| Is BO's economic adviser Robert Reich racist when he says that no stimulus money should go to "white male professionals"? |
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Is BO's economic adviser Robert Reich racist when he says that no stimulus money should go to "white male professionals"?
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Germany
Yes, he is, but I don't really care in the slightest.
Seems the Nazi's have learned how to use a computer but not how to copy and paste, here is the full article from http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009/01/stimulus-how-to-create-jobs-without.html
Thursday, January 08, 2009
The Stimulus: How to Create Jobs Without Them All Going to Skilled Professionals and White Male Construction Workers
The stimulus plan will create jobs repairing and upgrading the nation's roads, bridges, ports, levees, water and sewage system, public-transit systems, electricity grid, and schools. And it will kick-start alternative, non-fossil based sources of energy (wind, solar, geothermal, and so on); new health-care information systems; and universal broadband Internet access.
It's a two-fer: lots of new jobs, and investments in the nation's future productivity.
But if there aren't enough skilled professionals to do the jobs involving new technologies, the stimulus will just increase the wages of the professionals who already have the right skills rather than generate many new jobs in these fields. And if construction jobs go mainly to white males who already dominate the construction trades, many people who need jobs the most -- women, minorities, and the poor and long-term unemployed -- will be shut out.
What to do? There's no easy solution to either dilemma. But there's no reason to think about "green jobs" as simply high-tech. Many low-income and low-skilled workers -- women as well as men -- could be put directly to work providing homes and businesses with more efficient and renewable heating, lighting, cooling, and refrigeration systems; installing solar panels and efficient photovoltaic systems; rehabilitating and renovating old properties, and improving recycling systems. "Green Jobs Corps" teams could be trained to evaluate and advise homeowners and businesses on these and other means of conserving energy.
People can be trained relatively quickly for these sorts of jobs, as well as many infrastructure j0bs generated by the stimulus -- installing new pipes for water and sewage systems, repairing and upgrading equipment, basic construction -- but contractors have to be nudged both to provide the training and to do the hiring.
I'd suggest that all contracts entered into with stimulus funds require contractors to provide at least 20 percent of jobs to the long-term unemployed and to people withincomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. And at least 2 percent of project funds should be allocated to such training. In addition, advantage should be taken of buildings trades apprenticeships -- wich must be fully available to women and minorities.
Thanks for calling me a Nazi. But one moment: Who exactly co-operated with the Nazis during WWII? I cannot seem to remember but it was a smaller country to the west of Germany with lots of windmills and cheese ...
I call Godwin's Law on that comment of yours.
Nevertheless, the right approach for Reich would have been to make sure that poor people get a better education and better qualification - then they could apply for contracts and get them without the government interfering with the market economy.
Nobody is against helping and enabling the poor.
But letting unqualified people construct and/or repair important infrastructure is just plain stupid. What would you think and feel if your wife, your children or your friends drive over a bridge constructed by those non-white non-male non-professional workers and the bridge - being non-stable! - collapses?
Economy is not about political goals, it is about creating wealth for everyone; and after that, the government can distribute some of this wealth as they see fit, f.e. for better education and qualification for the disadvantaged.
Seems to me the big co-operators with the Nazis in WWII were American corporations, lol.
In regards to "letting unqualified people construct and/or repair important infrastructure" doesn't hold up under WWII either...remember Rosie the Riveter? Go girls!
I agree, economy is about creating wealth for everyone. So far, the free-market economy has an uninterrupted record of driving a larger percentage of the population into poverty that before it was instituted in every country in which it has been imposed. And imposed is the proper word, because, interestingly enough, no one WANTS it. It has only been tried in democratic countries as a result of war hysteria (ex: Falklands War under Thatcher, Iraq war under Bush) and has universally caused more misery and poverty than all other reasons combined. It is also routinely accompanied by government-performed and sponsored terrorism, as in the Chilean, Argentinian, and Brazilian torture teams trained and advised by CIA,the unbelievable excesses of Suharno, advised by the Berkeley economists, and backed by American companies, notably Ford and Haliburton. There are many more examples--enough to fill an entire library shelf.
As to infrastructure repair: The people of Thailand did not wait until government and aid organizations decided what to do about the results of the tsunami. They went in and started rebuilding. Their continued physical presence made it impossible for the government to auction off their land to resort hotels, as happened in Indonesia. As a result, victims of Katrina went there to learn how to rebuild, came home and actually made huge progress, far more than had been made in the years before; and stopped, to some extent, the land grab that was going to displace them permanently. Katrina victims were NOT in time to save their school system, which was dismantled and auctioned off to private interests. Of 123 public schools, only four remain.
But a very very very very very very few people did get very very very very very very very very very very very wealthy as a result of every disaster and every war, once the free-market was imposed on the defenseless.
No the comment was Racist and Sexist.