Jobs

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John Kerry, negotiator extraordinaire

There he was this weekend, Secretary of State John Kerry, touting the Paris agreement on global emissions reduction he negotiated for the United States; the same John Kerry who negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran.

Kerrey (nypost.com)

Master negotiator John Kerry touted his Paris agreement on carbon emissions reduction this weekend. (nypost.com)

Understandably, Kerry spent most of his time defending the lack of any provision for enforcing the “pledged” reductions by the 185 countries, saying that “If there had been a penalty, we wouldn’t have gotten agreement. So it has to be voluntary.  We got the best deal we could.” Continue reading →

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Businesses fall in line on emissions reduction

Call it extortion, coercion, shakedown, squeeze, blackmail or simply arm-twisting – whatever – but more than 100 companies now say climate change poses a risk to America’s prosperity and want the government to take action to address the risk. Some of the same companies that want the government out of their business.

LOGOS 2To show their support, they signed-on to a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, “Business Backs Low-Carbon USA,” in coordination with a number of environmental activist groups. The company logos from the ad are shown here.

Like the auto manufacturers who, over the years, have caved to the government’s auto and truck café standards for added miles per gallon and lower emissions, most of these companies, I believe, have folded under pressure. They don’t need activist groups making their lives miserable. Continue reading →

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I was wrong on Kasich; outlook isn’t clear on presidency

Regular readers of this blog will recall that I went out on a limb on May 30, favoring Ohio Governor John Kasich for president in 2016.  I was wrong.

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(Courtesy of anniegityourgun.blogspot.com

I liked Kasich for his record on two of the most important issues facing the country today, jobs and the economy.  His experience as the architect of the balanced budget while serving as Chairman of the House Budget Committee when he was in Congress, and his record of job growth in Ohio were impressive.

Kasich’s appeal has fallen victim to the “mad as hell” voters.  We’ve known them before as the “silent majority,” a group of individuals who were dissatisfied, but were complacent.  They didn’t let their feelings known, and worse, they didn’t vote. Continue reading →

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Legacy-minded Obama hands GOP campaign issues

It’s amusing to see President Obama, so set on his legacy of met campaign promises that he doesn’t see that his failures not only doom his legacy, but hand the eventual Republican nominee issue upon issue to use against Hillary Clinton.

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President Obama has handed the eventual GOP nominee a long list of issues to use against Hillary Clinton, who will be running for Obama’s third term. (deathandtaxesmag.com)

Unfortunately, in the process of his attempt to transform our nation, he is destroying the fabric of America. And he still has 13 months to complete his mission.

His lack of a foreign policy has made the United States a laughing stock. His feckless inability to commit to a strategy to rid the Middle East of ISIS and al Qaeda is further evidence of his failure to use the military power at his disposal.

The nuclear agreement with Iran is so important to the president’s legacy that he’s willing to sign it regardless that it doesn’t stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, and will provide Iran with billions of dollars to pursue its “death to America and Israel” goal.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Putin operates as he wishes in the Middle East. Continue reading →

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Hillary flip-flops on trade pact

If ever there was an example of a politician putting a finger in the air to see which way the political wind is blowing, it was obvious when Hillary Clinton, speaking on the Pacific Trade Agreement said, “I can’t support this agreement.”

This is the same Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state, backed the pact, calling it the “gold standard” for trade deals during her 2012 trip to Australia.… read more

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Obama and his EPA continue to cause job losses

Over the past few weeks I have posted a number of pieces on the cost of the Obama-Biden administration’s energy policy to the American taxpayer in the increase of electricity rates and the loss of jobs.

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(Cartoon courtesy of americanenergyalliance,org)

Do you remember President Obama’s 2012 campaign promise that, if reelected, he would create one million new manufacturing jobs by the end of his second term? It looks like this will be another Obama unfulfilled promise as we have lost jobs over the past two months.

