Brenda Krueger Huffman

“Reshore” U.S. Manufacturing to Stabilize Credit Rating, Reduce Debt, and Create Jobs

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:23:00 +0000

The U.S. economy is at a standstill, and Americans are looking for answers to the crisis. With the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+ and warning it could be downgraded even further, Americans are fed up and looking for solutions.

Many do not believe the solution that will pull the U.S. from the brink will come from spending addicted politicians that created a kick-the-can-down-the-road piece of legislation to enable the debt ceiling hike just a week ago.

To look at the problem, the politicians created yet another panel naming them the “Super Committee”. Do they get capes? Was the S & P’s down grade President Obama’s 3:00 AM call? Is it Congress’ wake-up call?

Americans are also angry with big corporations offshoring jobs to foreign companies to cut costs. Americans see a once prosperous middle class losing ground in the U.S.

No one can deny the huge negative impact offshoring U.S. manufacturing has had on the economic growth and stability of Americans personally and on the nation’s GDP, tax revenues and government expenditures. Unfair trade deals are unacceptable, and trade imbalance promotes American economic depression.

There could not be a better time for cooler heads to prevail all the way around. There could not be a better time to view our problems realistically and to look at the root causes to develop real solutions which will benefit all. Manufacturing has a job and tax revenue multiplier effect in an economy.

Americans need jobs to survive, politicians need GDP growth to reduce debt, and corporations need a stable and cost effective environment to prosper. We do not need free trade that is not fair trade.

Even with all the chaos in the markets, and some world governments, the U.S. remains where many will and should put their money for the lowest risk.

It needs to make sense realistically for companies to do so. Harry Moser, the Founder of the Reshoring Initiative knows what many U.S. companies need to know. It does make more sense than they might realize, including more economic sense for businesses.

The mission of the Reshoring Initiative, an educational non-profit company, is to return manufacturing work and jobs to the U.S. by helping manufacturing companies recognize they will be more successful if they reshore more and offshore less. They promote government understanding how to support reshoring effectively.

The Reshoring Initiative offers companies a look at the “Total Cost of Ownership” (TCO) with its TCO Estimator software as well as other research and organizational tools that support the manufacturing industry’s business owners, government officials, and union groups.

Harry Moser holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Masters in Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1981.

He was the President of GF AgieCharilles and retired as Chairman Emeritus in 2010. He is on the board of NIMS, credentials for skilled manufacturing, and is President of the Swiss Machine Tool Society.

Moser, an Inductee to the Industry Week’s Manufacturing Hall of Fame 2010, has had his work highlighted in Fortune, Wall Street Journal, and Industry Week. He shares his reshoring expertise:

BKH: Do you believe the S & P credit rating downgrade of the U.S. will have any impact on reshoring manufacturing to the U.S.?

HM: The most likely direct impacts are a lower dollar and higher interest rates. A lower dollar unambiguously makes U.S. manufacturing more competitive. Higher interest rates may hinder manufacturing investment in general but will increase the carrying cost of inventory, making local sourcing with delayed payments relatively more attractive in comparison to offshoring.

BKH: We have seen unemployment over 9% for a record setting period of months. How can reshoring manufacturing immediately help?

HM: Eventually, we have to balance the trade deficit or the dollar will collapse. When we balance the $550 billion per year trade deficit by reshoring manufacturing, we will create 3 million manufacturing jobs and 5 million or more multiplier effect jobs. This could reduce the unemployment rate to about 4%.

BKH: We have seen politicians taking the annual budget deficit and the overall debt seriously these past few weeks. Can reshoring help deficit reduction by balancing trade deficits?

HM: Balancing the trade deficit by reshoring will increase tax revenue from workers and companies. It will decrease expenditures for unemployment, trade adjustment assistance, stimulus programs, etc. The total impact could be $2 trillion federally over 10 years and $500 billion at the state and local level over 10 years.

BKH: Are you meeting with local, state, and federal government about the needs and goals of reshoring?

HM: I met on July 22, 2011 with SelectUSA, a new Commerce Dept office to motivate foreign direct investment and investment by U.S. companies. They are quite interested in using and distributing the Reshoring Initiative’s tools to economic development groups around the country.

BKH: Are they listening to you?

HM: Generally yes. However, they tend to be too focused on exports and not enough on reshoring. It is far easier for most U.S. factories to compete here where they have the home-field advantage, rather than overseas.

BKH: Does Steve Wynn have it right about capital investment in the U.S. right now being scared to death over possible higher taxes, carbon emission regulation, redistribution of wealth, and socialism fears?

HM: Steve has a powerful argument. I think the impact is greater on small to midsize privately owned companies whose owners in effect personally pay the expenses for those government programs. Overall, the lack of demand due to offshoring is a greater issue for most companies.

BKH: Do you believe government is capable of understanding what environment is needed in the private sector to create jobs?

HM: Certainly some individuals in government must understand. President Reagan understood. Most elected officials are too torn between competing constituencies and their own need to be reelected to take the necessary actions.

BKH: Are tax breaks for reshoring manufacturing prudent and necessary?

HM: It’s far better to help all domestic manufacture be competitive via a lower dollar and an end of Chinese currency manipulation. The Yuan is still about 75% lower than it was in 1980 despite the huge improvement in the Chinese economy, balance of payments and productivity. We need consistently good basic education with much more emphasis on “professional” training of the technicians needed to be competitive producing tradeable goods and much less emphasis on liberal arts university degrees.

BKH: Are tax breaks for repatriating manufacturing capital back to U.S. prudent and necessary?

HM: I am not sure doing so will stimulate manufacturing. The big companies here have all of the cash that they need. They can borrow more at very low rates. An ideal solution is to have a low 5% tax on repatriated earnings, and spend 1% of the taxes raised educating companies about Total Cost of Ownership (TCO); so they make and source more here, increasing domestic demand.

BKH: What is your opinion of the NLRB and Boeing dispute?

HM: Boeing may have violated the letter of the law by telling the union what it would do if they struck. If so, the law is the problem. It is certainly in the interest of the union, the workers, the company, and the country for companies to be able to communicate honestly and openly.

BKH: What do you see as the future for unions in manufacturing?

HM: Traditionally I saw them as reducing the efficiency and competitiveness of the economic system. Recently however, I did a webinar for the AFL-CIO and presented to the IUE-CWA, training both to engage management in reshoring. I was impressed. The IUE-CWA even has lean specialists that help their companies become more competitive. The unions are much more committed to reshoring than big business, because all of the unions’ members are in the U.S., whereas the companies have plants and customers worldwide.

BKH: Is it possible for American companies to compete globally with higher union wage and benefit demands?

HM: Demands are not the problem. Unit labor costs above those determined by the market are. If the union can create productivity and quality that are in excess of non-union companies, then it can earn some premium compensation. Otherwise, no.

BKH: What is most misunderstood about the China vs. U.S. manufacturing cost?

HM: Sixty percent (60%) of companies only consider the price or perhaps the Cost of Goods Sold, missing other “hidden” costs that can add 20% or 30% to the recognized costs.

BKH: There have been some news articles recently about the U.S. becoming competitive with China. Can you provide some details from your work on this?

HM: Boston Consulting Group’s May 5, 2011 report stated that the net unit labor cost in China would be so close to the cost in the U.S. southeast that the “hidden” costs will make the Total Cost of Ownership lower for U.S. production by 2015 for a broad range of manufacturing.

BKH: Do you believe China, or other developing and emerging manufacturing countries, will continue to dominate global manufacturing in 5, 10, 15 years?

HM: Today they dominate the growth in global manufacturing. As wage rates converge, especially in China, the relative growth rates will converge. The U.S. and other developed countries can regain some of the momentum if they act like Germany and Switzerland and develop strong technical training systems. In those countries 70% of youth enter sophisticated apprentice systems. The countries get, on average, a far higher quality and quantity of skilled technical professionals.

BKH: What impact did the tragic Japanese earthquake have on reshoring?

HM: The Japanese earthquake forced companies to recognize how fragile their supply chains are. The result is either dual sourcing in different countries or shortening supply chains so there is less chance of disruption. Use of TCO helps the companies understand that they do not have to sacrifice profitability to reduce risk via the latter solution.

BKH: Detail what is needed for companies to complete a true cost analysis of keeping manufacturing in the U.S. or reshoring versus offshoring.

HM: Data or estimates about the costs that are associated with the offshoring: price, duty, freight, carrying cost of inventory in transit and on the shelf, travel cost to visit the supplier, opportunity cost when orders are lost due to long supply chain, etc.

BKH: What is the TCO Estimator?

HM: It is software that calculates the TCO for a part, product or tool from the relevant data inserted by the user. The output data and charts let the user make an apples-to-apples comparison of sources so the company can make the best decisions in its own interest.

BKH: What are the possible impacts of offshoring on a company, their product cost and quality, and their strategic positioning that many companies do not realize or understand until after they have taken their manufacturing out of the U.S.?

HM: Cost is 20% to 30% higher than they estimated based on price or labor costs. Most did not go much further than price, perhaps adding duty and freight. Strategic impacts include degraded innovation from separating manufacturing and engineering as well as intellectual property (IP) risk.

BKH: What percentage of the manufacturing industry understands this true cost analysis and impact overall?

HM: Surveys by Archstone Consulting, 2009, and Accenture, 2011, both show that about 40% of the companies use the total cost of ownership concept. Many companies bonus their supply chain managers on savings at the price level instead of the total cost of ownership level.

BKH: Is the manufacturing industry listening?

HM: Generally the contract manufacturers and lower tier product and material manufacturers that will benefit the most by reshoring are very enthusiastic in addition to privately owned companies in the $200M annual revenue range. These companies are dependent on U.S. sales and want to use the TCO Estimator for selling.

BKH: How are they responding?

HM: The small and medium enterprise (SME) and unions are responding very well. Bigger companies are more difficult to convince to consider changing their behavior. I am starting to get emails perhaps weekly from companies that are using the TCO Estimator and have questions.

BKH: How can reshoring help a company better align their manufacturing with key priorities?

