I am blocked from watching videos at work--can you sum up the article, please?
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I am blocked from watching videos at work--can you sum up the article, please?
Hello Synn:Quote:
Originally Posted by Synnen
In summation, he saw the senate take away $10 billion in subsidies from the ethanol industry yesterday, and he's simply guarding HIS $10 BILLION in taxpayer handouts... He mentions them SEVERAL times during the interview.
I'm sure Steve will have a different take on what he said, so I encourage you to watch it when you get home.
excon
The transcript was there also Synnen, but here you go.Quote:
Originally Posted by Synnen
Some of the oil companies "demands":Quote:
Watson: “I was very concerned about the tax proposals in the Menendez bill that came forward that day because i never thought I would see the day when an administration and more than half the U.S. senate would propose a tax bill that actually would disadvantage 132-year-old company like Chevron relative to Russian, Chinese, French, Italian and other companies, not just outside the united states, but inside the united states of America. So we did push back on bills that were being critical trying to impose punitive taxes on our business. We can create jobs, we can play a positive role and that’s my message.”
...
CNBC: So do you think… we’re in D.C. this is the red tape capital, are the policies or lack of policies that we’re seeing here hurting job creation at Chevron?
Watson: They are. In fact, we told a group of senators this morning, that there’s a long list of regulations that have been enacted and been in place for a long time and new ones that keep coming that are restricting our ability to create jobs. We’ve provided that list to the senators. But for our industry in particular, you know, deep water drill ship employs about 200 people directly and 1,000 indirectly. It raises revenue for the government, puts people back to work, reduces imported oil. We just want to be put in the game. We can create jobs if we’re given the opportunity.
- Opening up acreage to development
- Issuing permits in a timely fashion
- Keeping in place a tax structure that allows the investment to create those jobs
Sorry--I clicked on the link and got "your corporation blocked this webpage. Reason: videos". I wasn't even able to see the transcript. Thank you for posting it. (they're kind of Nazis around here for where we can go on our computers).
And yeah... sorry. I don't feel sorry for the oil companies at all. Want to know how to lower costs? Stop paying the shareholders such a high portion, and reinvest it in the company. Even if we DID open more land (which is just asking for another environmental disaster), they still have to get it to a refinery.
Want to know how the oil companies could create a LOT of jobs AND lower the price of US oil? Build 3 more refineries in the US. With their own money, thank you very much.
Hello again, Steve:Quote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
In other words, keep your hands OFF MY taxpayer handout!
excon
PS> If the tax structure they need to create jobs is already IN PLACE, where's the jobs??
Who said anything about feeling sorry for oil companies?
Lets face it, corporations and banks want the laws they want, and they pay good money to get them. According to the video, they gave a list of laws they want struck down so they can make more money, on top of record profits.
Bottomline, they want more money than they have, and then they might share it, or invest it, or circulate it. Yeah that 35% business tax looks good on paper, but with all the loop holes, they don't pay nearly that, no American company does. Nor has ever in the last eight years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/bu...ardt.html?_r=1
Quote:
Arguably, the United States now has a corporate tax code that’s the worst of all worlds. The official rate is higher than in almost any other country, which forces companies to devote enormous time and effort to finding loopholes. Yet the government raises less money in corporate taxes than it once did, because of all the loopholes that have been added in recent decades.
Right now, they don't have to create jobs to make money. Just keep giving them MORE tax breaks.Quote:
The problem with the current system is that it distorts incentives. Decisions that would otherwise be inefficient for a company — and that are indeed inefficient for the larger economy — can make sense when they bring a big tax break. “Companies should be making investments based on their commercial potential,” as Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at New York University, says, “not for tax reasons.”
Instead, airlines sometimes buy more planes than they really need. Energy companies drill more holes. Drug companies conduct research with only marginal prospects of success.
Inefficiencies like these slow economic growth, and they are the reason that both conservatives and liberals criticize the corporate tax code so harshly. Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, says it hurts job creation. Mr. Obama, in his State of the Union address, said that the system “makes no sense, and it has to change.”
Back to the original premise, governments don't create jobs, they take credit for job creation, if they are doing their job they create opportunities. It is people whether acting through corporations or otherwise who create jobs, who have the individual vision to take a risk.
We can have a massive public service but this administration's job is the next's budget cut, so let's not talk about creating jobs, but about employment. Now someone says consumers create employment but reality says more productivity, so the existing labour force can deal with more consumers. How do we do this? By reorganising what we do and we do this continually. Soon robotics will take over manual tasks and so employment will become intellectual. What happens to those who are unskilled? This is a question no one wants to tackle, because retraining just doesn't cut it.
