MacroScope

When Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher and inveterate QE3 critic spoke Thursday evening at a black tie insurance industry event in booming Dallas, he left monetary policy out completely. As he often does with a speech directed at fellow Texans, he bragged on the Lone Star State, its job-generating prowess and its resilience since the Great Recession.

And then, in a tale he rarely tells publicly but that has particular resonance amid the rancorous national debate on immigration, he talked of another spectacular success: his dad. “This man is why, despite the current slow economic recovery we are experiencing outside of Texas, despite the fiscal tomfoolery of our national politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, despite the negativism and bad news that pervades the headlines, I have great faith in this country,” he said.

At age five, Fisher’s father was convicted of being a “neglected child” in Queensland, Australia, having been found sleeping under bridges and in doorways with his drunken father. He was sent to a reformatory, then to an orphanage, then to a series of foster families, one of which tied him up in the yard at night by the ankle and woke him “ in the predawn hours to deliver milk by horse drawn carriage.” His teeth rotted. He went to South Africa, drove buses, married, and sailed to the United States, “only to discover that his record and lack of documentation made him inadmissible.”

He took a bus to Tijuana, sold cars and outsmarted racetrack bookies, and after eight years won U.S. citizenship. Broke, he hired himself out to work in Shanghai, then returned to Los Angeles where he spent a lifetime selling tools and silver in Mexico, “aeroplanes in Indonesia, used cars in Florida, men’s suits in New York, women’s undergarments in the Caribbean…doing anything and everything he can to make a buck to support his family.”

Fisher, of course, attended Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, made millions managing money and now is one of just 19 men and women who set monetary policy for the most powerful economy in the world.

What would Main Street America look like without immigrants?

Picture vastly fewer restaurants (37% of the industry’s ownership is foreign-born), hotels and accommodation (43% foreign-born ownership), dry cleaning and laundry facilities (54% foreign-born), and nail salons (37%). It would be that much harder to go out for a treat (bakeries, 32% immigrant-owned), fill up the tank (gas stations, 53%), or grab a bottle of wine on the way to a dinner party (beer, wine and liquor stores, 42%).

As President Barack Obama announces a big shift in immigration policy that will offer greater leniency to individuals under 30 who came into the United States as undocumented children, a new report from the New York-based Fiscal Policy Institute highlights just how broad a role immigrants play in the world’s largest economy.

In his speech this week, President Barack Obama hinted at the new policy:

If we truly want to make this country a destination for talent and ingenuity from all over the world, we won’t deport hardworking, responsible young immigrants who have grown up here or received advanced degrees here. We’ll let them earn the chance to become American citizens so they can grow our economy and start new businesses right here instead of someplace else.

German central bank board member Thilo Sarrazin

Fresh from asserting that diplomacy is over-rated for central bankers, German Bundesbank President Axel Weber is now embroiled in an embarrassing scandal over undiplomatic comments from one of his board members which could ultimately damage Weber’s own career ambitions.

Thilo Sarrazin, who joined the central bank’s board last year, has unleashed a debate in Germany over immigration and integration policy with a book critical of Turkish immigrants and has drawn rebukes from political leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, for asserting that Jews and Basques have a “particular gene” that sets them apart.

The Bundesbank condemned his comments as harming the reputation of the institution and is considering its options, but under German law – designed to safeguard the independence of the central bank from political swings and roundabouts — has only limited options to get him removed.

If you’re looking for ground zero in America’s longest and deepest recession, El Centro in southern California appears on first glance to fit the bill.

The unemployment rate here and for the whole of Imperial County hit 30.1 percent in September, the highest rate in the United States. Locals say there is no denying that El Centro has suffered as a result of the recession and that jobs are more scarce in an area where agriculture is the backbone of the community and forms 25 percent of the local economy.

“We’ve always had high unemployment, but nothing like this,” said Judith Klein-Pritchard, director of the Center for Family Solutions of Imperial Valley, which provides intervention for domestic violence and shelter services in the area.