Censored Comments from: robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/01/stimulus-how-to-create-jobs-without.html --------------- 497 Comments: Steve said... you might get some of those quotas right away without trying. chances are good that the usual white-male might already be gainfully employed and not have reason to switch to these stimulus jobs. plus, being one of those white male professional types none of my coworkers have encouraged their children to be an engineer. from what I\x{2019}ve seen from my college mail, the engineering department has been largely minority for many years. these are usually first generation immigrants. Although some key high unemployment regions are already predominantly white so asking for these quotas in those areas will certainly cause a stir\x{2026} Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... You hit on a point that I've been thinking about as well, how people gain access to employment opportunities. Really small, local businesses (not those that are in effect subsidized by larger entities to gain gov't contracts) need to get a certain percentage as well as the un- and under-employed in specific locals. Then, there's the issue of training and getting up to speed in the content and skills needed. Coordinated, online training and certification might work for some aspects. But for real-life applied training, which could also bring in some revenue to local orgs (e.g., local community colleges, trade affiliates), may be able to offer certification programs or something. In addition to women and minorities, remember to add people over a certain age, whether in the 40s or 50s, who are having trouble finding work and still have mortgages and college tuitions to finance. Perhaps something like a PeaceCorp approach, with 3 months subsidized training for specific locations/skill sets, then a subsidized service period of work, which could open the door to future opps. A certain percentage could be local hires to ensure base support and skill retention, plus more those with "expert" skills could be assigned, even if they weren't local. The AARP Work Search project for people over 50 might also provide a model for identifying, matching skills sets or training for skill gaps and providing match up with local employment opps. As a 50-something w/o a job, I'm scared and don't know where to look. Most businesses seem to prefer younger workers as opposed to over-qualified older workers who've been out of the workforce for a while. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Our central planners have their work cut out for them! Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... As another nudge in the right direction, I think the contractors should be required, along with their employees, to have a group hug at the beginning of every work day. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Steve S said... If you want to get a lot of low skilled people employed effectively and quickly and also the biggest bang for the buck for energy conservation, look into insulation. Nothing reduces our energy consumption as quickly as using our current energy supplies more efficiently. Residential, commercial, and industrial facilities all can benefit from upgraded or repaired insulation. The materials are typically made in the US which is nice but the majority of the cost of insulation is the labor to install it. This is a job that can usually be done with a modest amount of training. Around half of industrial insulation is installed by union workers and the unions have very strong training and apprenticeship programs. There is a great article in the January Insulation Outlook magazine detailing how insulation is "greener" than planting trees. The article is not yet online. Disclosure: I own a company that builds machinery used by insulation manufacturers and installers. One more point, typical insulation projects have payback periods of 1-2 years, and so are a great investment purely on the financial merits. Industry usually takes advantage of these easy money projects. Leased commercial spaces and typical homes are not well insulated. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Blogger Jack Lohman said... >>> "The stimulus plan will create jobs repairing and upgrading the nation's roads, bridges, ports, levees, water and sewage system, public-transit systems, electricity grid, and schools." Hey, that's just fine. It helps 20% of the population at the expense of the other 80%. Why not simply provide every US employer a 50% subsidy on any new position they add to their company? Then only needed jobs will be added and 100% of the population will benefit. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous John Lawrence said... Dr. Reich said: And if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades, ... In my neck of the woods cconstruction jobs are dominateed by Hispanics, a lot of whom are probably illegal. I would think that it should be specified that any jobs created would go to American citizens ... no exceptions - with harsh penalties for violaters. Also wage levels must be set by government else contractors will pay their employees zilch while making tidy profits. Also no layers and layers of subcontracting as in Iraq where each subcomntractor takes his share and the final work is done by an employee who gets paid next to nothing. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Lauren said... I agree John. I think Dr Reich's quota is rather low. I think all stimulus jobs should be offered, first, to unemployed people with requisite skills, and then to other, currently employed workers/contractors. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Angry Citizen said... I am a big supporter of the President-elect, but have to say that whenever he states his goal to save or create 2.5 million jobs by 2011, as he did again today, it makes me really nervous. Don't we have to both save AND create that amount? Green jobs sound great. One thing that I wonder, though, is what kind of demand for those jobs is there? I'd bet the businesses and maybe schools would be willing to pay some money to have people come in and make their buildings more efficient, but would individuals? Our house was built in 1928, still has most of the original windows, and gets a little bit drafty sometimes in the winter. I know where the drafts are. And I wouldn't pay someone to come in and tell me where they were or fix them for me. Instead, if I really wanted to fix it, I'd get online, do some research, and fix it myself. I would imagine that folks who are more well-off either don't have a lot of problems with their homes, are willing to pay the people who currently do that sort of work to come in and do it, or would fix it themselves, too. People who are much less well-off wouldn't be able to pay at all. Installing solar panels is a different story, yet again, what would the demand be? Wouldn't there have to be some kind of a government incentive for people to have solar panels installed on their homes? A lot of people out there still don't believe in global warming or see any need to change the way they use or think about energy. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... So now we have to have a way for the contractors to verify that these potential employees fall into the correct group, and we need extra enforcement officials to verify that the contractors are following the rules. Now I see why Obama only said that 4 out of 5 of the new jobs would be in the private sector. The 1 in 5 jobs that are gov't is to make sure the other 4 are following all the new regulations. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... All this worry about white men getting jobs in the bailout! The truth is that men's job have suffered in this recession more than women's: "Losing jobs in unequal numbers - 1,069,000 fewer men are working than a year ago. 12,000 more women are working." http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/12/05/losing_jobs_in_unequal_numbers/ Men in academia are cowed by the feminists, this is unfortunately true even of Dr. Reich. (I'm posting this again, didn't see my first try, sorry if it's a duplicate) Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Steve S said... Mr. Angry Citizen, you are making my point about insulation for me! Some new homes are marketed as energy efficient, but the typical home buyer would prefer to pay an extra $5000 for granite countertops instead of extra insulation. Older homes such as your (and mine) would benefit from upgraded insulation. The holdup is the initial expense, lack of expertise or information, or lack of time to do it ourselves. We throw away huge amounts of energy because our homes and offices are uninsulated or poorly insulated. Even industrial facilities are reluctant to spend the money on insulation right now. Can the incoming administration and congress do something to prod people into saving energy with improved insulation? The payback on insulation is typically months or a couple of years, vs a payback on solar or wind of decades. For an accessibly written yet detailed analysis of the benefits of insulation look here. http://www.insulation.org/articles/article.cfm?id=IO080801 Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Blogger Steve said... not knowing what the "green" effort will be, California in the electric energy crisis (?) in 2002 (when was it? was it even real?) was able to slam conservation pretty hard and saved enough energy in just a few months to equal several power plants. scale that effort up across the country and the jobs and needed labor base is likely already in place. it's homeowners and city maintenance mainly. the stop lights went to LED's pretty much everywhere. businesses installed sensors to turn off office lights if no one was in the room after so many minutes. (or left sleeping after a meeting). for home use those twister bulbs have been shown to seriously save energy. in California twice a year the energy company has a rebate direct to the manufacturer which is invisible to the consumer except that bulb that usually costs around $8 each then costs about $1 each. again the manufacturing base for the bulbs is in place... (china). meanwhile the energy savings are seriously high and such a nationwide rebate incentive would cause a radical drop in the country's energy usage. if a big effort toward "green" is homeowner based there would be a two prong gain: existing job base, and homeowner's direct monthly energy bill savings. pretty much everyone gets's their share this way. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... This post is proof positive that Prof. Reich resides in an academic bubble. He asserts: REICH WORLD: Most construction workers are white males. REAL WORLD -Most construction workers are illegal latins. REICH WORLD: SKILLED PROFESSIONAL SALARIES WILL RISE: REAL WORLD: There was a glut of skilled professionals before the crisis. None of the caps on temporary visas were enforced during the Bush years (maybe that will change). Hence importing vast numbers of new temp immigrants will be used to minimize the cost to the companies. Remember, the companies goal is to MAXIMIZE profits! Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Blogger Steve said... Anonymous said: \x{201C}Most construction workers are white males. -Most construction workers are illegal Latin\x{2019}s. SKILLED PROFESSIONAL SALARIES WILL RISE\x{201D} That\x{2019}s not true! They are mid range jobs for a lot of people, and while they do have a core of illegal\x{2019}s, it\x{2019}s hardly \x{201C}most\x{201D}. Although coincident with this effort should be a step up of inspections of companies that employ illegals. From what I read there is a shortage of these inspectors. There\x{2019}s a job stream right there! And there is a hold up of enforcing the discovery of SS numbers used illegally in IRS tax returns. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Oliversnit said... Only a tenured professor from Berkley would come up with this nonsense. No surprise. Blame it all on white males who, for some reason, make things happen. Women and "minorities" have had equal opportunity for a long time now and most governments have special programs assuring that contracts go to them. Reich is full of humbug on this one. The problem is and remains, the pols in DC made sure that manufacturing was shipped overseas. Manufacturing is essential for full employment. People do not mind working. Most just want to put in a shift and earn a living. Why is that so hard to understand? Global trade? BAH!!! The US has been screwed vis-a-vis world trade. Get out of Oz Mr. Reich. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Steve said... Seriously, Dr. Reich - and I think this question deserves an answer - why discriminate with regard to race and gender at all? Why not just aim these jobs at ALL people who have had a hard time breaking into the job market - no matter what their race or creed? Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Blogger dasht said... That is a horrible idea. You underestimate both the skill levels of many of the jobs you mention and the incompetence of a bureaucratic process to efficiently allocate such jobs according to a quota. The idea is central planning at its stereotyped worst. You'll wind up imposing billions of dollars in new transaction costs (to assure "conformance") and achieve an outcome with little resemblance to what you hope for. You have to "change" (that's the talking point word, right) the notion of control here - you have to change governments role. You're trying to fine tune old, fanciful, unrealistic imagined roles: regulating employment quotas and planning training priorities. It's never worked once and it won't start working now. Government has to fix this with a very different *kind* of intervention. The only way I know to help is bottom up - grass roots - neighborhood by neighborhood, zip code by zip code. Think of what an idealized philanthropic capitalist would do if he or she "adopted" some region as a pet project. They'd find ways and means to get around and meet the community, identify the influencers and leaders, and develop development plans in consultation with those folks. It's the *personal relationships* not the demographic memberships that determine the health and robustness of trade. Here's an example of "stimulus that would really make a good difference" and fits my grass-roots approach: Robert, go down to SW Oakland or, for that matter, SW Berkeley. Walk around and puzzle out what people's day-to-day lifestyles and home economics is like. One thing you should notice is the lack of quality, affordable, accessible retail groceries - pretty basic, right? A good government stimulus (in the Oakland case, not Berkeley) would be to incent some investors to go solve that problem: build a good retail food supply there, creating local and construction jobs on the way. A basic structural need. Capitalists won't do it on their own because the difficulties of making a going concern of it are sufficient that the investors' ROI will be unimpressive but there's a social interest in having our best business professionals design and evangelize that going concern anyway - so a little stimulus can help there. I don't think you go down to where poverty is dense and say "Hey, folks, how about you all line up - poorest to east poor - and we'll set you to work pounding nails for $gazillion solar projects. Some of you will turn into door to door salesmen for insulation and home solar." That would be a bad joke. You go down into each of those regions and you meet people and you say "What businesses does *this* place need?" and then you problem solve to make going concerns of those. -t Peace,Love,Hope said... I have a vision for America: A plug in Hybrid in every garage and solar on EVERY roof. Imagine if everyone could commute to work with NO gasoline? We have to eliminate "Global Warming" from the energy debate. Solar is an unlimited resource and making every structure a small power plant eliminates risk and gives everyone a piece of the action, so to speak. Tax credits from City,County,State and the Federal Government would Improve the property owners "Investment" and the owner's share could be paid for with a very low interest Government loan. Training takes weeks and it's not rocket science. Requiring a Made In U.S.A label could generate a Huge Industry for generations. This is a PROVEN TECHNOLOGY with a 25 year Guarantee, the hardware has a 15 year service life. We could be a net exporter of coal in ten years. Insulating old structures,new glass and modern wiring Etc.,etc. would create 1million jobs for unskilled young people. New small businesses will swell the middle class and the army of retiring baby boomers can help with business plans and bookkeeping (control Fraud). Roads and bridges are Corporate Crack. They should be paid for with the tax receipts booming economy, not the stimulus . Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Blogger wow gold said... If wow goldfocal point of wow gold our new buy wow goldOpen RvR buy wow goldInfluence system cheap wow gold is mortal combat cheap wow goldbetween players of wow power levelingenemy realms. wow power levelingIn order power leveling to ensure that power leveling Keeps, and Fortresses. wow gold buy wow gold cheap wow gold Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Blogger Esther said... Could you comment on the headlines I see saying Obama is planning trickle-down economic solutions? Is this so? I agree with virtually everything you ever say. I fear Obama's team is too directed towards business as the engine of recovery. Don't we have to establish, excuse me Tony Blair, a third way? Some kind of new division of authority? Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Spencer said... "And if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades" What?????? Where I live there ARE NO WHITE MALES in construction. THEY ARE **ALL** ILLEGAL ALIENS. This is the kind of liberal nonsense that assures me there is no hope for this country with democrats in charge (not that it was any better with republicans). Those who do not live in the real world are proposing policy to adversely affect the lives of those that do. ".. the stimulus will just increase the wages of the professionals who already have the right skills ..." Skilled professionals have worked their tails off and EARNED the right to their jobs. It is government corruption, corporate greed and the middle class dabbling in the stock market hoping to get rich off the sleaziness of transnationals betraying their fellow Americans that has caused even them to lose jobs. Republicans are evil - democrats are blind to reality. But we already know that. We have ivory tower government and professors pontificating on the labor market with a view that is the EXACT OPPOSITE of reality and the US Chamber of Commerce suing the government because they refuse to validate the citizenship of their "employees". Normally a big fan, I'm disappointed in you, Dr. Reich, that you would pull both the race card AND the class warfare card all in one article! WAKE UP!!!! uren said... For the past 8 years we've heard almost daily reports of absurd contract practices by the Bush admin. Bush has funnelled trillions over to pro-Bush contractors. In Katrina, Iraq, Afghanistan, significant numbers of SOLE SOURCE contracts have been let out to Bush/Cheney friends. I would wager most of these contracts were let out to White-owned businesses. I also recall Katrina stories about how businesses local to Louisianna tried to get their share of the federal pie, but were somehow coming up short. Contract favoritism has been a big problem in this country, especially in recent years. I would agree that more and more contractors at the local level are hispanics and blacks and others. But when federal dollars are being put into play into big-buck contracts, I'd bet the racial makeup of those actually being hired in those cases are mostly white. To those who object to Dr Reich's headline, I'd like to see you post some info proving that recent federal contracts have actually been pretty fair. Perhaps Dr Reich should have referred to some official info/reports showing this is indeed a problem, but if such reports exist, I'm sure the naysayers here can easily find those reports and prove him wrong. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Lauren said... BTW, here in Central Florida, the majorityt of contractors are white males. Yes, there are others and their numbers are growing, but the whites are still the majority (even my lawn maintainer was a white male). Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Scott said... Soooo.... I'm a white male in the high tech trade, I make less than I did 10 years ago. My pension went away in an airline bankruptcy. My insurance premiums have gone up hundreds/month... and I put myself thru a Masters program so I could compete w/ the low cost H1B visa holders who are 25years younger than me... So why would it be so bad if I got a stimulus job? Nothing in the private sector is stable any more, and if someone wants a stable job for a few years...keep the playing field level for 'em.!! Thursday, 08 January, 2009 SawdustTX said... This is disappointing. Sounds like the Wizard of Oz marries Alice in Wonderland. Illegals already hold down most of the contsruction jobs and will continue to do so because employers can hire them for less. And it will send inestimable amounts of cash out of the country, back to "The Motherland". Poof. Good bye. Employers will then use every available angle to hire only minorities (to save money) and work every loophole to siphon off training dollars to pay for their boats and SUV's. Perhaps Berkley is an insular nation, but here in America, corruption, greed and racism prevail. Have you been out drinking with Karl Marx, again? Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Since the stock market stinks right now and interest rates are so low, adding insulation to your home could be an investment that earns a better rate of return than many other investment vehicles right now. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Spencer said... Lauren, It's not the contractors, it's who the contractors hire. I was talking about the home construction trade where perhaps the guy that owns the company is a white male, but nearly all of his undocumented "employees" are illegal aliens. As far as the government goes, it already bends over backwards to hire minorities and women giving them automatic and special treatment over white male-owned companies. SawdustTX - yes, Berkley is such a place, my brother lived there for a few decades ;-) Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Lauren said... Scott, I think Dr Reich's comments do not suggest or imply you shouldn't get a stimulus job. He's only saying the jobs should be handed out to EVERYONE regardless of their race or status. The title of his post is quite clear on that. It says "...without them all..." Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Spencer said... Scott, Sorry to hear about your unfortunately very common dilemma. Not to make your day worse, but you can check out all the facts here: http://www.american-consensus.org/topics/insourcing/insourcing.html I'm in the same trade - I wish I could help you but opportunities different than what you already have aren't looking so hot at the moment unless you have a clearance. I was hoping Obama would help folks in your situation, but he's just like Bush on this subject - either stupid/ignorant or bought off by multinationals. Maybe a white guy like you can sneak in under the radar with the coming jobs bailout, but I suspect they will give preference to minorities and women as well. In fact, I'll bet they'll give many of these jobs to illegal aliens. At the very least, they will let out contracts to their friends and then not have any requirement that the "new hires" be citizens. Mark my words, it was said here first! Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Lauren said... Spencer, do you think the big buck contracts let out under Bush had mostly illegals as the workers? In Katrina, not much work has been done though 100s millions have been spent. Army Corp of engineers and FEMA: mostly whites. In Iraq, where 100s millions are spent, do you think blackwater and halliburton are filled with illegals? No. Mostly whites. That said, I agree that it is highly unlikely Obama of all people will allow contracts to go to mostly whites (even if Bush did). So I'm not sure of the importance to raise this aspect of the issue. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Spencer said... Sorry, so much to say about this one... so many inaccuracies based on lies. "But if there aren't enough skilled professionals to do the jobs involving new technologies, the stimulus will just increase the wages of the professionals who already have the right skills rather than generate many new jobs in these fields." Nobodies wages are going up. If they can't find "enough skilled professionals to do the jobs" at the low wages they are willing to pay so they make a 300% profit, we KNOW where they will go - they will use H-1B program to insource and give the jobs to cheap foreign labor. This practice is not only legal, it is encouraged by the government and Obama supports INCREASING this program to take more of the good jobs from skilled professionals. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Lauren said... Spencer : I was hoping Obama would help folks in your situation, but he's just like Bush on this subject - either stupid/ignorant or bought off by multinationals. What evidence do you have Obama already has been bought off on this subject? Obama is about to embark on a program of creating millions of new jobs. Did you hear or see his speech (yesterday I think). It outlines in great detail all sorts of new job opportunities in green industries, in extending broadband to all classrooms and other locations, in rebuilding roads/etc, and other kinds of jobs as well. First everyone criticized him during the election for wanting to fix roads/etc, and now many people are beetching he's spending too much money in creating these jobs, and here you are on top of all that claiming from out of nowhere that he isn't going to create these jobs at all or give them to whites like Scott. He's not even sworn in and you're declaring things you can't possibly know, especially since Obama's daily rhetoric promises the exact opposite of what you proclaim. So if he's bought out already, prove it. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Angry Citizen said... Wow. I'm surprised by some of the posts here . . . especially the ones that attempt to denigrate Dr. Reich for his desire to see new jobs go to those who most need them, and those that label him as an out-of-touch academic who has no concept of the real economy or the real world. To those having adverse reactions to his post, you might consider taking the time to re-read it. Many people have been voicing their concerns that the kind of infrastructure projects being proposed by the new administration would create jobs primarily for those who already work in construction--yes, primarily white men--and those who have skills sets that are easily transferable. The concern is NOT that white men will be employed--we want them to be--but that the majority of the new jobs created will "cater" to their skills and effectively leave everyone else who is unemployed out. Remember that one of the purposes here is to create NEW jobs, not just pay existing workers more. (Again, it would be nice if existing workers' wages increased, though that's not the goal of the stimulus.) Nowhere does Dr. Reich marginalize the experience or knowledge of skilled professionals or suggest that anyone can do their job. Instead, he points out that not all infrastructure or "green jobs" would require high-skill sets that are beyond the capacity of inexperienced workers/new-hires to learn via apprenticeship. There is no race card or class warfare card being played here, except by some of the commenters, who seem really upset about the notion of including minorities (and women) in the job stimulus, and those who are soooooo upset about that that they feel the need to attack Dr. Reich for being a Berkeley professor. Being a well-respected scholar doesn't automatically make someone an ass who doesn't have a clue about what average Americans go through. Indeed, those of us who have read his books, his other writings, and have listened to him speak know that Dr. Reich has a more firm understanding of the real economy than most. And if he were truly nothing more than a detached ivory tower professor, he probably wouldn't bother keeping a public blog would he? Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Blogger Oldhistorian69 said... First, Dr. Reich, you have made an error many high school counselors and white collar professionals make. Many skilled jobs including construction jobs are highly skilled and take considerable time to learn. A carpenter is not just some illiterate yokel with a hammer in his hand. Similarly, a plumber, andelectrician, etc. Other jobs will be open as you indicate for less highly skilled people. My family had carpenters in it. It is hard heavy work and need considerble knowledge to do well. It is also performed at time in very uncomfortable circumstances. Second, now many of the white workers have been run out of construction due to the hiring of illegal immigrant labor. Third, we should be able to find jobs for a great many people of all races and including women in this work. Your requirement for OJT and apprenticeship training is good. We want this to go across the board to a broad spectrum of the American people. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Blogger Oldhistorian69 said... Not all of the jobs created will be highly skilled. Note that in the 1930's a wide range of jobs were used in the construction trades. If nothing else there is a need for labor (which may not be really for women due to strength requirements). Other jobs may open because women probably would be better with some of the detailed finish work. It will all take patience and constant adjustment to get it right. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Spencer said... Do I think the big buck contracts let out under Bush had mostly illegals as the workers? No, they were contracts in a foreign country. Irrelevant. Pathetic, I agree, but irrelevant to the point I was making. "In Katrina, not much work has been done though 100s millions have been spent. Army Corp of engineers and FEMA: mostly whites." I volunteered after Katrina for a week helping to feed people devastated right after it happened (as soon as they opened the Biloxi airport). I helped rebuild a house as well. The only people down there were churches from all over the nation helping out. The govt. wasn't much there. But to your point, if they are white, it is because most govt. jobs require college degrees, and in America, most college educated people tend to be white. This is rapidly changing, and that's great, but that explains that. "In Iraq, where 100s millions are spent, do you think blackwater and halliburton are filled with illegals? No. Mostly whites." Again, irrelevant. I am talking about jobs here in America. But I didn't raise the race issue, Dr. Reich did. I am merely surprised and disappointed that he did, and responding to it. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Angry Citizen said... Oldhistorian, Just have to point out that not all women are fragile and weak. I spent 9 years lifting upwards of 300lb. patients and am willing to bet that a lot men couldn't handle that kind of heavy lifting or the constant, awkward positioning required to lug bodies around for 8-12 hours a day. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Angry Citizen said... Spencer, Dr. Reich inappropriately raised the race issue by suggesting that we need to make sure than other groups besides white men get new jobs? Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Blogger Oldhistorian69 said... I would like to know what is wrong with being a white male protestant Christian? I am and am proud of it. However, I have a son-in-law who is Mexican recently naturalized, and a niece's husband who is black. Both of them need to work and we need every opportunity to be open to all Americans without regard to race, religion, or gender insofar as possible. If it is necessary to have special programs in order to expand this possibility, so be it. However, I remember when an aquaintence was hassled by a black official to have more minorities on his small speciallized crew the man left very obviously pissed off. He had an entire crew of Native Americans who he said did an excellent job for him. I think that such a program as this could be a great benefit to help to further equalize the opportunities in this Great Country. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Oldhistorian69 said... Angry Citizen: I grew up in Wyoming where a great many women did some very hard and heavy work. I have also observed many employers especting women to do work that was really beyond their physical capacity. It is difficult to argue that the average woman is neither as heavy nor as strong as the average man. I am not trying to put down women. I admire Sarah Palin, not for her polititics, but for her ability to kill and dress a moose. No mean feat for her for an animal as large as a moose. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Spencer said... Lauren, "So if he's bought out already, prove it." Glad you asked! Here you go: http://pradeepc.net/blog/?p=193 http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=government&articleId=9119398&taxonomyId=13&intsrc=kc_top http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/restoreopportunity/gG5F5Y I can send you many, many more links as well, but these should suffice. Google it yourself to see. Now I understand that you will say that this doesn't prove he is "bought off". My response is that there is absolutely no reason why any American should support such legislation. So it is my daft conclusion that supporters are either bought off or gullible / star-struck/ignorant. Perhaps the term "stupid" is a bit raw, and I apologize for that. And I sincerely hope he changes his mind, perhaps he will. But tell all this to Scott and the hundreds of thousands in his situation. Thanks for asking. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Angry Citizen said... Oldhistorian, I didn't think you were trying to put women down. It sounds like there is some animosity out there towards women in some of the comments and I just felt the need to stick up for my half of the species. About Palin, I have to go on assuming that she shoots from helicopters until there is real evidence to the contrary. ;-) I just found an article about a stimulus package that was submitted by Edwardsville, Alabama. Unbelievable. One would think that given the state of our economy, people would appreciate the need to be serious, practical, and reasonable when drawing up stimulus proposals instead of degenerating into comedy and fantasy. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Spencer said... Angry Citizen, Dr. Reich is one of my favorite public figures. You don't need to defend him on my account. Sorry if my expressing my opinion upsets you, but I guess that's why you are an Angry Citizen? ;-) In fact, I apologize right now, publicly, to Dr. Reich if I offended him. I did not mean to denigrate him, I just want to get his attention. Anyway, I just want us all to focus on the real issues. They are not race and gender so much (anymore), as they are jobs for all, regardless of race & gender. Having worked on government contracts for many years, I assure you that hiring minorities and women will NOT be an issue. And by the way, I support the government's affirmative actions - I just brought them up because those are the facts. Perhaps you should re-read what I said instead of telling me to re-read what Dr. Reich said. It was you that read racism into my comments, assuming I was upset about issues that I actually support. Too funny. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Angry Citizen said... Spencer, The comment about re-reading Dr. Reich's post wasn't directed at you . . . I was directing it at all who went into conniptions about his comments. And, no, I didn't read racism in your comments; I read this: Normally a big fan, I'm disappointed in you, Dr. Reich, that you would pull both the race card AND the class warfare card all in one article! And this: But I didn't raise the race issue, Dr. Reich did. I am merely surprised and disappointed that he did, and responding to it. You're right: we do need to focus on the real issues. Let's hope that as a country, we're prepared to do that. The issue of jobs has become a very sensitive subject in this country for many reasons. On a personal note, there are a lot of people in my family who have become raging racists because they don't understand globalization aside from how it feels to lose jobs and benefits. Their kneejerk reaction is always to blame black people, brown people, and yellow people instead of blaming our corporations, laws, and trade and labor policies (and yes, they bitterly protest while they shop at Wal-Mart and look for the best deals since that's all their paychecks will support). Even relatives with advanced graduate degrees fall into that kind of blaming pattern (and yes again, while they shop at Wal-Mart, other big-box stores, and seek out the best deals). Of course, you get how touchy of a subject it is and so I'm not saying anything new. But, again, let's hope that our country can focus on the real issues and that we can transcend some of the more bitter debates that are generally steeped in racism. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Spencer said... Angry Citizen, Thanks, glad we're past all that.. I'm truly sad about all the racism stuff in America, but I think that when we talk about helping the poor and affirmative action (as well-intentioned as that is), we tend to stray from the real issue, which is exactly as you stated - that "blaming our corporations, laws, and trade and labor policies" is exactly hat we need to do, relentlessly, until someone listens. And don't forget the politicians - it is our elected officials who have created this situation! OF COURSE corporations are going to bleed anyone and everyone dry for a buck - we expect that. What we should NOT expect and we should not allow, is for our public "servants" to do their bidding instead of doing our bidding as a nation. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Angry: Thanks for the link about the tiny town's big stimulus ambitions. Now the porn industry is asking for a bailout: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/07/porn-industry-seeks-federal-bailout/ Of course they're just poking fun at Congress for handing out money, but it does highlight how farcical these bailout and stimulus ideas have become. Thursday, 08 January, 2009 Blogger Jordan said... There is a bit of lost sense of what is right and wrong in Reichs piece, but that always happens with good intentions with little knowledge. The most lost jobs is in construction where males dominate for obvious reasons of strenght and weather conditions requierd. If most lost jobs are in that sector then most jobs should be created in that same sector. Wheather that be race or gender related. It is a matter of what stress level people are going trough and citizenship. Problem arises in unemployment records. Most construction unemplyment is already past benefit eligibility and trown out unemployed record. So those that suffered most are out of reach or have found new jobs. There is inequality that puts people under stress of change. If that stress is colored or gendered it doesn,t matter, amount of stress matters. I do not wanna do such kind of central planning, i would rather save 30-40% of money trown out on profits that private companies require. I would rather go with govt organisation of companies to do contracting. And new jobs would be govt jobs, not private. Is everyone afraid that govt jobs could provide same production quality with much less spending and prove that govt can do things? I think so. Republicans spent so much efort to prove opposite with Katrina aftermath and 9/11 reaction. Even SEC and Fed proved that govt cant do sh.t. Is that the real truth? After 50 years of succesful things? Is Obama afraid that his people cant prove value of govt? If govt pays it should have right to make sure that nobody profits pure profits from stimulus, but to create jobs as first and foremost purpose of stimulus. Secondary should be providing grounds for further developments. Blood line for growth in the future. With govt jobs they can choose that only citizens get employed and that they provide training trough community colleges while working. Unions organize and enforce additional training every first saturday. It is a constant training for advancement. Govt can learn from them. Only problem for govt is that it will prove value of unions. On matter of insulation. Much of new, cheap housing is made with lack of insulation in walls. I was painter and i encountered many instances of cold air comming out of outlets. In couple of instances, on m recomendations, owners took it to the bulder and got all siding ripped off and instaled insulation, because there was barely any originally. You go cheap in beggining to pay more in long run, just as in taking a loan. That is the reason that people do not pay for instalation of solar or wind colectors even tough owner can save in long run. Why not add solar panel on roof of plug in hibryd. I know it adds more cost to new cars, and most peole would avoid expensive cars, but rich ones who inteligently calculate long run value and have enough to put more up front. Sollar roofs can be nicely designed and add to charm of hibryds. Most of the days it would not need recharging and almost never use gas part of the hibryd. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Ken Novak said... Particular programs to do Green Corps, or intensive training are fine. But I don't think the main stimulus money should have new strings. It will be spent mostly by states and localities, and any restrictions not normally on federal funds will just slow down the implementation of the stimulus. Speed is very important. We expect the stimulus to raise consumption indirectly, through the multiplier effect, at least as much as directly. It's the indirect effects that will spread to lift the economy broadly, which is the central job of the stimulus. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... All this talk about train people to "install solar panels on every roof" and "insulate older homes" sort of leaves out one part of the equation. Who can PAY for the services and buy the insulation or the solar panels for their home? Those panels are not cheap and it takes far far far more of them to get an appreciable amount of electricity than majority of enthusiasts realize. The materials to install a solar panel system that will produce 4500-5000 KW a day easily blows past $25,000! (Take a look at your electric bill - you use that much in a few hours a day. Relying upon solar panels means a gas stove with a pilot, a tankless gas water heater and a refrigerator that either runs on gas or which is a Sunfrost at $3000 and up.) You need the panels, you need the mounts for the panels, you need the charger controller, you need the storage batteries (ouch $$$), you need the system regulator and if, switching between panels and utility electric, you need the interfacer controller, and don't forget you will need an inverter to use the power generated by the panels...... It is EXPENSIVE! The controllers, regulators, batteries etc easily add up to $10,000 or more and you need them whether you have 1 panel or 100 panels. Toss in $1000 for the water heater, $3000 for a Sunfrost or 16 cu ft gas refrigerator and a new stove at $500-1000 and now the whole project is going over $35,000 without any labor costs for the installation. Go look up everything you need. Start with the Real Goods website and see if you can find a copy of their "Solar Living SOurce Book" I think it is on the 30th edition. Someone has not thought this through all the way. So what if you train people to do a job if there are not enough households who can toss out that kind of money? Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Mark said... \x{201C}...more efficient and renewable heating, lighting, cooling, and refrigeration systems; installing solar panels and efficient photovoltaic systems; rehabilitating and renovating old properties, and improving recycling systems.\x{201D} You left out a big area of green infrastructure that fits perfectly with a stimulus package \x{2013} ground source heating and cooling. Check out the following posts: daddywhatsarepublican.blogspot.com/2009/01/right-kind-of-infrastructure-spending.html daddywhatsarepublican.blogspot.com/2009/01/quick-primer-on-ground-source-heat.html daddywhatsarepublican.blogspot.com/2009/01/ground-source-heat-pumps-my-two.html Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Peace,Love,Hope said... Anonymous, Thank you for your input. Read solar today or Home power magazine. It pays off in about 10 years when A Government entity chips in 40-50% and thats at todays energy prices. So you can raise the real value of your home $1.00 for every .50 cents you invest. I could go on........Karl Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger CrankyOleBroad said... Regarding women in the building trades. I am all in favor of increasing opportunities for women in the building trades, however, I do believe as DashT said, you may have underestimated the skill level required for these jobs. In my mid-thirties I was involved in a program (as a student) designed to prepare women for non-traditional occupations. That alone was a three month program prior to any apprenticeship in any trade. Afterwards I applied for and was tested for an apprenticeship with the IBEW. I aced the test (which is not easy), but I still was not selected for their program. To make a long story very short, as a petite woman in her mid-thirties (at the time), I still did not possess all the skills and abilities required to be a successful Union Electrician. For most of the low income women I know, the decision to work is almost always balanced with, "does the job pay more than child care will cost?" If we want low income women to benefit from any jobs program, we must give them access to low cost, safe, quality child care. A child care program with well trained, well paid workers would also create still more jobs for women. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Granny Greensleeves said... Insulating homes and replacing old windows with efficient ones should be the first priority. It provides the most bang for the buck. I too live in Central Florida and insulating my home was difficult because it is a cement block structure. Adding insulation to the inside of my exterior walls forced me to give up valuable floor space in the small home but it was worth it. The installation of double insulated windows along with the added insulation decreased my electric bill enough to pay have paid for it all within 6 years although there ws no labor cost for the insulation since it ws a DYI project. The installation of solar does not have to be as complicated as anonymous suggests. Batteries are not needed unless one wants to operate off grid and today there are a variety of choices for PVC installations. For folks with a metal roof there is a peel and stick version. No fasteners needed. Nor is there a need for gas appliances, although I wouldnt live in Florida without a gas stove. More convienent during hurricanes. Obviously solar isnt for all areas and those who would see us become energy efficient have to focus on all aspects of alternate energy production. One of the biggest problems our cities have is wastewater disposal. One of the byproducts of waste is methane, which chould be converted to electricity instead of diluting the waste and dumping it into our waterways. Likewise the methane produced in our landfills could produce energy. One of the large airports in Calif. has been producing electricity from its garbage for years. As is Japan. Some large industrial companies are capturing heat produced by their production methods to run turbines that produce electricity. Solar is but a small piece of the puzzle. all of these things combined will enable us to free ourselves from the erratic price swings of fossil fuels whether it be coal, oil or natural gas. As Martha Stewart would say, "its a very good thing". Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Under The Radar said... My Opening Line: from now on, I'm not going to post unless I have a proposed solution, suggestion, or question. I'm a Human Resources guy. Depending on how you do the numbers, Unemployment percentage is somewhere between 7 and 14%. Remember, the math on this, as well as most statistics can be changed to protect the guilty. It's really high and climbing. Last night, released figure was the highest in 60 years. That would make it the highest since Vets returning from WWII hit the streets. Most of the conversations here seem to focus on the cities, where most live. Sometime today, please take a minute and get a map of the country, and look at how much of the country isn't in the cities. My own turn of thought went to California, where their deficit is increasing at over 33 mil a day. Their state, which I believe on it's own is the 6th largest economy in the world, is collapsing. The whole state is collapsing. Many of you live there. I cannot imagine.... I can tell you a few things. In Oklahoma, which is known as the most conservative state in the country, we have a dire need for bridge and road improvement, including our interstates, and state roads. Every county in the state is hiring for Transportation workers. These are skilled jobs, but mostly OJT, and they pay up to 30K a year. That's pretty good money here. OJT in Surveying, computer skills, operational office skills, truck driving requires computer learning OJT. These are entry level. They will be hiring for months and years to come. I will retire from a Fed Agency in less than a year, and will move to the state side, in HR. The state is hiring in many fields, HR is working overtime, and adding phone lines. There are other companies hiring. The Fed jobs haven't got here yet, and who knows if they will. If they do, they won't be called that. The last thing this country needs though, is more homes built on a large scale, just so people can work, "Build them and they will come" will just glut the market further, and create a further drop in home values. I'm not moving ever, and maybe it would lower my property taxes. The US Chamber of Commerce does not mandate eVerify. eVerify is a system that tells whether or not a worker is a US citizen or not. It is accurate 99.5% of the time. eVerify is in use in 18 states. It costs the price of a cd for a company to use. Oklahoma uses it, and will continue to do so. The very fact that the US Chamber of commerce does not mandate use, and Congress does not pass a natural immigration reform act that mandates use of this existing technology, takes away 10 million jobs. 10 million. 10 million. I just wanted that number to sink in, because that's the best estimate of illegal workers in this country, that had a hand in building most of the devalued homes that were built in the last 10 yrs plus, the food we eat that was grown in the US, and so on. If Congress were to pass this simple law, and they could do it today, it would create 10 million jobs almost overnight. The fact that Congress hasn't, and the US Chamber of Commerce does not Act, and Homeland Security, along with the Treasury Department and the Secret Service (see Michael Chertoff sp Home cleaning), does not push this into existence when we have been able to years ago, is totally unnacceptable, and a disgrace. The illegal immigrant issue is the main, and unspoken reason for our economic disaster today. In terms of National Security, Economics, Jobs, and now, your paycheck. Write your Congressman and Senator. Call them. Taxes - Congress levies taxes. Not the President. We have had a Democratic congress for 2 years now. They need to get busy, and do their job. Or go home. Back to the start - I'm a Cons Dem. Oklahoma for the first time in History, has a Rep House, and Senate. It also has a Governor that supported Pres Elect Obama, and is now the new Gov chair of the Governor's Energy committee, after Gov Palin finished her turn. We get along just fine here, and the state is hiring, at good wages. We're not perfect, but we have a plan, and are working it. Houses are being built, and cars are being sold too, by the way. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Lauren said... Under, I disagree with your claim that illegals is/are the "main reason" for our current ills. No way. They are a symptom, not a cause. And yes, they exacerbate the problem, but are not the source of it. illegals contribute to the vicious cycle, but they are not the source of it. You're just diverting attention away from the true source of the problem--white Republicans (mostly) and white Democrats (to a lesser extent). White-owned businesses lured illegals here to fill jobs that Americans did not want (agricultural) or where there were shortages (housing construction). White housing contractors have no problem finding jobs, though I admit there are many illegals working to build our glut of homes. The problem here is that white-owned home developers have funnelled big bucks to white Republican politician campaign chests so that they are permitted to build a large glut of cheap homes. Gov Christ here in FL was elected in large part with the help of the largest governor campaign warchest in history. This warchest was given to him primarily by home developers like Donald Trump. Had developers not been allowed to build this glut of cheap homes, they wouldn't have needed to hire extra illegals to build them, they wouldn't have needed to fix appraisals, and so on. Developers for example today can now build communities in land areas formerly under water. Entire communities are found under water now after hurricanes or even after large storms come through. This is one example how well-greased politicians (white republicans mostly) are changing the rules to allow cheap homes to be built. Swamp land is cheaper than high and dry land. The developers build a home as cheap as they can, using cheap labor as needed (though white workers have had no problem finding jobs, because the need for labor to build community after community of cheap homes is that great), then they run away with all the profits and no later responsibility when the adjustable-rate mortage (which the developers have helped setup) kicks in and the owner goes bankrupt. Leaving the community and local gvmt to deal with the growing vacancies. People down here buy homes, then find out how the developers screwed them by letting 30 year exclusive cable contracts to fly-by-night operators, or find out water bills are inflated because developers get cheap water while building, only to have prices jacked up afterward. The numer of ways developers have screwed home owners is astounding, and its all made possible by white politicians. A disastrous fed tax policy was instituted by white republicans--not illegals. Iraq blunder and its devestating cost in terms of blood and treasure--white republicans. Subprime loan disaster--white republicans. Wallstreet greed and collapse--white republicans. Loss of local farming to corporate farms--white republicans. Failure to rebuild after Katrina, which as a result contributed to higher crime and worse economy--white republicans. Free-trade fiasco, where we slash tariffs and allow our mfg industries to be threatened and stolen by low-wage labor countries--white republicans. Once we whiteys start running the country correctly, jobs for illegals will disappear and they will too. No fence is high enough to keep them out if we allow white republicans to lure them in because of their incessant need to find cheap labor. Illegals are a symptom, not a cause. Friday, 09 January, 2009 nonymous said... Steve S, If we had just listened to Jimmy Carter instead of Ronald Regan there would be no energy crisis today. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Lauren said... Under, BTW, there are other parts in your post I agree with. I was just taking exception to that one point about illegals being the "main problem".. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Lauren said... Guess which President installed solar panels on the White House, and which President removed them? Answer: Carter installed them, Reagan removed them. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Jordan: Gov't rarely fires anybody, except in the most egregious offenses, like workplace violence. Gov't also does not reward their highly effective workers. So the star performers become disenchanted and go to the private sector where people appreciate what they can do. The dead weight workers remain in their positions doing very little work. This further lowers the overall expectations. I have a good friend in a federal gov't job who has told me legions of stories like this. Furthermore, gov't agencies are encouraged to spend their entire budget every year. That's how you get a bigger budget for the following year. If you don't spend everything you were given, your department receives a smaller budget next year. Some large companies in the private sector engage in these practices too. But the private sector has the checks and balances of competition for their end products and the backbone to reward good performers and weed out poor performers. Another problem is that once a new gov't agency is formed, it is very difficult to dismantle it. It just keeps growing, requesting a larger budget every year. And when a large agency makes a royal screw-up, like the SEC with Madoff, the response is to reward them with more money. "Surely they didn't have enough money and employees to do their job." If a private sector company made a mistake like that, their stock value would be punished in the marketplace and the injured parties would file lawsuits. Not so for the gov't which is often immune to such lawsuits. Look at what hapened with the Katrina response for a prime example. There is no accountability for gov't agencies, even when they are grossly negligent. In short, gov't holds itself to a much lower standard than what its own regulations require of the private sector and what the market expects of the private sector. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Peace, Love, Hope: The problem is that without that 40-50% gov't subsidy for solar panels, $1 spent becomes a $1 increase in home value. So solar panels are at the cusp of being financially viable, but not a slam dunk yet. Solar hot water and passive solar heating have been viable for decades, but people keep snapping up homes without these features. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger notsofast said... Robert said....I'd suggest that all contracts entered into with stimulus funds require contractors to provide at least 20 percent of jobs to the long-term unemployed and to people withincomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. ok that's good criteria but let's be careful about setting quotas based on race and gender. better to leave these out of the equation and use the long-term unemployed and poverty level as guidelines. these measures should capture women and minorities without resorting to more odious profiling. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... The construction trade is rampant with illegal workers, many being paid under the table ( no taxes ). I had a house built a few years ago and had 4 different languages being spoken on the job site. Many of the construction sub-contractors are all millionaires because they have this "grey economy" boosting their margins due to lower labor costs. On another topic: The stimulus plan should provide tax relief to persons willing to pay for career changes and persons investing themselves through higher education. The military provides GI benefits for education. Why can't the government provide some support for persons entering the trades? Anonymous DWP Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Maybe Obama's stimulus should go towards changing all of our signs to Spanish. We can give the 12 million illegal aliens more job opportunities and accelerate the minorities into this suffering middle class. OR We could build some interment camps and round up all of the illegals and give the middle class some decent jobs with decent wages. Friday, 09 January, 2009 jeff f said... Long term unemployed are not going too be able to keep jobs. They don't know how to keep a schedule or understand how to put in the 8 to 10 hour days. A lot of the long term unemployed are illiterate or worse they have drug or alcohol problems. How do you find viable people in this population? Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous John Lawrence said... Lauren said: Spencer, do you think the big buck contracts let out under Bush had mostly illegals as the workers? (Yes, Lauren, those doing the actual work were illegals. Those profiting were white Republicans.) In Katrina, not much work has been done though 100s millions have been spent. Army Corp of engineers and FEMA: mostly whites. (Profits to white Republicans don't require that any actual work be done. Remember, there's no accountability or oversight.) In Iraq, where 100s millions are spent, do you think blackwater and halliburton are filled with illegals? No. Mostly whites. (Again, Lauren, Blackwatewr and Halliburton were there to make profits not do actual work. The work was hired out to non-Iraqi imported workers.) Once we whiteys start running the country correctly, jobs for illegals will disappear and they will too. No fence is high enough to keep them out if we allow white republicans to lure them in because of their incessant need to find cheap labor. Illegals are a symptom, not a cause. I agree except in addition to having the correct policies, border protection (preferably high tech) is a necessary adjunct. We have to make a distinction between the Bush administration where crony capitalism reigned supreme and an Obama administration which, hopefully, will correct these kinds of excesses. In crony capitalism, white Republicans siphoned off the profits of government contracts while paying their workers (whether illegals or in the case of Iraq imports from abroad) the least possible. So the two situations go hand and hand. Most of the money for rich white guys and the minimal amount possible for workers and that meant non-Iraqis and illegals in the US. As you point out that's what needs changing. First of all no bid, cost plus contracts - rampant in the War Department - need to be changed to bid contracts for a fixed amount and results evaluated with penalties for low performance. Profit margins need to be defined and layer upon layer of subcontracting forbidden. And, yes, workers who do the actual work need to be American citizens and not illegals. Their ethnicity should be less important than their need for a job. Now it's pathetic that we have a drug war going on on our border yet the most vaunted military in the history of the world, the military establishment upon which more money is spent than the rest of the world's military budgets combined is helpless to do anything about it. It's also ridiculous that a handful of Somali pirates can hijack ships with multi-million dollar cargoes yet our military, the most vaunted in the history of the world, upon which more money is spent than the rest of the world's militaries combined, can do nothing about it. Surely we are not getting our money's worth when it comes to actual protection value from our military. The Bushies spent all that money barking up wrong trees. I hope Obama can cut the budget in half and yet give us more "real" protection from actual threats. High tech border protection would choke off not only illegal immigrants but illegal contraband like drugs, not to mention potential terrorists and supplies. How easy would it be for terrorists to launch a Mumbai like attack on San Diego where they came ashore in a few boats. It could easily be repeated here and we would be absolutely defenseless. They would say "nobody could have imagined such a thing." That's their job, stupid, to imagine such things and F**KING DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous fastnet said... Obama was elected by leveraging grass-roots support. If he's truly sincere about major change, he will seed the economy at the local level with tax incentives for home energy-efficiency audits and solar system installation, home insulation and other initiatives, as well as distribute infrastructure funds to local cities and towns, with strings that include training and hiring veterans, displaced workers and low income/unemployed. We resourceful Americans are good at seeking new solutions and are doing it everywhere, e.g.: ---innovative car-share company ZipCar ---Solar-panel leasing firm CleanSource Power.there are thousands of local nodes of innovation throughout the U.S. Rather than create new bureaucracies, scanning the existing environment you'll see that many locally-based citizen groups are already in place to implement grass-roots change on a simple but efficient scale: in the Bay Area, the list of sustainability organizations is endless: Sustainable City ...and other regions of the country have similar networks in place. We have great thinkers like Steven Strong of Solar Design Associates, who has labored for decades to plan and design new solutions for the post-petroleum era. He installed the first solar panels on the White House for President Carter, then returned to add back solar at the Bush White House. On college campuses, student demand for sustainability is driving wholesale transformation of campus life, from conservation and recycling to energy-efficient school building construction. Students are integrating sustainability into their lives and futures as a matter of course -how could it be otherwise? In the forefront of this movement are: ---Oberlin, with its brilliant environmental maestro, David Orr -- U.C. Berkeley, Prof. Reich's home school. These young people get it; it's not about blaming white, rich, Republican, immigrant or HB-1 villains, it's about picking ourselves up, looking around where we actually live, changing what we actually do, and working together toward a saner, more thoughtful society. We have needed to get a clue about energy for quite awhile now: since we, with 5% of the world's population, now consume 23% of its energy, a downward adjustment would benefit both the U.S. (decreasing our dependency on foreign fossil fuels), and the planet. Dr. Reich, dasht has a point, in that MWA (Management by Walking Around) in your local area might yield some insights you won't find in your ivory tower, in board rooms or on huffingtonpost. We can all benefit from walking the talk in our own town by volunteering on a conservation committee, hiring somebody, or just bringing our own bags to the grocery store. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Denis Drew said... On page 195, of The Price of Loyalty: "We are looking at every [stimulus] instrument that's ever been used and some that haven't been... ...O'Neill said. Among the options on the list, he said, are INCREASES IN THE MINIMUM WAGE, a "supplement" for people who pay no income taxes, and a reduction in the capital gains tax." (my emphasis) This was Bush's first Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill on how to avoid recession, post the 9/11 attack. Doubling the minimum wage would toss 350 billion the way of bottom 40 percentile earners -- those now earning below the $500/wk. Since Michael Harrington wrote "The Other America", in 1968, 25% of our labor force has slipped below the minimum wage of that era -- though average income doubled since. To me that is a much more significant emergency than looming 9% unemployment. Minimum wagers wont get the whole raise in one jump. Will they get it in time to help ward off recession? Raise the incomes of those above 40 percentile by realistic unionization -- which can only mean sector-wide labor contracts, mandated by law -- and enough will get enough to help ward off recession. As Ezra Kline recently pointed out, the card check may only produce unions that employers ignore, that employers refuse to bargain with. Under sector-wide: no contract, no legal work (at least it can be written that way). That should imply no scabs: the WHOLE AND ENTIRE point of unionizing is to force the employer to bargain ONLY with those employed now, not with everyone passing by on the street as before unionizing -- not just to make bargaining with everybody who passes by on the street inconvenient. If as much as 90% of our workforce is EXPECTING phased in raises (proportionately more the lower the current wages) over the next couple or three years, consumer confidence should be enhanced as much as anything can enhance it. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Rob said... There should be no requirements to employee people with a specific background. Let's do the projects in the most efficient way possible to maximize the long-term economic leverage of the (borrowed) money we are spending. The focus of the controls on these stimulus programs should be on fraud prevention - open bidding and clear accounting. Channeling some (borrowed) money towards job training and the like is a good idea. There are some synergies there but let's not conflate the two. Do we really want to train people for short term construction projects or would we rather have them get more long-lived skills in fields like health care? Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... The lobbyists are the new "middlemen" of government who stand between the electorate and its representatives in congress. That is why we are in this mess in the first place. If we could just cut out the middlemen, then our votes would have much more value. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Carol Regan said... The Invisible \x{201C}Shovel-ready\x{201D} Workforce: While it is encouraging to see a consensus building around a large economic stimulus plan that will address the ailing economy and help thousands of struggling American families, there remains one workforce that policymakers seem \x{201C}blind\x{201D} to \x{2013} direct caregivers. In 2006, only two other industries employed more people than long-term care: elementary and secondary schools and general and medical surgical hospitals. Over 3 million strong, these are mainly women workers, earning $9.56 per hour - about two-thirds of the median wage for all US workers \x{2013} and who, ironically, are less likely to have employer-sponsored insurance and are more likely to be uninsured than other workers in the U.S. And the federal government estimates needing another 1 million workers by 2016 to meet the demand for services \x{2013} a deserving \x{201C}shovel-ready\x{201D} workforce. And because the government already pays direct-care workers through programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, there is an existing pipeline to funnel more resources into expanding and stabilizing the workforce. This investment will have three immediate benefits: It will get money circulating in the economy quickly, stabilize employment in low-income communities where one in 10 workers does direct care, and meet the needs of families across America who rely on direct caregivers to support their loved ones. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Sandwichman said... "Green jobs" don't always have to be new jobs. Reducing the workweek to four days cuts commuting emissions by 20%. Reduction and redistribution of working time employs more people for a given amount of throughput. Two years ago, Dean Baker's outfit, the Center for Economic and Policy Research release a report titled "Are Shorter Work Hours Good for the Environment? A Comparison of U.S. and European Energy Consumption." It found that if all countries worked as many hours as the U.S. does, energy consumption by 2050 would be 15 to 30 percent higher than if they worked European-style hours. The AFL-CIO affiliate, Working America is holding a contest in connection with the "Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference" in Washington DC next month. Here is my contest entry: The name \x{201C}Good Jobs, Green Jobs\x{201D} rings a bell. It recalls the theme of an issue of the Canadian environmental magazine, Alternatives, from 2001: \x{201C}Green Jobs, Good Work.\x{201D} One of the articles, \x{201C}Good Work, Less Toil\x{201D} by Anders Hayden, explored the relationship between work, consumerism and the environment. As Hayden pointed out, \x{201C}much of our work today feeds unsustainable forms of production that torment the planet.