I suggest we are going to need many more gardeners, because it is difficult to do that job with robotics, but even that job can be done once and then maintenance. Academia here we come!
Remember that minimum wage increase that was supposed to give people a "living wage" I think they called it? As had been forecast, the least skilled among us are finding it difficult to reap the benefits. Only 1 in 4 teens are finding employment, the lowest level since 1948.
Now ain't that some kind of logic, force employers to pay more so they'll hire more people. Makes no sense at all, unless of course you WANT the economy to tank.Quote:
Perhaps you've already noticed around the neighborhood, but this is a rotten summer for young Americans to find a job. The Department of Labor reported last week that a smaller share of 16-19 year-olds are working than at anytime since records began to be kept in 1948.
Only 24% of teens, one in four, have jobs, compared to 42% as recently as the summer of 2001. The nearby chart chronicles the teen employment percentage over time, including the notable plunge in the last decade. So instead of learning valuable job skills—getting out of bed before noon, showing up on time, being courteous to customers, operating a cash register or fork lift—millions of kids will spend the summer playing computer games or hanging out.
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/i...0630190003.jpg
The lousy economic recovery explains much of this decline in teens working, and some is due to increases in teen summer school enrollment. Some is also cultural: Many parents don't put the same demands on teens as they once did to get out and work.
But Congress has also contributed by passing one of the most ill-timed minimum wage increases in history. One of the first acts of the gone-but-not-forgotten Nancy Pelosi ascendancy was to raise the minimum wage in stages to $7.25 an hour in 2009 from $5.15 in 2007. Even liberals ought to understand that raising the cost of hiring the young and unskilled while employers are slashing payrolls is loopy economics.
Or maybe not. The Center for American Progress, often called the think tank for the Obama White House, recently recommended another increase to $8.25 an hour. Though the U.S. unemployment rate is 9.1%, the thinkers assert that a rising wage would "stimulate economic growth to the tune of 50,000 new jobs." So if the government orders employers to pay more to hire workers when they're already not hiring, they'll somehow hire more workers. By this logic, if we raised the minimum wage to $25 an hour we'd have full employment.
And who was hit the hardest? Black teens, whose unemployment rate stood at 41.6% in April.
Well at least they'll have the summer off.Quote:
Black teens have had the worst of it, with their unemployment rate rising to 41.6% in April from 29% in 2007, faster than almost any other group. A 2010 study by economists William Even of Miami University of Ohio and David Macpherson of Trinity University found that as a result of the $2.10 increase in minimum wage, "teen employment dropped by 6.9 percent. . . . For the teen population with less than 12 years of education completed, teen employment dropped by 12.4 percent." For teens priced out of the labor market, their wage fell to zero.
Once all the states get rid of all the illegals immigrants, there will be plenty of jobs. One state's blueberry harvest isn't getting picked after it made such a law. The teens in that state should be overjoyed!Quote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
From the Peach Pundit, May 31, 2011 --
Quote:
Last week, Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black agreed to conduct a survey for Governor Nathan Deal to determine if media reports of labor shortages for picking crops across South Georgia are real or contrived by opponents of the newly signed immigration reform law.
According to the Associated Press’ Ray Henry, Black is to report his findings by June 10th. A letter sent by Deal requesting the analysis stated “Many farmers have raised concerns about the availability of an adequate, stable workforce for Georgia’s production agriculture industry.”
In the same report, Black accepted the Governor’s request, stating “We’re trying to determine if there’s a problem at all and to what extent it’s affecting growers.”
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association places a $300 Million price tag on crops at risk because of labor shortages. The same report lists anecdotal evidence of a Tifton farmer who had between 75 and 100 workers that usually show up to harvest fruits and vegetables but did not, causing some crops to perish in the field. He’s now planning on cutting back planting for summer crops.
Similarly, a blueberry farmer from Baxley reported that he’s short one third of his labor, despite paying a $50 signing bonus and $25 weekly bonuses on top of his normal pay scale.
Minimum wage applies to everyone, not just teen agers. If you are adults making minimum wage, that makes you poor enough to be on welfare, and hardly able to barely buy groceries. That might be great for companies, but hardly great for those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
Try to get sympathy about unemployed teen agers when dad is unemployed because his factory closed, and now he flips hamburgers for minimum wage. Just because they can be happy with a 7/8 bucks an hour in India, doesn't mean the living is great here.
