Saturday, January 29, 2011

Obama: "Innovation" is Key.

"With a Wisconsin energy company as a backdrop, Obama used his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday to prod the business community to help speed up an economic recovery that is still beset by high unemployment.  'That's how America will win the future -- by out-innovating, out-educating and out-building our competitors,' he said"

I will let you read the original article yourself, but the idea that lack of innovation is the problem is absurd.  American companies are the best and brightest in the world.  Companies have plenty of new products, ideas, services, etc, to sell; they are simply bringing them to market a different way than in the past.

Look at the items that were under your Christmas tree this past December, I bet the majority of them are from American, or American-owned companies.  Granted most all of them were probably made in China, Japan, or Mexico, but the companies innovating and designing these items are right here in the United States.  Look at apple for example:  you purchase a new MacBook Pro online, it is custom built for you in China and shipped directly to your door.  The innovation behind that MacBook came from the west coast of the United States, not anywhere else in the world.

With few exceptions, American companies are forced to pick overseas manufacturers to build products that will be sold here in the U.S. and in the rest of the world.  The union organized labor forces here in the U.S. combined with retirement and other legacy costs put domestic manufacturing at a huge disadvantage.

Innovation is happening all around us and all the time.  The bad news for President Obama is that innovation normally requires just a few people to actually bring a product to manufacturers, compared to the hundreds or thousands it would take actually do the manufacturing.  Until we have gotten rid of the majority of organized labor in this country, reduced corporate taxes, limited liability, and decreased the regulatory burden placed on these companies, we will not see an increase in domestic manufacturing anytime soon.

If Obama really wanted to do something about the unemployment rate he would do the following:

1.  Immediately cut the corporate tax rate.
2.  Further cut personal income tax rates below the Bush rates which he extended.
3.  Expand "Right-to-Work" laws and protections.
4.  Enact legislation limiting lawsuits against private business, such as "loser pays".
5.  Immediately declare carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, and any other scheme to make money off global warming as "Dead".
6.  Reign-in the EPA, and their need to regulate areas of manufacturing and the environment in which they were never intended to be involved.
7.  Get rid of Obamacare.  Not fix it, get rid of it.


These, not "Innovation" would be the keys to jump-starting domestic manufacturing and lowering the unemployment rate in this country.


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