Free Republic

SOCORRO, New Mexico (STPNS) -- Obama’s latest ad about creating 5 million new jobs really got my attention. Up to this point my opinion was that he really doesn’t say anything meaningful, but 5 million jobs would be a great thing. So I took the bait and went to his site to see if he had something concrete to say for a change (you owe me big time for wading through all his rhetoric). And (drum roll) – nada, zero, zip, bumpkus. He says he will create the jobs, but as far as I can tell, he will do it...

Employment at Air Force Plant 42 and its adjacent defense contractor facilities appears to have decreased slightly in the first six months of 2008, but two of the major contractors are hiring. For the first time in several years, the figures released by Plant 42 officials included the employment numbers for the Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Control Center. The center employs approximately 500 people, including controllers, technicians and the like, said FAA spokesman Ian Gregor. Including the FAA center, employment over the first six months of the year was 6,858 people, compared to 6,412 people during the last six...

It may not be apparent from the outside, but activity at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics' facility in Palmdale is increasing. With work on the F-22 and F-35 fighters ramping up, the company is seeking some 100 experienced hourly employees for positions such as mechanics, machinists and composite technicians, said Lockheed spokeswoman Dianne Knippel. The hirings come despite the retirement of the F-117 stealth fighter, the last of which left Palmdale for storage in Nevada on Aug. 11. During the course of the fighter's nearly 30-year history, Lockheed's Palmdale site was home to modifications and upgrades to the fleet, as well as...

Maine is notorious for having one of the strongest environmental regulations on the planet. Mainers care more about rats birds bugs weeds and puddles than they do about unemployment, poverty, budget deficits and homelessness. Maybe that's way the later four are so common in Maine. Similarly in states like California where citizens and its agriculture must suffer a drought to protect a bunch of sucker fish or in Florida where a big swamp matters more than new jobs or agriculture the welfare and rights of human beings are compromised along with their jobs and homes to protect useless dumb animals...

BARACK OBAMA says that he would "end tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas" and blasts John McCain for refusing to condemn such loopholes. But the offshoring issue is more complicated than Mr. Obama's rhetoric suggests. Indeed, while there's no doubt that some individuals and communities are hurt by corporate decisions to shift manufacturing or other operations overseas, overall job creation may well benefit. Economists Mihir Desai, Fritz Foley and James Hines looked at U.S. manufacturers that expanded foreign operations between 1982 and 2004 and found that they tended to grow domestically as well, hiring more U.S. employees, paying...

Many people dream of retiring early, but few actually make it a reality. Taking certain proactive measures, such as investing in a 401(k) in your 20s and eliminating debt, will help set you on the path to early retirement. But even if you achieve these goals, it's nearly impossible to know whether that nest egg will be enough to get by. You'll have to consider certain factors such as the lifestyle you'd like to maintain, the number of years before you start receiving Social Security checks (full benefits kick in between age 65 and age 67, depending on the year...

Congress adjourned for a month-long recess on Aug. 1, the same day that the Bureau of Labor Statistics released distressing news about unemployment. The July economic news was not good. The official unemployment rate hit a four-year high of 5.7 percent, as the economy shed 51,000 jobs last month, bringing the total of lost jobs for 2008 to 463,000. Seemingly oblivious to what is happening back in their states and districts, the House Immigration Subcommittee finished up business for the rest of the summer by approving legislation that, if enacted, would “recapture” some 557,000 visas that were not used during...

Teenage workers are disappearing from the U.S. workforce. Something appears to have happened to drive them out of the workforce in large numbers. Phil Miller and Doc Palmer say that the recent mandated hikes in the minimum wage very likely has something to do with the teenagers getting disappeared, but no one in the media is willing to finger them as a promising culprit behind the workplace disappearances. Could they be right? To find out, we went straight to the source: the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What we did was to take the BLS' report on the Characteristics of Minimum...

"What we need today is an economic surge. ... Now we need an economic surge to keep jobs here at home and create new ones. We need to reduce the tax burden on businesses that choose to make their home in the United States of America. We need to open new markets to U.S. products. And we need to reduce the cost of healthcare, and we need to end the out of control spending in Washington that's putting our debt on the backs of our children." -- John McCain John McCain Media Availability Jackson, OHAugust 6, 2008 John McCain:...

