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Obama Costs Thousands of Jobs

Larrry

Well-known member
Obama's 'Mandate for Sacrifice' Costs Thousands of Jobs
By William Tate
As many as 100,000 Americans who lost their jobs, or will soon, because of GM and Chrysler dealership closings can thank Barack Obama and his "mandate for shared sacrifice," according to a top Obama official.


In a scathing report on the federal auto industry bailout, Special Inspector General Neil M. Barofsky notes that the Obama administration rejected initial automaker plans which would have required relatively minimal dealership closings, insisting instead on far more drastic cuts -- as many as two thousand dealerships between the two corporations.


[W]hen asked explicitly whether the [Obama] Auto Team could have left the dealerships out of the restructurings, Mr. [Ron] Bloom, the current head of the Auto Team, confirmed that the Auto Team "could have left any one component [of the restructuring plan] alone," but that doing so would have been inconsistent with the President's mandate for "shared sacrifice."



The report notes that an Obama team memo estimates that the average dealership employs 52 people. Nevertheless, the Obama administration insisted that the two corporations abandon their plans for more modest closures, or "terminations," and implement plans that could cost 100,000 Americans their paychecks.


...So that they could "share" in the sacrifice.


Barofsky's report paints a portrait of cavalier disregard for the people the Obama administration damaged by its actions:


Treasury (a) should have taken every reasonable step to ensure that accelerating the dealership terminations was truly necessary for the long-term viability of the companies and (b) should have at least considered whether the benefits to the companies from the accelerated terminations outweighed the costs to the economy that would result from potentially tens of thousands of accelerated job losses. The record is not at all clear that Treasury did either. The anticipated benefits to the companies of accelerated terminations were based almost entirely on the not-universally-accepted theory that an immediate decrease in dealerships would make them similar to their foreign competitors and therefore improve the companies' profitability, and the theory arguably did not take into account some of the unique circumstances of the domestic companies' dealership networks. It undertook no market studies to test the counterintuitive theory until after making its Viability Determination. More importantly, there was no effort even to quantify the number of job losses that the Auto Team's decision would contribute to until after the decision was made, and the effect on the broader economy caused by accelerated dealership terminations similarly was not sufficiently considered.


Barofsky rejects the administration's stated reasons for their draconian actions:


Treasury's [The Obama Treasury Department's] letter seems to imply that Treasury was faced with the decision either to encourage the acceleration of dealership terminations substantially, as it did, or let the companies fail altogether. This is a false dilemma with no factual support: no one from Treasury, the manufacturers or from anywhere else indicated that implementing a smaller or more gradual dealership termination plan would have resulted in the cataclysmic scenario spelled out in Treasury's response.


And Barofsky's report even questions whether the closures would lead to any real savings for GM and Chrysler. "One GM official emphasized this point by telling SIGTARP (Barofsky) that GM would usually save 'not one damn cent' by closing any particular dealership."


The Inspector General's report also points to ineptitude by the Obama White House:


... the Administration created a Treasury Auto Team (the "Auto Team"), which reports to the Task Force and had the responsibility of evaluating the companies' restructuring plans and negotiating the terms of any further assistance. Leading the Auto Team were two advisors: Ron Bloom, a former investment banker and head of collective bargaining for the United Steelworkers Union, and Steven Rattner, the co-founder of the Quadrangle Group, a private-equity firm ... Although this group was responsible for managing AIFP, none of the Auto Team leaders or personnel had any experience or expertise in the auto industry.


And while the "Auto Team" may not have had much experience with the auto industry, the Task Force it reported to had quite a bit of experience in another field. Among the Task Force members and senior advisors were Carol Browner, the White House climate czar; Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson; and Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Task Force senior policy aides included Heather Zichal, deputy director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change; Lisa Heinzerling, senior climate policy counsel to the head of the EPA; and Dan Utech, senior adviser to the Energy Secretary.


All of these people may have had more interest in reducing auto emissions than in saving jobs down at the local Chevy dealership.


Perhaps to make up for the Auto Team's lack of experience, two consulting firms, Boston Consulting Group and Rothschild North America, were hired to help the team with their analysis. Perhaps there was another reason, though. Employees of BCG contributed more than $55,000 to Barack Obama during the 2006-2008 election cycle. Rothschild employees contributed $133,000 to Obama's campaign and tens of thousands more to the Democrat National Committee. BCG stands to make up to $7 million for this contract, Rothschild $7.7 million.


What did the public get for its millions? Among other things, a projection by Rothschild that GM sales would increase by 50% by the year 2014.