HM: By eliminating the need to make those priorities subservient to the pursuit of lowest cost labor. By understanding TCO, they see that they can have innovation, customer response, lower inventory, better quality, etc. without impacting price or profitability.

BKH: How can a manufacturer get a copy of the TCO tool?

HM: Online at Reshorenow.org.

BKH: What companies have you worked with recently which have begun reshoring manufacturing back to the U.S.?

HM: I am working with Morey Corp and Hydraforce in the Chicago area.

BKH: What were their main reasons for reshoring?

HM: Morey was initially motivated by quality. They then found that reshoring cut inventory by a factor of 18.

BKH: What can people in the manufacturing industry do to help?

HM: Use TCO for buying and selling. Get your company or your customer companies to listen to 1 of 4 free webinars in August 2011. Send me cases of successful reshorings. Spread the word to other companies. Encourage your national politicians to support reshoring.

BKH: What do you have on your schedule for 2011?

HM: I am writing articles and doing webinars. I will do about 100 presentations in 2011 to managers in supply chain, risk, trade associations, accounting, unions, machine tool makers and distributors as well as original equipment manufactures (OEMs). We are currently also updating our website with new information.

Reshoring Initiative has 15 funding sponsors and will reach 20 by the end of the year. I need volunteers in Research and Administration.

We are in discussions with affiliates in New York and New Jersey and working with the IUE-CWA. We are training two $150M annual revenue Chicago area manufactures to use TCO for sourcing and for selling to their large customers.

We want OEMs to use TCO to reevaluate sourcing, and suppliers to use TCO to sell local sourcing. We are encouraging economic development groups, private and public, to promote U.S. based facilities. We are talking to government groups reframing the trade discussions to put as much effort in reshoring as exporting. We invite participation and calls.

BKH: Thank you.

It is time those negotiating trade agreements on behalf of Americans corrected deals and policies that lead to unfair trade imbalances for the U.S. It is time for reshoring manufacturing to be a multiplier catalyst in driving a real economic recovery that includes job growth. We want the American middle class working again. We want employment levels that add to our tax base to reduce debt and stabilize the dollar, credit ratings, and markets.

We want business to emphasize American jobs being brought back in the best interest of all including their own. We know it can be done and must be done. With everyone working together, reshoring manufacturing is one of the ways it will be done.

It’s time to put America and the stability of Americans first in our strategies. We build it, and we will come. We make it, and those of all nations will buy it.

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God's White Waiting Room

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 03:47:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Common

I had a dream regarding my deceased father that I know was another dimension reality. I never told anyone about the dream until a few years ago and only because a close friend of mine relayed a very similar dream to me.

She dreamt of a mutual friend that had died suddenly coming to her to say good-bye after he died. He came to her in a white room that was like a clinic waiting room.

She described meeting our friend in the same type of room and him being dressed the same as my father in my dream. My friend told me she knew she had the dream visit, because she had needed the closure of a good bye from our friend.

My father died unexpectedly and quickly from a heart attack quite young. This was so odd to me at the time, for he jogged 2-3 miles a day and was quite healthy we thought. I had a love/hate relationship with him. He was abusive to me and my sisters growing up.

I loved him because he was my father, but his sometimes dark nature of interaction caused a strained relationship, even after I moved out and went to college. I was one of the few in his life that ever stood up to him. While I think he admired this strength and courage in me, perhaps it also threatened his need for a feeling of dominating control.

When he died, I was sad, but somewhat neutral with his passing. All of the anger I had for him left me almost immediately upon his death. I could actually feel anger molecules leave my body. I was free to look back on my childhood and remember the good times and was quite neutral about the bad.

I was not particularly thinking about my father the day I had the “God’s White Waiting Room” dream about him that night. It was about ten years after he died.

In the dream, I was brought to a room that was entirely white. I felt I was guided there by something unseen to me. The room looked and felt like a hospital waiting room. The floor was white tile. The walls were all white. There were a few white stark chairs. There were white blinds on the one large window that was on one wall. There was overhead stark white lighting. There was no smell or sound in the room.

In the room, I saw a gray-haired man dressed in a white t-shirt tucked into white pants. He wore white shoes. He was facing the window with his back to me directly across from me when I entered the room.

As I seemed to “float” closer, the man turned around and was facing me. I realized it was my father. He seemed a little thinner than I had remembered him. He looked about ten years older than he was when he died. His face was a little thinner and drawn with a few more wrinkles.

His expression was very pained and remorseful. I was taken aback by this a bit having seen that expression on his face in life when my brother died.

He “said” to me, “I am sorry.” The words were conveyed mind-to-mind, not verbally. I was neutral in my feelings toward him and said nothing back.

There were no other people in the room, but I did sense there may have been “a guide or a spiritual presence” looking in or over the exchange that was unseen by me. This presence had no judgment attached to it. It only had a feeling of compassion and knowing.

When I woke up in my bed, I “knew” I had really “been there.” It felt like my father was in a “clinic” of some kind. It felt like he was dealing with and coming to terms with the pain he had caused others in this last life.

I felt neutral toward him—not sad, not validated, not anything really. I was struck by the simplicity of his statement that actually conveyed so much.

I was also pensive in realizing the peace the dream brought seemed to be for my father’s benefit and growth, not mine necessarily. In that moment, I also realized I had in fact truly forgiven him immediately upon his passing.

I did feel in awe by the dream reality itself somewhat—awed at being shown another dimension. I had compassion for my father, and I hoped my participation had served its purpose for him.

For background, I have many dreams that are precognitive and have experienced seeing or feeling spirits several times in my life. I often see light around people whether in person or on television. I “feel” messages around people at times. I do not hear words, but phrases or pictures will just “pop” into my head.

This all began when I was about eleven when my older brother died in a car accident at age twenty. I had been wondering where my brother had gone exactly not quite understanding death.

He came to me as I was sitting out in our backyard thinking about him a few days after his death. I knew he was in spirit of course, but he looked as solid as a living person. He came simply to tell me he was ok.

This is the first spiritual experience I remember in specific detail, although I have sensed I was aware prior to this of other dimensions. As an adult, I have always meditated - sometimes every day, or once a week, or once a month.

Sometimes I will just “tune in” to someone without much conscience effort. Sometimes I will tell the person, especially if they are friends; but sometimes I do not if my knowing is not of a positive nature.

My husband was a skeptic until he started dating me in 1998. I told him then Texas Governor George W. Bush was going to be a two term President and also gave him investment tips. We still laugh about this!

I see sixth sense as something everyone is born with, and like other natural talents (music, sports, art), some have a more developed skill at birth, and some develop it with training if desired. I believe it does run in families. In my family, it runs on my mother’s side – my great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, aunt, me, my twin sister, and my twin sister’s older daughter.

The funny thing is my brother comes to my niece quite often. She has relayed many details to me about his life and death that could have only come from him to her. Our family talks about him, but the exact details of his death were not shared with her growing up.

I keep a meditation journal, and I am often amazed months or even years later realizing the messages I have been given. Many times I have not understood what the meditation message meant exactly or interpreted them completely wrong when I received them, but then I realize how right they were in the most unusual ways later.

I often feel a sense that time and space really do not exist except for physical incarnation. I have come to understand life really is about lessons, and those lessons are always about love - whether that involves forgiveness, gratefulness, working through karmic lessons, or other subcategories as the backdrop.

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Rigorous Political Debate is in the American DNA

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 20:14:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Common

It is in the American DNA to speak our mind, and today’s political debate is on!

Our founding fathers started it all with the first cries for liberty in the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution to ensuring American citizens’ the right of free speech with the 1st Amendment in the U.S. Constitution – it’s in the DNA of the American culture and the American people to speak our mind politically.

Anticipating the 2012 election year, everyone is talking politics - with cab drivers, bartenders, hair stylists, fellow employees, friends, family, and just about everyone. Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams would be proud.

Today’s political debate is on in America from the Internet to family dining room tables. President Obama and Congress have sparked a passion in the American people on all sides of every issue and within all political parties. The debt ceiling, annual deficit spending, and an accumulated debt in the trillions have brought citizen and politician debate to a fever pitch.

Americans are engaged and debating their political positions with passion fully exercising their 1st Amendment rights. Voters are joining Facebook political pages, following politicians on Twitter, posting political commentary on blogs, writing editorials to traditional newspapers to express their views, and sending politicians emails and letters directly.

We are watching political programs on television or the Internet, and we are reading political themed books to the extent these books are on numerous best-seller lists. Political speakers are a big draw on college campuses. Political blogs and news articles abound on the Internet with a huge following and comment participation.

Over the last two years, Americans have attended political rallies, protests, and town hall meetings in record numbers and are speaking their mind.

Americans question our government and its policies, simply because we can and we care. Voters express their positive and negatives opinions of President Obama and members of Congress without fear of censorship or reprisal.

We debate specific legislation and the way in which our tax dollars are being spent by Congress. As was the debate with the framers of the U.S. Constitution, Americans are discussing what role government can and should have in our lives and businesses by constitutional law.

Many are exploring the benefits of our Christian founding and our capitalist roots. Many declare in the debate our country was not founded on Christian principles at all. Many today know the definitions of capitalism, socialism, Marxism, and communism which they may not have thought about or discussed a year ago.

We are discussing the differences between these political philosophies from an American perspective. We are discussing whether or not America is in fact being fundamentally transformed by this President and Congress with a legislative agenda; and, if so, what this change really means in America and for Americans.

Americans are discussing the difference between a democracy and a republic. This all makes for a passionate and sometimes heated debate no matter which political party and policies one is aligned.

Americans are getting back in touch with the U.S. Constitution. For the first time since high school, many Americans are reading the Constitution again, and many are specifically looking up the 10th Amendment and the Commerce Clause.

In today’s world of 2,000+ page legislative health care bills coming out of Congress, a 48 page Pocket United States Constitution that also includes the Bill of Rights, Amendments 11-27, the Declaration of Independence, and a complete index of the Constitution is a big seller and even being sold on eBay and other sources online in volume packages.

