Stimulating New Jobs: Where's the Leadership?

New York Times columnist Frank Rich got it exactly right when he stated:

"As the nation’s anger rose last week, the president took responsibility for what’s happening on his watch — more than he needed to, given the disaster he inherited. But in the credit mess, action must match words. To fall short would be to deliver us into the catastrophic hands of a Republican opposition whose only known economic program is to reject job-creating stimulus spending and root for Obama and, by extension, the country to fail. With all due deference to Ponzi schemers from Madoff to A.I.G., this would be the biggest outrage of them all."

Anger did rise, and it's still boiling up. There should be more job-creating stimulus spending now and more focus on the "real" people in the American economy: workers, mid-level and low-level managers, small-business owners and entrepreneurs starting new companies.

Yes, the appalling problems in the upper levels of the American economy must be fixed. At the same time, it is vital to deal with the difficulties, challenges and economic emergencies now facing people below the rank of "Master of the Universe." Specifically, emergency focus now should be given to Main Street and rural America, as well.

Where are the Congressional and White House leaders who can cut through the bailout noise and be stronger--and louder--advocates for the millions of Americans struggling in the heartland? These layoff victims need jobs now and can't find any, and thousands of small businesses who could hire them are unable to get crucial loans.

"Congress and the White House Team Up to Tackle Middle America's Deepening Crisis" -- that should (but won't) be tomorrow's big headline.


-- Si Dunn

A Digital March on Washington

It's time for a digital march on Washington--a million-blog, million-Tweet march--to get Congress and the White House to pay more attention to small business.

Small businesses are responsible for producing about 75 percent of all new jobs in this economically troubled land.

If small business owners could receive just a fraction of the staggering billions of dollars now being shoveled into the bailout shredders, we could create millions of jobs at a time when millions of jobs are needed.

Put economic crooks like Bernard Madoff under the jail. Fire the mega-wealthy executives who flew their companies deep into the ground. And start distributing money to everyone with a small business, no matter how small--with the restriction that it be used to expand operations and hire new employees.

A digital march on Washington. No one needs to organize this or set up a non-profit group or collect membership dues.

Just blog, Tweet, email...make any kind of digital noise you can toward our leaders in Washington. Do it now!

Tell Congress and the White House to quit staring, mouths agape, at AIG and other firms that have done horrendous damage to the national and world economies.

Urge them, implore them, order them (we elected them) to wake up and put some significant new muscle into small business.

It's time to start the recovery from the bottom up. The top, clearly, is just too screwed up.


-- Si Dunn

One Man's 'Pork' Is Another Man's Movie Project That Creates Jobs

By Si Dunn

The leaders of the Ridiculous Republicans have just published a list of what they consider "wasteful" spending in the Senate's version of an economic stimulus bill.

Near the top of their list is a "$246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film," according to CNN.

Wait a minute. Aren't the Ridiculous Republicans all about reducing taxes? Are they now labeling a tax cut as "pork"?

Clearly they don't understand anything about the movie business.

Number one, it's expensive to make a movie, especially with film. And, despite all of the great digitial advances in recent years, film remains a very beautiful and viable medium for making movies. Movies made with film still look better than movies made digitally. And using film forces better planning and efficiency on the set. You don't just turn on a camera and let it run for two hours while people horse around and do 32 takes of one scene.

A tax break on the cost of film means a producer can put more money elsewhere into his or her production. That means more crew members can be hired. And at least some of the film specialists at post-production labs get to keep their jobs.

Producers who buy film also help keep employees of film manufacturing companies and film processing labs both productive and earning money for their companies.

Things definitely have not been great at Kodak lately. Some of the survivors of recent Kodak layoffs no doubt are now looking to Congress for help with keeping their jobs. Selling more movie film would keep at least some of them employed.

With a tax break on film sales, film editors get more work. Camera operators and focus pullers with experience on film cameras get more work. Lighting crews with experience on film projects get more work. Other members of production crews also get more work.

Jobs are created, and jobs are saved.

This is exactly the sort of economic stimulus that is needed now. And the Ridiculous Republicans are--to put it gently--scurrilous scoundrels and running dogs for opposing it.

You can't incessantly run around screaming "Tax cuts! Tax cuts! Tax cuts!" to the heavens and the moon and then oppose a tax break that both saves and creates jobs in a time of frighteningly high unemployment.

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While the National Economy Burns, Bush Fiddles with Killing Endangered Species

By Si Dunn

Companies are collapsing, unemployed workers are streaming out onto the streets, and Americans are losing their houses and burning through their savings in hopes of surviving the current recession that may turn into a depression.

So what is the Bush Administration now doing about these crises that have occurred on its watch?

Killing endangered species.

According to an Associated Press report at the CBS News website: "Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don't pose a threat, under regulations the Bush administration is set to put in place before President-elect Obama can reverse them."

The rules have to be published by Nov. 21--tomorrow. Otherwise, once President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in on January 20, he could quickly undo the new regulations.