A teen who can't find work will have a lot of time with his unemployed dad this summer. Heck, if they lowered the minimum wage, then they could make you work for it, and they still can, skilled, or unskilled. How much has your pay gone up in the last 10/15 years?
Then if the Dems are right, let's just raise the minimum again and we'll have full employment in no time. Dad and Jr can both find work.
Or the big corporations can bring back the jobs they sent overseas. Or hey! Use all that surplus money to create jobs.Quote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
Create jobs for the hell of it, yeah that's going to happen.
there is a false logic here that low wages stimulate economic growth. That may work in an economy which has no industry such as in Asia, but it has limited application because many other things have to be in operation. China booms, it has a stable political environment, Pakistan languishes, it has an unstable political environment, yet both have low wages and abundant labour. The US is moving into a post industrial phase and structural unemployment is the norm until new skills are learned and it doesn't matter what the wage rates are, Soon you will need a degree to sweep streets not because knowledge is important but because employers value someone who can demonstrate they can thinkQuote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
Then the "job creators" aren't the job creators you thought they were are they? No matter what they pay you, they make money, and it's a fact that wages are only 10 percent of business expenses. That's right 10 percent. The only companies that don't make money are MISMANAGED ones.
But I'm a former union worker, and we had profit sharing. AND THEY MADE BOO-KOO MONEY. If they didn't we didn't. Shared sacrifice, shared prosperity, shared risk.
And the retail/service industry (what we are in now) has traditionally paid less than manufacturing.Quote:
Originally Posted by paraclete
That's it, there is a certain compensation for risk and skill, but service industries pay better than manufacturing and you are moving away from unionised industries to knowledge industries. My country lost most of its manufacturing and still maintains full employment, it took a lot of structural adjustment and a great deal of pain but it is all underpinned by an adult minimum wage of $15.50 an hourQuote:
Originally Posted by Wondergirl
it's a Potamkin economy... construction on housing and office space that will never be occupied just to keep construction workers employed .Quote:
China booms, it has a stable political environment,
College Education, Good Jobs: Why Degrees Are Overrated - TIMEQuote:
Soon you will need a degree to sweep streets not because knowledge is important but because employers value someone who can demonstrate they can think
Indeed many teenagers would benefit from an apprentice like education. That is where the minimum wage further harms their prospects. So instead of 'on the job training' ,where the young adult learns a trade while being paid for it ,they are forced instead to go to a trade school and pay to learn the same thing .
Yes Tom much criticism, but remember those jobs exist because you exported your employment to China. Eventually those buildings will be occupied as the villagers move to the cities. In a nation where capital is in the hands of government who is going to initiate apartment building and civic development, the peasants or the government? I think you should visit China instead of criticising them, you might get a different view.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/j...-1226085341214
no Tom you opted for a different paradigm. A minimum wage prevents exploitation a concept foreign in the US, which since its inception has depended upon it.. There is nothing wrong with trade education in schools, in fact we have adopted trade education as part of high school courses. This prequalifies the young for employment. There is nothing wrong with trade schools where skills are taught, usually as part of an apprenticeship. You have a pecular idea, on the one hand a paid college education yet object to paying for trade training.Quote:
Indeed many teenagers would benefit from an apprentice like education. That is where the minimum wage further harms their prospects. So instead of 'on the job training' ,where the young adult learns a trade while being paid for it ,they are forced instead to go to a trade school and pay to learn the same thing .
No one values what they get for free, particularly the young
Hello again, Steve:Quote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
You're right. They need some DEMAND first. Consumers create demand when they have money in their pockets. That was my original point. So, let's give some money to consumers instead of zillionaires.. Then jobs will be created, right?? I mean if they're NOT going to create jobs, then WHY shouldn't we ask them to pay a FAIR share??
excon
Yes ex let's have some income redistribution away from the high fliers who don't earn what they get to the real workers who need it, but not through government handouts but through fair wages. When people have money to spend they spend it and the economy works, when people have nothing the economy grinds to a halt. Pay the people who have a job well, not make them subsidise the low end.Quote:
Originally Posted by excon
Didn't you just praise the Communist China model... low wage protectionist merchantilism ?