Americans are questioning if various federal legislation that is being considered or has passed is “constitutional”. We are debating our beliefs and positions on the original framers’ intent of the specific rights given to the people, states, and the federal government in the U.S. Constitution in particular.

Political comments and debate are all over the Internet and social media platforms. Voters are engrossed in the political debate, and social media is a perfect platform as evidenced by thousands of political themed pages and groups on Facebook and profiles on Twitter. YouTube has political videos and clips too numerous to count. LinkedIn, the all professional social media site, now has raging political debate in many of its discussion groups.

The rhetoric is usually civil, but sometimes it is not. It is not uncommon for one to have been friended, followed, hidden, defriended, unfollowed, and even blocked on social media by friends and acquaintances for their political views.

Everyone has a right to say whatever they want with a few lawful exceptions, yet there is also an ethical responsibility in free speech and a true logic in effective debate that does not persuade by spouting political spin and myth as fact.

With our 1st Amendment rights comes the common sense responsibility to debate our position on issues and not with demonizing a political party or personal attacks and name calling.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, before he was a GOP presidential candidate, held the first Facebook town hall meeting on March 31, 2010. It was well received, and it proved out to be a great use of social media to provide a real-time, transparent, economical, and interactive way to talk with voters.

President Obama held a town hall meeting on Facebook April 20, 2011, and one on Twitter July 6, 2011. They were both well received with thousands attending.

Americans are tuning in to politically based television programs, especially on cable networks like CNN and Fox, with increasing numbers beginning with the 2008 presidential campaign and election. Whether you like Fox News or hate it, there is no denying FNC program The O’Reilly Factor and the recently departed Glenn Beck program has dominated the cable ratings.

Glenn Beck was the only person in America, other than Oprah Winfrey, whom was able to catapult a book to the top of popular best seller book lists simply by mentioning the book on his program – and, these were political and history themed books.

Whether you drink coffee, tea, kool-aide or just plain water, everyone has an opinion. There are usually very different ones in the same family. In my own family of four sisters, debate is lively as I suspect it is in every American family.

One sister is a die-hard Republican, and one is a died-in-the-wool Democrat. One believes President Obama wants to move America to a European style socialist culture, and one believes social justice policies which redistribute wealth are just fine and fair.

One thinks the new health care legislation is unconstitutional, and one believes everyone should have “free” health care. One was upset over the check she had to write when she filed her taxes in April, since she felt the government already took too much out of her pay all year. And one does not pay federal income tax and thinks a hike in the tax rates of the rich is the only way to pay for needed government programs.

One can not wait for the 2012 election which she feels will surely replace President Obama, and the other thinks that sister is just an Obama hater. Yep, Elizabeth and Rosie are still debating from the view inside of my family.

The only hot button issue we all seem to agree on is same-sex marriage should be legal, and we were happy to see the Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell policy repealed. Of course other family members then debate us all on our equal human rights position and the definition of marriage.

Thousands of Americans do not just express opinions with each other. Many also call their representatives in Washington or write them as part of the American political debate – in fact, many in 2010 and 2011 have done this for the first time in their lives. Every day Americans want and expect a seat at the table of political discussion and debate.

Some say America‘s best days are behind us. I do not believe that. As 2010 and 2011 already reflects, Americans are not complacent about our Constitution, politics, politicians, and government policy. The majorities of Americans love their country and are willing to debate for their vision for it - no matter what side of the political isle they support.

Our founding fathers are looking down on us and smiling. They are pleased we are proud of the political roots they firmly planted and that we are still discussing their work and legacy. Perhaps they would have liked the Internet, and without a doubt, each would have had their own political blog and offered Facebook and Twitter town hall meetings.

They are fist-bumping each other that we, as American citizens, continue to engage in passionate political debate; and that we regularly utilize our 1st Amendment right of free speech to do so without fear or censorship. This is one of the ways we honor our heritage and their legacy. The political debate is definitely on in 2011 and into 2012 - as it should be by the intended design of the American culture’s DNA.

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“What’s that mean?” – Common Social Media & Mobile Acronyms List

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 05:06:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Common

Have you recently read a news article or email at work on social media or mobile technology that included two or more letter acronyms wondering, “What’s that mean?” Have you sat in a meeting at work to discuss a social media or and mobile marketing plan hearing those same acronyms and was too embarrassed to ask, “What’s that mean?”

I am the go-to-girl for family, friends, and many business associates for social media network and blog how-to questions as well as mobile app and general technology questions and ideas. Something I noticed recently is how much I take for granted in talking to people about this.

According to a new study by Forrester Research, “Now more than four in five US online adults use social media at least once a month, and half participate in social networks like Facebook.”

Of course most are not social media experts or strategists. They don’t necessarily use it in their everyday work for example like I do. I often answer questions with common social media and mobile acronyms without thinking about it. More times than not, I am then asked “What’s that mean?”

There are several good social media term glossaries on the Internet, so I decided to provide a quick list of the common “acronyms” spelled out for the ones I come across the most in my social media based work. I think the majority of people know what the common social network and text acronyms mean such as LOL, OMG, IMHO, or the like; so here is my list for the common professional-use acronyms.

Following the social media list is a mobile list I most often see in my work. Did you know Mobile means Mobile Source Emission Model? I didn’t until recently.

Social Media:

AJAX – Asynchronous Java Script and XML

API – Application Program Interface

APP – Application

BP - Brand Page

BP – Business Plan

CB - Click Bank

CGM – Consumer Generated Media

CPA - Cost Per Action

CPC - Cost Per Click

CPI - Cost Per Install

CPM - Cost Per Mile

CR – Conversion Rate

CSR - Corporate Social Responsibility

CSS – Cascading Style Sheets

DN – Domain Name

EFF - Electronic Frontier Foundation

EM – Email Marketing

EZINE – Electronic Magazine

FAVICON – Favorite Icon

FB – Facebook Social Network

FFA – Free For All Links

FP - Fan Page

FTP – File Transfer Protocol

GPL - General Public License

HTML - Hypertext Markup Language

IM – Instant Message or Messaging

IM – Internet Marketing

IMAP - Internet Message Access Protocol

IP - Internet Protocol Address

JAV or JVS – Java Script

LI – LinkedIn All Professional Social Network

MRR – Master Resale Rights

MS – MySpace Social Network

NAV – Navigation

NGO – Nongovernmental Organization

OID – Open ID

OM – Open Media

OP – Open Platform

OS – Open Source

PLR – Private Label Rights

PM – Private Message

POST – People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology

PPC – Pay Per Click

PPL – Pay Per Lead

PPP – Pay Per Post

PR – Page Rank

PRT – Please Retweet

PSM – Paid Search Marketing

RBOX – Resource Box or Bio Box Area

RL – Reciprocal Link

ROR – Ruby on Rails Programming Language

RR – Resell Rights

RSS – Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary

RT - Retweet

SEM – Search Engine Marketing

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

SES – Search Engine Strategy

SG – Social Graph

SIG – Signature, Place to put your name, URL, etc.

SM – Social Media

SMC – Social Media Campaign

SMM – Social Media Marketing

SMO – Social Media Optimization

SMPR – Social Media Press Release

SMS – Short Message Service

SN – Social Network

SROI - Social Return on Investment

TBL – Triple Bottom Line

TC – Tracking Code for Payment

TOS – Terms of Service

UGC – User Generated Content

URL – Unique Resource Locator

UV – Unique Site Visitors

VM – Viral Marketing

VPS – Virtual Private Server

VW – Virtual World

WD – Web Directory

WHOIS – Displays domain owner and host location detail.

WYSIWYG – What You See Is What You Get generally referring to screen to print.

XML – Extended Markup Language

As more and more people are writing and reading blogs, I am also often asked what do terms coming out of the blogosphere mean. Here is a simple explanation for the growing blog type descriptions.

FLOG – Fake blogs.

MICROBLOG – Very short blog posts like those from Twitter and Tumblr.

MOBLOG – Blog posted directly from mobile devices like cell phones.

SPLOG – Spam blogs.

VLOG – Video blogs.

Mobile Acronyms:

802.11 – IEEE Networking Standards for WiFi Equipment

1G – First Generation

2G – Second Generation

2.5G – Second and a Half Generation

3G – Third Generation (And so on with future 4G, 5G, etc.)

3GPP – Third Generation Partnership Project

3GPP2 – Third Generation Partnership Project Two

AAA – Authentication, Authorization, Accounting

AUC – Authentication Channel

BC – Billing Channel

BCH – Broadcasting Channel

BER – Bit Error Rate

BPS - Bits Per Second

BS – Base Station

BSC – Base Station Controller

BTS – Base Transceiver Station

CBR – Constant Bit Rate

CDMA - Code Division Multiple Access

CDR – Call Data Record

CN – Core Network

DCC – Digital Color Code

DTA – Data Transfer Adapter

DTC – Digital Traffic Channel

EDGE - Enhanced Data

GSM Environment

EDI – Electronic Data Interchange

EIR – Equipment Identity Register

ETP - Email Transfer Protocol

EVDO - EVolution-Data Optimized

FM – Frequency Modulation

FSK – Frequency Shift Keying

FTMD – Full Track Music Download

GPRS - General Packet Radio Service

GPS – Global Position System

GSM - Global System for Mobile communication

HLR – Home Location Register

iDEN - Integrated Dispatch Enhanced Network.

IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

IMEI - International Mobile Equipment GSM Identity Code

IMSI – International Mobile Subscriber

LBS – Location Based Services

MC – Message Center

MCS – Mobile Cellular System

MDS - Mobile Data Service

ME – Mobile Equipment

MIN – Mobile Identification Number

MMS - Multi-Media Messaging

PCN – Personal Communication Network

PCS – Personal Communication Services

PDA – Personal Digital Assistant

PIM - Personal Information Management

PPP - Point-to-Point Protocol,

POP/POP3 - Post Office Protocol or Post Office Plus 3

PTT – Push to Talk or Press to Transmit

QOS – Quality of Service

QR Code - Quick Reference, Bar code to bring user to website or more information.