Among other things, according to the AP report, "The rules eliminate the input of federal wildlife scientists in some endangered species cases, allowing the federal agency in charge of building, authorizing or funding a project to determine for itself if it is likely to harm endangered wildlife and plants.

"Current regulations require independent wildlife biologists to sign off on these decisions before a project can go forward, at times modifying the design to better protect species."

The AP likewise noted: "The regulations also bar federal agencies from assessing emissions of the gases blamed for global warming on species and habitats, a tactic environmentalists have tried to use to block new coal-fired power plants."

Clearly, harming the national economy, the national reputation and the American people is not enough for the scurrilous hacks who comprise the Bush Administration. Now, on their way out, they want to finish off a few endangered species, too, just for "good" measure.

There may be no way to immediately stop this latest outrage--just one in an incredibly long string of outrages--generated by the outgoing Administration. But perhaps the incoming Congress will have the courage to overturn Bush's new "gotcha" rules by using the Congressional Review Act, a law that allows review and rejection of new federal regulations.

Two months and counting.

There is still plenty of time for new political mischief and outright political retribution by the outgoing Bush Administration. But the nightmare of the worst--the worst--Administration in modern American history is, thankfully, at long last coming to a close.

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Here Comes the Christmas Bailout?

By Si Dunn

It's beginning to look a bit like Christmas bailout time for U.S. consumers.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has told Congress that it should look at passing a new stimulus package to try to jump-start the economy.

Stimulus already has been given to Wall Street and the nation's banking system. If this proposed new bailout package is not directed straight toward Main Street and America's middle-class and lower-income consumers, there will be hell to pay in Washington.

Trickle-down economics should be relegated to the ash heap of economic history. It's time for trickle-up.

For Christmas, most Americans in the middle class and lower-income brackets just want--and anxiously need--a nice little bailout of their own.

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Drive OPEC nuts! Drive Big Oil nuts! Drive Hugo Chavez nuts!

By Si Dunn

According to a recent Christian Science Monitor opinion column, the "patriotic answer" to $4-a-gallon gas is: "Drive less, and slow down."

That simple strategy worked during World War II, when gasoline was rationed and speed limits were lowered. And it worked during the panic-driven 1979 energy crisis, when gasoline again had to be rationed and speed limits had to be lowered to bring demand back into balance with supply.

It isn't rocket science to suggest that making heavier use of the Internet, email and telephones also can help conserve gasoline. More people working from home at least one day a week will lower gasoline consumption and also ease gasoline-wasting traffic jams. Furthermore, having a workforce able to continue business away from the office is a good survival strategy for companies suddenly hit by a disaster, such as an earthquake or fire. Californians have demonstrated the success of this strategy over and over in recent few decades.

The next President of the United States (and it would have to be Obama, not McCain) will need to give Americans a patriotic challenge: Slow down, drive less, and use every technical and common-sense means at your disposal to help push down our nation's thirst for oil. Our nation needs your help.

Congress may have to have the courage to impose some restrictions on highway speeds or higher taxes on gasoline sales (and use the money to fund mass-transit improvements).

American automakers may have to move economical vehicle designs off their back shelves and into showrooms at breakneck speed.

Motorcycles, motorscooters and bicycles may become even more trendy and numerous on the roads.

Perhaps civilian Hummers and oversized SUVs can be donated to the military in return for a tax break and refurbished for combat or for duty as live-fire training targets for pilots, drone operators and artillery crews. We aren't likely to see many solar-powered Hummers festooned with peace symbols and flower-power slogans buzzing down the road.

Speculators and oil executives aside, gasoline prices mainly are a matter of supply and demand. The less we demand, the more supply will remain in the pipeline. And prices will drop.

It should become both patriotic and socially trendy to use mass transit and to shop closer to home and to work closer to home or at home. We also should recall how to walk or ride a bicycle or hitch a ride from friendly neighbors when making short trips.

Neighbors may need to step away from their big-screen TVs long enough to get to know each other and work out schedules for carpooling to shopping centers or grocery stores.

More goods can be ordered online, even from local companies, and carried to you via the U.S. Postal Service, which already is delivering in your neighborhood. Local businesses may have to hire more bicycle delivery riders. You may have to walk a half mile to your next haircut and actually get some beneficial exercise.

The basic goal should be to "Drive OPEC Nuts! Drive Big Oil Nuts! Drive Hugo Chavez Nuts!" by driving less and spending less on gasoline. And this new lifestyle should become a permanent fixture in American culture, even as gasoline supplies once again rise and new energy alternatives such as wind power, solar power and hydrogen power increasingly come on line.

Drive OPEC nuts. Drive Big Oil nuts. Drive Hugo Chavez nuts. We know exactly how to do this, if we will just have the courage of our conniptions. We are rebels and innovators at heart. Instead of Don't Tread on Me, we can fly flags that proclaim Gasoline??? We don't need no stinkin' gasoline! and Let them eat oil!

If we do this, we won't be driving tanks, Hummers, mine-resistant behemoths, and thousands of our young men and young women into any more trillion-dollar battles for sand and Middle Eastern oil.

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