Obama's Fraudulent "Job Summit": The President needs to fear the consequences of doing nothing

[Karmadillo]

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/23183

If the President had offered us a job summit a year ago, he might have been taken seriously. Now, however, after more than six million jobs have been lost - and with the bottom still falling - Obama's brain storming get-together can only be treated with contempt, if not outrage.

What is needed is immediate action, not idle chatter. We already know what works: federal stimulus money channeled directly towards job creation, a public works campaign to help rebuild the U.S. crumbling infrastructure, full funding for education and social services, and more.

Instead, Obama will invite the corporate elite to the White House to hear their advice on how to create jobs, as they continue slashing them by the thousands. The conservative Washington Post reports:

"President Obama plans to bring together CEOs, small business owners and financial experts to sound out ideas for continuing to expand the economy and create jobs" (November 16, 2009).

Labor leaders have also been invited to the meeting.

Allow us to save the busy President some time - it is obvious what the summit participants will suggest and why. Corporations will propose that taxes remain low for themselves and their very wealthy shareholders, while keeping regulations equally low. Both of these measures would save money for corporations, while encouraging billionaires to play more on the stock market - their solution to creating jobs. Unions, on the other hand, will demand a new and improved stimulus package. This, of course, is the only answer for workers.

<edit>

It is up to us, then, to scream louder. Obama will not create a much-needed stimulus unless he is fearful of the social consequences of doing nothing. If he feels that workers and the unemployed will suffer quietly as jobs continue to disappear, he will continue his "let-them-eat-cake" attitude. If, however, he sees large, angry demonstrations demanding jobs, he will be forced to think again. The time is now. The union movement can pass resolutions as the American Federation of Teachers Local 1021 of Los Angeles did just last week, which calls on the labor movement, as a whole, to organize their membership and working people in general to attend a Solidarity Day III march and rally in Washington, DC in the spring of 2010 to demand living wage jobs for all. If we stay quiet, Obama will implement the corporations' solution to the recession - a jobless recovery with a substantially lower standard of living for everyone but the rich.

more...

[Cant trust em]

1. Right. The previous efforts have not been enough.

Now that he wants to do more, we should be pissed.

This is dumb.

[branders seine]

2. The administration is eating its own dog food.

They gave trillions to the banks, refueling the phony Wall-Street-as-casino bubble temporarily.

Now they see the phony numbers their disastrous bailout caused, and somehow forgot their own scam was responsible. They seem to believe there is a real recovery underway, and the "jobs summit" is just a stalling tactic until the magic "recovery" starts yielding jobs.

Trouble is, even if this was a real recovery (which it is not), it wouldn't yield positive job growth for another three or four years. They can't stall that long.

Obama has compounded our economic disaster. Never mind the henhouse, he has handed the whole farm over to the supply siders and Goldman Sachs criminals.

[Windy]

5. bush gave trillions to the banks before obama was inaugurated nt

[branders seine]

7. and obama was the bagman

and has given them plenty of largesse and no regulation on his own

[Le Taz Hot]

3. Great.

Just what we need from this administration, another dog and pony show.

[bigtree]

4. so they'll demand more stimulus? More of what he's already provided?

Maybe he'll agree. Nice to know they agree the stimulus measures help with the job losses.

[yourout]

6. Simple....put the tax rates back to were they were before Reagan and offer tax credits for adding...

payroll up to a certain amount per employee(say living wage+10%).

Add tax credits for business expansion.

Put a 1/2 percent sales tax on all stock transactions to reign in speculators.

[sad sally]

27. You've hit the nail directly and correctly - how can we get this done?

[Nikki Stone1]

8. CEOs will not help the little guy

They are going to try to get as much for themselves as they can while continuing to pay the lowest wages possible.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. Nonsense! People in need set great store in PR summits.

But to really turn this thing around we might need a blue-ribbon commission.

That would be sweet.

[Karmadillo]

11. And then maybe the blue-ribbon commission could appoint a Jobs Czar.

That would pretty much spell the end of unemployment for sure.

[Lorien]

10. Roll back the tax structure to the pre-Reagan era

Ronny's "trickle down" policies got us here. The only logical action is to undo every damn one of them.

[Hidden Stillness]

12. Now You Know the True Horror of the "D"LC Taking Over the Democratic Party

I guess the Obama Admin. was really impressed with its recent "health care" (that is, forced commercial insurance buy) summit, with lobbyists and insurance executives, leading to co-ops and "triggers," "opt outs" and "exchanges," reduced abortion availability slipped in there, and a "public option" so small that it will have higher prices, and which any employer or State can opt out of no matter what you want--and no Medicare. This approach, of course, has given us nothing but fraud--"Medicare"Advantage subsidy to insurance, "Medicare" Part D price-gouging subsidy to pharmaceuticals; just like auto insurance. Heavy prices, for no mandated non-punitive coverage.