\x{201D} That article was concerned with more than just the tension between the slogan of \x{201C}jobs, jobs, jobs\x{201D} and the environment. It also addressed the time famine that many over-worked North Americans endure even while others remain underemployed or out of work. Sharing the work is thus an indispensable part of sparing the planet. The dream of cleanly, efficiently and renewably retrofitting an economy addicted to unlimited growth is seductive but futile. As the 19th economist W. Stanley Jevons predicted -- and American experience in the wake of the energy crisis of the 1970s confirmed -- increasing energy efficiency alone leads to more, not less, total consumption. Similarly, green technologies can indeed lower emissions of greenhouse gases per dollar of output. But it is total emissions -- not just the intensity of emissions -- that need to be reduced. Urgent targets for reducing total emissions are only achievable by combining greener technology with slower or no economic growth. In Managing Without Growth, Peter Victor, an ecological economist at York University in Canada modeled the effects on the environment, poverty and unemployment of various economic-growth scenarios. If we rely on economic growth averaging 2.5 percent annually to supply jobs, greenhouse gas emissions will increase by around 75 percent over the next 30 years even if the intensity of emissions continues to decline at a rate consistent with the historical trend. Even so, poverty and unemployment will creep upward. Simply ceasing economic growth, however, would result in catastrophic increases in poverty and unemployment. Only by slowing economic growth, reducing working time and targeting investment and regulatory policy on greenhouse gas reductions in combination can the goals of environmental protection and reduction of poverty and unemployment be approached simultaneously. But how does the reduction of working time square with the goal of creating good jobs? Eighty years ago, economist Raymond Henry Mussey wrote that, \x{201C}no student of American labor history can fail to be struck with the extraordinary importance of the eight-hour issue in union thinking during the formative years of the American Federation of Labor.\x{201D} Mussey affirmed that the shorter hours theory ideally fit the organizational needs of the labor movement. Indeed, in the face of the depression of the 1930s and concerns about job loss to automation in the 1950s and 1960s, the labor movement returned again and again to the issue of the shorter workweek. Today, what needs above all to be understood is that the reduction of working time creates opportunity for greater freedom and enjoyment through leisure and not a grim necessity to be borne with regret and resignation. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous said... What the hell is wrong with you. I am what you consider a "skilled professional" and I am out of work and have been for a bit. I would take any job if it made me feel better about myself. A job is a job and goes to work ethic. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Magdalena said... Whoa...white families need money too!! I think the question could be better framed: how do we create jobs for more of the productive sectors of our society? I say, create jobs in the arts...drama, music, theatre, fine arts, fashion..create gov't sponsored competitions with monetary PRIZES!! It takes very little money to get people going. $2000 in prizes can pull thousands of people into a competition. Art and music are a very essential component of human life, they nourish the soul. Once basic needs of food and shelter and health care are met, the arts contribute more to quality of life than anything material you might imagine. I am not talking about TV, or CDs, or movies, or all those vehicles of packaged, commercial art that allow no observer participation. I am talking about arts at the community level, the participatory level. It is time to spark that creative edge in our society, to give ourselves hope and spiritual sustenance. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Why are the Trade Unions; their training programs and history of inclusion (minorities and females) ignored when discussing future work, no matter the industry. Much of the past 'mob' influences are gone, but the basic premise behind unions is still right for America's future needs. In the past, Unions helped balance the 'playing field', which kept executive salaries at a realistic level. The shareholders still got their dividends, the Union members fair wages and benefits and the executives certainly didn't starve. Let's allow a real partnership, again, for America's future. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Art A Layman said... Steve: Good points and would agree that prioritizing energy upgrades is important, especially to households, but given all the implications, global warming, foreign oil dependency, etc., we have to move off this economic justification stuff a little. Oil companies don't drill in difficult venues because it's not economically feasible. The private sector doesn't invest in "green" technology because the paybacks are not there. Auto companies fight improved fuel efficiency in their fleets because unit costs go up more than the market will allow sales prices to rise. When all these kinds of decisions are simply options for improving profits, the above decisions are understandable, in fact, preferable. When viewed in the context of the greater good for our society and that of the world, the above decisions are ludicrous. Admittedly, because ongoing profitability is critical, many goals will have to be achieved through government/private sector partnerships. That shouldn't mean that the government funds and the private sector profits. Since the government acts on behalf of we, the citizens, and since we, the citizens, will be the ultimate consumers of much of the production, some of the profits eventually flowing should be back to government as a return on investment. We don't need to overturn our entire economic model, we just need to tweak it here and there. My sense is that's where Obama is heading although he may still be coming at it from the perspective that all future profits will go to the private sector. We are either a whole society, culture, country or we'll be back to the Old West, with Indians out one window and Outlaws out the other and the Sheriff is drunk down at the saloon. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Art A Layman said... Dasht: Don't know that I have much disagreement with your suggestions but would that not also create a huge bureaucracy? Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Reich should comment (a former Labor secretary) on the BLS birth/death model. In fact, it's now considered the reason we've seen any job growth in the last several years. Mish (global economic analysis) just did a good overview. You'll see we don't need any more temp visas if the true labor numbers were used. http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/ Friday, 09 January, 2009 BMW said... Robert, You mean well and I do like your suggested example of E.Recyling jobs. Although we integrated much of that within the normal trash pick-up in my area over 20 years ago. But you bet plenty of places are doing nothing. But given your status and current job I'd suggest you may not be on top of work force demographics trends in construction during this last 1996-2006 boom. Even I know the number of Woman involved today in road construction and equipment operation is 10 fold 20 years ago. With all the woman losing high paying UAW auto jobs in the North many got into construction aided by State Affirmiative Action programs. Steve and John seem more in touch with what I've seen then what you may believe. My brother owns an escavation construction company in FLA. so I've listen to him discuss industry issues. It would be nice to find some hard facts and research on this topic. I've not seen any other than the connection to illegal's. Your thoughts probably were totally on target during the 20's-70's (and we all thought the mob control ALL big construction and trash in the 70's-early 80's didn't we?) but as unions busting progressed into the 90's more employers began using non-union workers and subcontractors (constr. outsourcing to lower cost fewer benefits workers). Its no secr. many of illegal's from Mexico wanted into USA for the construction jobs. In my state AFFIRMITIVE ACTION policies on state issued contracts have been in place for as long as I can remember. And a percentage of dollars spent on contracts must go to Minority Owned firms. And maybe its changed but in the 80's when I worked for a fortune 100 company to win military contracts we need to comply with AFFIRMITIVE ACTION. So I'm sure this subject matter is already being talked about in D.C. today in regards to the stimulus. I've seen what Steve has seen in Engneering and IT jobs-the unemployeed ones I know are all old white males. And I would like to see research on this topic. What percentage of Whites, Hispanic, Asian and India workers relative to the population are employeed vs unemployeed in these professions. No question these fields where also dominated by white males from 20's-80's but Robert I'd suggest you do more research on this topic to see if your beliefs match the facts. I'd guess based upon all the downsizing, outsourcing and importing things have change. At the very least I'd say it's alot more diverse today. And in Universities I see and hear the same thing Steve has seen. But who really knows with out facts. While I'm on top of IT demographics trends I've not done any research on Construction worker demographic trends other than talking with my brother -who is much younger than I, but he says during the boom it was hard to find good workers because a whole generation of "old white guys" left or retireed from the last realestate bust in the 90's. Which when the boom returned made it easier for people from Mexico with any construction skills to get jobs. It would be easy for federal and states issuing contracts to utilize Affirmiative Action policies to spread the pie more equally and to insure everyone is a legal citizen. L.O.L. the real problem for White and Black folks alike is the 40 year decline of unions and the 1979"Free-Trade" agreement with CHINA and most recently NAFTA and now Outsourcing and Insourcing of work to India and asian Indian's. This trend has had no negative impact on tenue professors of any color. ----------------------------- Problems with PC I had intended to post this hear. -Karen / Angry Citizen / And Anyone Here\x{2019}s a women I\x{2019}ve seen in action who I have great respect for -Ms. Elisabeth Warren J.D.. Karen she has talked on your topic. She is a Harvard Law Professor and author of \x{201C}The Vanishing Middle Class.\x{201D} Warren is also a member of the FDIC's Committee on Economic Inclusion and does an excellent job going head-to-head on the right-side-of-the-fence (like CNBC Economist L. Kudlow) in a style that wins over independents like me. In this video she talks about shifts in consumer credit, median wages, expanding woman work force, health care and housing cost over the last 40 years. R. Reich and we would all agree with these conclusions but it\x{2019}s here analysis that is most interesting. Here research conclusions about today\x{2019}s family expenses fixed cost vs variable cost and standard of living vs. 40 years ago is worth listening to in this long video \x{2013}when you have time. It adds values to all of Robert Reich\x{2019}s views and others on this blog. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous BMW said... Anonymous. "Why are the Trade Unions; their training programs and history of inclusion (minorities and females) ignored when discussing future work, no matter the industry." Your right I forgot this fact. Robert Reich needs to get out there with old Jimmy Carter building homes. Dr. Reich I'm sure is to busy to be on top of the construction industry. He needs to talk with McCain's "JOE THE PLUMBER". Lets face it some things have change. In my day no males were nurses -period. But because of all the Union factory job losses now look at all the males in nursing. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Where do you get off, you sick little twist? Sexual? I'm not sexual with them. I'm not abusive with them, how dare you write that in your paper without knowing nothing about me, biting's not sex, it's biting! I'm not sick like that. Maybe I should come bite you, would you like that, scotty? I bet you would like that, I am right? You write about me like I'm sick. You're the sick one, you know that? Is that why you like me, scotty? Is that why? I could come bite you; you tell me how sexual it is. You humiliate me like that? You mortify me like that in front of my father? My father's father? Listen to me, smack daddy, crack daddy, little baby whack daddy, here's what's happening. You ain't never going to find them anymore. You aint never gonna see them no more. I'm sending you something right now, You take a good look at this guy, because you ain't ver going to see him no more. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Mr. Reich, thank your lucky stars your employed. Anonymous 1: \x{201C}As a 50-something w/o a job, I'm scared and don't know where to look. Most businesses seem to prefer younger workers as opposed to over-qualified older workers who've been out of the workforce for a while.\x{201D} Anonymous 2: \x{201C}The truth is that men's job have suffered in this recession more than women's: Losing jobs in unequal numbers - 1,069,000 fewer men are working than a year ago. 12,000 more women are working.\x{201D} http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/12/05/ Anonymous 3 Me: Welcome to the highly educated unemployed over 50 and white good-old-boys club. Even with my MBA and 15 years of management experience -I\x{2019}ve been searching for 8 years with no luck. Unable to get hired into entry level jobs I master before being promoted into management in the 90\x{2019}s. Even when I\x{2019}m employed as a temporary contract worker I make 60-75% less than what I made during the decade of the 90\x{2019}s. Thanks to my wife I do not go hungry or need shelter. This unemployed good-old-boy is happy women have jobs or I\x{2019}d be homeless. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous said... "This unemployed good-old-boy is happy women have jobs or I\x{2019}d be homeless." You don't want a job enough. Move to India, become an Indian citizen, then apply for a US job under h1-b visa. It will work out, I assure you. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Peace,Love,Hope said... Art a Layman: The corporate profits before people thing bothers me a lot. I have thought about the non-profit corporate plan. Maybe its a better plan for society? Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous We've reached a new low... said... Is there any way to get rid of overly offensive or obscene comments? I see how you can complain about a blog but not about comments. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Under The Radar said... Dad's in DC. Dude went off on BMW or somebody or everybody, huh ? I don't even know what he was talking about. Back to jobs or the economy, Right ? Friday, 09 January, 2009 nonymous said... Art: I'm a big believer in voting with our dollars. In fact, especially since the high gas prices, Americans have been voting with their dollars toward smaller, more fuel-efficient and hybrid vehicles, and it's one of the reasons the Big 3 are in dire straights because they aren't providing what people want. But then our gov't came along and voted the other way with our dollars. That harms the other car companies, even startups like Tesla Motors, that have been moving much more quickly to satisfy the demand that exists for greener vehicles. Somebody will say that without the bailout, we would have lost the Volt. Doubtful. Bankruptcy reorganization would have allowed GM to get on track to profitability, and if the Volt had enough merit relative to whatever the more profitable companies are working on, they would buy that business unit at a nice discount and keep developing it. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger Art A Layman said... Anonymous: Sounds good but the information I read suggests that consumers, once gas prices declined again, went right back to desiring SUVs, etc. Most of those proposing bankruptcy for the Big 3 were looking for busting the unions and the pensioners and the dealers. Yea they could have dumped their bond holders as well and surely they could have ditched a lot of supplier accounts payable too. Of course that would have sent all the supply chain into bankruptcy with tremendous job losses and a huge negative multiplier effect. It is funny that, in general, most of us find business's ability to file Chapter 11, almost on a whim, abhorrent, but somehow it became Valhallic for the Big 3. No doubt the Big 3 have made many management mistakes over the years but in competition, around the world, they've fared pretty well, even with their labor rates and legacy costs. GM is at or near the top in market share in Europe, China and still has 45% market share in the US. Though their market share has been declining they've held onto those positions in spite of poor management and high labor costs. They didn't achieve that by making cars no one wants to buy. There are many variables that contributed to the plight of the Big 3, not the least of which was the warp speed economic decline. It didn't help that our various states "paid" foreign competition to set up shop here and shatter the industry prevailing labor/benefit rates. We get so damned caught up in our "free market", be fair to all comers, mindset, that we've shot ourselves in the foot over and over. Not only are we running out of foot, the next shot may be at our head. Do you really believe that most of the foreign car companies don't receive significant help from their governments? All in all, would you have felt better if we let all those jobs go down the tubes? If we let all the real estate become local eyesores and the P&E just rust away? If we bailed on all the retirees? How much do you figure it would have cost the government to pick up the pensions, the health insurance, the unemployment? Whatever those costs would be there would be no interest collected nor any hope of a loan payback. We don't vote our pocketbooks, we vote, at best, our emotions and at worst, our insanity. As a collective group of consumers or voters, we are a delight to the commercial world because we are so gullible as to verge on stupid. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Chris Warland said... Thanks Dr. Reich, Certainly, stimulus aimed at improving employment opportunities should purposefully seek to include people who are low-income, have limited skills, or are chronically unemployed. For Americans who face multiple barriers to employment such as prior incarceration, long-term receipt of public aid, or lack of work history, the Transitional Jobs employment strategy would fit well with your idea of a green jobs corps. The Transitional Jobs model combines time-limited, wage-paying jobs with supportive services, job readiness training, and assistance with placement in a permanent job. There is a growing body of evidence showing the efficacy of Transitional Jobs in helping the hardest to employ successfully join the workforce. A number of Transitional Jobs providers are already planning or implementing "green" temporary employment and training opportunities for their clients. Including opportunities for Transitional Jobs participants in a "green jobs corps" would make your proposal even more inclusive and offer much-needed employment assistance to the Americans who are among the most vulnerable and hardest-hit by the economic crisis. The National Transitional Jobs Network is recommending that support for the expansion of Transitional Jobs be included in the stimulus package--our efforts to increase employment should not exclude the hardest to employ among us. Chris Warland Program & Policy Liaison, National Transitional Jobs Network www.transitionaljobs.net Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Oldhistorian69 "I would like to know what is wrong with being a white male protestant Christian" Just read Lauren's post for details of whats wrong with you. She explains why white man our the problem. Friday, 09 January, 2009 BMW said... Art said: "Sounds good but the information I read suggests that consumers, once gas prices declined again, went right back to desiring SUVs, etc.......... ....There are many variables that contributed to the plight of the Big 3, not the least of which was the warp speed economic decline. It didn't help that our various states "paid" foreign competition to set up shop here and shatter the industry prevailing labor/benefit rates. We get so damned caught up in our "free market", be fair to all comers, mindset, that we've shot ourselves in the foot over and over. Not only are we running out of foot, the next shot may be at our head. ...........We don't vote our pocketbooks, we vote, at best, our emotions" -Well said Art, not one of the people I knew who bought SUV's or Van's cared about MPG. Thanks GM needs all the help it can get in the US. F.Y.I. Buick is number 1 luxury brand name in China. My favorite is BMW. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous John Lawrence said... Art said: No doubt the Big 3 have made many management mistakes over the years but in competition, around the world, they've fared pretty well, even with their labor rates and legacy costs. GM is at or near the top in market share in Europe, China and still has 45% market share in the US. Though their market share has been declining they've held onto those positions in spite of poor management and high labor costs. They didn't achieve that by making cars no one wants to buy. The why are they so close to bankruptcy? Are they hiding all those profits they made around the world in off-shore accounts? Friday, 09 January, 2009 the last stone said... Fuels reduction jobs in western forests do not require an engineering degree. Properly applied fire/fuels reduction projects can increase the supply of biomass for alternative, renewable energy and energy security, increase forest productivity and jobs for ongoing growth in a green natural resource based rural economy, reduce government fire suppression costs and sequester increased carbon to mitigate global warming. It's a four fer... and minorities already provide a significant portion of the work force... Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Rich FreeCleanSolar said... Dr. Reich, I applaude your intent and would like offer a few comments of a practical nature concerning clean energy jobs. Specifically, I operate a business at www.freecleansolar.com that helps homeowners and small businesses install solar power. First, it remains to be determined how the pending stimulus will translate into clean energy jobs. The current federal tax credit, along with limited state and local rebates, do indeed make solar power more affordable and even cost-effective for the affluent. In this current environment, the homeowner typically needs at least $10,000 in cold hard cash. Unfortunately, few people are willing to make the investment and part with their cash in this climate. However, $1 billion in stimulus (our tax dollars and debt), would translate into just 33,333 solar installations at an average ticket price of $30,000. Firms like McKinsey estimate that $500 billion will be spent by the private sector over the next 10 years as the clean energy market develops. My point is to illustrate that we must first strategically and realistically solve the issue of clean energy job creation before we can then address the issue of who should get these jobs. Further, we (america and the world) need a long-term, strategic plan to achieve energy breakthroughs and independence. I believe our elected leaders along with industry must come together to devise such a plan. As a former government leader and influencer, I would ask you to think big, thing long-term and think practically. Finally, I would suggest that rather than make this a race or gender issue, let's make this an unemployment issue. That is, if you do not have a job, then you could qualify for a clean energy job regardless of race, creed or gender. For those who may have some skill in the trades (e.g. roofing, electrical, office admin), then the training for solar can be complete in about a week. For those who do not, then perhaps additional training or qualificiation is required. You are right to highlight the need to ensure everybody benefits from the coming stimulus. Let's make sure this is also sustainable and long-term so the benefits tuly create a new industry that changes the world. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Juhu Thukral said... I am pleased to see Robert Reich pinpointing a key issue in the stimulus package--that it must be a vehicle to increase opportunity for all Americans. It will be a shame if this stimulus package does not create equal access to opportunity for communities who have had difficulty finding or maintaining living wage jobs. As Reich suggests, training and skill-building are a critical component of pulling all Americans into the economic mainstream, with a special focus on women and minorities, who have traditionally been left out of construction and energy jobs. To this end, all of us have a stake in ensuring that the companies that get the contracts are held accountable, and the success of their projects is measured not just by the work they accomplish, but also the true expansion of opportunity for the workers who need it the most. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Unless Latinos are considered white males, then you are incorrect to conclude that construction worker employment is equivalent to white male worker employment. Furthermore, while white males are over-represented among electricians (5% of the construction labor force) black males are over-represented among construction laborers (10% of the construction labor force). Finally, if project labor agreements are permitted with government works, then these agreements can include local hire, female and disadvantaged worker hire provisions not unlike at the Port of Oakland or with the Los Angeles Unified School District. Research I did last year while on sabbatical examining the local hire provisions of the LA School district's PLA indicated 1) that Latinos, not white males, dominated the labor force, and approximately 30% of the workforce was local. The advantage of stimulating construction employment, particularly skilled construction jobs, is that it will stimulate the growth of a blue collar sector of the labor market just when manufacturing is getting killed. Many manufacturing workers have skills transferable to construction work. Peter Philips Professor and Chair Economics Department University of Utah Friday, 09 January, 2009 blutown said... Quotas? Are you kidding me? Nice try Comrade Reich. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous John said... "Many low-income and low-skilled workers -- women as well as men -- could be put directly to work providing homes and businesses with more efficient and renewable heating, lighting, cooling, and refrigeration systems; installing solar panels and efficient photovoltaic systems; rehabilitating and renovating old properties, and improving recycling systems." Alot of these upgrades to our homes and energy grid will require trained journeymen level carpenters,electricans and hvac professionals. Most of these jobs require apprenticeships lasting 4-5 years to reach the journeyman level. We will have to take into account how many low/unskilled workers will have the time or inclination to go thru the apprenticeship process for these jobs. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Blogger lineup32 said... "installing new pipes for water and sewage systems, repairing and upgrading equipment, basic construction -- but contractors have to be nudged both to provide the training and to do the hiring." You are dreaming Robert, please contractors are in business not long if they let your green tech poorly trained recently unemployed a real job working on somebody's plumbing or doing some so called odd jobs. You don't know what you are talking about..grow up for a change! Friday, 09 January, 2009 grandma said... What about Habitat for Humanity spearheading this? I think it would be great to require every HS student to work for a week with them and for underprivileged for 6 weeks and then paid. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... You are an over-educated idiot who hates himself for being white. How many real jobs have you had that don't involve either politics or education? Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Green job employers weed out people by requiring people(women) to lift 100 pounds. Many people leave solar jobs when they have to work on high roofs in all kinds of weather carrying heavy loads. Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Why would any of the 40 million citizens who don't pay taxes want to work - especially at a job that requires physical labor? These are the people O wants to transfer wealth to. By doing that, their incentive to work is taken away. As for "Grandma's" post about high school students being required to work at community service jobs: let her lead the way by helping Habitat for Humanity build a substandard home! Friday, 09 January, 2009 Illegals Work for CA$H & screw Govt said... For decades the Govt has been able to cheat its way to Econ Growth with high immigration... But this backfire in a Depression (present financial meltdown in California) Friday, 09 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Ummm... Robert, unless I miss my guess, you are a professional, white male. Does this mean you will turn down any job offers from the Obama admin? (Didn't think so.) Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Blogger Art A Layman said... John: I didn't say they were the most profitable auto companies. I believe, as best I can tell without a thorough review of their financials, that their consolidated reporting includes their worldwide operations. "Hiding" overseas profits, or cash, is more a tax manifestation than a reporting one. I have only cursorily looked at GM financials but I posted once before that they lost $50B over the last three years yet their cash increased by $10B. I looked at a few of the notes and they did a lot of accounting writedowns and adjustments, noncash expenses. Now they also did some divestitures, 51% of GMAC, etc., that may have had a positive effect on cash but also a detrimental effect on earnings. GM, and probably the other two, have very tight operating profit margins. I believe GM's was running around 1.5% back when they were profitable. Toyota's operating profit was around 10%. No doubt high labor and legacy costs affect those operating profit margins but so to do fixed costs and fixed costs are not always that easy to pare down. Usually companies operating with small profit margins depend on sales volumes to maintain those profit margins and if sales volumes drop they hit the lower margin companies the worst. At the same time when an industry, in total, sees a significant drop off in sales, the market leader is going to bear his market share of the drop. In textbook think, it is generally assumed the market leader will be the more profitable and thus can weather storms better. Not so with GM or the other two. There is no doubt that labor/legacy costs contribute to those low profit margins and since in a downturn the union contracts provide that any effect of labor cutbacks aren't realized for at least a year, turning around on a dime becomes impossible. I don't know the extent but I have also believed that part of those losses were posturing for the 2007 labor contract negotiations. Hard to get labor concessions if your profits are steady or growing. Whether intentional or not, they did come out with a more competitive labor contract in 2007, perhaps the best in years, but the savings weren't due to start kicking in until 2010 and beyond. They all, the Big 3, seemed to be operating with near term strategies for major changes in their operating models but, like everyone else, they didn't see the absurd rise in oil prices nor the severe economic decline coming. If you had just completed or were finalizing a plan for getting your personal finances in order and then your income dried up you might also have some problems. There are, without a doubt, any number of valid criticisms that can be leveled at the Big 3, including their history of labor contracts, but I think you would agree that the wage/benefit operating model of the Big 3 is closer to what we, of the left hand side of the political spectrum, feel is the better model for our workers. I wasn't making an argument that the Big 3 were the best managed auto companies but much has been posted here about how they don't make products that people want to buy and the worldwide market shares blow that thinking out of the water, or should. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Replace White with Jewish, and....... Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous silverfox said... Just as a general observation aquired from a lifetime of working with manufacturing, technical and construction companies, the complexity of the modern means of production makes it highly unlikely that productive workers can be effectively trained within a few short months or even a couple of on the job training years. If you want employers to hire people to sit around and draw a paycheck for just showing up, okay, but do not seriously expect any value added to the work nor will there be any appreciable increase in work skill enhancement. In today's world one must actively participate in a multi year apprentice program or aquire a couple of years of formal classroom training capped by some actual work experience. Attempts to draw in large numbers of unskilled and non performing bodies for the sole purpose of giving folks a paycheck will sour the public on such programs very quickly and create real political opposition to any sort of government 'make work' programs. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... When the government starts dumping bllions into projects you will see the southern border over-run with illigals. The majority of these contractors would rather pay a low wage and no taxes to an illigal that to train and pay a U.S. citizen. They have been saying "look we are winning the border probem"-- due to the massive decrease in crossings. DAH??!! There are no jobs!! They will stay home until there is work! We need jobs for the people in this country. We have been nice and let business out source our future and our children's future. We have allowed people to take advantage of our kindness and run us over as if they have "the right" to do it. Maybe if this economy goes completly down the tubes, we can then reform this country and government to AGAIN be Of the PEOPLE, For the PEOPLE , and By the PEOPLE once more. Let's also remember that the statue of liberty was a gift from France. The words on it fit the time in the past, no longer. The government could require hiring only U.S. citizens and subsidise the employee with an apprentice prgram that would pay 1/4 to 1/2 that employee's hourly wage. Do this until they have been trained. This is not giving something for nothing, it is investing in Americans and our county's future. It will probly pay off better than the 300 billion we threw at the banks so they could by other banks. Thanks again Mr. Bush and Dick C. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 notsofast said... "Replace White with Jewish, and......." don't think many jews would want these jobs but i think i get your point. where would hillary clinton be without affirmative action? lol i wonder which jewish male she replaced at entry to yale law school. surely she took the spot of someone more qualified than she was if we judge based soley on merit, i.e. test scores. more generally, most women and minorities will need some kind of help to compete in some jobs and occupations. a pure meritocracy won't achieve desired social goals. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... I'm a conservative centrist, but I disagree with giving any of the stimulus money directly to citizens. As much as I could use the money now (unemployed engineer because my employer could not raise working capital for a new cancer detection system and went bankrupt), giving me $1000 or even $5000 isn't going to kick-start the economy. There are two problems: 1. consumer confidence and 2. money for businesses to borrow so they can grow. I think that most of the tax incentives should go to businesses that hire new employees. Nothing will improve consumer confidence and get people to start buying again than citizens feeling secure about their jobs. That will solve #1. The other change should be in the way capital gains are taxed. Short-term gains should be taxed fully and long-term gains should have progressively less tax. The opposite should be true for capital losses: short-term losses should not be deductible and long-term should be fully deductible. This will solve #2 because people will invest in bonds and directly into companies and will *KEEP* their money invested longer. That will lower volatility and play a role in improving #1 above. Finally, the government should do nothing but oversee the spending on infrastructure and alternative energy. The government is very inefficient in virtually everything it does. See "John Stoessel Goes to Washington" from 2001. Open up all the new government-sponsored projects to open bidding and have projects be re-opened for bidding every 2 years. This way, companies will know that they will lose the projects if they don't live up to their promises. There should be cash penalties for any cost overruns or unfulfilled requirements. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Red Cloud said... A short run solution: provide a tax credit to home owners for the labor costs incurred in home remodeling, restoration, or repair. I suggest labor costs, because whether you install manufactured plywood cabinets with formica or custom crafted cabinets with granite counters, the labor costs will be about the same. Focusing on labor costs seems to insure that the work goes to local people; omitting material costs reduces the probability of abuse. Further, you could peg the amount of the tax credit to the aggregate unemployment rate in the state. Everyone would be entitled to a minimum credit, with the maximum being based upon the annualized UI rate for the state for 2009. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Blogger KingTJ said... I know much has already been said here, but I feel like I have to comment as well. Robert Reich greatly disturbs me with this blog entry. It sounds like a very thinly veiled "Robin Hood agenda" to me! (EG. Pouring large numbers of taxpayer dollars into public works projects is a GREAT thing, but ONLY if we make sure the money goes to people who have the least, vs. the ones best able to perform the work we're creating!) If the primary goal of the "economic stimulus" is charity, then let's not hide it behind "work projects"! May as well get to the point, and mail checks to all the people with income 200% of more below the federal "poverty level", and make sure everyone but white males gets in on it! No, like others here have already said, specific skills are needed for any large building project -- and they're not generally skills a person can master in a short period of time. It doesn't really matter WHO has those skills. You're ensuring those that do are continuing to have gainful employment in their field. If a minority or long-time unemployed person sees that field is generating good income for people working in it, nothing's stopping him/her from going back to school and taking that career path, right? (Ok, maybe lack of money for the education is ... but that's an issue that isn't addressed directly by this whole "public works stimulus" idea anyway.) Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous Spencer said... silverfox said: "If you want employers to hire people to sit around and draw a paycheck for just showing up, okay, but do not seriously expect any value added to the work nor will there be any appreciable increase in work skill enhancement." This is exactly correct, and it really gets to the heart of the issue Dr. Reich was addressing. If you think about it for a minute, you will see that any such plan to "jump start" the economy assumes that the short run effect of the multiplier will continue perpetually. It cannot. Just like when you prime the pump of a lawn mower to get it started, there must be gas actually in the tank for such a strategy to work (the tank here represents the long run economy). It is clear to all that our lawn mower is out of gas and there isn't a station around for miles. So short run "stimulus packages" like this NEVER WORK, they never have, and they never will in terms of somehow magically causing the long run economy to continue running. What they will do is cause a few unfortunate souls the opportunity for a few more paychecks. They are an expensive solution to providing a short term cash influx for desperate people. If that is the strategy, then it may be better to (temporarily) significantly enhance unemployment benefits (perhaps double or triple them) and extend them. This is more efficient because they expire anyway (unlike artificial government jobs). Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Mr. Reich, This is exactly the sort of crap that makes the working class vote Republican. I'm totally sick of this shit, in fact, and I had hoped that it would be over, that the Democrats would be a 50-State party. Afraid it isn't. Democrats have power now. Want to keep it? Help EVERYBODY! I'm a White male and I pay taxes. I do not want a single new entitlement program unless it applies to me. That doesn't make me a bigot. Don't tax me to give health care and employment and education to one-legged lesbian single mothers of Native Alaskan ancestry. Do it for everyone or go to Hell! Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... The more I see of this country and how it's progressing the more I hope it wallows in manure. It'll be interesting to see what the leeches do when all the companies and individuals leave this country to go where they're appreciated. I used to love my country but I don't consider it worth a dang anymore. Good luck getting the lazy, stupid Yes We Cans to pull you out of this tail spin. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous said... What is so wrong with the concept of the best person for the job. Try not hiring someone because of their religion or sexual orientation, and see what happens. Not hire someone because they are a white male, and you did something good. Liberals are such a whacked sick bunch. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous ANONNONA said... "And if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades..." Do you not understand that white males "dominate" the construction trades because the are the majority of America's working population? Duhhhhhhhh. So what is wrong with them receiving the most amount of aid if they are the majority of the population? It would seem that if you want to have the most impact it would make sense to target this group because they are the majority. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous Question said... So Dr. Reich is proposing using the tax dollars of white male workers (who are by far the largest group of taxpayers) to dispossess them from their own jobs by handing them over to other less qualified people? Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Anonymous said:"And if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades..." "Do you not understand that white males "dominate" the construction trades because the are the majority of America's working population? Duhhhhhhhh." I say: Using Dr. Riech's logic we should ask "How come the majority of Economics Prof are WHITE MALES? How can we stop this racist crime Dr. Reich? Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous said... It's time to design, develop and implement a balanced manpower policy that targets populations in greatest need of job training to tackle underemployment and unemployment rates among the most vulnerable of our workers. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous Realist said... Reich is obviously very detached from the real working world, having spent his career in the Ivory Tower of academia or in the equally reality-detached world of the federal government, both of which are funded by the dollars of working taxpayers. It's easy to be a 'theorist' when your job is securely funded via taxpayer dollars, though Reich might be feeling the pinch soon considering the State of California is functionally bankrupt...seems that state has lost far too many White workers over the past couple decades and can't cope with the resulting loss of tax dollars coupled with the gain of tax liabilities in the form of low-skilled immigrants and their very large (taxpayer funded) families... Anyhow, it is clear that the decline of America can be at least partially attributed to the dispossession of tax-paying White workers by more easily exploited and less organized non-White workers who often pay few taxes. To further dispossess White workers as Reich proposes here (the workers who pay the most taxes and are the most productive workers because they are still the majority of the population) will only hasten the already rapid decline ('Brazilification') of America. The truth is difficult to bear, but that doesn't change the fact that it's the truth. To shut-out the most productive, hard-working, and tax paying group in the USA (Whites) will drive the America economy further in to the ditch. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 yudro said... Unless there are regulations requiring hard to obtain credentials, people can learn. If there is high demand and high wages for various skills, people will learn. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Blogger lineup32 said... Most construction is done via heavy machinery rather then hordes of folks with pick's and shovel's. So heavy equipment operators will tend to get more overtime and the construction companies will buy newer more highly productive machines that replace more labor, since the gov't will be offering a variety of tax incentives to buy equipment. Cash payments to illegal workers will also be in popular though done via subcontractors. Overall none of Obama's plans will impact the service sector job loss in finance, retail, and related professions. What it will do is spike GDP at some point that will show that the economy is growing but job creation will be small and expensive for many years as consumers and business deleverage. Saturday, 10 January, 2009 Anonymous Hyphenated American said... I think Dr.Reich is quite correct in his article. Firstly, it's reactionary to think that people should be hired because they can do the job well. As we all know, social justice demands us to hire people based on their race, color, ethnicity and sex. Moreover, a person who who was in jail, used drugs or does not have any work experience should stand in front of the job line, while the idiots who kept out of trouble, worked hard should be pushed aside. Moreover, I have a feeling that Dr.Reich is a perfect example of this treatment - I mean, I would want to know a single person who believes that Dr.Reich got his job within the Clinton administration or in the university due to his actual skills and knowledge. Dr.Reich is a man of great personal integrity, and it's impossible to think that he would have taken these jobs - unless he was absolutely sure he was the last person who could do it well. http://hyphenatedamericans.blogspot.com/ Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Dan said... The concern I have is not so much who the contractors are as where the money is going. As an Administrator in a small town, when I hear "shovel ready" I get nervous that the money is going to flow to those who already have resources, rather than those who need it most. Before we get too excited about mass transit and green energy projects - both of which are important - its important to remember that there are water and sewer lines, many of which were installed during the WPA era, that are in desperate need of repair and replacement. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Blogger notsofast said... h_a, not many people who've been working for awhile haven't gotten a job without the help of someone they know or without an association with someone influential. you seem to be confusing cause and effect. his position is more a function of education than who he knows. it's really unimportant anyway; policy experts are one thing and brain surgeons another. one requires knowledge laden with values and the other more objective knowledge and skills common to the profession. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... HypAmerica, R.R. should be reading your blog. "Firstly, it's reactionary to think that people should be hired because they can do the job well. As we all know, social justice demands us to hire people based on their race, color, ethnicity and sex. Moreover, a person who who was in jail, used drugs or does not have any work experience should stand in front of the job line, while the idiots who kept out of trouble, worked hard should be pushed aside.........." Welcome, to the United States of Socialism -comrades. Our motto "Let the least qualified get the job". Sunday, 11 January, 2009 R. Lawson said... "And if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades, many people who need jobs the most -- women, minorities, and the poor and long-term unemployed -- will be shut out." I'm not sure this still holds true. The last construction crew I saw weren't white. They weren't black. I'm not sure they were American citizens. Perhaps companies who get the contracts should be required to use e-verify for all employees. If the money goes to IT (my field) a large percent of workers are not white males. And many are also not citizens (though most are here legally). Point of fact - our salaries have remained stagnant over the last 5 years. