10.02.2009 5:27 pm
Brighten our future — with jobs
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The Obama Administration keeps telling us that health insurance and environmental emissions are the key crises at the moment. I must respectfully disagree with them. I think unemployment is the key issue. With full employment, most of our nation’s ills would be easily solved. Democrats continue to promise us jobs, but so far the only sector that has had a job increase is the federal government. We are in desperate need of manufacturing jobs.
But perhaps the Administration sees the situation differently because of the advisors Mr. Obama has chosen. First, there is Mr. Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of GE, as a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Council. Second, Mr. Obama has appointed Ron Bloom, a union negotiator, as his Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy. Here is where I get lost. GE makes those wonderful mercury-containing CFL bulbs that we are going to be forced to switch to in a few years. Check. The unions gave a record amount of money to Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign. Check. Now, go read the manufacturing label on all the CFL bulbs made mostly by GE but also by others and see where they are all made. Yes, you guessed it, China. Now don’t you find all of this a bit odd?
Well, I do. The Democrats are going to force us to switch to poisonous light bulbs because they believe they will save our environment, but they are all manufactured in China and apparently the unions which claim to want good paying jobs to stay right here in America support this. What am I missing here? Well, has any honest journalist yet asked why this is the case? I read a recent article about the closed mercury mines in California which are posing a serious environmental threat. Apparently, it is okay to kill people in China to make our light bulbs as we won’t manufacture them here in the U.S. Oh but wait, it gets better. If you read the label closely, you are told to dispose of the CFL’s by taking them to a recycling center that accepts them. So apparently the same Democrats who find it necessary to make laws controlling all of our personal behaviors, now think we are all smart enough to read light bulb labels and take the time to dispose of the CFL’s properly so that they are not just thrown out in the regular trash and the mercury seeps into our ground water and poisons us all to death. Well, good luck with that! When was the last time you read a light bulb package?
Congress, please bring our incandescent light bulb manufacturing plants back to the United States! I am certain it will brighten up our future.
Carol Size
Des Peres
Carol,
Excellent point. The same applies with energy. We are ever so happy to import oil but refuse to drill our own. I guess it’s acceptable for all other oil exporters to “damage their environment” as long as they bring on the oil. I wonder how many jobs would be created if the environmentalists would quit blocking domestic production?
Carol,
–Typical liberal solution to an imagined problem, make the solution worse than the “problem”. Can you say “law of unintended consequence?”
–Like the solution for carbon-based fuels; More environment polluting electric cars.
–Powered by nickel and ion-lithium based batteries, which are also produced 100% in China or Singapore in industrial-CO2 polluting factories, which are exponentially worse than CO2 produced from auto emissions. 100% of the recycling and waste facilities are also in poor Asian countries like the Philippines. Google “lithium-ion battery waste” if you want to see what real environmental horror is.
–These “feelgood” solutions are perfect examples of the typical lack of foresight and “knee-jerk” liberal solutions to a misperceived problem.
sorry…”Lack of foresight of knee-jerk liberal solutions.”
Carol
The “Lefts Messiah”, is not intrested in jobs.
His agenda is to bring the country to it’s knees, so that the people are more likely to embrace his socialistic desires.
With all of his apology tours, actual 17% unemployment rate and his head buried in the sand with this country’s security, his plan seems to be working.
Millions are waking up, just hope it ain’t to late.
Make sure that everyone who wants to work has a job. This would make everyone feel better and would be a great help for the economy. Now that the Democrats are in control, maybe they can stop our manufacturing from moving to other countries.
“Democrats are in control, maybe they can stop our manufacturing from moving to other countries.”
Either this dude is on drugs, living in la-la land, or just plain dumb.
Raise taxes = loss of more jobs
Raise taxes = jobs sent overseas
True unemployment rate is 17% and climbing. “Your Messiah” could care less
Socialize medicine
Socialize America
Lies, and more lies, they just keep coming.
How in the hell do you assume unions favor exporting jobs to China?
CFL’s last 10,000 hours compared to 1,000 hours for incandescent. Incandescent lamps consume nearly 3 times the amount of energy and produce 20 times more heat (wasted energy). They’re made in China, like everything else, because of cheap labor and non-existent environmental laws. CFL’s are the same flourescent lamps used in every school, office building, and department stores across America. We’ve used flourescent tubes since 1948.
It’s the same phospheresent coating which lines the inside of the lamps.
Jeff Immelt opposed Republican members of congress who wanted to give tax-breaks to American corporations who moved overseas. He still answers to his Board of Directors and GE’s stockholders. He’s a businessman who must compete.
Where were you when the Democrats wanted to place import taxes on CFL’s and other products made in China? The republicans blocked the legislation and Bush threatened to veto the “restrictive trade” measure.
You want a bright future…Stop voting Republican and save American jobs.
Garrison - Jeffrey Immelt and every other manufacturer of CFL’s make them in China. Why? It’s your people that are not going to allow us to buy lightbulbs Made in the USA. What aren’t you, GE and your unions doing something about that. We will have NO CHOICE. You guys are all about choice, remember? This is totally un-American and not right. Right now incandescent light bulbs are made in America. There go more jobs. At the very least, we as consumers should be given the choice to support America or China, don’t you think?
How does anyone expect jobs to be created at the paste that they are being lost overnight? Seems like anyone with common sense could understand how at least healthcare insurance and healthcare is the crisis at the moment because 99.9% of those jobs lost will not be coming back.
More will be lost and it will take time for people to become trained and educated in the areas where the jobs are and many will never be equipped for to become educated in those areas. But nevertheless, it will not happen overnight.
Job creation in these new areas will take time also because they required education and specialized training so nothing will be happening in the area of new jobs except for people becoming prepared to work in these highly technical areas that have great voids and where employment will be available and is presently available.
It is certainly good to be young and still school age during these trying times where you can go straight into the right education and training in the area of where the jobs are. For older people 45 and older who are not educated and trained in the areas were the employment is, all those who are not wealthy and who those do not have enough guaranteed income to live off of the rest of their lives, there are great trials and struggles ahead for most.
Mr. Walker, I am not sure if that “common sense” remark was aimed at me or not as I found your comment rather confusing and clearly missed the point.
Regardless of whether or not you believe Mr. O when he says healthcare reform and cap and trade will bring jobs back, we still need manufacturing jobs here and I don’t see where the unions are getting their money’s worth from this administration when they continue to allow manufacuring jobs to go overseas. Again, why is your party forcing us to buy lightbulbs that will ONLY be manufactured outside of this country?