Birthday Girl
Yesterday was my eldest daughter's 7th birthday. As is customary she got to choose the restaurant and as custom dictates she picked the Hong Kong Buffet at the Newport Plaza.
How does this tie in with The Pure Investor and my book? - easy. One of The Five Taxes I write about is Immigration Control. I call immigrants and their work ethic and productivity the high octane fuel of the US economic engine. Any limits on legal immigration is a tax on business that lowers the returns available to The Pure Investor. If you want to know more, go buy the book.
In this particular restaurant in heavily white/Appalachian Newport, Kentucky I sat with my pretty blonde wife, my blonde eldest daughter and redheaded younger daughter. At the next table were two 20-something Hispanics who looked liked they had worked at some filthy job all day. Serving us were the same young Chinese waitresses who are always there. Whether we go on a weekday evening, a Sunday brunch or Saturday dinner - the same waitresses are there.
Sometime during the meal, the Hispanic guys started flirting with the Chinese waitresses in English - their unfamiliar, uncommon language. They did the best they could trying to interpret each other's amorous words and signals through three cultures and languages.
The Hispanic guys at the next table and the waitresses have been working hard all day - you can see it in their faces - trying to make a living, and now are flirting. My two girls didn't even take notice of them when they got a little loud. They were doing what young people have been doing for years. And I thought, "This is Northern Kentucky, this scene is new here but not in other parts of the country and the U.S. is still strong and, in some ways, stronger than it ever has been before." The national complexion may become more Hispanic or Asian or Indian, but the working, the living, and the dreaming is about the same as it was for the English, the Irish, and Italians. It made me happy. I hope they succeed. They probably will. I know their kids are going to be doing my grandkids heart transplants or curing their cancer someday, but for now they work hard where they can, eat out when they can, and flirt with each other.
My daughter's had seven good years and I think will have several more.
Stay you.
How does this tie in with The Pure Investor and my book? - easy. One of The Five Taxes I write about is Immigration Control. I call immigrants and their work ethic and productivity the high octane fuel of the US economic engine. Any limits on legal immigration is a tax on business that lowers the returns available to The Pure Investor. If you want to know more, go buy the book.
In this particular restaurant in heavily white/Appalachian Newport, Kentucky I sat with my pretty blonde wife, my blonde eldest daughter and redheaded younger daughter. At the next table were two 20-something Hispanics who looked liked they had worked at some filthy job all day. Serving us were the same young Chinese waitresses who are always there. Whether we go on a weekday evening, a Sunday brunch or Saturday dinner - the same waitresses are there.
Sometime during the meal, the Hispanic guys started flirting with the Chinese waitresses in English - their unfamiliar, uncommon language. They did the best they could trying to interpret each other's amorous words and signals through three cultures and languages.
The Hispanic guys at the next table and the waitresses have been working hard all day - you can see it in their faces - trying to make a living, and now are flirting. My two girls didn't even take notice of them when they got a little loud. They were doing what young people have been doing for years. And I thought, "This is Northern Kentucky, this scene is new here but not in other parts of the country and the U.S. is still strong and, in some ways, stronger than it ever has been before." The national complexion may become more Hispanic or Asian or Indian, but the working, the living, and the dreaming is about the same as it was for the English, the Irish, and Italians. It made me happy. I hope they succeed. They probably will. I know their kids are going to be doing my grandkids heart transplants or curing their cancer someday, but for now they work hard where they can, eat out when they can, and flirt with each other.
My daughter's had seven good years and I think will have several more.
Stay you.
posted by Howard McEwen, CFA at Wednesday, August 25, 2004
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