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous dwath said... 1. For ever dollar the government uses, 60+ cents are spent on administration. By definition, the government is extremely inefficient. What government program, with the possible exception of the Post Office, comes close to being efficient? 2. The cost of making sure the "right" people are hired in the "right" percentages would create a lot of quota enforcement jobs which certainly give the tax payer a good bang for his buck. It is really non-enforceable. Furthermore, in many areas of the country, the requisite numbers of Blacks (which is really what he is saying by "minorities.") and women may not be available due to demographics. Are we going to move people specifically to keep some artificial racial/sexual balance? Who pays for the moving truck? The truth is, in the south and near big cities, you will get more blacks. In the SW, you will get more hispanics and in Minnisota and the Inland Empire, you will get more Scandanavians. 3. All these projects (on national infrastructure) will have to hire under Davis-Bacon which means paying "prevailing wages for the area where it happens." So, in Spokane WA we pay based on Seattle which means we pay two to three times the prevailing wages for Spokane. Again, waste, waste, waste. 4. All these programs need to have stringent citizenship controls for workers as we do not need to underwrite South America's economy. 5. On the quota issue, New Orleans has a high minority count--60-70 percent?? I do not know. Yet when all that FEMA reconstruction and cleanup money was floating around for clean up and construction, they (the local minorities) did not show up for the work. Per rumor control, most of the ugly clean up work was done by illegal immigrants because they were the only ones the companies could get to do the work. You can make all the programs you want, but, if people do not want to work, they just are not going to do the job. This also ties into the skills issue. FEMA also was a prime example of the government's inability to function efficiently. 7. I built a barn/shop/office on my property. I did virtually all of it myself. The front is 52 feet across and the back is 53 feet across. The NW corner is 4 inches higher than the SW corner. You get the picture. Certain skills are required for certain jobs. Hiring people based on the skill of their race or sex will get you my barn. (I hired a contractor to put up my garage and it is much nicer.) 8. In the end, I do support rebuilding the infrastructure. I do support getting minority groups employed. But, the government needs basic standards, good oversight and then needs to get out of the way. Establishing quotas just will not work. Seen on a wall "If you do not like the problems your government has caused, then just wait until you see the solutions they have come up with." Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Angry Citizen said: "...I know where the drafts are. And I wouldn't pay someone to come in and tell me where they were or fix them for me. Instead, if I really wanted to fix it, I'd get online, do some research, and fix it myself. I would imagine that folks who are more well-off either don't have a lot of problems with their homes, are willing to pay the people who currently do that sort of work to come in and do it, or would fix it themselves, too. People who are much less well-off wouldn't be able to pay at all...". I think homeowner's insurance should be required to include maintenance and repair expense coverage for the insured's home. How many pay tens of thousands over the course of their home ownership and never make a claim? The insurers need to actually provide a guaranteed service for their product, otherwise they're selling bets, and gambling is illegal in many states. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... This article really shows how clueless you are Robert. Have you ever been around a Construction site? Have you ever been into an IT department? A very large portion of Construction are staffed with minorities, more that as you say "White Males". A very large portion of High Tech jobs are minorities, you know there is something called H-1B Visa program. You are seriously out of touch with ANY reality of the workforce. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Tom1995 said... I've read most of the posts and most are intelligent and thoughtful .I own a small masonry company in north Florida . I have laid off 15 Americans . I do not hire illegals .We can not compete with companies that do . Why is being white a crime ?`This is not my Grandfathers America. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Blogger Andrew Eppink said... Economics should dictate hiring, letting of contracts etc., nothing else. People have to be encouraged, prodded, whatever it takes, to improve themselves. Only capitalism underlain by Christian Morality is up to the task of wealth generation sufficient to meet the needs of the world population. All these whacked out 'economic' schemes emanating from the crazed anti-God, anti-religious left simply result in corruption and irresponsibility, and disgusting societal dependence, often (usually?) overtly intended by the leftist social engineers. People have to be helped to help themselves. It's 3rd grade obvious there's no other way. God does indeed help those who try to help themselves, and He encourages people to help themselves in the 1st place. But to Reich and his crazy leftist ilk the very concept - God - is ludicrous and beyond the pale. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Blogger TC said... The burden of present financial obligations is so huge ... the drag this will have on any stimulus package -- even one approaching $1 trillion -- is so great ... why does an economist spend his thoughts on such mundane considerations as this post presents? Mr. Reich, leave these matters to the People. We have a Congress for this. We certainly don't need academics giving the appearance that, a government charged to "promote the general Welfare" necessarily implies top-down micro-management. We need a healthy financial system, sir. Not one leveraged to the teeth, degrading to the point where the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. Treasury is increasingly being threatened. So, why don't you spend your time writing on that subject. We'll figure out for ourselves what we should do with the wind and grass... Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Farmer Boy said... I am a retired white male. In the past I have been an engineer, refrigeration contractor and I have the requisite skills for many other trades. And I can use more money for my retirement (which is principally to develop new ways to build houses, prevent pollution and to increase energy efficiency.) I have a small (58 acres) farm where I am working to develop ways to produce FOOD from the small farm for local consumption. (I would love to shut out the mega farmers and mega dealers in agricultural commodities and food. I want to everything from plant the grain to bake the bread). If you are reading this and want to participate, let me know. Cabotool at yahoo point com. Let's go do it! Peter Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Blogger Count said... If we're trying to improve the infrastructure, why use affirmative action to hire unqualified women? Does feminist equity include bridges collapsing? Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous john pap said... I usually have the greatest admiration for Robert Reich's advocacy of workers, his comments suggest a common blind spot. There are no doubt some construction workers that are doing well, but in general union members in the skilled trades have had a difficult time for many years. As an electrician and member of Local 3 IBEW in New York City, one might imagine that we enjoyed plentiful employment. The numbers however present a different story. Since 9/11, our unemployment rate has exceeded 10%. The recent so-called construction boom evaded us as rampant greedy non-union developers sought to make obscene profits on multi-million dollar residential development, while using every deceit to avoid paying prevailing wages and their share of local & federal taxes. This often included the illegal hiring of undocumented workers as well as other 'off the books' practices. Our union members are hardly the stereotypical all-white professional. Our ranks have long represented women and minorities of every ethnicity. To suggest that stimulus(especially alternative energy)jobs should be targeted to the unskilled or untrained would only accelerate the corporate race to the bottom. The field of construction work is so porous already that it is a Herculean task simply to hold on to the shrinking number of jobs where unions have any influence. I agree that we face considerable problems - thrust upon us not by chance but by malicious & deliberate actions of the Bush regime. We desparately need jobs for everyone willing to work, but facilitating the decline of established wage standards is a disengenuous policy initiative. It may help some workers in the short run but will only hasten lower wages and benefits for all. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 florid nightingale said... While we are creating jobs that do not require masculine muscles, let's remember to fund child care workers so the women taking these jobs will have a safe place to leave their young children. Having nowhere to leave the kids while at work forces poor women to remain on public assistance. Without funding for child care, creating women-friendly jobs is only half right. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Art: Our gov't routinely wins judgments related to foreign industries "dumping" goods on the American market. If they suspected that was occurring in the auto sector, they would certainly go after it. Supposedly the money for unemployment insurance is coming out of the worker's pay anyway, so I don't see that the same as using federal taxes from somebody in Florida to help GM in Michigan. As for other gov't costs related to those companies failing, by that logic no business should ever be allowed to fail. I don't see what is wrong with a foreign auto company wanting to create manufacturing jobs in the South and offering wages competitive with other industries there. Don't workers in the South deserve good jobs too? Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous Spencer said... You know the whole notion of a "stimulus package" cannot achieve it's stated goal of "jump starting" the economy. A better idea is to temporarily increase & dramatically improve the existing unemployment benefits and to take back the jobs that caused the problem in the first place. To find out why it won't work, see http://www.american-consensus.org/resources/stimulus_packages/stimulus_packages.html Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Everything about the authors article suggests that he is divorced from the reality of modern America. In that respect he is similar to Congress. Perhaps in the coming depression we will have a revolution. See...there's a bright side to everything. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Why don't you just hang out a sign that says "No White Males Need Apply". Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... I had a similar conversation with my zillionaire limosine liberal brother. My husband is an MIT educated high skilled professional white male. We advise NO AMERICAN CITIZENS to go into engineering. They are importing less qualified engineers to drive down the salaries of Americans creating legions of demoralized top of the line professionals that can't get jobs. Oh and by the way, I went to architecture school. Ever looked at the average income of the average architect? It is less than a skilled construction worker. Wake up and learn what is really going on out there...Ann Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Spencer said... Hey Guys, I just want to let you know that Dr. Reich is on our side - the side of the American worker. He may be the only ex-government official that is. He may also have some overly liberal views that slip out now and then and cloud his otherwise stellar analysis (like this posting, for example suggesting stimulus packages & targeting certain groups - all standard liberal material), but overall his analysis is dead on. For example he has been pointing out the H-1B fiasco for many years as these articles demonstrate: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=coping_with_the_shortage_of_high_tech_workers http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=huddled_masses_of_software_engineers http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=feinsteins_rule So l give him a break and hope he can have some influence on the current administration, eh? If you care about having any impact on these issues, he's probably your only hope. The rest of your government is against you, including the Obama administration. Sunday, 11 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... There is no shortage of unemployed or underemployed skilled labor and professionals, regardless of gender, skin color, or physical ability. What's lacking is certain specific skills. For example, I spent 15 years as a NASA engineer. Who wants an old woman whose profession is obsolete? But there's no shortage of demand for mechanics. Building and installing new energy sources and upgrading the grid to connect them to, recycling materials more effectively and using them in construction, is going to require innovation and training. We need a return to things like guilds, where you had apprentices, journeymen, and masters. We need gardeners and clothmakers, not just high-tech specialists. Remember how dependent we are on just "buying stuff." We need a re-evaluation from the inside out of what's necessary to our comfortable way of life. But a "stimulus" can start with restoring vocational training in schools. Hire teachers who can teach something besides how to get accepted to a college. Hire more teachers, period! When I go to try to figure out how to fix my washing machine, I don't need my degree in math. Monday, 12 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Hopefully jobs won't go to diminutive, socialist economists who have produced little of value in the US for the past 16 years. Monday, 12 January, 2009 Blogger "The Captain" said... Thanks for the great article!!! Monday, 12 January, 2009 Blogger Art A Layman said... Anonymous: There is a difference between gaming and dumping. In some states workers pay a portion of unemployment taxes. In most states the employer picks up the whole tax. Over the last 30 years the South has not hurt for new jobs coming from US companies relocating there aside from the foreign firms. At the same time there has been a huge influx of people relocating to the South because of those firm's movements. Many of those "damned Yankees" have taken many of those created jobs while also putting great stress on the infrastructures of the state governments. Education systems have suffered. Home prices have escalated at a higher rate than most other regions. Medical systems have been stressed. Once abundant water supplies are now at risk whenever a periodic drought occurs. No one is slamming the South, especially not for wanting more jobs, but we are in the post-1865 period and supposedly are one nation and as such, viewing in the longer term, it was not a great idea to allow foreign manufacturers, essentially assembly operations, to set up shop with taxpayers money, as a result of ridiculous bidding wars between the states, and then offer jobs at far lower rates of pay than prevailed in the industry. Then to take those lower labor costs, coupled with the savings from the state's gifts, and compete in an American market against American companies, paying good wages/benefits and with little of the freebies from states, without some sort of leveling factor. I have no problem with foreign firms setting up shop in the US, North, South, East or West. I do have a problem with this charity idea, where states compete with each other to see who can give the most to land a new employer. I have a problem with foreign firms who use inflated "transfer costs" to avoid federal and state income taxes. And I have a severe problem with allowing large foreign firms to essentially lower overall US labor rates without some sort of offset that makes the competition fair. The dilemma or issue is far more complex that my little dissertation would seem to make it but in net, the Japanese firms, the first to commence auto assembly plants here, did so to gain or offset, economic advantage. By assembling here they circumvented the "Buy American" aura, which was growing at the time. They bypassed any tariffs or import quotas that existed and they significantly cut transportation costs of shipping their products here. Good business, no doubt, but we now see that there are facets of our economic stability that depend on more than just being able to buy products cheaper. We are, still, the largest consumption market in the world and while opening our consumption market, for free, to the rest of the world is a good thing, for the rest of the world, we have been seeing that it may not be such a good thing for our workers. In hailing the jobs success of the South, don't heap all that praise on Honda or Toyota or Hyundai. Save most of it for Willis Haviland Carrier, the inventor of air conditioning. Without air conditioning the South would still be an agrarian area producing most of the world's cotton. Your Florida taxpayer/Michigan worker argument is curious. Where do you think a lot of those Michigan workers go when they take vacations? Could it possibly be Florida? Monday, 12 January, 2009 James Wilson said... Obama's plan should include a coast to coast nirth to south high speed rail system. Thsi high speed rail system can be used as the New Electric Power Grid that we need so badly. Monday, 12 January, 2009 Blogger Kalidescopemind said... Dear Mr. Riech. I recall the most amazing moment in 1992, during Bill's sucessful campaign. It was election night and Bill was winning. A PBS reporter was interviewing you, and you said: "the most important thing to understand about Bill clinton is..." And they cut away! I couldn't believe it!! Do you recall the moment, and what you wished to say? Monday, 12 January, 2009 Blogger Analyticsdude said... Central planners never die, they just end up 'teaching' at Berkeley. Monday, 12 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... So I guess everybody in America needs economic assistance, and we should do all we can to help those in need, but if you happen to be a white construction worker you're somehow undeserving? It amazes me that just about every comment I have read, completely disregards this blatant racial discrimination. I can't believe what I'm reading! As a white tax paying citizen, how am I supposed to react to such a statement? Is this the way the next four years are going to be? What kind of "Change" is about to hit this country? Is this the new "righteous wind" that is going to blow? If so, there is one thing for certain. It certainly will blow! Monday, 12 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Art: To listen to you, the South is really suffering due to all the people wanting to live there. No doubt there will be some growing pains as infrastructure catches up with population growth. If it gets too bad, people will stop moving there. I fail to see how large foreign firms, operating on US soil, are lowering overall US wage rates. What sort of "leveling factor" would you apply to correct this? But let's assume the wage rates are a little lower in the South, and by transferring production from North to South, the average wage rate falls. Well, the cost of living in the South is generally lower also, so I think it takes a bit more analysis to determine that real living standards are lower. I'm not sure if you are making this complaint, but the complaint is surely made that US jobs are being shipped overseas. Now you make the complaint that foreign companies creating jobs in the US are somehow harming the US. What business meets your criteria? It seems like the argument is that any company that isn't Ford, GM, or Chrysler with their exact culture and unions and located in Detroit is part of the "problem". You asked for it: Willis Haviland Carrier, thank you for inventing air conditioning and making the South a nice place to live, even if you didn't realize it would ultimately take jobs away from Northerners and make the whole country poorer. On second thought, Willis, maybe with a more agrarian South the wages in the North wouldn't have been depressed by foreign car companies creating competitive jobs in the South. Thanks for nothin'. Regarding Florida vacationing... the gov't took money from taxpayers to give it to the Big 3. By doing so, it may help some of those workers to vacation in Florida. But now the rest of us, in aggregate, can't vacation in Florida as much. Monday, 12 January, 2009 Blogger nick1936 said... Here is a project that could begin now and is also Green. The Government should fund 100% of home owners cost for solar panels on private homes. The Utilitie companies should have to buy the excess electric that goes on the grid and at a fair market price. this payment can be either returned to the goverment wholey or in the form of a tax credit to the home owner. I prefer a tax credit myself for not only would the home owner save on his bill by having the panels but it would encourage him or her to conserve. Also the plan would create jobs that couldn't be outsoursed. Monday, 12 January, 2009 nick1936 said... What I really would like to know Dr is do you read this stuff. Monday, 12 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... florida. white. male. would love to have a steady job, or any job, laying blocks or masonry. been in the profession for 20 years. taught myself how to read blue prints and run large crews. learned Spanish because I had to because all the companies I worked for employed illegal workers. Now no one is employing anyone. The few companys with work still have their favorite illegals. Lots of American workers black, brown, white, green, who have no jobs while the market decides its cheaper to employ undocumented workers than Americans. God bless the USA, or at least those of us who are being kicked to the curb. IXLNXS Monday, 12 January, 2009 Blogger designercloth said... Hi.... Are u looking for your product promotion or searching your requirement on the internet than log on to www.made-from-india.com. It is an innovative and comprehensive online business-to-business (B2B) portal, It gives us an immense pleasure to introduce the much awaited complete business solution services i.e. made-from-india.com for the first time in India to esteemed organization like your\x{2019}s. Monday, 12 January, 2009 Art A Layman said... Anonymous: The South is a big area and not all of the South has experienced the same rate of growth. Many areas of the South have been growing rapidly for over 40 years and infrastructure still hasn't caught up. People looking for jobs don't generally look into infrastructure issues before moving and the states surely are not going to mention problems when promoting themselves. Now we are talking in generalities here so exceptions abound but as a geographic area the South has been growing, both in population and commerce for many years. In those areas where growth has been occurring for years the cost of living has also been growing. I moved from Dayton, OH to Raleigh, NC 30 years ago and was shocked that the cost of living in NC, what I considered the deep South, was significantly higher. Current comparisons show a need for a 10% increase in earnings to live comparably in Raleigh as in Dayton. Any cost of living comparison will depend on where you are coming from and going to but a little research would show you that a universal statement that the COL is lower in the South will get you where most universal statements do, in the corner with a Dunce cap. Most of the industrial movement of domestic companies from North, and other areas, to the South were predicated on lower wages in the South coupled with a strong resistance in the South to unionization. Pre-large air conditioning