Jobs Needed Now
I just got back from a country where everybody seems pretty happy with their health care system: Canada. It was a little weird to hear people talking about dealing with health care without anyone bitching about insurance companies, or being warned about what would happen to their health care if they switched jobs or had a pre-existing condition.
I was in Vancouver to give a speech and sign some books at a meeting of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW). I have a great fondness for the Machinists because their President when I was coming of age in the early 1980s was a fire-breathing, hell-raising trade unionist named Bill Wipinsinger, who gave some of the best speeches I have ever seen in my life, and who never backed down from challenging authority; and also because my greatest political mentor was an Iowa Machinist named Bill Fenton, who was the hardest drinker, best organizer, and most fearless political rabble-rouser I ever knew. When I was a young community organizer, I organized a union for my organization, and it was an easy pick to affiliate with the Machinists.
At the Machinists meeting, we of course spent a lot of time talking about health care and the fight for a public option, but the other big topic of the meeting was the fight for mere jobs, especially manufacturing jobs. I firmly believe that without a more aggressive focus on creating good jobs in manufacturing and infrastructure, which have a bigger multiplier effect than any other kind of jobs, that our economy will continue to sputter, and that Democratic politics will be in a world of hurt.
The big industrial unions with the most at stake in terms of the issue of manufacturing jobs -- the IAMAW, UAW, Steelworkers, Teamsters -- do not by themselves have the political power right now to force the Democrats to go down this path, to do more investments in creating these jobs, to stop being pansies with other countries so often on trade issues, to invest in the manufacturing sectors with the most promise. Hopefully, they can get the broader progressive movement to join in this cause. But Democrats would be very foolish not to see the economic and political wisdom of doing this ASAP.
We are seeing glimmers of this with Obama. The investments made by the stimulus bill and his first budget proposal made were decent starts, and finally standing up to the Chinese on the tire issue was very welcome. But we are going to need to see a lot more in the way of serious job initiatives if this badly wounded economy is going to start producing jobs.
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I have stated here before that President O has wasted to much of the public's good will towards him
on healthcare, healthcare is very very important, but how much can I pay for healthcare if I don't have
a job, did you say nothing.
Part of FDR's wonderful New Deal legacy was the Works Progress Administration.
It seems to be the one missing component to economic stimulus and recovery.
We cannot trust the private sector to generate private sector jobs fast enough. Corporations are too busy overpaying their CEOs to hire new workers.
The banks aren't lending the money and the TARP funds are partially padding CEO bonuses.
It's time to stimulate the "Labor" side of the economic equations instead of just the "Capital" side.
Supply-side economics was proven not to work under George W. Bush's failed presidency. Stimulate the demand side of the economy.
Inject stimulus at the bottom. No more "trickle down". It doesn't work.
´ Wake, you mention FDR who was a giant. Obama is no giant, he is a specialist in uplifting speeches and nothing else. He is a servant of the status quo, wich means a paper - shuffling and speculation economy, with no manufacturing.
I am tired of the U.S. being compared to China !!! thats what the GOP wants : for us to compete at the bottom of the market for cheap labor.
I would like the U.S. to be compared with GERMANY or other similar countries, with their fantastic manufacturing sectors. How do they do it ? How does their public health and retirement systems contribute to their manufacturing competitiveness ? How does industrial policy contribute to this success ? how do their strong unions work to achieve this success ?
Please can someone raise this point ??? the U.S. has to look upwards to Germany and not downwards to China.
Cheers Mike, you are the best
For there to be job creation you need a hungry, motivated, educated workforce that does not think the world and it's government owes them something. That does not exist in America. It does exist elsewhere. I reccently went looking to hire someone. No one out there is reliable. No one. It is amazing. When I was a kid you could find 10 people. Today goose egg.
You say the American workforce is not motivated, not hungry and not educated. You say the American workforce thinks the world and its government owes them something. How did you come by your contempt for American workers? Have you ever actually done any work? What happened when you "went looking to hire someone". Did you want them to mow your lawn? Did you end up having to do it yourself? You say not one single person is reliable. Could that be an exaggeration?
Obama is Bush. In every meaningful way. The unions only need to look at the way Obama handled the GM bailouts. He forced the unions to take huge cuts but the executives all kept their jobs (except Wagner who walked with $10 million) and GM is moving full speed ahead on it China operations.
Think about that for a second, the US taxpayer owns GM and so Obama has forced us to pay for offshoring! Obama took our money and is using it to create jobs in China. Those cars will eventually start to be imported into the US. Even Bush didn't screw us this bad!
I was fortunate to hear Mike speak at this event, and even though I haven't finished his book, "The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be" - I highly recommend it.
Thank you.
Since Reagan, well really Nixon, America has been severely weakened by an industrial growth policy that transfers wealth to the top 1% from the middle class. And, Republicans have worked hard to ship good jobs offshore so that the top executives and bankers can earn more short term.
The policy has been killing the golden goose - America's highly productive middle class.
America needs to build again. America needs tax policies that strongly encourage investment. Low tax rates for corporations and individuals simply do not achieve that goal - they allow the rich to skim off profits without further investment.
Time to significantly raise the marginal tax rate on corporations and on high-income individuals.
And, give them significant tax shields for capital investments in industrial growth - particularly areas that expand America's strength in advanced technologies and energy saving technologies.
That would do much more for the country than the short-term boost to just the Chicagoland area for the length of one summer Olympics.
All that sounds good but with rare exception (Apple etc) true innovative talent in this country has beenn crushed by what Jack Welch would call " the taking of ideas and letting them percolate up to the top levels of management in the comapny." In other words steal them, and make them yours (by destoying your example of the idea whether it was or not and putting up their better example.) . And to add that final just right level of insult and humiliation, fire the guy who had the idea in the first place. They have walked and have said collectively do it your self and they can't and they never will.
Yes. I have been subject to that percolation process.
That is one of the reasons that I own my own small business.
Most innovation and creativity come from smaller businesses.
The Obama Administration and the Democrats have utterly failed to provide any substantive support for small business - even going so far as to redefine what a small business is so that they can more easily use their support for much larger businesses.
The Obama Administration and the Democrats have failed miserably to make any visible effort to control bad banker behavior. Obama, Geithner and Summers seem to be systematically working to crush small business and, instead, give money to the executives of the largest corporations - banks, insurance, health care.
Corporations are amoral - they exist and are managed not for the society in which they exist, but rather for the corporation itself. Business ethics is an oxymoron. Social Responsiblity of executives is an idiotic dream. Corporate behavior must have socially responsible constraints imposed by society.
Obama and the Democrats could raise tax rates significantly for the top 2% of earners and corporations. Then give significant tax shields for investment in American technology and industry.
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