SIM – Smart Card or Subscriber Identity Module

SIS – Subscriber Identity Security

SMS - Short Message Service

Smishing – SM Phishing

SMTP - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol

SMS – Short Message Service

SMSC – Short Message Service Center

TACS – Total Access Communication System

TIA – Telecommunication Industry Association

UE – User Equipment

UMTS – Universal Mobile Telecommunication System

UPR – User Performance Requirements

USB – Universal Serial Bus

VLR – Visitor Location Register

VMS – Voice Mail System

WAP - Wireless Application Protocol

WEP - Wired Equivalent Privacy.

WLAN - Wireless Local Area Network

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Life in the Tech Lane with a Moving Disruption

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:54:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Common

It is Monday morning, and I do not know what to do with myself. I have lots to do, but I am unable to work. My network is down. It is not my desktop computer. It is the network. At least I have power.

Even with the big storm that woke me up this morning, – high Chicago winds and crashing rain – I still have power and satellite TV, so it is definitely my network’s Internet provider. The network light is flashing even after I reset it.

I call Comcast. A recording states they are aware of service interruptions due to severe weather. They are working to restore service. Local news is reporting large areas with power outage and cable and Internet disruption due to the storm.

It could be worse. At least I am not sitting here without air conditioning in July. I can brew a much needed cup of coffee. I am going to think positive. A moving disruption is part of life in the tech lane.

I will try to work anyway. I make a few business phone calls. No one is in, or their cell phones are off, or they are letting it go to voice mail. I do not think it is me – that they do not want to talk to me - but who knows? They usually respond immediately to text or email, so no, it is probably not me. I wonder, “Why am I thinking like this?”

Sitting alone with no Internet resource and ability to communicate online leaves me time to just think, and I am kind of bored. Time is moving very slow. I call a few friends and my favorite sister just to say “Hi” for a minute or two. All of these calls go to voice mail. I do not leave any.

Even my unemployed friend did not answer her phone. Oh wait, she just sent me a text, “Impossible to talk right now with my son around. Everything ok?”

I could call my mom. She loves it when I call her out of the blue. I have not talked to her in a week or two. No, she is probably having coffee and danish with her friends. She is a social butterfly and always out somewhere. She loves bakery goods. I really need to get to work.

Another friend texts me, “Saw you called. Are you ok? Need something?” I do not call either friend back. I was just calling to say “Hi” anyway. I check the network. It is still down. I go back to just thinking.

It is strange now days that everyone has a phone, one they even carry around with them everywhere, and yet, lots of people do not really call to just say “Hi” anymore. People use their phones to do everything except literally speak on it to people it seems. Most people seem afraid to miss a call though. People are always busy.

Time is moving slower without my Internet capability. Random thoughts are moving faster without it.

The world is kind of funny now. Online friends, some whom you have never met in person or may not actually have their phone number, comment on your every day life posts on Facebook. They text you, tweet you, email you, and iChat you just to say “Hi” or ask “What’s up?” These conversations are usually without any real purpose – kind of like a real phone call just to say “Hi.” I guess they do video chat.

My third friend texts me in response to my earlier call, “You called. Are you ok?” Back to just thinking.

It is odd that people will leave a comment on your wall on Facebook expressing they miss you or love you, but they do not seem to call you to express this as much. They let your calls go to voice mail, because they have busy lives.

My sister returns my call. She greets me, “Is everything all right?” I explain I just called to say “Hi.” I explain my network problems. I tell her I am kind of bored waiting for it to come back up, and I need to get to work. I need email and the Internet to do what I have to do. She asked me if there was a storm in Chicago.

I ask her if anybody just calls to say “Hi” anymore. She answers she knows what I mean. She tells me when she texts her friends, they respond immediately. She says if she calls, they never pick up but will text immediately asking if everything is ok.

She notes if she leaves a voice message, it takes them 2-3 days to return the call. They always start the conversation with how busy they are. She says she does not get it, but she accepts it.

Then we start talking about her latest tribulation with her blended family. I tell her the real problem is she is not setting expectations, and then when her unknown expectations are not met, she is frustrated.

This is not really what she wants to hear from the sister with no kids. She tells me, “You are yelling at me, and you do not understand.” She hangs up on me.

I check the Internet. It is still not up. I grab a notepad and pen and start writing down my thoughts. My friend texts me, “Need something? Can’t talk. Super busy.” I smile to myself.

This is the friend that immediately starts an iChat with me every time, and I do mean every time, I get on Facebook no matter the day or time. It drives me nuts. I have a few friends like this. It makes me go on Facebook with iChat off-line most of the time.

Facebook is not just for fun for me. Facebook is a part of the social media element to my work. I wonder, “Would these iChat addicted people pick up the phone to have a real conversation if I actually called them?”

That makes me think of the most outrageous examples of this paradigm I have experienced.

I remember when my mom went into the hospital unexpectedly with pneumonia. I am the only daughter of the four that lives in the same state as my mom, so I called my sisters with updates. After the second update call, one of my sisters told me she really did not have time to take phone calls. She asked me to text or email her mom’s updates.

One of my close friends used to text me at night a few days a week. She would carry on a full conversation for over an hour via text. I would call her, and she let it go to voice mail. I finally began texting her back “Call me.” She would usually text back, “Don’t have time to talk.”

She rarely actually called. She seems to always return my calls with a text. We do not see each other that much anymore. At the time, I remember chuckling to myself about the irony of having a conversation strictly by text on an instrument meant to speak with others.

Time is a strange thing too. Or at least the perception of it can be odd. One of my sisters drives all of us crazy, because she will not return a phone call. When you do finally talk to her, she always explains she does not have 20 minutes to talk on the phone with anyone.

This is usually being explained during an hour lunch in which she is texting the whole time. She does not think this is rude, and she does not care if you do. After all, her time to just talk is limited. Her life is very busy, and she has told you she does not like spending her time talking.

One of my business calls returned my voice mail with a text, “Email you. Skype later?”

Even on a business level I see this. I will set up an interview via email. More than a few times, the person will suggest we set up a conversation via the Internet as opposed to the phone. I like to talk to people I am interviewing at least once in person even if that is over the phone. I love technology, but maybe I am just old-fashioned in this particular instance. I wonder, “Am I old-fashioned or getting old?”

Internet service is still down. Maybe I should call my mom. You know, she is funny. She does not see the need for a computer. I got her one as a gift several years ago. After trying to show her how to use it a few times, and even writing down step-by-step directions for email and taping it to the computer, she never got the hang of it.

She never understood why everyone wants to talk on the computer. She ended up giving the computer to a neighbor’s son a couple of months later. I was not happy. But then I realized she did not know the cost of a new computer, and it did not have any real value to her. It is what it is.

I check the network. It is still down. I am annoyed now. I go to my computer and start writing this article with Word, since I do not need a connection to do this. I write from my hand written notes. It was then I realize I never write out articles longhand before I compose them. I wonder, “Does anybody do that anymore?”

A business call returned my voice mail with a text, “In meeting. Emailed research link.” My last friend text me, “Saw you called. Text if you need something.”

Winslow, my white German shepherd, bounds in my office and barks at to me to let her out. She likes to speak, howl, yodel, and moo. She would pick up the phone if I called her just to say “Hi.” She has no opposable thumbs. She is a verbal talker dog. She genuinely loves me.

I have had four cups of coffee. I need to start drinking water. I should eat something.

I go back to thinking and writing. Maybe my mom is the one whom has it right, at least on a personal level, after all. It is nice to have a real conversation and to hear real laughter instead of reading LOL.

It is fun to flip through an old photo album and actually see the aging of the photographs. I do like curling up on the couch on a snowy Chicago night to read a book instead of looking at a screen to read it. I do like the feel of the physical book and turning real pages. I like the smell of a real book too, especially old ones.

But then again, I’m half Italian with three sisters. I must say, fighting via email is the only way we all ever get to make our points without being interrupted. We certainly have fewer yelling matches and less hanging up on each other.

Note to self: Text my sister later and apologize. She was right. I do not have kids, so I may not understand. I was not yelling at her though. Pointing this out defeats my purpose and is not a good idea. I am right fighting. Let this one go.

I check again. It is still not up. I call Comcast again. I receive a constant busy signal. This is not a good sign.

I am officially irritated. It has been four hours. It feels like it has been ten hours. I remind myself life is attitude, and attitude is a personal choice no matter the circumstances.

Maybe it is time for a Plan B. Should I transfer the files I need onto my laptop and go over to Starbucks? I wonder if they have power and Internet service. I should call them.

I have a deadline today on submitting one of my series articles. It was completed last week. I should have sent it then instead of waiting until the deadline date. I wonder, “Why didn’t I?” Note to self: Send articles when completed no matter the deadline date in the future.

Local news is now reporting there are over a half a million people being affected by the power outage. Another business call returned via text, “Power down. Need 2 talk 2 u.” It occurs to me the two nearest Starbucks probably do not have power or Internet. Plan B is probably a bust.

My phone is ringing. It is my mom. She is surprised when I pick up the call. I ask her “Is everything ok?” She answers, “I just called to say hi.”

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Hiring Bias Creates “Unemployed Professional to Poverty” Class

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 05:23:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Common

"CEO to Food Stamps” is happening now in America.

Most professionals, and almost all executives, have learned to man or woman up in hard times. They wear a mask that displays confidence and projects success to the world, because they know there’s no whining in business.

The Great Recession has made executives a little more willing to be honest, but only if they are projecting a positive and confident “turn-around” future outlook no matter how dire the future may be in reality. Failure is not an option. Failure is seen as personal and still remains shameful even if out of one’s control.

It takes guts for a professional to take the mask off. It takes strength for anyone to be vulnerable by opening themselves up publicly for judgment by the world.

Former construction company CEO Mollee Harper is courageous. She has character. Mollee is willing to be painfully raw and powerfully real for what she sees as a larger good. She is speaking out.

The Great Recession has turned her life upside down and inside out with no mercy. She went from being a custom construction company CEO to being on food stamps. She still exudes personal confidence, but she is taking the mask off when she reveals she is uncertain what her life will look like in a year. She wants it to include a job she can be an asset in again. She wants to get her life back on track.