systems the heat and humidity across much of the South, in the summer months, tended to offset the cost savings by endangering productivity. As union wage scales rose and air conditioning systems improved relocating a plant to the South became more feasible. The Interstate Highway system also facilitated moving factories further from their customer base. What "leveling factor"? If I had the answer I might run for President. We have, in this country, for years, had a failing of not looking at the long term. Maybe no one considered that the Japanese cars would eventually prove very competitive with domestic ones but if one did then it would have been simple to realize that the wage differentials would begin to create an unfair advantage. Of course economics has a simple solution; wages, across the board, will have to decline to maintain competitive balance. It's this same shortsightedness that caused us to miss the idea that removing tariffs could lead to jobs moving overseas because of even cheaper labor. There was little resistance to foreign firms setting up assembly plants here because it began at a time when we were reeling from the oil crisis of the 70s and lots of jobs were lost, especially in the auto industry. An influx of new industry offering new jobs was a welcome relief. Our insane belief that we do everything better likely allowed us to turn the other cheek and put on our blinders. We are, currently, where we are, and looking back it's not hard to see that allowing foreign firms to set up shop here, not only with no "leveling factor" but with freebies provided by a variety of states, has led us down a slope of declining wages. Exacerbating the problem is that simultaneously we were seeing rapid increases in automation in factories, putting even more stress on jobs and wages. More irony, Japan and Europe regained economic strength and competitiveness via our pocketbooks after WWII. Are we to continue having to pay? No doubt the scene that has unfolded over the last 30+ years has been good for the citizens of the world. Who can argue that that's a bad thing? As the aura has continued, adding outsourcing and immigraton issues to the mix, the American taxpayer/worker is now paying with his livelihood not just his dollars. In reality these problems go far beyond any North versus South discussion. Jobs and wages problems are nationwide affecting all levels of our society. I'm not suggesting that workers in the South shouldn't have access to good jobs, although as I stated, many of the Southern workers are transplanted Northerners. I do have a problem with the idea that American workers have to accept lower wages because cheaper labor resources are available around the world. Is that the result of laissez-faire economics? There is no doubt. I also have a problem with this auction process that has developed amongst the states. It isn't limited to Southern states but because they are receiving more interest due to generally lower wages and the prevailing anti-union atmosphere, most of them have been raising it to an art form. There are no simple answers to this geographic dispersion of jobs across the nation but it has had tremendous social costs. Families end up being separated. Children no longer have the support and daily love and attention of grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. We are all aware that in most families both parents work and without the support systems provided by close relatives our children are going backward in education and ambition. Your conditioned thanks to Mr. Carrier is not without merit. Innovation, generally a good thing, often comes with unintended consequences. Maybe you can explain to me how the government bailouts, all of them, are taking money out of your pocket, presently, and thus limiting your vacation plans. Granted, depending on results, they will have significant impacts in the future but if you still have a job, hopefully a secure one, you can vacation as often as you had before and to wherever you would like to go. If fewer of those Big 3 workers vacation in Florida you may very well find the cost of your trip there much more expensive. Tuesday, 13 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Art: Good points, especially about families splitting up as our workforce becomes more mobile. Cheaper cars produced by Southern factories may ultimately harm the wages earned by more expensive producers in the North. But it also effectively increases the wages of everyone else who buys the cheaper cars. As for bailouts taking money out of my pocket... $700 billion / 138 million taxpayers = $5072 per taxpayer. Uncle Sam didn't mug me on the street and steal my wallet just as I was about to buy my vacation package, but the money was taken. It's not ok if gov't borrowed the money, because now it will take the $5702 plus interest in the future. It's not ok if the gov't printed the money, because now everyone's dollars have been devalued. You seem to be trying to say that the bailouts have zero consequence for everyone else: "you can vacation as often as you had before and to wherever you would like to go". That's simply not true. Yes, the effects are spread to a larger number of people so they seem smaller, but this is like a magician telling us to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain". There's 138 million of us behind the curtain supplying cash to the gov't magicians who are levitating the banks and the Big 3. Of course, everyone who sees what a neat trick that levitation is wants to have the magician try it on them too. "Me too, me too!". At some point the 138 million can't supply the cash fast enough. Supply and demand generally doesn't work the way you described. If fewer people are going to Florida, prices will be cheaper. Without the Michiganites, hotels will offer special discounts to help fill their empty rooms. Tuesday, 13 January, 2009 Blogger James said... It is my firm belief that too much of Obama's economic recovery plan will benefit areas that do not create new jobs. Tax cut with Federal deficit spending is ludicrous. Tuesday, 13 January, 2009 Anonymous said... What's the implementation plan? Is it through USAJOBS.gov or through the individual states? If it's through USAJOBS, better make it simple and do away with the transcripts requirement. If it's through individual states, ok, but realize that 8 states have Employment Security Commissions that are swamped with new applicants and claims. Maybe community colleges and town halls can take the overflow. If Obama doesn't get jobs creation, he'll be faced with extending Unemployment Insurance (indefinitely) or enjoying a short honeymoon with what's left of the American middle class. Of course, Bush is such a failure that Obama will enjoy a period where he has to show up, breathe, and speak in complete sentences. Kudos to Carl Levin (D-MI) for going after the UBS Swiss bank accounts. If 18 billion in recovered taxes goes to the IRS, kudos to Carl and the funds will be needed for food stamps. Tuesday, 13 January, 2009 Blogger Sandwichman said... Dean Baker's More Bang for the Buck: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/yes,-we-can-make-the-stimulus-more-stimulating/ 7) Pay for shorter workweeks and more vacations The United States lags the rest of world in that its workers are not guaranteed any vacation time, sick leave, or family and parental leave. In Europe, five or six weeks a year of paid vacation is standard. Also, all Western European countries guarantee their workers some amount of paid sick leave and paid parental leave. The stimulus gives us a great chance to catch up with the rest of the world. The government could make up the pay for two years for any paid cutback in hours, up to 10 percent of total hours worked in a year and $3,000 per worker. This means that if a firm offered workers who previously had no paid vacation five weeks of vacation a year, the government would provide a tax credit to pick up the tab, up to $3,000 per worker. Similarly, if they extended 10 days of paid sick leave, the government would provide a tax credit for the amount actually used. If employers of 70 million workers (half of the labor force) received an average tax break of $2,500, the cost would be $170 billion a year. Tuesday, 13 January, 2009 John said... FDR style implementation is required for FDR style policies. We need to stop thinking of economics in terms of money, but rather in terms of physical values - and the productive powers of labour. This article gets to the root of the problem, which is how do you "re-skill" a workforce that has been "de-skilled" by globalization and outsourcing. Answer: Training, education, tax inventives, investment credits ... HARRY HOPKINS. Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 Blogger Ron said... Don't underestimate the skill possessed by experienced blue collar workers. The assertion that people could be quickly trained to do various kinds of skilled labor does a real disservice to the on-the-job education possessed by skilled labor. It's more than a little presumptuous to think that service professionals with a college education are somehow smarter or more educated that the working class. It's a different education, that's all. Sure, you can find trades that don't require a lot of skill, just as you can find service professionals without too much upstairs. Those aren't the jobs that add a lot of value. For someone who so often speaks for the working class, this blog entry smacks of elitism. Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 Anonymous said... John: FDR style implementation includes forced surrender of all private gold holdings too, right? And then after the gov't held all Americans' gold, it devalued the dollar with respect to gold by 70%. Not a bad deal if you're the one holding all the gold. If FDR was such a genius, why did it take 10 years (until WW2) for the country to recover? Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 Blogger Farmer Boy said... I absolutely agree. I have a BS and MS EE from Stanford University. I worked for the university for two years, setting up their first solid state lab and then for 10 years at Motorola Semiconductor Products in Phoenix where I was a staff scientist and received 5 US Patents! I find that almost everyone can create new things if I only tell them exactly what the problem is. My experience is that the creation of something entirely new depends on the definition of the problem!!! Too many items in the definition and the problem is not solvable. Too few items in the definition and the solution is trivial! Peter When I was at Stanford, my IQ was measured as 155. I am now 73 and my short term memory is suffering but I feel more creative than ever before in my life. Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 silverfox said... American politics is all about job creation and wealth sharing. Ultimately the economic vodoo to achieve that political goal is secondary. You can not sustain 10 or 15 million folks in the unemployment pool for too long a period without experiencing social instability and a very real threat to our democracy. All one has to do is study the effects of the 1930's great depression on countries like Spain, Italy, Germany, China, and Japan. Facsism, Nazism, communism, militarism, all came about because too many people in those countries lost the ability to support themselves and their families. So politically no one in Washington can advocate any rational program that does not bring about fast positive effects on the economy. They may not be the wiser or technically the best possible solutions, but again those criteria are of secondary importance. That's why this country has amassed such a vast amount of debt, whether Federal, State, City, Business or Personal. Take immediate action to keep the voters employed, or at least not suffering materially. Unfortunately modern technology when applied to production of goods and services tends to reduce the needs for workers much faster than it creates new jobs. Which is why we have had a surplus of investment capital flowing into all those risky and non productive schemes such as mortgages, credit card debt, and highly leveraged real estate holdings rather than into new wealth producing job creating businesses. Ultimately we seem to be reaching a point in our nation's maturity where the individual's right to achieve unlimited personal wealth is in direct opposition to the country's need to provide economic security and opportunity to all. These are certainly most interesting times. Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 Blogger Farmer Boy said... I fear that we will soon have, not only a lack of jobs but also starvation here in America. We have a temporary respite from the effects of expensive oil, but I am sure that the shortage of oil and resultant VERY high energy prices will return with a vengeance. This will wipe out the mega farms. I hope that these changes will revive the small farm. We can use the unemployed to help produce food on small farms. I am producing food on a small scale (50 irrigated acres). I produce grain. I have all of the equipment to grind the grain into flour and I am building an oven that will bake 100 loaves of bread at a time and I have the plans for a Stalin time, Russian oven, that holds 165 loaves of bread and works on a continuous basis! This transition will take time and the sooner we start, the better. We need to stop the conversion of good farm land to houses! I think that we should exempt small farms (not the 5 acre mini-farms and not the 320 or more acre farm.) from property taxes if the farm is producing food. If this farm is sold for non-farm use, the property taxes that would have been charged for non farm use for the previous 5 years would be recovered with interest! That would stop speculation and profit in the conversion of farm land to other uses. I would also like to see an exemption of health regulations for farms where the food is sold in a location that is no more than 50 miles from the farm or where the customer comes to the farm to pick up the food. I can tell you that conforming with ALL of the sometimes stupid regulations regarding food production are mostly a waste of time. I can tell it now. 30 years ago I was raising cattle, slaughtering them and cut/wrap/freeze them for sale to a health food restaurant in Tempe (100 miles to the South). This was totally illegal but I was never caught! I was extremely conscientious that my food was safe. The Federal "inspectors" have little training and they are better than nothing but still not adequate. When I was producing this illegal meat, IF I had EVER had a carcass that looked like it had a problem, I would have called the local vet to check out the situation. I am certain that the safety of our food today is compromised by all the chemicals that work their way into our food supply. I have personally seen very hazardous chemicals stored in Federally inspected plants and things like motor oil used the lubricate the overhead trolleys for moving the carcasses. I have farmed organically on this land for 38 years and also with minor farming that I did before that time. I started to farm while I was still in grade school on land that my father (a doctor) had (20 acres) for the pleasure of living in "the country". In my opinion the food that my great grandfather produced on his farm in Toledo, Ohio, was safer than today's food despite there being little or no regulation "back then". As a consumer, I would rather have chemically free food that was produced locally on a small farm without regulation than our present food supply with regulation. I would welcome inspectors that came to check what I was doing and to advise me of what is a better way to do things, so long as they could not do more that advise the public what they had found. I would set this up where I had a chance to make my reply in the same forum where the inspector could advise what he had found. I think that if I produce anything that is not safe, that my customers would stop buying my food and I would be out of business. Public opinion is a better regulation system than a nosy, ill informed, inspector who is likely to be in his work to obtain the power that he does not have with the ability to create with work that contributes to the general good! Can you imagine the outcry and negative propaganda from the big food producers who want to continue their present food production? A nation of farmers such as I could be would put them out of business and they would do anything that they could to stop me. You can contact me at Cabotool@yahoo.com Peter Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 huck Angelopulos said... recently you compared the national debt at post WW2 as being 100% of gdp as opposed to today's being onlt 50%, implying that the situation today is less critical than 1945. Firstly 9-10 trillion is much more than is substantialy more than 14trillion. Furthermore the U.S.had the gobal business market by the "balls" after the war. We could sell "everyone" -"everything"!! Please bob ,don' t start souding like a pol.you are a bright guy and alot of people ,like myself,admire you and respect your opinion. PS(had the priviledge of meeting once at Logan) Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... recently you compared the national debt at post WW2 as being 100% of gdp as opposed to today's being onlt 50%, implying that the situation today is less critical than 1945. Firstly 9-10 trillion is much more than is substantialy more than 14trillion. Furthermore the U.S.had the gobal business market by the "balls" after the war. We could sell "everyone" -"everything"!! Please bob ,don' t start souding like a pol.you are a bright guy and alot of people ,like myself,admire you and respect your opinion. PS(had the priviledge of meeting once at Logan) Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 Art A Layman said... Anonymous: I haven't shopped for a "new" car for years but I'm not sure that those cars assembled with cheaper labor are necessarily sold at cheaper prices. If we are to expound on supply and demand, the theory would tend to argue against your premise. I know an awful lot of people who would not view the ability to buy a cheaper car as an increase in wages. In the short term the bailouts do have zero effect on your earnings. Treasury gave away $350B. Did your taxes go up? Did your take home pay decline? No doubt there will be consequences in the longer term and they could have impacts on you, largely dependent on your level of income. On the other hand, what will happen if we don't do any bailouts? Do you think you're going to be better off? If you work for a living and things continue to get worse, eventually your job becomes at risk. We are not seeing a serious decline in the dollar's value, quite the opposite. Chances are should we begin to see signs of a turnaround the dollar will strengthen. Not necessarily good news either. Now if you view supply and demand as a static phenomenon your Florida vacation scenario would likely be right. But what happens when demand drops off precipitously? Prices can only drop so much before businesses begin to fail or shut down. That begins to drain supply and the inertia often gets you to rising prices before regaining equilibrium. Supply and demand is really a dynamic phenomenon. Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 Anonymous Spencer said... So this blog got spammed by a company from India (designercloth / made-from-india.com) How appropriate! Wednesday, 14 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Yeah, I hate white men too. Thursday, 15 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... I suggest a corollary to the white male construction worker stimulus package, that we give all public school teachers a one-time $100 a year bonus for each year they've been a teacher for up to 20 years. Direct local diverse stimulus. And no, I'm not a teacher. Thursday, 15 January, 2009 Blogger Kirk Hartley said... No quotas - actually use Nudges, as described by soon to be Obama admin member Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler in their book, Nudge. I.e. pay a bonus to a company that chooses to rise to the (Nudge) goals, instead of the command and control approach pf requiring all companies to meet a quota. Thursday, 15 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Art: Hopefully you can convince the people you know that the ability to buy things cheaper has the same effect on their standard of living as earning more money. As people on this blog are happy to point out, the gov't has been running the deficit up much faster than usual in the last 8 years, and yet somehow we landed in a financial mess. If deficit spending were the cure, then why didn't it prevent this? The deficit spending crowd is basically arguing that we can get out of a hole by digging it deeper. I beg to disagree. Bad investments were made. We need to deal with that and move on. Borrowing and spending to try and make these bad investments a little bit better is only delaying the inevitable pain. We need only look at TARP to see how gov't continues to botch this in their attempt to seem relevant. Furthermore, the uncertainty that goes with a gov't spending package as large as Obama's has everyone sitting on their hands. It's difficult to consider making an investment right now because if you make the wrong one, the coming tsunami of gov't money may knock you over again. Furthermore, spending loads of money for 2 years causes people to retrain and move into jobs that will only last for 2 years. It thrashes the economy and is the opposite of the stability that is needed. One of the reasons people are losing jobs now is because the real-estate bubble brought jobs into existence over the last several years that were not sustainable when the bubble burst. Now our gov't is proposing to willfully do it again Thursday, 15 January, 2009 Art A Layman said... Anonymous: If we could buy all things cheaper perhaps your premise holds water. I still question whether foreign cars are necessarily cheaper. Part of value is perception. You can buy a, what looks to be a pretty nice, Hyundai for less than comparable cars but what are you getting? If cheaper were the only criteria, prices of cars would constantly be coming down. If cars are cheaper but food, heat and electricity prices, medical insurance and expenses are rising what are we gaining. Not only is value a perceived phenomenon but so too is the assessment of one's station in life. If I don't have a lot of purchase desires at the moment, the fact that discretionary goods may be cheaper than last year gives me little solace. If my earnings rose, over the last year, appreciably, I feel better, richer, inclined to spend more because I have more earnings and the anticipation that next year I will have even more. If my expectations, my sense of well-being, are predicated on cheaper purchase alternatives, I not only don't get any exhilaration, I live in fear that all prices will go up and I may have trouble acquiring necessities. That's to say nothing of the frustration we all feel when that computer we bought last year for $2000, is now selling for $1500, with more bells and whistles. Mathematically, your premise is valid. Inject perceptions and psychology into the formula and it begins to fall apart. Methinks, to keep the friends I have, I will not suggest to them that they make enough money, so they should stop complaining. Now your conclusion on deficit spending begs the question. What might have happened over the past X years if we had not been deficit spending? Was our recovery from the 2001 recession aided by deficit spending? Would the meager jobs number have been even less if we had balanced the budget? Sometimes you have to look a hair beyond the end of your nose. Now you are perfectly entitled to disagree with proposed solutions, that and two or three bucks will get you a cup of coffee. If you go back to simple math, GDP grows through a confluence of Consumer spending, Investment in plant and equipment and Government spending. If the C and the I are stagnant, growth can only come from increasing G. Ain't math great? Your assertion of delaying implies that the economy is a scientific process that cannot be influenced by human actions. History would seem to tell us otherwise. Has TARP been ineffective? Perhaps. But do we really know the rationale behind Paulson's decisions? Could he have bungled it, or did he create some stability in the finance sector that avoided a complete meltdown? Alas, some answers can never be known in real-time. Extreme uncertainty always tends to a wait and see aura. The change in administrations, in harrowing times, even without a declared intention of creating