Obama to businesses: Bring jobs home

[dbt]

Source: Reuters (Caren Bohan and Jeff Mason)

President Barack Obama kicked off an effort to encourage businesses to keep jobs at home instead of outsourcing them overseas, as he rolled out a new election-year theme on Saturday aimed at courting middle-class voters.

In his weekly radio and video address, Obama previewed an event he will hold next week with business executives to highlight the advantages of investing in the United States. <snip>

The White House forum on "Insourcing American Jobs" will be held on Wednesday. Executives from more than a dozen companies will attend, including padlock maker Master Lock, furniture company Lincolnton Furniture, software application developer GalaxE Solutions, and chemicals company DuPont.

The emphasis on keeping U.S. jobs at home is in line with a populist economic message championed by Obama that could play well with union workers, whose support the Democratic president will need to win re-election in November.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/07/us-obama-us-jobs-idUSTRE80608B20120107

[Divine Discontent]

1. these things the president is doing

are nice to see, but does he have to wait til its time to start the general election process to do them?

[No Elephants]

3. Things he is doing or things he is saying?

[Sapphocrat]

6. Bingo.

The timing is obviously suss, but the real issue is: He's not doing anything but (I suppose) expecting (as he always does) that if he asks nicely enough, his frenemies will cooperate voluntarily.

(What I wouldn't give to live in his fantasy world, where everyone is so cooperative solely out of the goodness of their hearts.)

What he needs to do, and should have done a long time ago, is ram through major tax penalties on outsourcing and offshoring companies, as well as import tariffs (on those same U.S.-owned companies) that would make pre-globalization tariffs seem like chump change.

If he did that, it would be the one time I'd even be in favor of corporate tax breaks to companies that actively work to create, or at least keep, jobs within U.S. borders.

[Lorien]

11. Exactly. What you listed is exactly what he should should be proposing

Making a statement to score political points won't return any jobs to our shores, but tax penalties might.

[lbrtbell]

10. That bothers me, too

He only starts talking and acting like a real Democrat during the election season. Once the polls have closed, it's back to neoliberal DLC bullshit. :(

[woo me with science]

12. The truth hurts. nt

[lbrtbell]

7. DUPE

[lbrtbell]

8. DUPE

[lbrtbell]

9. DUPE

[countryjake]

2. His announcement this morning...

is something that many working people have been waiting to hear, for a long long time. Too long, in fact.

Whether his "Insourcing American Jobs" plan and the meeting next week with all of those executive big-wigs will work, is another matter, entirely.

Since the Rethugs (and I mean that wholeheartedly...anti-union THUGS have done practically everything in their power to crush our unions and splinter union support, everywhere across this nation) will probably come back at him to say it's not the execs or companies who caused the runaway shops, it was those greedy organized workers that made it happen, I certainly hope that Obama is prepared to make a stand for the working class all over this world, cause that is what it's gonna take. And whether this will vitalize support from what's left of union workers...well, we can only hope that it's not too little, too late.

[No Elephants]

4. I've always liked Campaign Obama.

[flpab]

5. Just heard this on NPR

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory

it really puts a face to made in china

[KoKo]

13. K&R