Why should you care? This is just another failing economy hard luck story, right? We can’t fix what we don’t acknowledge is broken. When America has a growing class of highly qualified, well educated, and starving for work former professionals who have now been unemployed 12-24 months, there is a major problem.

The combination of a jobless economic recovery and a growing dismissive attitude toward the unemployed professional by the employed business class is creating an “unemployed professional to poverty” class. This could never happen to you, right? Mollee Harper didn’t think so.

Mollee has always been successful and considered her work her primary focus in life. She certainly could never have imagined not being able to afford food. She has been looking for employment since the construction company folded over two years ago. She went through all her savings in eighteen months and applied for government food assistance with no other options.

How could this happen?

The recession is moving into its third year, and the recovery has been the worst since the Great Depression. The official unemployment rate has remained at or above 9% for a record setting 21 months and rose again to over 9% in June 2011. The official rate only counts those that are collecting unemployment benefits.

On December 8, 2010, the Labor Department released its 2009 work report. In 2009, there was an increase of 2.7M long-term unemployed Americans looking for jobs in 2009 over the 2008 total. There were 5.8M job seeking Americans that had no work at all in 2009.

In 2008 and 2009, there was a net loss of approximately 8 million jobs. In 2010, it was first estimated 1.1 million jobs were created. The Labor Department’s January 2011 report revised this figure down to report 950,000 jobs were actually created in 2010. So far in 2011, the monthly net job growth has not kept up with population growth.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics November 2010 Employment Situation report detailed at 43%, almost half of the long-term unemployed were 45-years and older.

The Economic Institute’s Issue Brief #270 reported at the end of 2009, there was an unemployment rate of 9.7% for American adults. The unemployment rate for African Americans was 15.5%, and it was 12.4% for Hispanics. It was 23.9% for African Americans in Michigan.

A more recent report titled “Another look at poverty in the Great Recession” from the Economic Institute notes, “The U.S. Census Bureau released alternative estimates of poverty yesterday that give yet another reminder of the disastrous effect the recession has had on workers and families.” This report is honest in highlighting the official means of poverty measurement fails in accuracy by not including all relevant factors.

The federal government has had to admit unemployment length has not gotten better in 2010 and 2011. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ regular reporting in the format “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey” provided a “Changes to data collected on unemployment duration” explanation beginning in January 2011. This explanation included the following:

“Effective with data for January 2011, the Current Population Survey (CPS) was modified to allow respondents to report longer durations of unemployment. Prior to that time, the CPS accepted unemployment durations of up to 2 years; any response of unemployment duration greater than this was entered as 2 years. Starting with data for January 2011, respondents were able to report unemployment durations of up to 5 years. This change affected estimates of average (mean) duration of unemployment. The change did not affect the estimate of the number of unemployed persons and did not affect other data series on the duration of unemployment.”

“There was an unprecedented rise in the number of persons with very long durations of unemployment during the recent labor market downturn. Nearly 11 percent of unemployed persons had been looking for work for about 2 years or more in the fourth quarter of 2010. Because of this increase, BLS and the Census Bureau updated the CPS instrument to accept reported unemployment durations of up to 5 years.”

The wear and tear on Americans, including unemployed professionals and executives, is showing with extreme increases, if not records are being set, in the number of foreclosures, short sales, settlements, charged off credit card accounts, and bankruptcies in 2008-2011. One in eight Americans is now on food stamps. One in seven is now living in poverty. This includes formerly employed professionals and executives.

Many still sitting in the corner offices and Human Resources departments are deliberately closing the opportunity door for professionals caught in the middle of the Great Recession. Many job seekers talk of facing ageism and racism at even higher rates than normal. This is almost impossible to actually document and prove.

News articles uncovering hiring bias against the unemployed began appearing in 2009 and continues today. A recent Atlanta Post headline says it all – “Unemployed Need Not Apply Here.”

Giving employers the benefit of the doubt on not practicing ageism and racism in hiring, there are four major employment trends that do indeed lock out unemployed professionals. Two of the trends are fairly new, and two have always been in the business mind set.

The new trends are openly justified on network and cable news, in newspapers, and the Internet. Does all this pontificating make these trends more socially palatable? Do large numbers of people competing for one open position make these trends more socially acceptable? Is there a self-fulfilling prophecy being ingrained in business hiring practice trends now?

New trend 1 is the prevailing thought by employers that if one is unemployed, they were not productive or valuable enough to their former employer. This manifests in the practice of companies not looking at anyone that is unemployed to fill open positions.

There are numerous antidote stories of employment ads stating the unemployed need not apply and professional recruiters being told to only screen those that are employed for interviews. If someone is unemployed because the company they work for folded, or they were let go in a 2nd or 3rd round lay off, is it accurate to label them less productive or less valuable than those lucky enough to not have faced this?

New trend 2 is the lament that if someone has been unemployed for over 6 months, they have lost their skill sets and their connection to a work environment. Does it make sense someone can lose a skill set it took 10, 15, 20 years of experience to acquire in six months? If one has technical skill sets in general, is it reasonable to presume they have no further learning abilities? Is someone looking for employment every day for six months or longer disconnected from a strong work ethic?

Existing trend 3 is that an applicant having held a higher level position than the open position is overqualified, and they don’t really want the job. Is it realistic in today’s economy that if hired the applicant will keep looking and leave as soon as something else comes along? Is it foolish to only want a less experienced applicant, because they are a better bargain? What is the net cost with training and skill set development figured in?

It is important to realize life is never just a continuous straight line up for most people including those that have been at an executive level. Life most often takes a path that twists and turns, and it sometimes warrants a step or two backwards to move one forward.

Existing trend 4 is an employer tying an applicant’s presumed responsibility level and potential job performance to a credit report or a FICO score.

What is a FICO score? Why is it important to anyone?

There are three major national credit bureaus which calculate a credit score using their own scoring model and score name. Fair Isaac & Company developed the best known which is why the general referred name for a credit score is FICO. It’s similar to most cola drinks being referred to as a Coke.

Experian uses FICO. The Trans Union score is called EMPIRICA, and the Equifax score is called BEACON. Primarily the logarithms or formulas used to produce a credit score, or FICO, take into account credit history, payment history, credit card balances, credit availability, and number of credit inquiries.

A FICO traditionally represents a credit applicant’s risk level in being granted a mortgage, car loan, other loans, and credit cards. This risk score determines being declined or approved and what interest rate is offered. Scores range from 300 to 950 with higher scores being the better credit risk.

Your credit worthiness information is also often used to determine your worthiness to rent an apartment, to purchase insurance (life, health, car, homeowners), and to be offered employment or not.

There is no evidence justifying this risk connection. In fact, even the credit bureaus that market employers with this connectivity myth have zero statistical evidence to document employees with bad credit are any more likely to steal or commit fraud than workers with perfect credit.

Figures for 2010 reflect there are 70M Americans or 35.5% of consumers with poor credit reports and FICO scores below 650 as a direct result of the economic meltdown since 2008.

The new faces of low FICO do not have years of poor credit history. These new faces belong to the mid and upper income former professionals. These are people that are in fact responsible and have always managed money well. They had perfect credit their entire lives before the recession put them into prolonged unemployment.

Mollee Harper is one of these new faces. Her life has been on that twist and turn path since 2008. She lost her stability when she lost her executive position in an industry that was hit hard with company failures in the beginning of the recession. She did not lose her job through any fault of her own.

She worked her career into a CEO position by being productive and a valuable asset. She has a track record of proven successful experience. She has always felt good working hard. She has always displayed a strong work ethic and winning attitude. She still does. She hasn’t lost this simply because she is unemployed.

Mollee understands what it is like to have employed friends avoid her. She knows what it is like to go to bed worried about paying bills – what it is like to be afraid she will be evicted – what it is like to try to negotiate a hardship payment with utility companies – what it is like to deal with bill collectors and to be sued by a credit card company. She knows hunger.

She has had to sell everything. She has had to determine what the really important things in life are to her. She has had to apply for government assistance as a last resort and try to keep her head up. She knows what it is like to only have faith left.

Mollee has had to let go of pride, but her dignity remains in tact. She is proactively seeking employment every day and has energetically accepted lower paying contract work. She has maintained her positive attitude and self confidence. She doesn’t see herself as a victim.

Review Mollee Harper’s LinkedIn professional profile, and one will notice consistency in glowing recommendations that highlight her “wonderful personality, high energy and can-do attitude”; her abilities to “facilitate meetings and mediate issues between business and technical audiences”; her “exceptional set of interpersonal skills”; her “understanding the needs of each of her clients”; and her “professionalism and attention to detail in everything she does”.

Do you believe she is unemployable, because she is unemployed, or because she has been out of work for more than 6 months? Do you believe she would only accept a CEO position? Do you believe she should be barred from the professional work environment, because she no longer has a good credit report?

Sometimes America can be strange. Should alcoholic or drug addicted or cheating athletes, movie stars, and politicians be the only ones given second chances to pick themselves up and move forward in their lives after a big fall?

Like many long term unemployed professionals, Mollee possess the new skill sets of doing more with less and making something out of nothing. These are abilities one would think any company would recognize as very valuable in this economy in their professional staff.

How many times do you see “remains calm under pressure” and “innovative and creative” on a resume? Mollee’s life resume now proves out these qualities and more in a most profound way - in her every day life struggle to survive right now.

A credit report or FICO score does not accurately reflect “who Mollee is” financially. It only accurately reflects “what happened to Mollee” in the Great Recession. Hopefully in 2011 employers will keep this reality in mind when accepting applications and interviewing candidates for a position with their company.

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Unemployed 2+ Years - Do Politicians Really Care?

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 19:57:00 +0000

Both Photos Credit - Flickr Common

Napa, California resident Bill Bianco’s morning routine is probably fairly similar to many Americans. Upon waking every morning, Bill jumps in the shower and takes his vitamins. He then researches and applies for “each and every possible job.”

Bill applies on job sites like Monster.com, TheLadders.com, and Yahoo.com. He researches local publications online and in print for job openings. He makes phone calls and emails his resume. He utilizes his VP/General Manager level core competencies daily in his job search - communication, management, organization, and marketing.