Not at all, wages in China will rise, it is happening and it is inevietable. The west has fallen into the communist trap. That China finds a way to keep its people employed is not wrong policy, it is wrong policy to leave them idle and waste billions on bialing out high flying tax evaders. What is also wrong policy is exporting your industries to China in exchange for low cost goods and leaving your own people unemployed. A little protectionism goes along way. What was america doing when Germany took the Chinese car industry, making SUV for fat tax evading americans? Perhaps they will send you Humvees soon. Just remember whose iron ore and coal make it possibleQuote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Oh so low wages are useful at a time of high unemployment ? I thought you were against that .Quote:
Not at all, wages in China will rise, it is happening and it is inevietable. The west has fallen into the communist trap. That China finds a way to keep its people employed is not wrong policy, it is wrong policy to leave them idle and waste billions on bialing out high flying tax evaders.
Protectionism turns recession into depression... turns trade war into shooting war. Did you learn nothing from the 1930s history texts ?Quote:
A little protectionism goes along way.
No Tom I said a minimum wage is essential to redistribute wealth, an entirely different concept. Choice is also important Tom and the Chinese choose to workQuote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
What I learned from 1930's history is that unemployment breeds fascism and dictatorship, that it sets up a mindset where people will accept anything in order just to have employment, an attitude that capitalism cultivates, What I have learned from the last decade is that the greed of capitalism knows no bounds. From your history book you think Russia should have sold Hitler oil in the way Russia sells gas to Germany today. That is the sort of thing that starts shooting wars. It isn't protectionism that starts shooting wars it is exploitation. Perhaps the US should have sold Japan oil, aftereall it would have saved us a cold warQuote:
protectionism turns recession into depression... turns trade war into shooting war. Did you learn nothing from the 1930s history texts ?
I guess unlike you ex, Steve Wynn is not too excited about the expanding his business under Obama. Who is Steve Wynn? CEO of Wynn Resorts.
But I suppose he wouldn't know anything about this, would he? Well that's exactly what's happening, businesses are sitting on their thumbs for the exact reasons he stated.Quote:
Well, here's our problem. There are a host of opportunities for expansion in Las Vegas, a host of opportunities to create tens of thousands of jobs in Las Vegas. I know that I could do 10,000 more myself and according to the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitors Convention Bureau, if we hired 10,000 employees, it would create another 20,000 additional jobs for a grand total of 30,000. I believe in Las Vegas. I think its best days are ahead of it. But I'm afraid to do anything in the current political environment in the United States. You watch television and see what's going on, on this debt ceiling issue. And what I consider to be a total lack of leadership from the President and nothing's going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress. But everybody is so political, so focused on holding their job for the next year that the discussion in Washington is nauseating. And I'm saying it bluntly, that this administration is the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in my lifetime. And I can prove it and I could spend the next 3 hours giving you examples of all of us in this market place that are frightened to death about all the new regulations, our healthcare costs escalate, regulations coming from left and right. A President that seems -- that keeps using that word redistribution. Well, my customers and the companies that provide the vitality for the hospitality and restaurant industry, in the United States of America, they are frightened of this administration. And it makes you slow down and not invest your money. Everybody complains about how much money is on the side in America. You bet. And until we change the tempo and the conversation from Washington, it's not going to change. And those of us who have business opportunities and the capital to do it are going to sit in fear of the President. And a lot of people don't want to say that. They'll say, "Oh God, don't be attacking Obama." Well, this is Obama's deal, and it's Obama that's responsible for this fear in America. The guy keeps making speeches about redistribution, and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don't invest or holding too much money. We haven't heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody's afraid of the government, and there's no need to soft peddling it, it's the truth. It is the truth. And that's true of Democratic businessman and Republican businessman, and I am a Democratic businessman and I support Harry Reid. I support Democrats and Republicans. And I'm telling you that the business community in this company is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he's gone, everybody's going to be sitting on their thumbs.
nothing's going to get fixed until the President himself steps up and wrangles both parties in Congress
Seems like that is what he HAS been doing, but the Republicans have dug their heels into the sand and refuse to give an inch, hoping he will fail. Meanwhile, the American public is fated to suffer.
Hello again, Steve:Quote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
Yes, I know who Steve Wynn is, and he's WRONG, for the exact reasons most Republicans state all the time... He's a BIG businessman. He has capital to "sit on". He can wait. He also has a POLITICAL point to make, and he's MAKING it above...
Republicans remind us ALL THE TIME, that the engine for creating jobs in this country is SMALL business's, like MINE - not HIS. I DON'T have capital to sit on. I don't have time to pontificate.
I HAVE uncertainty, but not because of Obamacare, or my taxes, or my regulations.. I have uncertainty about whether anybody will BUY my product. When they do, and when I need to hire new people, I will. THAT is the ONLY consideration ME and jillions like me have. We don't have press agents. We don't have reporters asking us what we think... We don't have political points to make. We're TOO damn busy running our shops.