Now they give us a "jobs"summit (to "study" what? perhaps another one of Obama's "public-private partnerships," which used to be called fascism), made up of only corporate management and investors--the way Geithner "consults" only with Wall St. brokers. Recently, Michigan's Dept. of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth revised upward our unemployment rate to an actual figure of 22.3%. Then, Obama's U.S. Dept. of Labor falsely reduced the size of our total workforce, based on nothing! ("Why Michigan's Unemployment Rate Could Be Worse" by Liz Wolgemuth; Sept. 21, at usnews.com.) This allowed them to then claim, outrageously, that our unemployment rate "fell" to 15.2%, because they claim that the jobless rate is a smaller pool altogether! They also claimed recently that the cost of living went down (!--a bizarre claim, with no evidence) so people trying to survive on Social Security will not get a cost-of-living increase this coming year.

This is the group that gave poor people a grand total of $250. last year from the "stimulus," and that has not even spent most of it yet, that spent much of the "job creation" money on ordinary funds for the Dept. of Education (?), and at a recent House hearing, it was calculated that they spent about $170,000 for every $40-50,000 a year teacher's job.

Everything for Wall St. brokers and lobbyists, investors and outsourcers. The unemployment rate is rising, Michigan has not created an actual job for years and no one is hiring, we are at Depression levels, the State is not collecting enough money to even run a severely scaled-back budget, (as are about 43 States, or whatever the recent report was). This is getting scary, and you get nothing but grins and speechifying. Who are these people?--they are not Democrats.

[SpartanDem]

15. I seem to remember this thing called the stimulus bill

That invested billions in infrastructure, gave tax breaks to the middle class,etc. Already this year Social Security recipients already got two $250 payments to make up lack of cost living adjustment. So to say everything has focused on Wall St is not only factual wrong it's just plain deluded.

[Hidden Stillness]

17. False, and Wrong

People on Social Security did not get two $250. payments to go with their cut; I know someone on Social Security--it was one payment last May, I think it was. Only about 20% of the stimulus money has even been spent, and much of it is to run the Dept. of Education (recent House hearing with Edolphus Townes). "Billions" has been claimed on infrastructure, but with no proof, only claims. That is part of the problem, there is no item-by-item proof of the programs. I don't even understand putting "tax cuts" you claim happended, with "the stimulus bill"--what does that have to do with anything? There is a horrific deficit--who is going to pay for it eventually? I don't understand that inclusion at all, since "tax cuts," whether they happen or not, do not stimulate the economy, especially when unemployment rises and is the cause of the real crisis.

[SpartanDem]

23. The second was just proposed just October

so you're right there has only been one so far, but another is likely on the way.Got to the rocovery site you can see who has been given money.

Obama's announcement, however, focused new attention on the prospect of further help to some of the nation's most economically vulnerable people. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said for the first time Wednesday that he, too, thought that "providing another economic recovery payment is the right thing to do." In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged lawmakers to support the idea, saying the original $250 payments in the stimulus package "proved an effective way to offer stability and security to millions of Americans and a boost to our economy."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/14/AR2009101403954.html?hpid=topnews

[bvar22]

13. Another "Uniquely American Solution".

:patriot:

[spanone]

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[quiet.american]

16. Can't really buy the premise of the OP.

The article says:

What is needed is immediate action, not idle chatter. We already know what works: federal stimulus money channeled directly towards job creation, a public works campaign to help rebuild the U.S. crumbling infrastructure, full funding for education and social services, and more.

Go look at Recovery.gov and tell me what part of the above is not already intiated/in place, and has been almost from the beginning of this administration. Seeing in detail how the stimulus money is being spent and awarded, state-by-state, and how jobs are being saved/created is a powerful antidote to this latest round of shirt-rending that pretends the jobs summits is the first and only idea Obama has had about job creation since taking office. For instance, right out of the gate, the Obama administration expanded the government's guarantee of small business loans to 90% and offered small businesses other incentives and assistance as part of the effort to immediately stimulate job growth. This meme that Obama has done "nothing about jobs" since he's been in office is absolute nonsense. (And by the way, what part of "it's going to get worse before it gets better" -- which Obama has said from day one -- do people not understand?)

