How can a president create jobs?
A study in subtlety - Rupert Murdoch style. Better read on, because what you don't know could kill you!
Nasdaq CEO Bob Greifeld illustrating what we hopes to accomplish by combining his camera with Twitter.
Yep. Another post based on something I saw in the WSJ. (Wealth Stealing Jerks.) Why do I keep looking at that rag, now owned by the honorable likes of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp? Oh yeah. I know. I really enjoy their “We Hate Obama’s Fucking Guts” section, or what they coyly call the “opinion”‘ pages.
Inside the paper the other day, it said something like, “Dear Mr. President: Private Ideas on How to Create Jobs.”
This is something I’ve been very curious about, so I decided to turn to that page and have the mysteries of life explained to me by the WSJ. I prepared myself to be amazed and astounded.
What did I find?
A picture of Bob Greifeld, the CEO of NASDAQ. And what was his advice to Obama? “U.S. companies need the ability to recruit the best workers. … We must increase the number of H-1B visas available and reform the employment-based green card process.”
Holy fucking shit! That’s pure genius!
Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States:
Obama: My jobs plan is simple. What we need is more foreigners taking the few jobs that already exist in our country.
Can you imagine a president taking this advice? Then standing up and saying something along these lines? Talk about an express ticket to his own unemployment. You don’t just take a shit on the majority of the population and get happily re-elected.
I’m sure Mr. Greifeld has a point. He sees the recession and unemployment as a function of a lack of skilled workers. Workers that the United States is not producing in sufficient quantities. Perhaps we have a problem with our education system and the number of our young people that are able to access higher education?
I only have a United States education, but I fail to see how Mr. Greifeld’s response addresses the original question, namely: How to create jobs?
I did learn one thing from the WSJ. Obama would be unwise to rely on their advice.
So, what do you think are the things a president can actually do to create jobs? What can be done that is reasonably within the auspices of that office, and what could be effective? Is the solution really supposed to come from the president or should it originate somewhere else?
It seems to me that these are no small questions and how well they are answered will likely determine our leader for the next four years.
One last thing. I know the H-1B visa program is for “skilled” workers, but how have American companies treated other guest workers? Let’s find out.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-h8EBP0JSs]Oh Holy Blight!
It’s Christmas time. You know what that means. Bring on the “holiday themed” candies that have absolutely nothing to do with Christmas!
I don’t know if Hershey’s Kisses were the first, but it feels like it. So I blame them.
With Kisses it was okay, almost acceptable, and maybe just a little bit cute.
According to Wikipedia, 1962 was the first year that Kisses were available in different colored foiled wrappers (red, green, silver) for the Christmas season. After that the sky was the limit: Easter (1968), Valentine’s Day (1986), Fall Harvest (1991), Independence Day, Breast Cancer (pink), camouflage, and more.
My god, when is enough enough?
Other candy makers, of course, couldn’t be content to let Hershey’s Kisses have all the fun. Tonight at the store I saw holiday-themed Butterfinger candies. Zoiks.
I saw Jelly Belly candy canes.
But, the topper of all, I think, has to be the “holiday gift packs” of Tic Tacs. These are friggin’ breath mints! I saw these at the store tonight, too. For a breath mint they sure took my breath away. Maybe that’s what breath mints do.
This thought immediately shot like a bullet through my skull. “Finally! Someone has found the ideal product that will, at long last, fill that aching void in the American soul. Thank God we now have holiday-themed Tic Tacs!”
I need to go to the mall. Stat!
“Hi Santa!”
“Hi Timmy! Have you been a good boy?”
“Yes!”
“And what do you want for Christmas this year?”
“World peace, daddy to quit drinking, my parents back together, and oh yeah, some holiday-themed Tic Tacs.”
“Ho ho ho, Timmy! What a sweet boy. You shall have your Tic Tacs!”
Avoiding the gift of chocolate exploitation
When you say “I love you” this Valentine’s Day with chocolate, why not make the effort to make sure it’s “slave-free?” Then it will be something that is truly good for the heart in more ways than one.
From Wikipedia’s Fair trade page:
“Fair Trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as social and environmental standards. It focuses in particular on exports from developing countries to developed countries, most notably handicrafts, coffee, cocoa, sugar, tea, bananas, honey, cotton, wine, fresh fruit, chocolate and flowers.”
There is another web site called Stop Chocolate Slavery that explains it like this:
“If you want some chocolate, but don’t want to exploit people, Fair Trade chocolate is probably your best bet. “Fair trade” was a term coined fairly recently, apparently in contradiction to so-called free trade.”
Here’s even more of the “bitter truth” from TreeHugger.com:
The truth behind chocolate is not-so-sweet. The Ivory Coast is the world’s largest cocoa producer, providing 43% of the world’s cocoa. And yet, in 2001 the U.S. State Department reported child slavery on many cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast. A 2002 report from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture about cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast and other African countries estimated there were 284,000 children working on cocoa farms in hazardous conditions. U.S. chocolate manufacturers have claimed they are not responsible for the conditions on cocoa plantations since they don’t own them.
Looking at a list of fair trade chocolate companies, notably missing are companies like Hershey’s and M&M/Mars that control the lion’s share (about two-thirds) of chocolate production in the United States.
So before you give your sweets the sweets you might want to do a bit of quick research and find out if your chocolate has been certified as “fair trade.” That makes a tasty gift even better!
Remarkably, finding an up-to-date list of what is and isn’t fair trade chocolate in the United States is rather challenging.
Looking for a place to shop that offers fair trade products? You can use web sites like TransFair USA and others to find retail locations.
Here is a site that claims to be a comprehensive list of organic chocolate suppliers. I even have a couple tins of Dagoba on my counter at home. Green Promise: Organic Chocolate Suppliers.
Chocolat: Commando raid on the grocery store
Yes - those are real M&M candies
Note: Be sure to pronounce the word “chocolat” from the title correctly. That will give this post a more sophisticated aire.
I’m planning a new section of the blog. I don’t have the perfect name for it yet, but basically it will consist of posts documenting my “commando raids” on grocery stores.
The other day I was shopping with my wife. You know, shuffling my feet behind her, standing around bored, trying to keep my back from popping out, while she spent about 2.3 years filling her shopping cart.
We went through the bulk foods part of the store and I vaguely noticed M&M candies. Then, when we traversed the regular candy aisle, I saw more M&M candies and thought I noticed something funny about the pricing.
I decided to conduct a raid and get some answers. This is what I found out from this morning’s mission:
Target: M&M candy pricing
Shouts from the Abyss 
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