Job Growth Lacking in the Private Sector

Let’s think

Here are a few of my comments on that jackass Bush.

BUSH: Let me start with how to control the cost of health care: medical liability reform, for starters, which he’s opposed. Secondly, allow small businesses to pool together so they can share risk and buy insurance at the same discounts big businesses get to do. Thirdly, spread what’s called health savings accounts. It’s good for small businesses, good for owners. You own your own account. You can save tax-free.

This demonstrates how previous administrations, especially the previous four, have catered to graft and the power of Corporate America. There was a time when an employer would pay most or all your healthcare benefits. In most cases a Health Savings Account is on you 100%. As each year passes employees are paying more and more for their healthcare costs and getting less and less. It’s like the old time retirements which were often paid for in total by the employer. These are almost extinct in the private sector and have been replaced by 401Ks where you pay just about all your retirement!

You get a catastrophic plan to help you on it.

Such plans leave you in a real hole should you become very sick.

The best way to keep jobs here in America is, one, have an energy plan. I proposed one to the Congress two years ago, encourages conservation, encourages technology to explore for environmentally friendly ways for coal-to use coal and gas. It encourages the use of renewables like ethanol and biodiesel.

You just can't "encourage" important things to happen. As president you must see to it you “make” important things happen. The word "encourage" almost never works as companies ignore it unless there is something to back it up, something much stronger like "you must ...". Free enterprise or no free enterprise, certain things are too important. The understanding of free enterprise was meant it was for the best interests of a nation as a whole. It never meant the best interests of a particular financial clique, which is what runs things these days.

Less regulations if we want jobs here; legal reform if we want jobs here; and we’ve got to keep taxes low.

Under the last four administrations, what regulations there were, had no teeth even though they were on the books. Less regulation never stopped an employer from seeking third-world sweatshops. The government made a nice deal with companies (I’m sure for a nice fee of course!). If companies set up facilities in other countries and make a profit, that profit will not be taxed by the US government unless repatriated. If they pay taxes to the host nation, the US-based company might be able to deduct those taxes on their operations here! Regulations in the US and taxes have little to do with companies seeking the greatest profit. Third-world sweatshops are far less expensive and even if American companies didn’t have to any pay taxes in the US, they would still seek the cheapest labor somewhere in the world. In fact many companies have so many loopholes, it’s a joke to even say they pay taxes. This is one reason why today we see multibillionaires with the talk of who will be our first trillionaire!

This nation is on the verge of a change that will see a huge increase in poverty as Capitalism is in its final phase wherein it seeks to maximize it profits with no restraints and has essentially the whole world as its backyard. If we don't or can’t fix this mess then who in the hell is going to care about America when millions more fall below the poverty level and stay there. Sorry but the best interests of our nation are paramount, not the best interests of the top 1%!

DaVinci-984257

I agree with you on your points

Health Savings Accounts are a joke, put earned money aside (tax free, whoopee!) just in case you need it to pay for out of pocket expenses before the "real health insurance" you're also paying for kicks in, and if you're healthy enough to not need it and have a balance in the HSA at the end of the year well... you just lose it. And the insurance company makes a hefty profit in the stock market, buying and "insuring"dubious securties using your paid up premiums, and gets a government bail out (from your, your childrens, and grandchildrens, paid in taxes) when the market tanks...

Catastrophic plans, which are little more than denial of care for the working poor, those that earn too much for Medicare but too little to afford to purchase even the most basic of health plans. Or if the working poor do forgo food, or private transportation, or telephone, to purchase this basic "health insurance" plan, it has such a high deductible that they can't go to the doctor because they don't have the money to pay the out of pocket until they finally reach the benefit they are paying for. Once at the maximum deductible, they begin to receive reimbursement, except they are usually on deaths door by then. It is a "health" plan designed to protect the provider and the insurance company from catastrophic loss, and does nothing for the near dead patient.

Re: retirement, 401K, yeah great idea for shareholders, lets get more and more people to put their money in the market, and all is good till the current bubble bursts. Can you imagine where many of us poor people would be if Bush Jr had gotten his way with his equally "jackass" proposal to privatise Social Security?

Re: energy policy, I agree with you and I am glad that the majority "encouraged" those that supported this stupid Bush Jr plan right out of control. Now the hard work comes to make the rest of them keep their promises. Force is the only option here, or maybe if gasoline hits seven or eight dollars a gallon then the powers that be will finally get serious about supporting creative and innovative ways to get off of fossil fuels.