Now we learn that some four million jobs are at risk by the new EPA rules over the next 25 years, which Investor’s Business Daily says is “equal to putting every worker in Ohio out of work.” Continue reading →

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Disappointment with tech reporter over Fiorina

While I am cynical about the media, I still expect reporters covering the presidential candidates to dig for facts and fairly report their findings, so when I read Jon Swartz’s critical USA Today piece on Carly Fiorina, I was disappointed.

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GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina has not shied away from questions concerning her firing at HP. Too bad Hillary Clinton has been unwilling to fess-up with her failure in Benghazi. (irritant.blogspot.com)

Disappointed primarily because Swartz was a Silicon Valley high tech reporter and I expected more from him. While he wrote that he “had a front-row press seat in the early 2000s, covering the corporate soap opera over Fiorina’s bid to merge HP with Compaq Computer Corp. in a $24 billion deal,” he revealed his business naïveté’ in his criticism of Fiorina’s record at HP.

Experienced business reporters and analysts know that layoffs are common during merger/acquisition actions and they often lead to sour grapes comments from those no longer required by the resulting company. And stockholders, too, often are displeased with what’s happening to their stock.

However, Swartz chose to cite the 30,000 resulting layoffs and the stockholder showdown as a negative qualification for the presidency; what you would expect from a less-experienced reporter. Continue reading →

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Michigan bows to “greens” and EPA

When I read the Wall Street Journal’s Aug. 2, commentary, “States Should Shun the EPA’s New Power Mandate,” a report on the Clean Power Plan, I was reminded of the years of letters to the editor and opinion pieces in my Michigan hometown newspaper, mostly by those opposing coal-generated energy. They had bought into the health and climate change scare tactics of environmentalists and the Obama administration.

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The much-maligned James De Young coal-fired power plant in Holland, Michigan. The NAACP called it an “environmental justice offender. (Mark Copier photo)

Even the NAACP got into the act, issuing a report three years ago that the James De Young coal-fired plant was an “environmental justice offender,” stating that it was “significantly harmful to low-income communities and communities of color.” Never mind that just 3.6 percent of the Holland, Michigan population is African-American and half of the population has incomes of $50,000 or more.

In 2012, a spokesman for Green America signaled the proposed EPA rules as “good news.” Citing questionable statistics that coal-fired plants were the cause of four out of the five leading causes of mortality in the U.S., he said the carbon emissions were responsible for billions of dollars in health care costs.

Advocates have said the move to renewable energy was going to create thousands of new Michigan jobs and reduce pollution “without significantly increasing energy prices.” Where have I heard this before? Continue reading →

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Scott Walker’s comment on richest counties around Washington DC goes practically unnoticed

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Scott Walker’s comment on the wealth of counties around the nation’s capital hardly reported. (slate.com)

While making his point that Hillary Clinton believes she can grow the economy by growing Washington, Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker cited that six of the top ten wealthiest counties are around the nation’s capital. He was referring to the median income of those working in the nation’s capital.

It’s unfortunate the remark was meaningless to the average viewer, and we can thank our low information media for ignoring the statement. He’s made the point several times during his campaign; part of his plan to reduce the size of government. Continue reading →

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Another jobs promise by the president

“The Clean Power Plan will drive significant new investment in cleaner more modern and more efficient technologies, creating tens of thousands of jobs.” – President Obama

Just how stupid does the president think we are? His $800 billion stimulus was supposed to “save or create more than 3.5 million jobs,” but 1.5 million jobs were lost in the two years following the stimulus enactment. He later had to admit that “shovel-ready was not as shovel-ready as we expected.”

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I wonder if the people protesting in Washington DC for more green jobs were aware that the EPA would be hiring some 800 people to serve as regulators, who will be killing jobs across the country. (21stcenturyapprecticeshiiopworkforce3one.org)

The $20 billion in green technology funding was supposed “to create the jobs of the future,” but those “efforts to stimulate creation of green jobs have largely failed,” reported the New York Times. A $500 million Labor Department program to train workers for green jobs was designed to place 80,000 workers in energy efficiency or renewable energy careers, but reportedly just 8,000 found work in the two years following the program start. Continue reading →