Barack Obama repeated his call for a 15% reduction in electrical demand in Youngstown, Ohio, and held California up as a model for the rest of the nation to follow. Claiming that the Golden State made great strides towards efficiency, Obama apparently forgot the travails California went through: Finally, I will call on businesses, government, and the American people to meet the goal of reducing our demand for electricity 15% by the end of the next decade. This is by far the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to reduce our energy consumption – and it will save us $130 billion...

CALEXICO — In the past four months this border city’s officials have traveled into Mexicali about 60 times, attended meetings with their industrial commissions and chambers of commerce and met with potential Chinese, German, Spanish and Indian investors. The activity is all in the pursuit of economically stimulating the city that shares a border with a Mexican metropolis. Since making economic development its priority last year, amid a budget deficit, a screeching slowdown in the housing market (once a major revenue maker for the city because of processing fees) and the increasing need for city amenities such as parks, Calexico...

Private employers added 9,000 jobs in July, according to a private report by ADP Employer Services released on Wednesday. In June, the private sector slashed 77,000, according to revised data. June was originally reported as 79,000 jobs lost. The median of estimates from economists surveyed by Reuters was for the ADP report to show a drop of 60,000 private-sector jobs in July. The 32 forecasts ranged widely from a decline of 110,000 to a fall of 4,000...

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Recently I saw two movies that attacked the controversial Wal-mart department store. A PBS documentary called Is Wal-Mart good for America? And Wal-Mart the high cost of low price an independent movie about Wal-mart and the Walton family. I also visited wakeupwalmart.com for more info this article is a refutation on most of the BS that appeared on the two documentaries. First of all we need to ask ourselves why "Wal-Mart is under ferocious attack by the left?" Wal-Mart delivers well on its promise of low prices to Americans. Being a resident of one of the poorest and liberal states...

Taylor used to be a player in Williamson County, with it and Georgetown vying for funds and the attention of passers-through. But no more, and despite what many city officials will tell you, it will not be a player unless something is done to counteract the rapid growth of surrounding communities. What needs to be done is, Taylor needs to forget its past and embrace something residents see as so vile, that when I first arrived here I thought its mere mention was a dirty word. I am speaking of Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor. The Texas Department of Transportation (another...

WASHINGTON, July 18, 2008 – The hunt for a fulfilling job can be frustrating, but disabled veterans have a new online tool available to help them tackle that task. Job Opportunities for Disabled American Veterans is a nationally based online recruitment application geared specifically to assist disabled veterans find employment. “Our goal here is simple, to connect disabled American veterans with employers who are proactive in hiring them,” said Nicholas Corso, project director of disABLEDperson Inc., Job Opportunities for Disabled American Veterans’ parent organization. “This is a free service to the DAV community.” Employers listing job openings on the...

Just back from my first trip to the Berkshires (in western Massachusetts) where the affluent of the East Coast megalopolises like to summer and play, and I was just stunned to see nearly every visible job filled with an English-speaking American. This is intriguing because it is among the nation's elites that we find most of the resistance to passing the SAVE Act or other legislation mandating the use of E-Verify to ensure that illegal aliens don't keep U.S. jobs -- with the elites complaining that without all the illegal foreign workers, large parts of our service economy would...

On the way in to work this morning, I heard a sound-bite where Obama states that the only jobs blacks in America can get is by playing basketball. Has anyone else heard this? Does anyone know where I can get the sound-bite or a video? Thank you.

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits posted its biggest drop in almost three years last week. But a Labor Department analyst cautioned against interpreting the decline as a sign of better days ahead in the economy. Seasonal adjustments are difficult in early July due to seasonal layoffs in automobile and other manufacturing industries, the analyst said, and an increase is likely next week. Indeed, continuing claims lasting more than one week hit a fresh four-and-a-half year high, according to the Labor Department report, an indication that it is taking the unemployed much longer to find...

In 1983, when the seafood processing plants on the New Bedford waterfront broke the back of the Seafarer's Union, the starting salary for a line worker was around $7.50 an hour. Twenty-five years later, the starting salary for processing and packing workers at the New Bedford fish houses was about the same, $7.50 an hour.

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2008 – The goal of a troop-support group’s new Web-based campaign is simple: tell the troops “thank you” a million times over, starting today. Hire A Hero, which works to connect military job seekers and military-friendly employers, has created the “One Million Thank Yous” campaign to do just that. “We … know that servicemembers are not aware of the tremendous amount of support that exists for them,” said Brac Selph, executive director of Hire A Hero. “We want servicemembers to have a virtual place they can go to remind themselves that what they are doing is...