What Bill does next is probably not a part of the average American’s daily routine. From December 2, 2008 to today, Bill’s morning work also includes faxing a letter to California’s two U.S. Senators Feinstein and Boxer and now former House Speaker Pelosi.

Bianco’s letter addresses the Washington mindset in bailing out Wall Street and bankers to keep them solvent while ignoring the recession’s negative impact on small businesses. He explains the plight of small business owners trying desperately to keep from closing their companies that have prospered for decades prior to 2008.

Bill details exactly what happened to the company he help build for the last ten years. He notes that while companies considered “too big to fail” were saved with taxpayer’s money, small companies that paid these taxes were “wiped off the map”. He implores Washington to consider that their economic policies are not helping small companies that are failing though no fault of their own but simply because of the economy.

Bianco explicates how government policy and banks affected small business when business credit availability was pulled and disappeared at the beginning of the economic downturn in 2008 right after banks were bailed out. He recounts the death spiral of his company and the American horse breeding and sports industry.

He notes the millions and billions given in the stimulus package did not go to small business loans that could have bridged small companies through the recession crisis. This could have saved American small business closings and the unemployment rate rising. He specifically asks what options are available for failing small businesses and for constructive input from Feinstein, Boxer, and Pelosi for private sector companies.

Bill also describes the effect on business owners and company management whom are now unemployed due to the huge amount of small business closings in the last two years. Most of these former owners and managers are over 45. They now face financial devastation along with age discrimination in seeking to rebuild their lives starting with new employment. Bianco uses his personal situation as a detailed example.

Senator Feinstein did respond on May 28, 2009, approximately six months after Bill began his daily fax of his letter. Feinstein’s response appeared to be a form letter sent to those requesting information on government grants referencing a book on grants that came separately approximately three months later by mail on September 3, 2009.

Senator Boxer and Former Speaker Pelosi have not responded. Even though it has been over two years of daily faxing his letter to them with no response, Bianco continues to try to engage them in what he sees as the realities of the non-political and unconnected class of small business and people. He remains positive and optimistic, yet he is also realistic against what he knows are David and Goliath odds.

Who is William Bianco III? He is a man with a proven record of management success with core competencies in public relations, marketing, customer service, financial management, strategic planning, and process development. He has fourteen years experience in managing business and personnel from retail to professional sports. He excels at business development from conception to implementation. Bill holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics.

In the words of CPA Carter E. Wicks, one of Bill’s many professional references: “I had the pleasure of working with William A. Bianco III (Bill) for several years at Sunset Stables. In a matter of a few years, he managed to transform Sunset Stables from a very small operation to a viable Thoroughbred Horse Racing and Breeding concern. It was impressive to see him take his previous business experience and apply it to an industry new to him. I feel that his passion for both horses and the sport drove him to success. His thorough research led Sunset to make many wise and profitable decisions regarding its’ breeding strategy.”

Wicks further notes, “Unfortunately, the economic downturn in 2008 hit the Thoroughbred Racing and Breeding Industries very hard. This combined with other factors beyond Bill’s control forced Sunset to drastically downsize. The downturn of Sunset’s fortunes was in no way reflective of the hard work and passion that Bill gave to the Stable.”

At 49, Bill has been looking for new employment for almost two years. He never dreamed he would be in this situation. His friends and family can not believe he is in this position either, and he finds those that are not facing unemployment over 45 do not understand it. Many now avoid him, because they find his situation awkward for them.

Bianco is willing to relocate and has researched and applied for every employment option available. Like many professionals out of work over 45, he has only received one interview. It was with Yellow Cab. Even with a perfect driving record, they did not call him back, for they only wanted to hire experienced drivers.

It’s very tough to find a job today. Bill is again realistic, and he is not sure which is worse in his situation - employers not wanting to interview the unemployed or candidates over 40 for open positions. Recruiters have told him, off the record of course, they know of very few companies that will interview, let alone hire, someone unemployed at his age. Bill believes he just hasn’t knocked on the right door yet.

At 43%, almost half of the long-term unemployed are 45-years and older. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the U.S. workforce’s demographics are changing with more than 50% of the workforce turning 40 years and older in 2000. It is illegal, yet it is common knowledge one of the chief reasons older workers are not hired is they are perceived as increasing health care costs to a company. Age discrimination is very hard to prove in reality.

The EEOC’s government facts include “The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age. The ADEA’s protections apply to both employees and job applicants. Under the ADEA, it is unlawful to discriminate against a person because of his/her age with respect to any term, condition, or privilege of employment, including hiring, firing, promotion, layoff, compensation, benefits, job assignments, and training.”

“The ADEA applies to employers with 20 or more employees, including state and local governments. It also applies to employment agencies and labor organizations, as well as to the federal government.”

Adding to Bill Bianco's employment search obstacles, and millions of Americans like him, is the hiring bias well described in a May 23, 2011 Time.com case study article titled “Jobless Discrimination? When Firms Won’t Even Consider Hiring Anyone Unemployed.” The article contains:

“When Sony Ericsson needed new workers after it relocated its U.S. headquarters to Atlanta last year, its recruiters told one particular group of applicants not to bother. "No unemployed candidates will be considered at all," one online job listing said.”

“The cell-phone giant later said the listing, which produced a media uproar, had been a mistake. But other companies continue to refuse to even consider the unemployed for jobs — a harsh catch-22 at a time when long-term joblessness is at its highest level in decades.”

“Refusing to hire people on the basis of race, religion, age or disability — among other categories — is illegal. But companies that turn away jobless people as a group are generally not breaking the law — at least for now.”

In the meantime, Bill Bianco provides consulting services to his last employer and the sports industry without pay to remain connected to the work environment. He has volunteered for Toys for Tots, Goodwill, and The Salvation Army.

Bill and his son also collect recycling items and give them to people waiting in line at the Napa recycling center. He wants to continue the charitable giving he and his family have done for years. For now, this is a way he can be charitable to others costing him only his time to collect items to give them.

Bianco has downsized. He has sold what personal belongings he could. He has almost gone through his savings. He has not applied for any government assistance programs. This is not out of ego or pride. Bill “believes government handouts are not the solution and not a way of life he will accept.”

Even under financial pressure, Bill wants to set a good example for his nineteen year old son whom is attending college part time and also looking for employment. He wants to be “a strong role model for his son on weathering life’s ups and downs with personal responsibility.” He believes “self reliance is one of the strengths of America’s prosperity ultimately.”

Bill explains the daily letter fax, “As a citizen I send the letter, because I want the voice of small business to be heard on a real world and real life level by our politicians. They don’t have to live it personally, but they make the policies which can either help or hurt the environment in which the private sector can create jobs.”

Bianco ends our interview on an upbeat note, “My last position was as a Vice President and General Manager, but that was just a title. Managing and keeping things neat, organized, and running smoothly is what I did. A job that requires strong management, organizational, and research skills would be ideal. Of course, at this point, I would take any job offered to me.”

Should you sincerely like to talk to William Bianco III about an open position you have or are a recruiter willing to work with him, he can be contacted directly at wbiancoiii@hotmail.com. It’s not on his resume, but many would agree, Bill is persistent in a good way and has integrity.

On a wider scale, as a nation, let’s end employment myths and discrimination on the basis of age and someone being unemployed. Let’s all live up to a “This Could be My Mom or Dad 2011 Employment Challenge” of each employer hiring at least two people who are unemployed and make at least one of them over 45.

This challenge can make a big difference in ensuring those most affected by the recession do not get discounted and discarded in our society. It truly is time to remember, you will be over 45 and/or unemployed at some point in your life. When you are, how would you like to be treated?

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Here's Why Facebook Is Worth $70B

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 18:07:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Common

It’s standard now days to see an icon on a company’s website that allows readers to connect with the company on their Facebook page with one click.

Have you noticed a recent change at the end of television commercials? In many ads, the consumer is now directed to the company or product’s Facebook page instead of to their website.

Did you know 1 in 9 people in the world, yes the entire world, are now on Facebook?

On June 29, 2011, USA Today reported, “Facebook has an estimated 750 million members worldwide.”

On May 11, 2011 About.com offers, “The latest official current world population estimate, for mid-year 2010, is estimated at 6,852,472,823.” National Geographic estimates there will be a world population of 7 Billion at the end of 2011.

According to CNET on June 20, 2011, “Facebook is on the verge of becoming the largest display advertiser in the United States, displacing Yahoo.”

Facebook may be the Microsoft of the 2010s. It has changed the way the world communicates and interacts. With this kind of exposure, social media in general, and Facebook in particular, are changing business standards especially in the advertising and public relations sectors.

While some in the PR area have not been early adopters, PR expert Rebecca Crowley, CEO of innovative RTC Publicity, is rapidly moving clients to what she calls “PR 2.0.” With a decade of experience in Public Relations, Rebecca has had an eclectic client base allowing her to pull from many different areas of her vast history in the industry.

Rebecca believes passion for the story and “the business” keeps her ideas fresh. Often, Rebecca is called upon to manage traditional marketing and social marketing campaigns. She knows why Facebook is worth $70B. Rebecca explains the difference between “traditional PR” and “new PR” in the evolving public relations sector, “A year or so ago the term “traditional PR” did not exist. It was created to define the difference between what most of the business world is familiar with and digital marketing which became strong in 2010 with initial momentum in 2009.”

She notes, “Traditional PR is ‘media relations’ with outlets that have been around for years such as print (dailies, weeklies, monthlies), and broadcast TV and radio. It involves a publicist using their contacts in order to properly pitch a story idea to journalists/editors/reporters/producers. It focuses on conveying a ‘key message(s)’ of a company, product or individual. It is said that the term PR or Public Relations Representative as we know it today was created by Edward L. Bernays in the 1920’s. Other forms of a traditional publicist are those that produce events, trade shows and handle crisis management.”

Rebecca continues, “The ‘New PR’, or as she calls it ‘PR 2.0.’ involves pitching blogs and creating social media campaigns involving such sites as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Flckr, YouTube, and others. The idea is to join a conversation versus to only deliver a key message.”