This is the picture that emerges from the Inspector General's report: an Obama auto industry team made up of people unfamiliar with the auto industry, using data provided by major Obama campaign contributors, and reporting to a Task Force more interested in promoting global warming than in protecting American jobs.


What could possibly go wrong with that?


Just ask the tens of thousands of people who lost their jobs as a result.


And all for Obama's "shared sacrifice."




http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/obamas_mandate_for_sacrifice_c.html
 

Texan

Well-known member
I'm really not too sure that the Obama Administration cares about jobs - unless they're union jobs or government jobs.

====================


Deepwater drilling moratorium targeted by rally in Lafayette
Published: Wednesday, July 21, 2010, 5:25 PM

T-shirts with slogans like "Drill Baby Drill" and "No Moratorium" were common sights in Lafayette on Wednesday as thousands of people rallied against the federal moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

About 15,000 people packed the Cajundome on the campus of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette as Gov. Bobby Jindal and a stream of speakers blasted the six-month moratorium declared after BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The "Rally for Economic Survival," orchestrated by a coalition of business organizations, was set in the heart of Louisiana's oil patch, where thousands of jobs are tied to oil companies or companies that serve them.

"I'm here because I'm worried," said John Henry, 43, whose company does cement work for offshore wells. "We're already slowing things down at work. If companies can't drill, it will get worse."

The crowd stood in silence as the names of the 11 people killed in the April 20 explosion of the BP-operated rig Deepwater Horizon flashed on the stadium screens. They were rarely silent after that -- cheering each statement against the moratorium and booing loudly for mentions of President Barack Obama or the federal administration.

"The president is not very popular around here these days," said Dustin Hebert, 52, who works for a company that finishes pipe used on the rigs. "We are losing business, and we can't make any plans for next year or the year after."

Jindal recounted a conversation with Obama in which he said the president told him BP would pay claims for those left unemployed by the spill, or could apply for unemployment benefits. The remark drew sustained boos.

In addition to the deepwater moratorium, Jindal said state Department of Natural Resources data shows permits for shallow water drilling have slowed since the spill began.

"It's ironic that the only drilling going on is BP," Jindal said, referring to relief wells the company is drilling at the spill site.

Despite the rhetoric, industry experts say a feared exodus of deepwater rigs from the Gulf hasn't yet materialized, and that the business would quickly rebound once the ban expires.

Houston-based Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc., the second-largest U.S. contractor, has said it's moving two of its Gulf rigs to Egypt and the Republic of Congo, and Scotland's Stena Drilling Ltd., is shifting one to Canada, but 31 remain in place.

The three departures are below the eight that had indicated they were ready to move, said Jim Richardson, economics professor and director of the Public Administration Institute at Louisiana State University.

"It was my understanding that initially there were a number of them that were going to pick up much more quickly," he said.

Argus Research analyst Phil Weiss said the sooner the moratorium is lifted, the more likely the rigs will stay.

"They're looking for work, and wherever it is, that's where they're going to go. But it's not so simple moving a rig. It takes a lot of time and money. And after you've taken the time and the money, you're going to want it to stay for a while," he said.

Thomas Kellock, senior consultant in Houston for ODS-Petrodata, which follows the market for oil and gas producers, said more rigs will leave if the ban goes beyond six months but "there is no reason they won't come back after the moratorium."

Besides renegotiating contracts, some oil companies are seeking to void long-term deals with rig contractors, citing the drilling ban as an unforeseen catastrophe. Those rigs will remain in place until these disputes are resolved, said Rice University economist Kenneth Medlock III.

"Nobody should have expected the rigs to leave immediately," he said.

Medlock said those that do leave to pursue other opportunities probably won't return quickly, but "I do not expect a mass exodus."

John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil and founder of the advocacy group Citizens for Affordable Energy, told those at the Lafayette rally that he supported Obama's election. But in a comment directed at the president, he warned of serious political consequences if the moratorium is not lifted.

"In 2012, when gas is $5 a gallon, your administration and all your dreams will be toast," he said.

In his speech, Jindal introduced several business owners who said the moratorium is affecting their businesses and predicted layoffs would begin soon.

Some audience members said they did not know anyone who lost a job because of the moratorium, though they said business was slowing.

"I'm hoping Obama gets the message," said Allen Comeaux, 52, a truck driver whose customers include oil companies. "It's not just the people out on the rigs, it's the people driving trucks, delivering services, selling food. Everyone down here is beholden to oil one way or another."

The offshore petroleum industry and companies that serve it employ about 100,000 people in Louisiana, according to the LSU Center for Energy Studies.


http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/deepwater_drilling_moratorium_7.html
 
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