. Even if their intention is to show up, and fewer than half do, appointments are often backlogged for up to seven years. During the waiting period, the whereabouts and the intentions of the unvetted migrants, Chinese and otherwise, will remain unknown. Evaluating the arriving Chinese, some wonder if given the CCP’s quest for world domination, their government might be motivated to take advantage of the Biden administration’s open borders to smuggle agents into the U.S.

The Biden administration may play down or even dismiss the national security threat that China represents, but FBI Director Christopher Wray has a different perspective. Wray points to what the FBI calls China’s “Talent Plans” that allow its nationals with existing jobs in the U.S. “to participate in such plans part-time so they can maintain their access to intellectual property, trade secrets, pre-publication data and methods, and U.S. funding for their research.” These plans, maintains the FBI, represent a risk to universities, laboratories and U.S. businesses. Wray told a Hudson Institute audience that the FBI opens a new case related to China every 10 hours and that 50 percent of the roughly 5,000 active FBI counterintelligence cases are China-related.

China’s foreign minister Qin Gang warned of pending “conflict and confrontation” with the U.S. In turn, the Department of State cautioned against U.S. citizens traveling to China because of “arbitrary enforcement of local laws” and the risk of wrongful detention.

FBI alerts about Chinese interference in U.S. affairs are more than hypothetical. In 2018, the U.S. Trade Representative estimated that Chinese theft of American IP costs U.S. firms between $225 billion and $600 billion every year. In 2014, China stole the files of more than 22 million Americans, including the security-clearance files of everyone in the intelligence establishment. General Keith Alexander, a former National Security Agency director, has called China’s technology theft “the greatest transfer of wealth in human history.”

With red flags flying, and with the stakes at American universities, laboratories and businesses high, Biden’s indifference to the Chinese entering illegally, and virtually at will, proves his callous disregard for the nation he’s sworn to defend and the citizens who trusted him.

Joe Guzzardi writes about immigration issues and impacts. Sign up here for free to receive immigration columns in your inbox.

China Perpetrating Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History