Unemployment is THE Bottom Line
Mike Calhoun: My Vision >>
I’m glad to see a lot of headlines this week about the ongoing unemployment disaster, but at the same time, it worries me. There’s going to be a LOT of political noise about unemployment as we approach November .. but we’d all rather see something get DONE to fix the problem BEFORE November!!
We can all agree on one thing: foreclosures will not be stopping anytime soon. But what about solutions to unemployment? My answer has always been .. to grow my own business!! Leave a comment and let us know what kind of solutions you think would help this country get turned around…
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Today’s headlines were ugly: “Fears grow as millions lose jobless benefits.” The details behind that story may shock you — the impact of the debate about extending unemployment benefits is very real..and very big:
“During the Senate impasse, from the week ended June 5 to the week ended July 10, more than 2.1 million Americans lost their benefits. Another million will join them by July 31. In Ohio alone, where unemployment stood at 10.7 percent in May, more than 83,000 people lost their benefits in June.
In the wake of these numbers, everyone has been lining up to play political football with unemployment. The partisan name-calling is just noise, of course…but more surprisingly, the US Chamber of Commerce released a report today, titled “Jobs for America” which sharply criticizes the Obama administration and Congress in general: “Washington has taken its eyes off the ball by neglecting America’s number one priority–creating the more than 20 million jobs we need over the next 10 years to reemploy the unemployed and to keep pace with a growing population.”
The headlines kept coming as the White House abruptly went on the defensive: “Obama enlists Bill Clinton’s aid on economy” Reuters reported, and even Warren Buffett was invited to consult with the President at the White House this week.
One former Clinton employee — 90’s era Secretary of Labor Robert Reich — called the whole Jobs for America promotion “a bad joke”, claiming “These executives don’t care about American jobs. They care about their own bottom lines. That’s what they’re paid to care about.” Fortunately, Robert Reich also proposed solutions instead of just venting criticism:
“The way to get jobs back is to increase federal spending in the short term in order to make up for the gap left by consumers and businesses (the fastest way to get this money into circulation is by extending unemployment benefits and aiding stranded state and local governments).
Beyond that, America’s vast middle class and the poor need to be more productive and innovative, so they can add more value to an increasingly integrated global economy. That means better education. Instead of firing schoolteachers, closing libraries, and increasing tuitions at public universities, we have to do exactly the opposite.“
Aside from the role of government spending, that’s not too much different from the 5 part plan that the US Chamber of Commerce outlines in “Jobs for America” — specifically, part 1. Create a Growth and Jobs Tax Policy, and Rebuild and part 4. Expand America’s Infrastructure.
Maybe we can find some common ground and sanity here after all?
What’s Your Call?
As the talking heads drone about opinion polls and November elections .. what kind of real solutions would you like to see implemented, yesterday?? What are the best paths towards meaningful job creation in 2010?
