The Ghosts Haunting America’s Factories and Offices
I attended a campaign-related event for GOP gubernatorial candidate John Kasich on Tuesday. I came away both impressed and very concerned.
I was impressed with how well the event was organized, the quality of the discussion, and the passion of those who participated. I am deeply worried that the ghosts haunting these and other events will continue to work against my state’s economic success, even if (or especially if) a strong leader with an “R” by his name takes charge.
Kasich’s Mason, Ohio, business forum on the floor of a robotics facility had former Florida Governor Jeb Bush as a special guest. Six top executives of Ohio firms and facilities were also on the panel. The meeting’s goal was to help everyone in the room, including an audience of about 300 business and political leaders, understand what can and should be done to end Ohio’s economic doldrums.
Considering the results his state achieved, there may not be a better person to give a state’s would-be leader and key businesspeople meaningful guidance on how to revive their economies than Jeb Bush. Kasich let the audience know that while Bush presided over the Sunshine State from 1999 to 2007, it turned in the second-best performance in the country in jobs created and eighth-best in income growth. Even though Florida has about six percent of the nation’s population, during a five-year period early last decade it alone accounted for one-third of the nation’s job growth.
Later, one of the execs on the panel recited some of the awful elements of Ohio’s record. Since 2001, Ohio has lost 500,000 jobs; 170,000 of them have gone away in the past year. Forbes rates it 48th in economic growth prospects. The state ranks 46th (i.e., fifth-worst) in its personal bankruptcy rate, 49th in foreclosures, 42nd in unemployment, and 47th in business tax climate. Kasich accurately told the audience that to deal with an $850 million shortfall, current Governor Ted Strickland and Ohio’s legislature had “just raised taxes again and declared victory.” Oh, and they called it a “tax cut delay.” It seems that almost no one inside Columbus’s I-270 beltway gets it.
Bush pointed to these elements as part of his formula for success:
- “We demanded that personal income … had to grow faster than government spending.”
- “We crafted workers’ comp for significant savings.” Ohio is one of only a few states nutty enough not to let the private sector handle this critical area.
- He resisted the pleas of “lots of businesspeople [who] put their hands out.”
Bush had three other key observations that led to my concerns. First, he spoke of the importance of transparency and clarity, and how their presence is positive and self-fulfilling. He observed how important minimizing uncertainty is to a healthy and growing business climate. Finally, when asked how he dealt with energy and environmental issues during his eight years in office, he said, “Not well, unfortunately. We couldn’t get past the barriers.”
Thanks Mr. Blumer, this is exactly why the recovery may stal…No Confidence in US Leadership. I see my Industrial customers being very cautious and slow in hiring, even in replacing critical employees!
We need to replace a lot of our Public servants in & out of DC.
On a some what tangential topic, if we don’t rebuild our industrial base, we will eventually collapse. The marxists in this nation deliberately destroyed our industrial base through litigation, regulation, taxation and unionization; therefore we lost many jobs to overseas operations and cheap labor in developing nations. We lost what made us the great economic power house just prior to and after WWII.
And we lost that income stream which supported our dollar. Now as a consumer and service driven economy we only pass dollars around within our own economy. We sell less and less overseas which means at some point our dollars will dry up or beome Zimbabwe-like hyperinflated.
“…they have convinced all too many of the relatively disengaged that we can be the only major power in human history not to take advantage of the abundant natural resources we have and suffer no consequences for it.” Amazingly this is so true. We have let so many jobs and sent so much money overseas because we have acquiesed to the demands of environmentalists and lawyers. We have abundant natural resouces yet they go untouched and now our gas is back over $3/gal. It defies common sense and logic-except for the upside down logic of the marxist.
Stupid is as stupid does and the American public have only themselves to blame.
Someone please correct me if I am wrong but didn’t Jeb Bush lobby against offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
gverdi27, While governor, Jeb Bush did not just lobby against offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, he sought to have a permanent ban on drilling within 150 miles off Florida’s coast. He was worried about “oil spills”. He has since, now that he is out of office and has no executive authority, changed his mind because “drilling technology has advanced”.
Thanks Jeb, when you had the authority and opportunity you acted like a leftist.
This statement,
“We demanded that personal income … had to grow faster than government spending.”
It is not only stupid,but impossible.
Such thinking wrecks an economy because of inflation. Growth would be based on the whim of
congress,and that is a poor choice. Why is congress allowed to do what street thugs cannot?
When you can steal by vote,even hacking and securities fraud look like hard work.
Big companies love the EPA etc… because the rules (that they invented,and lobbied for)
are a effective road block for smaller new competitors.
America died in the riots of the late sixties,what had killed it was the post WWII growth
that people demanded to continue ever onward,ever upward.The flight out out the cities
had happened before, but now with the interstate highway system cities could be bypassed.
The death of railroads are not just because of trucks & interstate, but the density of cities
(people and business) that fed the rail system was changing.Private transportation was
dead,we had become a nation on public system, everyone traveled on roads…public roads.
We had become a bit more free,and thus flee the cities and their problems of crowding,
crime and, excessive (in our view) regulation. Cities had become warehouses of those who
could not flee, it was but a simple task to make a voting bloc of them.
We are a nation of runaways, we escape not to freedom,but to “flee-dom”.I noticed that
when someone moves from the city, they always bring their “city ideas” with them,asking
a town hall to enact such laws that would move their new small town on the path toward the
city they once left.
It is time to stop,turn around and return to cities.We know the math,
eventually there will be no place to run to anymore,the problems can be fixed,it just takes
the will to do so,otherwise we will get the more of the same that we have seen.
Not every city will crumble like Detroit,but slide they will further down.Now is the time,
for if we wait things not only remain the same but may become worse.
If we want to “reclaim” our factories and offices, then to the city we must go.
Your point is excellent with regard to uncertainty. My business partner and I have been in a position of watching and waiting on several fronts over the last 24 months till we see “what they”re going to do.” Uncertainty is much like moisture is to a guy who constructs building foundations. Enduring uncertainty is a challenge in any time, but the degree to which we are presently experiencing it is off the charts. And thus, nothing is happening.
Business will take us out of this mess but not until it is clear in which way the government will incentivize or disincentive behaviors.
In 20 years we will all be working for the government or Chinese and Indian companies
#3 and #4, thank you for that catch.
Although the linked article is archived, there’s enough of a preview to prove your point:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P1-40463157.html
Unless he changed his mind later, that is a serious blemish on an otherwise good economic record. I wish someone in the audience, myself included, would have known/remembered this so they could have called BS on it when he said what he said.
5. You misunderstand. The objective was to require that government spending grow no faster than personal income. That means, if personal income only rises 3%, government can’t hike spending by more than 3%.