It's pretty obvious when you look at the chart, that job growth declined every year except one under Bush Jr. with his Administration policy of less regulation and low taxes, that supply side creates jobs BS he was so fond of spouting on about. These are the only promises his Admnistraion and the Republican controlled Congress did deliver on and they are a complete failure in creating jobs or ensuring a robust economy.

I highlighted these problems and pledges from the previous "jackass" Administration because the Republicans in both Congressional Houses are still promoting the same failed policies, and pushing back, using ever lower and lower ways, and some Democrats who don't support this stupid policy but still hold back on reform. Both groups are financed by big business who pay little or no corporate taxes but contribute heavily to campaign coffers, and both represent those who seek to stop those of us who want the change that is in the best interests of the working people of this great nation.

It is time for the majority to demand and hold corporate America and the government to higher business standards and more ethical behavior on a global level.

A fundamental change in the way in which big business and government operate must occur, and long range vision is needed to ensure that The United States of America remains a superpower.

That is why many of us voted for the promise of Obama, but he needs our help. We need to do more than hope or just "encourage" those in control to bring the days of short term gain without regard to the consequences to an end. Being a billionaire would be great, but there are other things far more important, like our individual health and that of the planet.

Our collective voices need to demand a new way forward. I encourage you to write to the President, and to the houses of Congress and let them know that while we don't have millions of dollars to line their pockets we do have a vote, and intend to use it to our advantage. If they hear from enough of us working stiffs, then they'll have to listen if they want to keep their job!

let's think

Thanks for an excellent response!

if you're healthy enough to not need it and have a balance in the HSA at the end of the year well... you just lose it.

What a joke isn't it? I mean the government instituted HSA's with cheerleading from employers but when all is said and done that money does not revert to you or me, it’s stolen by the insurance companies! Pretty good arrangement huh? That’s like putting money in a bank and after a year any money still there becomes the property of the bank!

Can you imagine where many of us poor people would be if Bush Jr had gotten his way with his equally "jackass" proposal to privatise Social Security?

The whole thing was a Republican scheme to grease the palms of the racketeers on Wall Street who bribe, excuse me, “contribute” to the DC racketeers. I had nightmares when I first heard this as there are many who are young and naïve enough to dream on the one hand and ignore the realities of life on the other. Dreams (illusions which can become nightmares) can overshadow reality such that people ignore the fact they can lose it all by investing. In this country investing is a Ponzi scheme. Hence it’s prudent to invest only the money you can lose and not get hurt by the loss. It’s well to remember the words of the song “To Each His Dulcinea” from the “Man of La Mancha”:

A man can do quite anything,
Outfly the bird upon the wing,
Hold moonlight in his hand.
Yet if you build your life on dreams
It's prudent to recall,
A man with moonlight in his hand
Has nothing there at all.

It's pretty obvious when you look at the chart, that job growth declined every year except one under Bush Jr.

The US imports cheap labor to fill slots at a much lower salary level than Americans would accept. This puts downward pressure on American salaries and the so called American Dream! Imported cheap labor arrives on visas, for example the H-1B visa. This particular visa allows many to fill slots in the high tech industry. It’s sad when companies lie and tell the nation via their paid propagandists in the media that one day we all woke up and discovered that American engineers, technicians and so forth are no longer qualified! It’s even sadder when OUR own government plays along when they know better. Excuse me did I say “OUR” government? I meant to say big money’s government! Americans are “unqualified” only because they cannot bring in the profit that cheap labor can. I’ve worked for years with people on visas and found them in no way superior to Americans. If you add language barriers and cultural differences then things are worse but as long as companies can increase profits who cares what the hell happens to our country, right?!

This country is in a real big mess, one bigger than the government and crooked media will admit. I hope we don’t end up in a Depression in the coming months. The Wall Street crowd, CNBC and the media as a whole have instituted a propaganda campaign in an attempt to induce (trick) the naïve into believing that “Spring is busting out all over” and it’s time to put money back into the market. This is nonsense when we have the worst unemployment since the Great Depression! We no longer have the means to produce things we could have sold to other nations as so much of our manufacturing is now overseas. Every day we are outsourcing our R & D as well. There will be no future for coming generations if these trends continue. The only people who will make real money will be those who make it through the financial sector wherein investors push someone else’s hard earned money over the Internet. A nation such as this has neither soul nor substance and will come crashing down again and again almost overnight like the crash we experienced in the latter half of last year. And now I reprise what I offered previously:

It's prudent to recall,
A man with moonlight in his hand
Has nothing there at all.