With a sluggish economy, uncertain job growth, the most serious housing recession in more than 20 years, record oil and gasoline prices, ramping food costs, and a foreign policy landscape that's challenging (to say the least), decision makers in the United States, public and private, have more than enough to be concerned about, near-term, most analysts and citizens would agree.

Still, the above wasn't enough to prevent the annual "alarm sounding" about long-term concerns, such as Social Security and Medicare, the likes of which occurred again this week when the Social Security Trustees released their revised 2008 actuarial balance, which is a status report.

Moreover, while it's never prudent to ignore the tax and benefits implications of entitlement programs as large as Social Security and Medicare, it's important that investors and taxpayers also keep in mind one undeniable reality pertaining to statistical analysis of this sort. Namely, that we're dealing with longitudinal projections stretching out decades in which -- if any one of 20 variables (or more) change -- receipts and outlays would change substantially.

The Federal Reserve yesterday released statistics showing that for all of 2007, household net worth rose 3.4% to $57.7 trillion, the slowest growth in five years. After the effects of 4.1% inflation are included, real net worth fell for the year.

Despite these figures, I think we need to put things in perspective. After all, economic growth is cyclical and as such from time to time as the economy weakens, household net worth will decrease. It happened 5 years ago. It's not as if households lost 20-30% of their net worth. After factoring in inflation, the decrease was less than 1%. The US is still by far the wealthiest nation on earth and Americans have the highest standard of living of any people on earth. That's why there is an immigration problem. People from around the world will do whatever it takes to get to the US. So if their wealth drops minimally, I don't think it's such a big deal.

The pessimists can complain that things are bad and if you listen to them the economy will never recover.

Things have been bad before and they have always recovered.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no positions in any stock mentioned as of 3/07/08

Sources close to CNN broadcast journalist/commentator Lou Dobbs said he is seriously considering a run for the U.S. presidency in 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Dobbs, who formerly hosted CNN's MoneyLine business news show and currently hosts CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight has seen both his ratings and his name recognition rise after his work's focus turned away from news reporting and anchoring and toward political and economic commentary.

Dobbs, an independent, displays an ideology and a political world view that many have characterized as a modified hybrid of Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan -- i.e. populism combined with strong views against free trade (or current trade frameworks) and against illegal immigration.

Dobbs is a frequent critic of both the Democratic and Republican parties, which he argues don't represent the interests of the typical person or the middle class. His show's website describes him as "an independent populist and the leading media advocate for working men and women, their families, our middle class and the American way of life."

Political Analysis: Unless there's a tidal wave of discontent in the American electorate not tallied by pollsters, Dobbs, as a third-party candidate or as an Independent, has virtually no chance of being elected president of the United States. Although his name recognition is rising and he has a positive public image, it's highly unlikely Dobbs could assemble the campaign staff and money required to compete effectively against Democratic and Republican parties' nominees.

However, this is not to say that Dobbs could not broaden the discourse, i.e. "force the discussion of less-publicized issues" during a debate. Dobbs could accomplish this, but it must be emphasized that making points in a debate is a much easier task than receiving enough votes to win the electoral college vote for U.S. president.

Here's a fascinating story from The Wall Street Journal: "Despite the downturn of the mortgage market, a type of home loan has remained surprisingly sturdy: one extended to illegal immigrants....For loans more than 90 days in arrears, ITIN mortgages have a delinquency rate of about 0.5%, according to independent estimates. That compares with 1% for prime mortgages and 9.3% for subprime mortgages extended to those with spotty credit histories."

The Journal talks about the possibility of a weakening in this lost stronghold but there's another interesting story here: If these immigrants can pay their mortgages, why can't other people? Part of the reason could be that these mortgages are evaluated using different, more stringent metrics.

But I also wonder if too many Americans have just lost the sense of pride and commitment to keep their homes. If illegal immigrants can keep their homes, while they send money to families abroad and face tough job conditions, why can't Americans?

If immigrants can keep up with their mortgages, does it really make sense for Congress to push for bailouts for homeowners who are falling behind?

While media pundits and politicians debate the pros and cons of immigration, one thing is clear -- the number of immigrants both in the U.S. and worldwide is growing rapidly. And, according to Nathan Slaughter, these workers are using money transfers to send funds back to their home countries.