The high-priced corporate lobbyists walking Capitol Hill corridors have a new mantra: innovation. They demand that Congress bring in more guest workers, especially from Asia, in order to maintain American innovation supremacy. The lobbyists' backup buzzword is "the best and the brightest." They argue that U.S. workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics are in short supply and we must now import foreign engineers and scientists, i.e., allow the multinationals to bring in an increased or even unlimited number of H-1B visas. Their argument lacks evidence: Economics 101 teaches that shortages in labor or goods produce higher wages or higher...

CASCADE TOWNSHIP -- GE Aviation today announced it will cut about 100 jobs at its Digital North America operations at plants in the Grand Rapids area, Clearwater, Fla., and Germantown, Md. Spokeswoman Jennifer Villarreal said about 95 of those positions will come from the Cascade Township location, formerly Smiths Aerospace, 3290 Patterson Ave. SE, which employs about 1,500. GE purchased Smiths last year. The job cuts are a cost cutting measure to keep the company competitive and "complete engineering design work for some of our large aerospace programs," according to a prepared statement.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - One in three information technology professionals abuses administrative passwords to access confidential data such as colleagues' salary details, personal emails or board-meeting minutes, according to a survey. U.S. information security company Cyber-Ark surveyed 300 senior IT professionals, and found that one-third admitted to secretly snooping, while 47 percent said they had accessed information that was not relevant to their role. "All you need is access to the right passwords or privileged accounts and you're privy to everything that's going on within your company," Mark Fullbrook, Cyber-Ark's UK director, said in a statement released along with the survey...

Sen. Barack Obama shed new light on his economic plans for the country, saying he would rely on a heavy dose of government spending to spur growth, use the tax code to narrow the widening gap between winners and losers in the U.S. economy, and possibly back a reduction in corporate tax rates. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the Illinois Democrat said that he was trying to put together tax and spending policies that dealt with two challenges. One is the competition from rapidly growing developing countries, like India and China. The other: the U.S. becoming what...

The McClatchy Co., battered by declining profits and revenue, announced a 10 percent companywide cut in its workforce Monday, including the Sacramento publisher's first-ever across-the-board layoffs. The decision will eliminate 1,400 jobs through a combination of layoffs, voluntary departures and attrition. The Bee announced it will eliminate 86 jobs, 46 by layoffs. The reduction will trim the paper's work force by 8.1 percent. McClatchy, publisher of The Bee, has prided itself on avoiding across-the-board layoffs even as it has used buyouts and attrition to cut its head count by 13 percent since April 2006. But with the company struggling and...

This month 3,700 recent college grads will begin Teach for America's five-week boot camp, before heading off for two-year stints at the nation's worst public schools. Teach for America offers smart young people something even better than money – the chance to avoid the vast education bureaucracy. Participants need only pass academic muster and attend the summer training before entering a classroom. If they took the traditional route into teaching, they would have to endure years of "education" courses to be certified. On average, high school students taught by TFA corps members performed significantly better on state-required end-of-course exams, especially...

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama on Friday called for higher payroll taxes on wage-earners making more than $250,000 annually, a step that would affect the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans. The presidential candidate told senior citizens in Ohio that it is unfair for middle-class earners to pay the Social Security tax "on every dime they make," while millionaires and billionaires pay it on only "a very small percentage of their income." The 6.2 percent payroll tax is now applied to all wages up to $102,000 a year, which covers the entire amount for most Americans. Under Obama's plan, the tax would...

The rising cost of shipping everything from industrial-pump parts to lawn-mower batteries to living-room sofas is forcing some manufacturers to bring production back to North America and freeze plans to send even more work overseas. "My cost of getting a shipping container here from China just keeps going up -- and I don't see any end in sight," says Claude Hayes, president of the retail heating division at DESA LLC. He says that cost has jumped about 15%, to about $5,300, since January and is set to increase again next month to $5,600. HOMEWARD BOUND • The News: Soaring fuel...

Finals week is over; summer is here. And thanks to misguided politicians, your teenager is more likely to be sitting in front of the television than waiting tables or scooping ice cream. This year, it’s harder than ever for teens to find a summer job. Researchers at Northeastern University described summer 2007 as “the worst in post-World War II history” for teen summer employment, and those same researchers say that 2008 is poised to be “even worse.” According to their data, only about one-third of Americans 16 to 19 years old will have a job this summer, and vulnerable low-income...

