THE PR SUMMIT By Michael S. Malone
The White House Jobs Summit is underway. And in case you have any hope for it actually helping produce real jobs, keep in mind two things.
First, it is billed as a “listening” event by the Administration – and everybody knows what that word really means: We’ll pretend to listen in order to shut everybody up, then we’ll do exactly what we planned all along.
Second, the invite list is mostly representatives from academia and think tanks, Big Labor and Big Business . . . in other words, three groups of people who know almost nothing about how to actually create, rather than merely preserve, jobs.
In other words, if you’re on line at the employment office right now, and you’re hoping that the Jobs Summit is actually going to help you get, you know, a job, you’d better keep filling out that form in front of you.
In watching President Obama the last few months, it’s become increasingly apparent that there are certain things he is very much interested in. Nationalized health care. Protecting and expanding organized labor. Instituting a national energy scheme. Repositioning America’s role in the world as a partner rather than a leader. Meanwhile, there are two nettlesome problems that continue to demand his attention, but he seems annoyed at having to deal with: Afghanistan and Unemployment. And like most of us, he has reacted to both by dithering, postponing decisions and acting busy on other, equally pressing matters.
But this week, the President appears to be trying to get both items out of his in-basket. And he is dealing with each of them in a classic committed/non-committal way. With Afghanistan on Monday it was to commit to, almost, give the Gen. McChrystal the added troop numbers he requested . . . and then to immediately announce a departure date. And now with jobs – which, polls say, has become the single most important national crisis in the minds of Americans – we’re going to get the temporary sop of a big publicity event, with Administration representatives listening soberly and taking careful notes.
This isn’t to say that the White House is indifferent to the jobs crisis. On the contrary, it appears to be hugely embarrassed to see the unemployment rate break 10 percent – especially after it confidently predicted it would stop the bleeding at 8 percent – and worried about what that general unhappiness will mean in next year’s mid-term elections. Thus the self-evidently inflated job creation numbers that supposedly have resulted from the Stimulus. And the interesting, behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Rahm Emanuel to relax the rules on Sarbanes-Oxley regulations for young public companies.
That said, it is also hard not to notice that the Administration doesn’t seem especially desperate to do something about these high unemployment figures – no doubt secretly understanding that, as Breaker Morant said just before taking a chest-full of bullets, “This is what comes of Empire building.” When you nationalize large segments of the economy, tilt the playing field towards unions, and threaten to tax business until it screams, you are going to get high, and lingering, unemployment. The White House and Congress seems to believe that millions of lost jobs are worth the cost of a better, fairer society – and now merely needs to convince the rest of us that the broken eggs will pay off in a tasty omelette.
Still, the White House says it is listening – and has asked the public to make suggestions on how create jobs. So, writing from Silicon Valley, I’m willing to make my contribution, despite the knowledge that it will have exactly zero impact. Here goes:
The U.S. economy currently has an unemployment rate of 10.2 percent, the highest in a quarter-century, and a number that is likely to increase slightly in the next few months, then begin to decline at a depressingly slow pace over the next couple years. By the end of this month, about 8 million jobs will have been lost in the last two years. Meanwhile, the U.S. workforce is growing by about 1 million workers per year. On the other hand, the most jobs created in a single year in the last three decades by the U.S. economy was 4.3 million, in 1984.
I do not see that happening. This man is a Marxist and would never use something like Reagan tried. I think even after many democrats are voted out next year, and many are already retiring or not even running, even one here in Tennessee and he is considered a Blue Dog democrat.
No he will keep on with his insane policies and pushing the country further into poverty and debt, that is all he believes in. Hey he has got his too bad for you!
he is the favorite for the noble in economics. 21st century obama-kennedy relies on failed principles from the 19th century.
It was like the Clinton Taffy-Pull of December 1992.
Barack Obama is a poorly educated man. He obviously took advantage of Harvard’s affirmative action programs. There is little evidence that he has ever done any serious studying. Obama is president only because of white guilt. He should still be a state senator in Illinois. We also have to worry about Obama experiencing a mental breakdown. It appears that he has been a marginalized leader for over the last six months—and is unable to thankfully get any substantial domestic bills through both houses of Congress. Cap and trade is not going anywhere, and the same seems to be also the case regarding the health care nonsense. He is likely going to come unglued. What will we do then?