She advises, “When complimenting a traditional PR campaign with a social marketing campaign, often times traditional media outlets get their news from these conversations had online. In the reverse, many of the things that bloggers are writing about stem from things read or seen on TV. Many of the articles that are shortened and posted online come from traditional media sources. PR 2.0 has created the need for today’s publicists to be savvy in both areas - messaging and conversations.”

Rebecca understands why some in the PR industry have been slow to move to this new PR. “I think a big part of this is fear of new technology and new social media outlets. It is a lot to keep up with. Facebook and the likes are constantly changing interfaces. If a publicist is not engaging in these activities or reading the latest happenings, it is easy to quickly get lost in the technology. It also requires a lot of time investment.”

She believes “Today’s publicist should be engaging in conversations online not only for their own companies but their own clients. For so long it was believed that if you called a media player enough they’d take the time to hear your pitch.”

Rebecca offers, “ A lot of ‘old school’ publicists still believe in blasting the media and seeing what sticks. It’s now time to engage them not spam them. By hanging out online and reading whatever you can, a publicist, or any individual, now can know inherently what the editors and producers want to hear. A lot of power has been given to the individual outside of PR messaging only. Publicist must respect that and capitalize on the power of the immediacy of social marketing.”

Rebecca does see her PR colleagues catching up and moving more quickly to new PR in 2011. She notes, “The 2009 ‘social marketing expert’ could be anyone who knew the technology. Now it is apparent that having traditional PR experience while understanding the technology is an important advantage. It is a very exciting time to be a publicist. If you are ‘with it’, you’ll be in the PR game for quite some time. It makes me said when I hear or see one of my colleagues doing things the ‘old’ way. I call them pitching machines. There’s no strategy or new knowledge to it.”

Ms. Crowley recommends these basics to clients beginning a new PR strategy: “Know the audience and know that people now expect information instantaneously. They must also respect that traditional PR is not dead, just enhanced. While focusing on social marketing, it is still necessary to go after more traditional media outlets. This takes more time, but the two together are a powerful combination. Above all, anyone who is looking for a good publicist should do their homework and not hang onto only dreams of getting the ‘biggie’ traditional outlets. A blog with the right demographic can be just as powerful of a hit.”

Her advice to the PR industry in general for 2011 is simple, “Stay tuned. Web 2.0. is not going anywhere, and Web 3.0. is being conceived. If a publicist or company feels behind in the times, it is time to brush up.”

Rebecca summarizes, “There is plenty of good literature out there both in print and online. Joining social marketing sites often also has feeds for news on the latest developments in technology and trends in social media. If a publicist or company does not catch up now, early in 2011, the year will rapidly leave them behind as new developments take place. There is more competition than ever out there now that the consumer has been given great power.”

It’s hard to believe the PR industry would not understand and embrace the strategy of social media universe and buzz creation. This has been the holy grail in business social media marketing emerging with growing strength since Obama’s presidential campaign in 20078

Bloggers and social media platforms can be the medium for a business’ planned “grassroots” marketing campaign as well as a spontaneous, unplanned, unexpected, and genuine grassroots buzz around a company or product. Facebook is certainly a the leader in this aspect.

Micah Warren of Large Media, Inc. specializes in designing and implementing unique social media marketing strategies. He touts the power of bloggers in the new PR reality, “The PR aspect I like about bloggers is how their content can spread across the internet like wildfire. One hit on an important blog, and you could have an extra 20, 50 or 100 more hits when it gets picked up by other websites and blogs. In PR, that is gold. And if all these sites are including the link to your website, then that is built-in SEO. Those inbound links are great for increasing your rank amongst search engines.”

He continues, “It’s an absolute must companies monitor blogs and forums to see what their customers are saying about them. Nothing is worse than someone posting a complaint about your product on a forum and then you standing by and doing/saying nothing. By logging on and addressing the issues, customers see that you actually care about them and are actively looking to react to their concerns.”

Micah relays why companies are now directing consumers to their Facebook page in ads, “Its one thing to have company news and information on your website. It’s important. But, how often are people hanging out on your corporate site? Probably not that often. Where ‘are’ they hanging out? Places like Facebook and Twitter. So go to where they are and engage them.”

He offers an understanding to adding social media to a PR campaign, “It has to be noted that interacting with your customers on Facebook should not be looked at as a direct pipeline to sales. It’s not. It’s about building long-term relationships between your brand and your customers. Looking for quick sales with Facebook is a big mistake companies make that turns them off to the whole process. They get turned off because they didn’t look at it the right way in the first place.”

Micah offers realism to clients with, “Another huge mistake companies make with Facebook and Twitter is thinking that this is all about them and what they want to say about themselves. That is a great way to get people to ignore you completely. Social media is about them, not you. So engage your audience and start a conversation with them. Listen to them. Social media is about the time to listen, not speak.”

Looking forward in 2011, the PR industry must understand consumers now want a real seat at the table. To serve their clients in a meaningful way, they must understand social media can easily facilitate this. Potential and existing consumers become most invested when they feel ownership in the process.

The expectation of two-way participation and communication in real-time is an emerging and lasting dynamics with social media user consumers. The days of business CEOs thinking the dynamic remains I talk, you listen, and you don’t question my message are over. The PR professional must understand the new consumer dynamic is you spoke, I listened - now you listen to me as I speak my experience and opinion.

An exchange and a more personal individual relationship are expected. Should a business CEO ignore the two-way communication that social media fosters and consumers expect, they will be viewed as out-of-touch and replaceable no matter how great the initial excitement, the strength of message, or the value of the product.

Solicitation and participation in two-way communication is how consumer loyalty can be achieved and solidified. Those that facilitate a successful Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter campaign for their products and services that go viral are the winners in turning social media platforms into a positive return on investment and consumer base increase.

Companies can excel at using social media to bring together like-minded people that love their product and are a target market for their product. They can encourage proactive two-way participation and communication with their customers cementing loyalty to their company and their brand.

When the PR professional comprehends that consumers are producers, directors, and have control over message to other consumers ultimately, they will add to their success by not only developing their client’s message with consumers, but by developing their client’s real-time relationship with their consumers via social media.

Micah Warrens sums up the necessary PR mindset shift, “Think about it just from a media point of view: how many stories are broken on Twitter first? Tons of them. You’ll see mainstream media outlets passing along breaking news from the Twitter accounts of other journalists. It is the age of immediacy and you can either join in and embrace it, or continue to wait for a morning newspaper with information that you could have had the day before at 2 p.m. Heck, why do you think all the newspaper websites now have blogs and Twitter pages!”

On June 30, 2011, Reuters noted, “Chief Executive and founder Mark Zuckerberg told reporters in a visit to Facebook's Seattle office on Wednesday that the company planned to ‘launch something awesome’ next week.” The awesomeness will most likely be in the mobile or tablet arena.

On June 27, 2011, CNET headline says “Facebook valuation seen at $70 billion.” Two weeks earlier on June 13, 2011, CNBC headline says, “Facebook IPO Valuation Could Top $100 Billion.”

With 2011 half over, business can still successfully establish a winning PR campaign and consumer relationship by accepting the new marketing paradigm components are real time information, consultation, and participation. Social media is the perfect platform, and Facebook may well be the perfect social network – for now. That’s why Facebook may well indeed be worth $70B.

Follow Brenda Krueger Huffman on Twitter and Facebook.

Real Estate Trend Expert Tom Ruff's May 2011 Report - Multiple Personalities

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 20:19:00 +0000

"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five." - Groucho Marx

While researching the definition of robo-signers, I came across this partial definition in Investorpedia: “robo-signers assume the paperwork to be correct and sign it automatically, like robots.” This is a perfect description of how I was at my last loan closing. I think I may be a robo-signer.

Distressed Inventory Continues Slide

The big news in Maricopa County’s housing market in May continues to be the rapidly declining distressed housing inventory. This decline is not subtle folks; it hits you over the head like a sledge hammer. We define distressed inventory as the number of homes with an active notice combined with the number of bank held properties.

On January 1st of this year Maricopa County had 39,724 homes with an active notice and another 18,889 REOs. Our distressed inventory began 2011 at 58,613 homes. At the end of May these numbers had fallen to 27,396 and 18,451 respectively, combined 45,847.

In the last five months distressed inventory has fallen on average 2,553 homes per month. During the last two months these declines have continued at an accelerating pace, reducing inventory to 3,704 in April and 4,265 in May.

The decline we saw in May was the highest on record indicating the snowball is gaining momentum and heading down hill. Our early June numbers are projecting the same accelerated pace.

Simple math tells us that if distressed inventory continues to decline at its current rate, in 10 months it will dry up, but then, that’s merely simple math. When I present my simple logic, readers and other experts counter with complex math factoring together a Massive Backlog of “Shadow Inventory”, "Robo-Signings", a declining demand as QE2 ends and the ever popular bank conspiracies.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m conversing with Hollywood screen writers. Maybe there is a need for Rocky 7. Stallone is going to be 65. Maybe it’s time he quit competitive boxing. Maybe it’s time for him to leave the ring and get his real estate license.

“Yo, Adrian, we’re moving to Phoenix, two warm up bouts with ‘Robo’ and ‘Shadow’, and I think I’ll be able to take down da champ, Russell Shaw. Cut me Mick, I’m going 15.” Boom. Sorry, sometimes I drift.

Since January 1, 2007 Maricopa County has seen 165,385 home foreclosures, a numbing number in anybody’s book. One of the main reasons I believe we’re heading into the home stretch is how far we’ve come.

The news links above talk about the same decline in distressed inventory that I just mentioned; only they attribute the decline to massive processing delays. These same articles talk about how foreclosures rose through last summer, and then began their decline in September when the robo-signings scandal broke.

Information Market numbers tell a slightly different story, a short-lived Bank of America moratorium in November and December briefly lowered foreclosures. In January foreclosure numbers picked back up resuming their steady and consistent flow. In May, Maricopa County saw 4,206 homes sold at auction with 1 in 3 being purchased by investors, leaving only 2,800 reverting to the lender.