a spending package, would have caused a similar response on the part of the economic factions. Perhaps had the Fed done nothing and the Treasury done nothing, the whole situation would have corrected itself with little or great pain. Only history will provide us with reasonable answers. We can use computers to model various alternatives but that would mean making assumptions and the validity of those assumptions would predicate the results. In a crisis, seldom is it a good idea to become merely an observer. It may be a flaw in my education but I have found making investment decisions is always difficult. Other than betting on the value of the dollar I don't see where the "tsunami of government money" will have much of an effect on your investment options. Chances are if you direct your investments to the construction industry, especially materials, the government plans might bode you well. Investing in any other venue seems no more risky than it has always been. If the increased spending works, most all investments will be profitable, excepting dumb ones. If it doesn't work, then chances are any selection you made will likely produce losses. In either case, you'll be hard pressed to make the argument that it was government spending that caused your losses. There are young and middle-aged people out there who won't be alive 2 years from now. Valhalla would have it that new jobs lasting 20 or 30 or 40 years would be preferable but the paradigm, over the last 30 or so years suggests that will never happen. Learning new skills usually always adds benefit and worth to the learner. The direct application of specific skills may decline but the additional knowledge of specifics and general processes improves future opportunities for those acquiring it. The lowly worker who learns how to construct forms for pouring a concrete road might be the next carpenter you hire. An engineer who designed assembly lines might learn to design bridges and in the process might develop a new concept that will make bridges safe for far longer than current technology. As with supply and demand, the economy is dynamic. It doesn't standstill, it either expands or contracts and inertia often determines which direction it goes. If enough people get those jobs for 2 years it will create economic expansion. That expansion would feed on itself and create more jobs, many lasting longer than 2 years. Great strides have been made in the power of car engines but it still takes 4.5 to 5 seconds to get from zero to 60. Bubbles almost always create jobs that disappear when the bubble ends. One could argue that we should never have bubbles but we shouldn't have heart attacks either. To a great extent it is the investing world that creates bubbles. Had not Wall Street ballyhooed the tremendous opportunities of buying into a dotcom's IPO, we would have seen far fewer of them. Had not Wall Street come up with this bundling of mortgages and selling them as highly rated long term cash flow vehicles, the housing bubble would have been far less of a problem. It all comes down to the old cliche: "Lead, follow or get out of the way". Government should never "follow". For the most part government should be in a "leading" posture. There may be times when government should "get out of the way" but we see now that while that stance may seem harmless, it can turn out to be far from harmless. Friday, 16 January, 2009 Blogger Construction Staffing said... It took Japan 10 years to get out of there financial trouble, I don\x{2019}t think it will take the USA that long. Construction Jobs and staffing are already starting to increase. Friday, 16 January, 2009 Anonymous silverfox said... Art: Unfortunately most of the government stimulus package will create a lot of 'bubble' jobs that will disappear soon after the stimulus program comes to an end. Think about it; we got into this mess partly because of an explosion of non sustainable debt that grew the economy. But now that the consumer can not or will not further expand debt based consumption, the government will come to the rescue. They will borrow the money, route it to the consumer and hope the newly debt funded consumer will revive the drained economy. I am certain it will, as long as the government keeps borrowing and letting us spend that money, just like the good old days. But again, even government has limits to how much it can borrow, and then the bubble bursts again. Without structural changes in the mechanics of the economy, all the stimulus will do is postpone the moment of truth, as each new administration figures they can push off the final reckoning to the next guy's term, Obama being no exception. Friday, 16 January, 2009 Art A Layman said... Fox: The economy is not a machine or an assembly line which lends itself to some new parts or engineering modifications to make it operate better. If by structural changes you mean more regulations, I believe we will see some of those coming. If you're not talking regulations I'm not sure I understand what structural changes you have in mind. I know from your previous posts that you and I do agree, in principle, on many things, increased wages for working folks among them. I believe we also agree that we have to rein in the excessive salaries and bonuses and apply the brakes to making more money from money through non-jobs creating investments. We're not quite in sync on consumption as the problem although I would agree our economic health shouldn't be quite as dependent on it as it has been. The basic problem here is that to have jobs, be they production or services, somebody has to consume that which is being made available. In a perfect world we would offer products or services to the world; we would have the jobs but the consumption would take place around the world. When we had a corner on technology and innovation this was doable. When production capabilities around the world were limited we actually did it. Alas, this is not the immediate post-WWII period anymore. Granted we have a multitude of problems, some of which may be unsolvable without a more direct government involvement in our economic activities. However, unless we are to completely change our form of government along with altering the living standards of all our people, the government can't play a direct role, long term, without borrowing and there's no doubt that borrowing has limits. It is unfortunate that this fiasco is hitting us at a time when the outgoing administration has just doubled our debt. We would have had much more leeway back in 2000. That's a delimiting factor but we can't just throw our hands in the air and say, "Oh well". We also can't call a timeout on the dynamism of our economy until we can figure out how to completely revamp our economic system. Whether we spend money trying to energize the economy, to create jobs, or simply provide sufficient benefits to jobless workers enabling them to at least have the necessities of life, we have to borrow the money. Maybe we have reached the end of the Great American Experiment. Maybe there are no solutions to keep it going for another two hundred years. Even if we were to follow the advice of some posting here and revert to an agrarian based lifestyle again likely we will not have salvaged the American Dream. If we write laws more directly redistributing wealth or setting harsh limits on earnings we are commencing the destruction of the American Dream. Whatever actions we attempt, in our current form of government, will face strong opposition. Currently, ideologies are too entrenched in factions that are almost 50-50 among our populace. If, with a majority in Congress, Obama was able to pass legislation consistent with some of the ideas posted here, a big if, he risks losing the Congressional majority in 2010, even if he enjoys some success. And then comes 2012. In the business world, on extreme occasions, a company facing severe peril may just shut down the plant until they can figure out a solution, rare but it happens. We can't do that. There is no light switch on the economy. Will this spending simply create a bubble that will burst when the spending ends? Possibly. The bet, however, is that if we can churn economic activity and create a positive inertia again, the economy will revive and once we have most folks working again, even with meager earnings and an unfair distribution of wealth, we can then set about to make changes that will level the playing field for all. Your concerns are valid, your outlook somewhat myopic. Saturday, 17 January, 2009 Blogger Farmer Boy said... To Art, Fox and the members of this group. We have a multitude of problems before us. 1. We have the obscene compensation of the elite who control our large companies. Not to speak of the "payoffs" that our politicians have reaped. My solution to that is to declare that these excess profits that were taken, to be obscene and to recover them. When those in need have nothing and there are others who have far more than they need, it is time for change. 2. We face limits on the availability of natural resources. If we do not stop consuming these resources, we will destroy the earth as a place for man to live. I have enough knowledge of science and man's propensities to be absolutely certain of this. I define my knowledge as wisdom that has come from my 73 years on this earth. There is absolutely NO chance that we will discover the magic key or elixir that will "save" us from this destiny. What is happening to us is like the frog placed in a pot of cold water on the stove. Technology is our problem and will never be more than a small part our solution. I believe that what I propose is "impossible" to accomplish. But consider the alternative? If you were on an island where you had no food and there was ten miles of shark infested water between you and safety. Would you decide to starve to death on the island in the hope that someone might pass by and save you? (You are off the main shipping lane and no one knows that you are on the island) or would you start to swim? In my case, I have: a. Knowledge of all the things that are needed to survive. b. 24 acres of agricultural land in Hilo, Hawaii. My shark infested waters are lack of money to move myself and my farming equipment from Central Arizona to Hawaii. My children are bemused at my thoughts about the future and they do not have the mental strength to objectively consider what our future has in store for us. So with good will, I tell them, "Enjoy the life that you have! I am doing my best to prepare a safe future for you. If life on earth fails we will be among those who will be the last to die." In my case, it is quite likely that I will die before I can accomplish what are my goals. But I would prefer to be swimming than to wait on land to die of starvation. An interesting statistic about Hawaii is this: Of the last 150 properties purchased on the island of Hawaii, 149 have been to wealthy off-islanders. My friend, a real estate broker, gave me this information and he agrees with my conclusions. He said, "All of those wealthy persons must realize that something is up!" I believe that some of the individual parts of a large entity start to move before the entity itself realizes that something is up! Peter Camp Verde, Arizona Saturday, 17 January, 2009 Blogger nick1936 said... I noticed today that another money manager has dissapeared in Fl. with 350 million . It's about time we started treating theses theives like they do in china put them against the wall Saturday, 17 January, 2009 Anonymous silverfox said... Art: As I have commented in previous postings, so-called free market capitalism is a dynamic system, in itself neither good nor bad. It is good in the sense that it encourages the creation of wealth, but it can be bad in the sense that it does not distribute that new wealth to the bulk of society. So if left entirely to it own functions, we would have a very small number of very rich people, a larger but not a majority of folks in what might be called a 'middle class'(usually the highly skilled artisan class) and a vast number of poor people or peasantry. But since the modern world will no longer accept this extreme division of society and the poverty and suffering that ensue, there is the critical role of government. Either that, or we need create a new religion that teaches the joy of poverty. Should anyone doubt that there is a vital role for government , I recommend they take a refresher course in modern history, in particular to see what the economic conditions of the 1930's produced in Spain, Germany, China, Italy and Japan. Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Militarism. Extreme and violent political movements that gave birth to World War II. So if the normal actions of free market capitalism don't keep most of the citizens economically secure and well off,the government must step in. Which gets us to an observation made earlier by yourself. The three components of the economy: Consumerism, Investment and Government. Since it is the nature of economic forces for the preponderance of wealth to tend to agglomerate into the possession of a minority, it is government intervention in the form of redistributive taxation and regulation that breaks up those naturally formed wealth concentrations and redirect them back into the consumer economy, meaning the workers who are also the consumers, to recycle the wealth in an endless loop. That system requires a critical balance that there is enough capital for necessary and productive investment, but only enough for that purpose. All other capital must be brought back into the operating economy. Under Reagan era Supply Side economics, this system has been badly damaged and made largely non functional. Too much of the nation's wealth goes to investment, too little is left in the consumer economy because government fails to perform the minimum redistributive function, forcing consumption to be almost totally dependent on debt. So if the process is not changed, all a massive inflow of government money will do is push things along a while until government reaches an unsustainable level of debt.Then we will be right back to where we are today. A financial crisis postponed will still be a financial crisis. What do I mean by changes in the mechanics of the system? A restoration of high income tax rates comparable to those in effect in the early post WWII years. That limits investment to only those sectors that can be both productive and rewarding. Wouldn't it be nice to own stocks that paid 6% or 7% percent dividends every year instead of the recent 1% and 2% payouts? And I would raise the minimun wage to the Federal poverty level and index it annually to some precent of the combined GDP growth and inflation rate. This creates a "bottom up" or "trickle up" pressure to encourage a broad based sharing of GDP growth. The strong businesses will be able to absorb and pass along the increased costs and the weak ones will go under, but heck, that is what free market captialism is all about. Survival of the fitest. Of course the Conservatives and the rich will not like these ideas, so they will fight them tooth and nail, but eventually our economy will grind to a depressingly slow rate of growth, unemployment will get into the double digits,and there will be a general "pooring of America". And that is when real politics will get exciting ! Saturday, 17 January, 2009 Anonymous said... There are many out of work now who are white males, in every industry from tech to construction, so I fail to see where the idea that the technical & skilled jobs would go to just monorities without those skills. Plus, the jobs for replacing sewer lines and water lines are comparatively faster to train for-many on the job-that would be open to those without specific skills. And yes, those jobs are needed! Many cities today have sewer lines that are like seives, almost a hundred years old, full of rusted out holes. During heavy rains those sewer lines overflow into the lines meant to handle rain, which flow into streams and waterways where drinking water comes from- and Rxdrugs and other chemicals cannot be filtered out completly by the water treatment plants, which also need overhauls. Not only a job issue, but health issue for many cities. Atlanta is now under going this same rebuilding for the same reasons. There are also gas lines in the same condition for the same reason- age. In my area, we have had some serious explosions because of that and so far, no one has been hurt, even though some were in the front yards of homes! Each one of us should check on the state of bridges that are unsafe, age of water, sewer and gas lines in our own area. It would be shocking to most people to see the condition in their own area. Also, small businesses could be in many areas where they are needed if rents weren't so high. More should be done to make rents reasonable for them. In NYCity, one of the reasons there are so many mom & pop grocery stores, etc, right in Manhatten, is because rent control allowed them to stay. There is no reason why high school should not be training people in larger numbers for jobs that don't need a B.A. Technical Schools and classes for that in high schools get the lower shift of the money, but the drop out rate could be significantly lower if students found they could have real access to jobs like plumbing and electrical work if the skills were taught in high school. Those same classes could be taught to adults at night. We just don't fund or utilize those resources like we should. Everything that I have read that Riech has published has been the very opposite of 'trickle down'= he has always been for building from the bottom up to make the economy fair to all. He hasn't been for the tax breaks for the elite by a long shot-rather he has said those tax breaks never helped the economy like jobs for the average workers. He has been against offshore tax breaks in all forms, and for bringing manufacturing and service jobs back to the USA. Wednesday, 21 January, 2009 Anonymous said... REICH YOU ARE A RACIST FUCK Wednesday, 21 January, 2009 Anonymous GO REICH GO said... I LOVE REICH'S IDEAS, THEY WILL GUARANTEE AMERICAS DEMISE WHICH IS THE BIGGEST SAFE HARBOR FOR JEWS. BANKRUPT AMERICA = BANKRUPT JEWISH WORLD POLICY Wednesday, 21 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... No white workers?, your a friggin racist piece of shit. Wednesday, 21 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... So much for "post-racial" America. I support Barrack Obama, and hope that he reins in statements like you make that only serve to increase distrust in the policies you are trying to implement. I don't see you as being a stupid person, but injecting even one iota of the idea that the government could tailor already unpopular economic policies to meet racial quotas only does a great disservice to your efforts. Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Anonymous said... A lot of us white males have come in handy when it was time to defend the country and guarantee your freedom you complete moron. Actually, I am glad you let it slip out and glad that your incompetent, thieving cohorts just nodded in agreement. It just confirms the obvious. What's next? White male poll taxes or are you assholes going to want separate water fountains? Bill Grant Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... \x{201D}I am concerned, as I\x{2019}m sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high-skilled people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers\x{2026}I have nothing against white male construction workers, I\x{2019}m just saying there are other people who have needs as well.\x{201D} Robert Reich I have nothing against white male construction workers, some of my best friends are white male construction workers. I just wouldn't want them moving into my neighborhood or dating my sister or anything like that. Further, at the echo chamber that I indoctrinate in we have all agreed that the only way to solve the worlds ills is to give opportunity to people on the basis of race, creed, religion and gender. That is the only "fair" way and it has always worked out soooo well in the past. To that end we should further bankrupt the country bu pushing our debt level to parity with our shrinking GDP in order to exclusively employ black transvestite Zoroastrian vegetarians to build re-education and sterilization camps for all the "white males" or anyone who is 1/6th white male. See? I can be a professor as well! Book me on NPR! Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Farmer Boy said... I am a well educated white, male, engineer. Has anyone considered that people like me create jobs for others? As I see it, there are people who create new things and thus jobs and there are people who build the new things that are created. I deplore the unpleasant comments that I read today. There must be a way to identify (within the blog and not released to the public) those who post nasty things and exclude them from posting to the blog. Peter Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Well, some woman and children depend on those white men you are wanting to put out of work. Behind those white men there is a family who needs to be fed. I being a woman don't want a mans job. Thank you very much, I want an office job or something in that nature why on earth would I want to work construction what you think we are amazon woman. Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... The jobs need to go to people who need work. There are many white males out of work. This idea you have of who the jobs need to got to seem almost like a kind of reverse racism. Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Anonymous said... "males who already dominate the construction trades," All the construction trades are dominated by people from Mexico. White men have been long gone from construction trades. I would be more worried about the jobs actually going to Americans and workers who have green cards. Just school the people at tech schools right from high school duel enrollments. Megan Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... It is this kind of thinking which makes me terrified for the future of this country. Forget letting the market work, just protect whatever little group you happen to favor at the moment, and screw everyone else. Thanks, Reich. It is clear to us now....either get friends in high places, or prepare to go down. Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... As a White developer and contractor in the city of St. Louis I find the thoughts of tax payer money being used in such a racist way as repulsive. There are already initiatives in the inner city for minority based businesses. Some are very sucessful while others are not! This is capitalism. Do not throw more money at an already bad situation. Reich's idea will create a great deal of resentment by suggesting that White male business owners in the construction industry be excluded from any of the very tax money that they must contribute to. Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Anonymous said... Yes I fully support racism in the allocation of stimulus money. But believe me that will not resolve our reparations issue. Our model should be Zimbabwe. Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... Hey why not send every person who is not a white christian male a million dollars so that all these long suffering minorities can take over and dominate? Hey they can't figure out how to be successful in the greatest country in the world. So go stack the decks in favor of people who could have done it themselves but choose not to and blame it on good old white guy. You biggots make me sick. I actually pray for 2012 to be real because you people make me so sick to my stomach that I would rather die then see this many times tried and many times failed human experiment call socialism played out here in my country where every man is equal as long as he believes that. Your job Mr Reich is to make people believe whites get breaks because they are white and not because they WORK for it. Also Mr Reich where on earth are there whites on construction jobs? Last time I checked you hear the sounds of Mexico on the job sites. Oh yeah make them all citizens and recruit your next victim group. Just to be clear do blacks get to graduate up to a slightly less victim group now or do we stay the same untill all the minorities take over and make whites slaves? Thursday, 22 January, 2009 Anonymous Anonymous said... How about just letting every United States citizen who WANTS to work have an equal chance to support their families instead of trying to artificially wedge in the unmotivated? Honestly Mr. Secretary, I find the whole theme of your post repugnant. Thursday, 22 January, 2009