Harding and Coolidge inherited an economy in 1921 that had 11.7% unemployment and had seen industrial income drop by nearly 25% in one year alone. They cut taxes, cut spending and kept regualation under control and the result was to see the GNP expand by 48%, one-third of the nation debt retired, the “average annual earnings of employees” increased by 34%, and for the last six years of this expansion was an economy that had an average of 3.3% unemployment and inflation under 1%.
That all ended with Hoover and FDR taking stage and every president who’s followed in the Hoover/FDR mode has seen poor economic performance, either immediately or shortly after. Every president who has followed the Harding/Coolidge model has had success.
Which should we follow? The one that gives us an expanding economy, low unemployement, and low inflation, or the one which gives us double digit unemployment and stagflation? This should be a central theme for Republicans in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, ad nauseum.
(I hope you don’t mind if I link to the article where I found this information, Mr. Malone, as it does a thorough job in laying out the options and their consequences for the economy and how politicians can affect it: http://spectator.org/archives/2009/11/30/obamas-vision-through-history)
Progressives should actually be called, ”Regressives” – nothing like 19th century ideology for the problems of the 21st.
obama needs to use the already approved stimulus for reducing unemployment, but everyone knows he is saving that money to throw around in 2010 & 2012 to help get his democratic stooges back into congress. That money will be used in the blue states to make it appear these stooges are actually doing something for their states and people. If real people actually believe those unemployment turned out yesterday you are also probably the same people who also believe the global warming data is ok also.
We now have a 2 trillion dollar health bill tax in the Senate.
Cap and Trade tax bills that might triple our electricity and our tank of gas.
Now Obama says we need to have jobs to pay for all this increase in taxes.
Talk about putting your horse in front of the proverbial supply cart or trying to detect landmines walking backwards into the mine field.
Idiots..
As a small over taxed business owner we plan to hunker down in the bunker,
try to keep the employees we have and wait for these dumb@sses to be voted out of office next year.
Sit back,
pass the popcorn,
and watch the Bambie media try to hide the economic decline.
zerO doesn’t want to “deal” with anything. He just wants to travel and party. He’s aghast that the American Public isn’t rolling over for his health care plan. Instead of having a reasoned discussion, he makes threats, and invites his thugs to bully and beat skeptics into submission.
Michael, Well said. Exceptionally well written. I agree with everything you proposed.
There also needs to be an overhaul of higher education. There needs to be more online stuff. These universities with their overpriced educations and overhyped credentials need to be bypassed. The Liberal bastions need to be denounced. No more hiring of Ivy-league crap studies programs.
This would be a great new business: thoroughly rating the colleges and universities. Examine the degree requirements. Dig into the professors’ backgrounds. Review their body of work. Radical professors would become poison to the institutions. Don’t know how to make it pay, however. Maybe some Blue-Ray deal.
The pathetic “jobs summit” is nothing more than a terrible public relations stunt to help Obama get his favorables higher; however, he has only his Leftists shills such as unions, the Google CEO, & a few other sychophants including Donald Trump, but I believe this jobs summit & the campaign that follows will be an utter disaster. Why? Unemployment remains in double digits with the repulsively unpopular ObamaCare & Crap & Tax in the shadows. President Obama’s administration is collapsing from within due to a lack of leadership & the man’s own harmful narcissism.
And today, cap & trade via the EPA. The Obama world is upside down and totally insane. We are doomed for two or three generations. Sad, very sad.
The on-line education concept has real merit. A decade ago, I was working on an on-line system for continuing education for doctors and nurses. Then WebMD bought a small startup in this field and I thought we would see a big project. So far, not much has happened. Doctors can no longer attend medical meetings in resorts like they did 30 years ago. The number of even serious meetings is going down. I don’t understand why we haven’t seen more in the on-line field. At the time I was working on it, the concept was to mail a CD with images to the subscriber because most people had slow connections. Now, even that limitation is mostly gone. Where is the on-line education ?