ARAB JABOUR — She wears a head scarf and long robe covering her from shoulder to toe; only her hands and face are visible. Yet despite her traditional clothing, Maha Aziz Abass Al-Jabouri is working hard to cast aside the stereotypical role of women in the Arab Jabour region. Abass, a language teacher at the al-Hamza School, is one of several women in the village of Alemia who work to empower women in the area. “Before, our future was farming. Now we want jobs like the women in the city,” Abass said. As the Rasheed Women’s Council representative from Alemia,...

Despite a recent spike in the nation's unemployment rate, the danger that the economy has fallen into a "substantial downturn" appears to have waned, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday. Addressing a Fed conference in Chatham, Mass., on Monday night, Bernanke said a government report last week showing the unemployment rate rising from 5 percent in April to 5.5 percent in May — the biggest one-month jump in two decades — was "unwelcome." However, the Fed chief said other forces should "provide some offset to the headwinds that still face the economy." The Fed's powerful doses of interest rate...

I should have put the year I took up boxing on my resume. It's sixth period, my first day teaching high school, and my regular Junior English class refuses to settle down. I give them a brief talk, amid the jostling and visiting (and the walking, and the love taps, and the food trading, and the vaulting over desks) about respect. I will respect them, I say, and they will respect me.

iGate isn't only 'villain' hiring foreign high-tech workers By Mark Houser TRIBUNE-REVIEW A local high-tech company has put a Pittsburgh face on a national debate about hiring foreign workers. Computer consulting firm iGate Corp. of Findlay paid the Justice Department $45,000 in April to settle charges it discriminated against U.S. workers by posting online job ads seeking foreigners with special visas. The fine for favoring holders of H-1B visas, which go primarily to computer and engineering specialists, is the highest yet, said Justice Department spokeswoman Jamie Hais. Critics say cases such as iGate's are not the only problem with the...

Brazil, Ind, native Spc. Ean Blakley of the Indiana National Guard’s 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team registers an Iraqi worker at the host national workforce program center. Blakley has been has been working to identify workers with developed trade skills in order to provide Iraqis with more employment opportunities and Logistical Support Area Anaconda with a more developed host nation workforce. Photo by Staff Sgt. Lesley Newport. BALAD — Hundreds of local Iraqis arrive each work morning at the pedestrian gate of Logistical Support Area Anaconda, bustle through security inspections then are bussed to the directorate of public works’ local...

Cannot post. Here is the link:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZ6VzqO8N1Ag&refer=home

Worker productivity increased at a faster pace in the first three months of this year than previously estimated, while wage pressures moderated. The Labor Department reported Wednesday that productivity rose at an annual rate of 2.6 percent in the January-March period, faster than the government's initial estimate of 2.2 percent made a month ago. Wage pressures, meanwhile, moderated from the final three months of last year with unit labor costs rising at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter. That was a marked slowdown from a 4.7 percent surge in labor costs in the final three months...

U.S. private-sector employers added 40,000 jobs in May, according to a private report on Wednesday by ADP Employer Services that defied Wall Street's expectations of a fall. The ADP data release comes ahead of the government's monthly jobs report due on Friday, one of the biggest events on the monthly economic calendar. A Reuters poll shows analysts expect that to show non-farm payrolls fell by 58,000 in May. Economists' median expectation for the May ADP jobs figure was for a drop of 30,000 jobs, according to a Reuters poll. In April, ADP said, the private sector added 13,000 jobs, which...

U.S. stock futures are pulling off their lows as an employment reading shows that the private sector added jobs last month. The ADP National Employment Report arriving Wednesday shows that the private sector added 40,000 jobs in May, rather than declined by 60,000 as economists had been expecting, according to Dow Jones Newswires. Dow Jones industrial average futures are down 20, or 0.16 percent, at 12,384, off their earlier lows.

There was no one thing that caused Hector Salinas to pack his bags and give up for good on the trials of life as an illegal immigrant in South Florida. But the reasons he enumerates are echoed by increasing numbers of Latin American immigrants, both legal and not, who appear to be souring on their job prospects and going home: It was the scant money he made at a menial restaurant job, Salinas said, just enough for food and rent, with barely anything left for his family in Mexico -- the reason he came in the first place. It was...