Is there room for criticism of how the administration is handling the jobs situation -- of course -- for instance, I would like to know why awards of the stimulus money are not proceeding more quickly, and how the administration underestimated how much "worse" the jobs situation would get -- (a fact-based answer, not a political rant answer) -- however painting Obama as Marie Antoinette has no basis in my book.

And for that matter, so is repeatedly trying to paint our democratically-elected, Democratic president as the enemy of the middle-class. Yes, Obama makes mistakes, but why do we assign to him the worst possible motives because he's not perfect? Or because the reality is that he has to maneuver in an environment that is not perfect? For instance, the article says in the writer's words that Obama is inviting the "corporate elite" to the WH. Yes, CEO's are invited. BUT SO ARE LABOR LEADERS AND SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS, and it NOT THE FIRST TIME THEY'VE BEEN INVITED TO THE WH. In fact, according to the NYT:

The most frequent visitor included in the narrow sample was Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union and Mr. Obama’s top ally in the labor movement. Mr. Stern visited the White House 22 times, sometimes for health care or other public events in the East Room, other times for meetings with the president or aides like Rahm Emanuel, Peter R. Orszag or Ronald A. Klain.

The visit tally underscores the clout that S.E.I.U. and Mr. Stern enjoy in this White House, something that has generated consternation at times among business groups and envy among rival unions. By contrast, Richard L. Trumka, the new president of the AFL-CIO, visited seven times in the same period.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/politics/31visitor.html?_r=1&sq=white%20house%20visitor%20list%20labor%20union&st=cse&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1258827658-RGO3uyBGCjWQ5DFlgKcgLg

That Obama's door has been open to representatives of working people from the beginning of his administration is treated as an inconvenient fact to the objective of attributing to Obama purely corporatist motives. Yes, Goldman Sachs has been to the WH, but so have labor leaders, and one of them so many times, he has earned "most frequent visitor" status.

My overall point is this, though -- no administration's policies are perfect, and Obama's is no exception. But why do we seem to feel the need to aid and abet right-wing delusional hatred of him by making him into our enemy as well, when his administration is working on initiatives that mirror Democratic values -- healthcare, economy, energy, winding down years-old military conflicts, bringing diplomacy back to our foreign policy, etc.

Let someone here post angrily about how the administration is "screwing us" and it reaches the top of the Greatest Page with some 100+ votes.

Let someone post about how they have personally benefited from the administration's policies, or about an administration victory in the right direction -- it sinks -- maybe 9 or 10 votes (Sometimes maybe 30 or so votes -- but it still sinks). I guess, 'if it bleeds, it leads' applies not only to the evening news.

As Obama himself said, his feet do need to be held to the fire. But there's a difference between that and cutting someone off at the knees and exhorting everyone else to do the same. Sometimes, I look through DU subject lines and really have to wonder which do we prefer. No, we shouldn't go into Pollyanna territory with posts; but why is it so hard to acknowledge the good with equal strength, too? And I don't think demonstrations around jobs are a bad thing, but not in the spirit of holding up signs that say "Obama, I don't like cake!."

Alright, probably, there will be a pile-on to this post, but truthfully, I don't want to spend the rest of the day clicking "Reply," so I'll just let them ride without comment.

[rucky]

18. Somehow I doubt this summit is the first time they've thought of job creation.

It's a formal event designed to get many of the ideas fleshed out, and come out with a bold implementation.

I hope.

[jefferson_dem]

19. This place is really fucking amazing...

There's as much irrational whining about Obama here as there is there is in FreeperLand. :crazy:

[Karmadillo]

24. How much time do you spend there?

nt

[SammyWinstonJack]

25. .

:spray:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. This is stupid.

Just plain inbred stupid.

[Toucano]

21. Is it possible to talk about job creation without talking about NAFTA, CAFTA and the like?

How can we take a commitment to job creation seriously?

As well as concern over Nafta, the Canadian government has been alarmed by other protectionist moves by Obama such as the "buy America" provisions in his $787bn economic stimulus package, which originally proposed only US steel be used for infrastructure projects. The "buy America" provisions have since been watered down, with Obama saying the US would not do anything that ran counter to existing trade agreements.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/19/barack-obama-stephen-harper-canada-visit

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

22. At the Healthcare Summit the "stakeholders" didn't include single payer advocates

So I wonder who the "stakeholders" will be in a jobs summit. I'm betting it will all be the CEOs of multinationals explaining how we need subminimum wages and more tax breaks for exporting jobs. I'll be shocked if unions are invited.

[Karmadillo]

26. The working class, especially if unemployed, can be bitter and clingy. It's best to let those

better situated in life make decisions on their behalf without their input.