Are Unions Part of the Jobs Problem?

Trade unions are always proclaiming their mission is to save and create U.S. jobs. But if you have been paying attention to their actions, you would be hard pressed to see this philosophy in action. Jobs aren’t being created by unions — the opposite is occurring. That may explain why union membership has dropped to 6.6 percent of all workers, down from 35 percent in the mid-1950s. Even as the United States engages in important negotiations involving the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC), which could create millions of good-paying American jobs, the left, in a further appeasement of union demands, is trying to derail the U.S. role in the agreement. As a reminder, according to data from APEC, its members — including the United States and China, Russia, Mexico,... Read More

Do Unions Really Care About Creating Jobs?

Trade unions are always proclaiming their mission is to save and create U.S. jobs. But if you have been paying attention to their actions, you would be hard pressed to see this philosophy in action. Jobs aren’t being created by unions — the opposite is occurring. That may explain why union membership has dropped to 6.6 percent of all workers, down from 35 percent in the mid-1950s. Even as the United States engages in important negotiations involving the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC), which could create millions of good-paying American jobs, the left, in a further appeasement of union demands, is trying to derail the U.S. role in the agreement. As a reminder, according to data from APEC, its members — including the United States and China, Russia, Mexico,... Read More

Capping CEO Compensation Is Dangerous

Professional sports players are usually paid based on performance. The better they play, the more money they make. In the business world, CEOs are typically compensated based on the performance of their company. The better the company performs, the more they are paid in salary and stock options. One big difference is that professional sports teams work with a salary cap, which determines how much money they can spend on their players. In the business world, most CEOs don’t have a salary cap (although some publicly traded companies have limits of executive compensation), so their salary and benefits reflect the profitability of the company. They are paid for their contributions. The story that is seldom told is that before CEOs make a lot of money, they had to build their company.... Read More

The Assault on CEO Compensation

Professional sports players are usually paid based on performance. The better they play, the more money they make. In the business world, CEOs are usually compensated based on the performance of their company. The better the company performs, the more they are paid in salary and stock options. One big difference is that professional sports teams work with a salary cap, which determines how much money they can spend on their players. In the business world, most CEOs don’t have a salary cap (although some publicly traded companies have limits of executive compensation), so their salary and benefits reflect the profitability of the company. They are paid for their contributions. The story that is seldom told is that before CEOs make a lot of money, they had to build their company.... Read More

US Car Brands Take the Off Ramp in Korea

As an exporter, I am a big supporter of the South Korean Free Trade Agreement signed on March 15, 2012, because when we open up foreign markets to American goods, the resulting lower trade barriers and tariffs help make U.S. products more competitive. During a recent trip to Korea, a journey I have made countless times over the past 30 years, I couldn’t help but notice that I saw no American cars. This didn’t make any sense to me as we now have a free trade agreement in place. But after a little digging, I discovered that my eyes weren’t deceiving me. The Public Citizen website noted that since the trade deal was enacted, fewer than 1,000 additional U.S. automobiles have been sold in South Korea. Meanwhile, 1.3 million Korean cars were sold in the United States.... Read More

Our Economic Security Depends on Job Creation

The impact of 26 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed moves this nation further and further away from economic security. Then add in the millions of American who have been forced into part-time jobs (who are five times more likely to live in poverty) and we have an economic picture that would make our Founding Fathers weep. An underlying issue that receives little coverage is that when people don’t have jobs or economic security, they don’t make the long-term investments, which are the bedrock of our economy. There are fewer dollars that can be loaned to small business — our job creators — so the nation is caught in a downward spiral. Lance Roberts from SDT Wealth Management, appearing on the radio show Made in America, noted that the United States... Read More

Take Away the Government’s Checkbook

I run a successful manufacturing and export business. My success depends on our ability to accurately cost the materials and services we consume. If my estimates are wrong, I won’t stay in business very long. Our government has no such apparent obligation. Our tax dollars are being wasted on projects that are so out of sync with accepted norms that one wonders who is involved in these decisions. I think we have to look at President Obama’s advisers, who have almost no business acumen or hands-on business experience. If they did, would they approve the $648 million website for Obamacare when its original budget was $93 million? The start-up costs for this website are greater than are the combined start-up costs for every major social media site, as well as sites like Amazon... Read More

A Wakeup Call to American Business

It’s hard to find any good news surrounding the government shutdown, especially since an estimate from Standard & Poor’s projected that the shutdown took $24 billion out of the U.S. economy and reduced projected fourth-quarter GDP growth from 3 percent to 2.4 percent. Yet, the shutdown appears to have had one positive effect: it awoke a sleeping giant — America’s business community, which has been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right time to get back into action. That time may have come. Influential business organizations, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, recognize that the Republican party can ill-afford to make another strategic blunder like the shutdown. Now they are ready to get re-engaged with the conservative GOP base that historically partnered... Read More

I Stand With Veterans and Truckers

In war, the term “collateral damage” is used when unintended victims are hurt or killed. It seems to me that the current war in Washington over the future direction of our country is creating collateral damage not only among the people directly affected, but also to our sense of economic freedom. People all over the nation have been impacted by the recent government standoff and subsequent shutdown. It particularly impacted two groups that should never be “punished” for their service. I’m talking about our veterans and our nation’s truckers, who, to get attention from our government, had to take matters into their own hands — a move that I support 100 percent. Have we come so far in our animosity that we have forgotten Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg... Read More

Shutting Down Future US Jobs

As usual, President Obama fails to think about long-term solutions to our economy. His role in the shutdown is one example, but a far more dangerous decision was his willingness to cancel his trip to Indonesia for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC). The outcome of this decision could stop the creation of millions of good-paying American jobs. According to data from APEC, its members — including the United States and China, Russia, Mexico, Canada and 16 other countries — account for about 40 percent of the world’s population, 55 percent of global gross domestic product and about 44 percent of world trade. Trade within APEC has grown nearly sevenfold since 1989, topping $11 trillion in 2011. Opening up free trade to most of Asia would give the U.S. economy... Read More