The following is a quote from the Wall Street Journal 11 October 2011, page A16.
“The green jobs subsidy story gets more embarrassing by the day. Three years ago President Obama promised that by the end of the decade America would have five million green jobs, but so far some $90 billion in government spending has delivered very few.
“A new report by the Labor Department’s Office of Inspector General (IG) examined a $500 million grant under the stimulus program to the Employment and Training Administration to ‘train and prepare individuals for careers in green jobs.’ So far, about $162.8 million has been spent. The program was supposed to train 125,000 workers, but only 53,000 have been trained so far, only 8,035 have found jobs, and only 1,033 were still in the job after six months.
“Overall, only 10% of participants entered employment. In the understatement of the year, IG says the program failed to ‘assist those most impacted by the recession.’
“The jobs record is even more dismal when you consider that many of the jobs classified as green aren’t even new jobs, much less green, according to a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. They include positions that have been ‘relabeled as green jobs by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.’“This means that bus drivers, Environmental Protection Agency regulators, university professors teaching ecology, and even the Washington lobbyists who secure energy loan guarantees count as green employees for the purposes of government counting.
The Oversight Committee finds that even a charitable assessment of the Labor program puts the cost of each green job at $157,000.”
Friday, October 14, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
John F. Kennedy on the Economy
The following is a quote from President Kennedy’s State of the Union address Jan. 14, 1963. I only wish the present Democrat in the White House could understand what President Kennedy had to say!
“America has enjoyed 22 months of uninterrupted economic recovery. But recovery is not enough. If we are to prevail in the long-run, we must expand the long-run strength of our economy. We must move along the path to a higher rate of growth and full employment.
“For this would mean tens of billions of dollars more each year in production, profits, wages, and public revenues. It would mean an end to the persistent slack, which has kept our unemployment at or above five percent for 61 out of the past 62 months—and an end to the growing pressures for such restrictive measures as the 35-hour week, which alone could increase hourly labor costs by as much as 14%, start a new wage-price spiral of inflation, and undercut our efforts to compete with other nations.
“To achieve these greater gains, one step, above all, is essential—the enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in Federal income taxes….[A] net reduction in tax liabilities…will increase the purchasing power of American families and business enterprises in every tax bracket, with greatest increase going to our low-income consumers. It will, in addition, encourage the initiative and risk-taking on which our free system depends—induce more investment, production, and capacity use—help provide the two million new jobs we need every year—and reinforce the American principle of additional reward for additional effort.”
“America has enjoyed 22 months of uninterrupted economic recovery. But recovery is not enough. If we are to prevail in the long-run, we must expand the long-run strength of our economy. We must move along the path to a higher rate of growth and full employment.
“For this would mean tens of billions of dollars more each year in production, profits, wages, and public revenues. It would mean an end to the persistent slack, which has kept our unemployment at or above five percent for 61 out of the past 62 months—and an end to the growing pressures for such restrictive measures as the 35-hour week, which alone could increase hourly labor costs by as much as 14%, start a new wage-price spiral of inflation, and undercut our efforts to compete with other nations.
“To achieve these greater gains, one step, above all, is essential—the enactment this year of a substantial reduction and revision in Federal income taxes….[A] net reduction in tax liabilities…will increase the purchasing power of American families and business enterprises in every tax bracket, with greatest increase going to our low-income consumers. It will, in addition, encourage the initiative and risk-taking on which our free system depends—induce more investment, production, and capacity use—help provide the two million new jobs we need every year—and reinforce the American principle of additional reward for additional effort.”
Monday, October 10, 2011
Dysfunctional Fathers
Several years ago, while Nancy and I were still with the organization, Caring Hands Pregnancy Center in southwest Denver launched a program designed to help men become better fathers. We used the 24/7 Dad Program of the National Fatherhood Initiative as the template for our outreach.
As a first step in organizing that program, we recruited a group of twelve men from a large church in the Denver area to be mentors for the younger fathers who signed up to take the course. The mentors were selected based on the fact that they were successful fathers. They had intact families, a successful first marriage, and young adult children who were healthy and productive members of society. In the early phase of the course, these men were asked to present a short talk about their own fathers. They were asked how their father participated in the raising of the children, how he treated his wife, what was his disciplinary policy regarding the children, etc. They were asked about their general evaluation of their father’s fathering activity.
To my great surprise, I found that these mentor/fathers were largely dissatisfied with the fathering functions of their own fathers. Only two out of the twelve were happy with the fathering they had received from their own fathers. The elder fathers had been neglectful, authoritarian, sometimes abusive of wife and children; and almost all of them had failed to participate with their children in the growing-up stage of the children’s lives.
Organizing this course provided me with a disappointing perception of the fathering abilities of the past generation of fathers. During that course, we all learned that there are better ways to father children. Fathering is not something that comes naturally; good fathering ability is not an instinctive quality. Fathering skills must be LEARNED!
I recommend that if any readers of this blog would like to learn how to be a better father, he should consult Fatherhood.org
As a first step in organizing that program, we recruited a group of twelve men from a large church in the Denver area to be mentors for the younger fathers who signed up to take the course. The mentors were selected based on the fact that they were successful fathers. They had intact families, a successful first marriage, and young adult children who were healthy and productive members of society. In the early phase of the course, these men were asked to present a short talk about their own fathers. They were asked how their father participated in the raising of the children, how he treated his wife, what was his disciplinary policy regarding the children, etc. They were asked about their general evaluation of their father’s fathering activity.
To my great surprise, I found that these mentor/fathers were largely dissatisfied with the fathering functions of their own fathers. Only two out of the twelve were happy with the fathering they had received from their own fathers. The elder fathers had been neglectful, authoritarian, sometimes abusive of wife and children; and almost all of them had failed to participate with their children in the growing-up stage of the children’s lives.
Organizing this course provided me with a disappointing perception of the fathering abilities of the past generation of fathers. During that course, we all learned that there are better ways to father children. Fathering is not something that comes naturally; good fathering ability is not an instinctive quality. Fathering skills must be LEARNED!
I recommend that if any readers of this blog would like to learn how to be a better father, he should consult Fatherhood.org
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