In his Half-Priced Stocks newsletter, the advisor turns to Western Union (NYSE: WU) as a beneficiary of this trend. He considers the company a "venerable blue chip" that is significantly undervalued.

Slaughter notes, "With more than 300,000 agent locations worldwide, Western Union is clearly the dominant player in the money-transfer industry -- it boasts a network three times as large as its closest rival."

Meanwhile, Slaughter points out that the firm recently announced that it had joined with financial services firm Checksmart to offer its services in 263 locations. This new partnership, he points out, follows a flurry of recent deals that have seen Western Union pick up more than 1,400 locations in Mexico, Italy, and Spain.

Last week, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) announced its plans to open a software development center in Canada this fall, instead of the United States, to avoid U.S. immigration issues. The location is only one of the few development centers outside the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

According to a statement, Microsoft said it will stock the center with "highly skilled people affected by immigration issues in the United States." Paul McDougall of InformationWeek.com says this is Microsoft's way of thanking the senators who helped kill the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which would have doubled the H-1B visas for high-tech workers, and considers it "a smart move."

How could this not be a smart move for Microsoft? With the U.S. failing to provide enough engineers to the industry, Microsoft and others must find applicants elsewhere. Companies could fly all the non-U.S. programmers they want into Vancouver, sans U.S. H-1B visas and U.S. government red-tape. The "offshoring" of employees across our Northern border shows why the attempts by our government to limit of movement of workers always fail.

The real question our Government needs to ask is this: Will the failure to pass an immigration bill hurt the U.S. economy more than it helps? If Microsoft can open up a center in Canada, so could hundreds of other companies, and the American economy will continue to falter. It looks like Canada is the latest country to benefit from America's immigration problem.

The U.S. government, following Bill Gates and other high-tech executives pleas before Congress a few weeks back, finally held its lottery for foreign high-tech workers to receive work visas. 65,000 so-called H-1B visas are available for foreigners to work in the U.S. as engineers, programmers or other skilled workers wrote Thomas Donlan of Barron's this weekend.

The first day to apply for a work visa was April 2, by midday 150,000 foreigners applied to get into the U.S., more than twice the available spots. The following day, the "golden gates" were closed.

20,000 of the 65,000 winners are to possess PhD.s and Masters degrees. An interesting note is that foreign students who have yet to receive their degrees were prohibited from participating in the process since they have not graduated.

People receiving legal U.S. permanent residency in 2006 were 1.2 million. 803,000 were family members of citizens. Only 159,000 got in to fill jobs. Donlan pointed out that the government appears to weigh family over most other criteria.

There has always been a lot of controversy around immigration policy, however, no matter how much the ebb and flow of feelings move from one extreme to the other, the demand by people wanting to get into the U.S. never seems to subside. It is something to think about when investing. If everyone in the world wants to come here, it must be a pretty good place to invest.

Short-term movements are irrelevant to the strong term power this economy possesses.

What started out as a simple, friendly, multi-cultural marketing ploy has drawn the ire of pizza purists all across the nation, as a medium-sized pie chain has stepped right in the middle of the somewhat hostile immigrant debate.

Dallas-based Pizza Patron, which claims a 60% Hispanic customer base, last week announced that it would begin accepting Mexican pesos at its 59 restaurants. This seems fine enough: Texas-area Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s (NYSE:WMT) and other businesses along the Rio Grande have been accepting the Mexican currency for years, while up north a similar arrangement exists with Canadian dollars. But Pizza Patron claims locations in Colorado, Arizona and Nevada -- which, last checked, is not exactly peso country -- would accept the foreign currency as well.

"This is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico," one critical e-mail read. "Quit catering to the damn illegal Mexicans," demanded another.

Says Patricia Perez, a partner at Valencia, Perez & Echeveste in Los Angeles, "Right now there's a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric going around that could make them a lightning rod."

Pizza Patron founder Antonio Swad (who, incidentally, is Italian/Lebanese) says the promotion will run through the end of February and then be re-evaluated. At which point they may, or may not, accept chocolate coins.

B. Brandon Barker is the author of Operation EMU