I represent the job creators, NOT Steve Wynn.
excon
So that's all you got out of it? You missed the part about the president's "total lack of leadership", Obama being "the greatest wet blanket to business, and progress and job creation in [his] lifetime" and the 3 mentions of being afraid of Obama and the government?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wondergirl
P.S. What is the president's plan?
So far he's been a spectacular leader. I have no doubt there's a plan.Quote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
Why isn't big business that is getting all those tax breaks (for years now) creating the jobs they are so famous for creating in the past?
I don't believe I ever disagreed with your point on your business and I get that small business creates most jobs. But when a guy says he could create 10,000 jobs which would lead to an additional 20,000 if Obama wasn't a "wet blanket", that's significant.Quote:
Originally Posted by excon
He can't create those jobs because he can't sell his product because people are cutting back, way back, on discretionary spending thanks in large part to that same uncertainty this administration has created.
WHO has created the uncertainty?Quote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
Spectacular? On what planet? His budget proposal was laughed out of town by his own party. On most issues he outsources his work to Democrats in congress while he plays golf. What leadership and again, what plan?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wondergirl
Those who claim responsibility for the economy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wondergirl
Oh please.
The BANKS (that got BAILED OUT) created this uncertainty.
The companies that outsourced to other countries created this uncertainty.
I'm not spending money either. If I lose my job, I qualify for pretty much nothing from the government to help me keep my house. So screw discretionary spending--I have the money now, but the hell if I'm spending it on crap I don't need when I don't know if my job is the next to go... and no one hires a pregnant woman, regardless the discrimination laws against it.
The government isn't creating jobs. Big business isn't creating jobs--they're shoving those jobs off to other countries. And tax cuts NEVER create new jobs. Show me proof that it ever has. And companies that DO have to make changes always CHARGE more instead of CUTTING PROFITS.
Screw it. We're all going to hell in a handbasket, and the people who have money are the people in power, and we can't take away one without taking away the other.
PS--OBAMA is one of those people with money and power, and I don't see him cutting his own benefits, just like I don't see Congress cutting THEIR benefits.
When those in power tighten their belts and go without, maybe people will have respect for them and consider their ideas on how to cut spending elsewhere.
Wasserman went on to say in that article: “Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the House right now seems to have been strangled by the tea party,” she said. “The tail seems to be wagging the dog right now.”Quote:
Originally Posted by speechlesstx
"Republicans lack courage. They know how to do it the right way, they know how to compromise, they just can’t seem to break their fear of what the ramifications would be from the tea party right-wing fringe if they listened to what their inner self tells them to do.”
Hello again,
I'm willing to give tax breaks to business's who CREATE jobs... I agree with Republicans. It's a GREAT incentive... I'm just not willing to do it FIRST. Let them spend their money, and hire new people, and THEN we'll give 'em a tax break.
What's wrong with that? How many things do you pay for first, and HOPE you get what was promised?? I'd venture, NONE!
excon
Wonder where the rich got that money to sit on? Oh that's right, while our wages didn't go up, the prices of everything else did, and still are, and the rich got bailed out with my money and now they make money and sit on it, while we get laid off.
And conservatives, still believe in the big business god bestowing their blessings. Get real, stop listening to a rich guy crying about what he could do for the country if only he had more of his money, and he could make his own rules, and police himself. >Nod, wink<
Repubs believe in taking your job, giving it to the lowest bidder, and treating you like a worthless bum! That's what they do, and have been doing for the last 12 years. And conservatives are so scared of everybody taking what they have, they willingly give permission to screw everyone even themselves. That's why they can't negotiate, or compromise, because they believe what the gods of money say, and can't even tell they are being lied to or used. Case in point, ask any conservative what they think of a guy who has been laid off and there are no jobs to feed his family with. There comments and voting record, are public record, and they used the poor and unemployed as hostages to keep tax cuts for the rich in place.
Now they use the debt ceiling as a hostage to take more money and benefits from ex workers, and the poor, old, and disabled, and let the rich gods they worship keep sitting on all the money they stole from you.
Job creators my a$$. Slave masters is more like it, Thieves is more accurate, and fools are the ones that listen. As America gets more educated, and their fear replaced by FACTS, then the problems can be solved to the benefit of us all. The problem is too many LOW INFORMATION voters.
End of rant... for now.
Hello tal:Quote:
Originally Posted by talaniman
You did GOOD!
excon
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