Jobs, Jobs at La Grange!
** NOTE: The title of this article should be sung to the melody of “Home on the Range“, the state song of Kansas. **
Kia Motors supplier Sewon America is building at plant in West Point, Georgia. 600 jobs are opening up. And guess what? Americans showed up en masse:
Job-seekers flood Kia supplier
The Associated Press
Monday, February 09, 2009LAGRANGE — Before dawn, out-of-work Georgians were already lining up to apply for one of 600 jobs at Sewon America, a supplier to the Kia auto assembly facility being built in West Point.
Georgia labor officials will begin processing the applications today. Before noon, 500 people had applied, said Rodger Brown, with Georgia Quick Start. Hundreds more remained in a line that snaked around the parking lot.
People started lining up at 1:00am EST at the LaGrange, Georgia Quick Start office that opened at 8:00am EST. According to ground reports (via Twitter), there seem to be another 600 – 800 people in line and it’s growing. The jobs that these people are applying for range between $10 – $14.50/hour.
Ladies and gentlemen of our esteemed Congress, Americans want to work. They really, really want to work. They need to support themselves and their families. They want to make something, cook something, build something, clean something. They want to earn their keep. Can all of you in our esteemed Congress put Americans back to work without the trimmings?
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6 Responses to “Jobs, Jobs at La Grange!”
T-Steel – “Can all of you in our esteemed Congress put Americans back to work “
No, not really. It is amazing to me how suddenly Congress is seen as the engine of our economy, the savior of productivity, rather than business, however tarnished its reputation is at this point in time. Hence, we ended up with a pork-laden stimulus bill that will not create anywhere near as many jobs as being promised, and that will not end our recession/depression, and that will saddle us and our children with yet another cycle of crushing debt burden to deal with and that retard economic growth.
There is no historical example of any government spending its way out of an economic crisis, and this will be no exception. I am not going to go into a 'tax-reduction vs spending discussion'; I am simply going to point out that until the recent financial excesses, by business, individuals and Congress, have had time to work their way through the economy, with likely and unfortunately more pain yet to come, no real, lasting recovery CAN occur.
Everything else is just window dressing, and attempts to push the reckoning out yet another year or two, maybe even a decade. But we are past the point of passing the buck, IMHO, and must now pay the piper.
Austin Roth said: “Everything else is just window dressing, and attempts to push the reckoning out yet another year or two, maybe even a decade. But we are past the point of passing the buck, IMHO, and must now pay the piper.”
You said what I've been thinking more and more each passing day. I won't lie to you, a part of me “wishes” that Congress could do something profound to really get our economy on track. But “paying the piper” sounds more likely than unlikely. I know we're in uncharted territory as a country but why spend so much “extras” in it if “they” are ONLY interested in helping the American worker?
I had wanted things to be left to work themselves out. The majority wants otherwise. I've then wanted the major things to happen, as they will probably happen, anyway, and for us to step in and do economic disaster relief (a suitable strategy already). Others want a more active and even pre-emptive effort (a term formerly politically correct becomes politically correct now, with a D rather than an R in the White House). I've viewed and posted what some argue is the best use of such an interventionism — the “bang for the buck” assessment by Zandi at Moody's Economy being the handiest example of what we can use.
Sadly, the stimulus bill is nothing like that. While it could have been worse, as seen by the ridiculous list of wishes by the nation's mayors (an eco-park here, a Frisbee golf course there), it's still bad. Note that while the House Dems, the more stupid members of the Herd to whom they appeal, and some in the media anguish about what the Senate removed from the House version of the stimulus, the Senate bill is actually for a greater amount of spending.
I'd prefer bang-for-the-buck-directed stimulatory efforts plus longer-term things that would be least politically contentious, namely repair and replacement, and new construction, of infrastructure, such as bridges, roads, and electrical transmission (including nation-wide grid links). That is a better use of money than the vote-buying silliness we've been entreated to in the current stimulus bill, even though it is not a magic long-term solution to our economic slump. (Rationally directed expenditures like this, as long as they are responsible, won't replicate the problems Japan experienced with public works spending, which not only failed to get Japan out of deflation but have since aroused resentment.) It's no surprise that Congress would attempt to over-spend under such a great-gift circumstance (the majority of the public supports, for a change, a large amount of spending, favored over tax reductions, by the federal government), but still disgusting how badly it has failed to remain directed at doing things specifically to try to stimulate the economy rather than reaching out and buying votes or paying back special interests who voted Democratic in the elections.
I'm glad you're one of those who isn't being blind, T-Steel, but actually viewing things with your eyes open. Yes, indeed, why the “extras”? Why the straying from the mission with which the Congress was explicitly and obviously charged? Why stoop even more deeply than had been predicted by the wiser or more cynical among the population?
* * *
Austin Roth:
“It is amazing to me how suddenly Congress is seen as the engine of our economy, the savior of productivity”
It's not just Congress, but President Obama and the wizards in his Cabinet, for the real object of attention here is Washington, which is seen as the savior of everyone and everything, and what must be in fact relied on first, foremost, and always — as I have seen before, not merely Santa Claus, a Fairy Godmother, and magic genie, but a surrogate parent.
People want to work. They're not insensible. They'll take a pay cut before looking elsewhere if need be, they'll take a less attractive job or one with less pay rather than none at all, they'll go somewhere they dislike or have never been before rather than stay put indefinitely. I work in Detroit and am familiar with the culture here in the Midwest as well as the similar one in Upstate New York. Peope who have grown up here have often never wanted to leave. Many have been driven away (T-Steel may be one, given he's run a business, which is treated as something evil in the worst Blue Nation cultures and business climates), but others have simply not been able to find jobs here and have had to leave Michigan for so many other places. But they miss Michigan and would love to come back (especially if they have kids and want them near their grandparents, and so forth). But they have little choice but to leave, and so they leave in large numbers. Governor Granholm at times does okay, but often parrots the most pathetic Democratic and liberal party lines about how Washington needs to magically transform the nation, provide those stupid “green jobs” we're already sick of hearing about (the jobs that in reality often don't pay well and often have been outsourced to China, Mexico, and so forth already), or how we have to instantly develop the magic “electric car” that will “transform” everything. The intervention not only won't happen as fast or as greatly here, or by Washington throughout the rest of the country, but any changes that do happen will take time to resolve, and often won't be predictable so cannot be subject to intervention planning, anyway. (And in Michigan's case, as with other states, they're just looking to Washington as their parent and reflexively looking to Washington for help rather than trying to intervene largely or wholly on their own, independently.)
Austin Roth — don't forget that blowing extra money on vote-buying and interest-group-rewarding now boosts the debt at a time before any good effort has been taken to try to make Social Security solvent. At this point I have come to suspect that many will remain ignorant to the point of militantly insisting on remaining ignorant about this even once the current operating surpluses have peaked and begun to diminish.
And of course, by spending all this money now, it's money taken out of not only post-recovery farther-left “progressive” projects but also out of something of interest to a larger fraction of the public by far, a federal expansion into health care. Two or three monstrous “stimulus” packages and there won't be money available to spend excessively on, or to waste on, anything else (in addition to putting us notably closer to higher interest rates and a future debt trap).
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