Tag Archives: jobs

Minimum Sense

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

There are two ways to look at the proposal to increase the minimum wage put out by the President in his State of the Union Address.

There is the way that economists and small business owners look at it: Increasing the minimum wage makes it harder for businesses to hire workers.

Then there is the way that some on the left look at it: Only by increasing the minimum wage will you entice people off of welfare and into the workforce. Continue reading →

Obama Revealed

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Free from the burdens of a reelection campaign, presidents who win second terms reveal themselves when they come to Congress to give their fifth State of the Union address.

They can’t say the same thing that they just said in their inaugural address, because that would be really boring (not that most States of the Unions aren’t boring. They are.)

George W. Bush revealed himself to be a confident gambler who decided to bet all of his chips on Social Security reform. Bill Clinton revealed himself to Continue reading →

Hating Business Not Good Business

BY GARY JOHNSON
Reprinted from Loose Change (TCBMag.com)

“Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous to me, for all is vanity and vexation of the spirit.”—Ecclesiastes 2:17

“Corporations: an ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.” Though Ambrose Bierce, a sensationalist writer working for William Randolph Hearst, said it a century ago, it could easily have shown up on any number of signs at rallies across the United States and Europe this year. If 2011 was the year of the Rabbit, 2012 is the year of Business Haters.

Jack Welch, outspoken and legendary former CEO of General Electric, is touring the country with his wife, which is nice. She’s Suzy, an author and former Harvard Business Review editor. Though General Electric has mostly abandoned Welch’s Continue reading →

The Gaffe That Keeps On Giving

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Two weeks ago the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped a bomb on the Presidential campaign of Barack Obama when it released data showing only 66,000 jobs had been created in May – far below estimates – and that the top-line unemployment rate rose from 8.1 to 8.2 percent.

This past Friday at a press conference, in response to a question about the GOP’s contention that it is his Administration’s policies that are strangling job growth, President Obama said, “the private sector is doing fine.”

He went on to explain that the rise in unemployment is largely due to budget difficulties at the state and local government level because mayors and governors are not getting the “kind of support they need from the federal government.” The federal government needs to send money to states and cities so those governments can hire more people. People who may do important work, but create nothing.

A few short hours after Obama had essentially proclaimed the return of prosperity for private industry, Bloomberg.com was running a piece by Chris Burritt headlined, “CEOs Losing Optimism as Job Slowdown Imperils U.S. Growth.” Continue reading →

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

BY RICH GALEN

Reprinted from Mullings.com

The Popular Press is swooning over what they consider to be the new-found potency in President Barack Obama’s demands that the Congress pass his Jobs Bill.

For reasons which I cannot understand, the President decided to make his case for his bill by leading with who was going to pay for it, notwithstanding we have no idea how the first job will be created by the jillions of dollars of new taxes he is proposing.

You want people who make millions of dollars a year to pay more in taxes? Ok. I don’t have an answer to that.

But somehow, in the translation, anyone with a family income north of about $250,000 (husband and wife each making a little over $10 k per month) becomes the equal of Warren Buffett’s income and needs to be penalized for the family’s success. Continue reading →

The Jobs Speech

BY RICH GALEN

Reprinted from Mullings.com

President Barack Obama’s speech wasn’t awful. It wasn’t great. It had some excellent lines “Last thing [vets] should have to do is to fight for a job when then get home.” It some tired union-soothing rhetoric.

At 7:35 Eastern I Tweeted: “Officially bored. This could have been a 20 minute Oval speech.” True.

Here’s the thing the President left out: He never told us how many jobs this would create and how far down it would bring the unemployment rate. Let’s spend more money and hope for the best. Having listened to the 127 times President Obama said some variant of “pass this bill” I pinged a leadership staffer office only to find there IS no bill. No paper. No package. No nothing. Here’s the text of the email I got having asked if the President dropped off a bill on his way into the House chamber:

“Of course not – no one has seen it. No consultation with House or Senate GOP. No Pay fors [identified]. Just more of his “I decree” this is the plan and [is, therefore] bi-partisan.” Continue reading →

A Very Important Week

BY RICH GALEN

Reprinted from Mullings.com

This is a big week in American politics.

The other day Michele Bachmann’s campaign “Did a Gingrich” as she lost her manager, the sainted Ed Rollins and his deputy. Ed said it was because, at 68, he’s too damned old to go riding around on small planes and buses for 14 hours a day, seven days a week.

I have known Rollins for a hundred of his 68 years, and I am willing to bet heavy money that Rep. Bachmann – or Rep. Bachmann’s husband – decided they knew more about how to run a Presidential campaign than Ed did and he told them he was perfectly happy to let them prove it. Continue reading →

Obama Economic Policy Last Chance

BY TONY BLANKLEY

Reprinted from the Washington Times

President Obama’s post-Labor Day “jobs” speech will be his last chance to launch an economic policy with any chance of manifesting its effect – both economic and political – before the November 2012 elections. He has three options. In order of descending likelihood, they are: a timid hodgepodge of previous proposals, a bold left-of-center initiative or a turn to a free-market “nuclear option.” Continue reading →