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - Satya Mohan never saw students dance in the hallways before, let alone bang on lockers and doors as they often do outside his third-floor classroom at Bassick High School. Eight-and-a-half months into the school year, this teacher from India has grown used to it. "Excuse me, off to your room," he tells a student who doesn't belong in his fifth-period science class, before motioning him out and shutting the door. The dozen students who do belong in the class then set about the task of finishing an assignment on polymers and recycling. Darren Thompson, 15, a freshman...

DES MOINES — On a recent evening here, Greg Tew, 28, considered the question: What is it like to work in a state that is creating more jobs than workers? He was sitting in the lobby of a new hotel in downtown Des Moines, part of an extensive redevelopment investment to attract workers to Iowa. “It is noticeable,” Mr. Tew, a computer programmer at EMC Insurance Companies, said of the jobs surplus. “You’re a hot commodity. Salaries go up just because companies are fighting to retain the talent they have.”

Company's Eastern Division will remain in capital city. CHARLESTON -- Nine months after breaking ground on its Eastern Division headquarters building in Charleston, Chesapeake Energy Corp. announced May 29 it has scrapped those plans. In a prepared statement, Scott Rotruck, vice president for corporate development, said a May 22 decision by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to not hear an appeal in the case of Tawney v. Columbia Natural Resources caused company officials to rethink locating the headquarters in West Virginia. Chesapeake had projected the cost of the building at $35 million. “This decision was stunning, as it...

Virginia’s unemployment rate fell 0.6 percentage point, from 3.9 percent in March to 3.3 percent in April. Employment increased mostly because of the increase in tourism jobs, construction work and the end of the strike...

American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc. said Wednesday it will cut its U.S. hourly work force by 2,000, or about 55 percent, as a result of a new contract ratified last week by the United Auto Workers union.

John and Kelly Delgado moved their family to Homestead, Fla., from Indiana last August, thinking that John's native South Florida was their land of opportunity. They now regret the move. "We never have any money," said Kelly, 32. "Every month, we're robbing Peter to pay Paul and then figuring out how to do it again. It's so expensive to live here. I can't afford to buy uniforms for school. My son had a field trip; it cost $8. He used the birthday money, $12, my mom sent him. It's been a very rough year." The problem: John, 34, earns $6...

MONTPELIER, Idaho (AP) _ A Seattle company has picked Montpelier for a $7 million plant where workers will build environmentally friendly modular motels. Executives from Triad Resorts say they will begin construction of the new plant in Montpellier in the next 90 days, with operations expected to begin next March. The company expects to hire about 150 workers. The plant will produce fully constructed rooms on site that can be shipped by truck and linked to other modular rooms at a motel site. Jerry Ward, principal owner of Triad Resorts, says the company has a contract to also build walls,...

Since Arizona’s local law enforcement began enforcing illegal immigration laws and an employer sanctions law went into effect, illegal immigrants have been fleeing the state in large numbers. The effects have been far-ranging. Commuters are reporting fewer vehicles on the freeways, shortening their rush-hour commutes. What had become a serious transportation problem in Arizona is losing its urgency. English Learner Language (ELL) students started dropping out of school. This helped end a confrontation between the state legislature and a liberal federal judge who had ordered the state to spend more money on ELL classes. Fewer illegal immigrants are using hospital...

Excerpt - Just got a nervous call from my lawyers who said they wanted to give me a "heads up" about a "situation" at Broadcom. See more about it here. Basically the feds are going after some Broadcom execs over some options backdating stuff. I'm like, So what? I don't work at Broadcom. They're like, Um, well, see, Broadcom did its own internal investigation and already cleared these guys, and the SEC isn't buying it apparently, and though the company itself has already settled the whole thing the SEC is still going after the executives as individuals. Now you do...

US slump to prop up India as next offshoring hotspot 14 May, 2008, 0750 hrs IST,Chiranjoy Sen, TNN BANGALORE: Belt-tightening by global technology giants—a fallout of US economic slowdown—is likely to reinforce India as the most preferred offshoring destination. Top technology firms are actively moving part of their workforce from the US, UK and European markets to lower-cost destinations. They cite availability of local talent, better delivery and conducive enviroment as key offshoring reasons. While they may not admit it, firms would be looking at stepping the gas on offshoring to curb bloating costs and to lift margins. Networking and...