So, at the end of the day while our detractors have similar numbers, their explanation as to where we are and where we’re headed is completely different. Since January 1, 2007, Maricopa County has seen 165,385 homes removed from the “bad mortgage” file leading loan delinquencies to their inevitable decline.

I believe the decline we’re seeing in new notices runs parallel to the report of Jay Brinkman, the chief economist of the Mortgage Bankers Association, where in he states, "Of particular importance is that the drop in the percentage of loans 90 days or more past due was driven by improving numbers for loans originated between 2005 and 2007. These are the loans that drove the mortgage market collapse and now represent about 31 percent of loans outstanding but 65 percent of the loans seriously delinquent. Given that loans originated during this period are now past the point where loans normally default, and that loans originated since then generally have better credit quality, mortgage performance should continue to improve.”

The Wall Street Journal article would disagree, arguing that banks have decided to slow the foreclosure process while they perfect their procedures, in turn stabilizing property prices while minimizing losses and legal issues. There are two points in the WSJ which I have difficulty grasping.

First, I find it hard to believe that the banks would foreclose on 165,000 homes in Maricopa County and just now realize they have a problem with declining home values. Second, why would you be concerned about robo-signings and legal issues when many of your current foreclosures are strategic defaults?

How can there be vast legal issues when the majority of home owners facing foreclose, are saying in Henny Youngman fashion: “Take my house-please”. Why would the banks conduct a more thorough review when the party with the “alleged” claim is mailing in the keys?

I may be wrong, and the Wall Street Journal article may be right; but in life, I’ve always found the simplest explanation is usually the best.

The following graph compares the number of homes with an active foreclosure notice on March 1, 2010 to homes with an active notice on June 1, 2011 by origination date.

May’s Sales Activity

Case-Shiller, announced the dreaded double dip in home pricing in its May 31st report. In response to the report, David Blizter, chairman of the S&P index committee reportedly said, “Home prices continue on their downward spiral with no relief in sight.”

In response to Mr. Blizter’s statement the Phoenix housing market immediately responded the next day by registering its 6th consecutive month with a resale median home price of $115,000 while quoting Mark Twain, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

May’s Sales Summary

Final Thoughts

There has been a lot of speculation in a series of recent articles regarding the purchase of a home in Scottsdale by one Sarah Palin. Questions swirl, is she running for President? Is she making a run for John Kyl’s seat? One article even questioned whether or not she has title issues.

In a recent Huffington Post article, Massachusetts Register of Deeds John O’Brien and Forensic Mortgage Fraud Examiner Marie McDonnell gave this opinion, “the title to Sarah Palin’s new home in Scottsdale is clouded by robo-signers.”

They even published a copy write protected "McDonnell's Mortgage Map" exploring the property’s chain of title in depth. Ms. McDonnell, what were you thinking? Not once in your report do you mention the “livery of seisen” ceremony. Did it take place or not? What was symbolically passed? A token cactus? A clump of dirt? Was the cactus of native variety? Was the soil clayish and high in alkaline content?

Ms. McDonnell, these are the rudimentary tenets of common law, the Normans are not pleased. I drifted again, didn’t I? The simple explanation is probably best. I’m certain Ms. Palin’s local attorney required title insurance, and I’m also certain our local title experts are confident in their $1,700,000 guarantee.

In parting, the speculation as to why the home was purchased, I’m going with Scottsdale is a good investment opportunity and a great reprieve from Alaska’s frigid temperatures.

Contact Tom Ruff at The Information Market.

Tom is a graduate of the University of Nebraska. He founded "The Information Store" in 1982 and quickly became known as “The Source” of publicly recorded real estate data in Maricopa County. In August 2005 he formed "The Information Market" specializing in foreclosure data and housing studies.

Mr. Ruff is an expert on publicly recorded data and is known for his monthly housing opinion which shares an inside and sometimes irreverent look at the Phoenix Housing Market. He is often quoted in local and national publications.

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Bringing U.S. Manufacturing Back; Part 5 of 5, Success Realities

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 06:11:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Common

Even with the U.S. growing debt crisis, the U.S. has a more stable power structure, innovation history, and entrepreneurial culture than its global neighbors with few exceptions. U.S. foreign policy must support bringing U.S. manufacturing back by allowing U.S. production to be globally competitive in cost comparison and product quality superiority.

U.S. money and debt policy must balance supporting a strong dollar value and a stable credit confidence with understanding the strength must not worsen U.S. trade imbalances and competitive disadvantage. U.S. foreign policy must have the integrity that Free Trade will only be granted if it is Fair Trade policy.

Politicians and those negotiating U.S. global trade must not be intimidated by the threat of a trade war with any country. They must have the yet to be displayed courage to negotiate from a position of Americans being a sought after large consumer base for any other country.

Internally, the U.S. must also reflect political courage in getting a realistic handle on illegal immigration policy that puts realism and what is best for all American citizens above politics, voting blocks, special interest, Union interests, and political correctness. This may involve a controlled Guest Worker Program.

It will not involve comprehensive immigration reform that ignores secure borders or offers front or back door amnesty. This will not be tolerated by the American people and is already seen for what it realistically is – political demography rhetoric for the upcoming 2012 election.

It is vital the new American manufacturing workforce is trained in 21st century manufacturing methods including the newer skills required that are advanced technology and robotic based. As in days gone by, high schools, community colleges, and trade schools must pick up this mantle.

In addition, private sector leadership must be more exposed to the knowledge now studied and proven in calculating the “real” costs of off-shoring manufacturing and American jobs. They must consider rising shipping costs, instability risk costs, error duplicity work costs, overall quality costs, and fractured staff location costs. A re-shoring challenge must be adopted in the U.S.

Dr. MatthewLieber answers some success realities questions:

BKH: What is the balance needed in having a globally competitive tax policy and structure – lower corporate tax, less loopholes, offshore tax changes, flat tax, fair tax?
ML: Politics aside, reform options may include tax simplification, a value added tax, a gasoline or carbon tax. A grand bargain would have exemptions and loopholes phased out while significant rate reductions are phased in.

Rates may be lower on individual and particularly corporate income and stay revenue neutral provided the taxable economic base is expanded. Brackets are retained but with a reduced number.

This requires a compromise on taxation levels in line with historic norms. A consumption tax offers efficiency gains and would allow further income tax rate reduction. A fuel tax enhances energy efficiency and independence while providing revenues for infrastructure improvements.

Building in credits to lower income persons is one way to offset regressive effects. Rural constituencies and energy industry presently exercise a veto blocking debate of these. Reform requires consensus building with strategic political planning and transition steps.

BKH: What is the balance needed in government deficit spending, inflation, a strong dollar, reasonable interest rates, and credit availability?
ML: The national debt matters more than the budget deficit. It is a serious long-term problem that requires adjustments on both revenue and spending side. This discussion started last year. Nothing is more important to reducing the debt than ensuring that the U.S. economy grows at the fastest possible sustainable rate.

Implementing austerity immediately would injure the economy and worsen the debt. Reductions and revenue increases should take place in three to five years. The risk is Washington promises but never takes the painful medicine. The President needs a more consistent and forceful message - Growth and jobs first, long-term planning on the debt, deficits now and surplus in three to five years.

A stable dollar has replaced a strong dollar as the touchstone of the Treasury. Fed policies under Greenspan and Bernanke have allowed a great deal of monetary growth for many good reasons. Today’s commodity inflation has not yet undermined price stability, despite much market anticipation, because wages and consumer demand remain depressed. Steady, gradual depreciation of the dollar will support export-led growth in the U.S., whereas a zero-inflation strong dollar policy would freeze recovery and prolong household deleveraging.

BKH: What is the balance needed in government infrastructure investment and sound taxpayer money stewardship?
ML: We should expect both. The federal government’s role in infrastructure was a philosophical debate for the first half of the republic. Today, we take it for granted we have interstate highways and safe skies and airports. Rising fuel costs and oil dependency make more comprehensive transport development crucial. Our system suffers from piecemeal actions and an absence of long term planning.

There could be great national gains for a more massive effort, but many states and localities do not presently share the same agenda. The rejection by Wisconsin and Ohio of high-speed rail funds demonstrates this. We will remain auto-dependent, but better intermodal systems of light rail, electric cars, shuttle buses and other linkages will also be needed. Best financial efficiency is ensured with a national strategic plan which implements combining direct, mixed, and market mechanisms.

BKH: What is the balance needed in collective bargaining rights and private sector sovereignty in making business decisions in expansion?
ML: From the point of view of the enterprising worker, an important principle is access to the market. In 21st century economies, capital-intensive production makes many workers reliant on corporations. The recent decades have released the chains restraining corporations. They have boosted productivity and cleaned up financially, but it has not played out as well for working people of all stripes lately.

Organized labor has a vital role to play in defending labor interests. The material reality of skilled technical and professional people makes collective organization dubious, since they negotiate directly with their employer. The ideology of the knowledge economy and the entrepreneurship model appear overstretched.

Many may be entrepreneurial but lack the capital required to be business entrepreneurs. Helping them put themselves to work is an opportunity for leadership on the part of labor, private sector and government.

BKH: What is the balance needed in national security and immigration reform?
ML: Washington’s doctrine of the “war on terrorism” gave license through media framing to anti-illegal immigration groups, such as the Minutemen, who claim being patriotic by defending the country from an invasion of Mexican workers. While this sounds absurd to some, the emphasis upon border security and illegals has spurred real fear in mainstream segments and exerted a powerful chilling effect on immigration reform.

Reform would actually aid national security by inducing greater rule of law and government knowledge. Its absence has created growing zones of illegality in trafficking, corruption and document fraud.

BKH: Crisis proportion drug trafficking, increasing murder and violence upon Americans living or vacationing on or even miles from the border, and the federal government’s refusal to enforce border security and illegal deportation must be realities addressed also.
ML: I am well aware of the growing violence in Mexico, but militarizing US policy will not increase border security. Effective rule of law requires we recognize the underlying economic logic. Every president since Nixon has asserted the “war on drugs,” but national security has proven itself a poor framework for foiling transnational crime. The illegal traffic increases because it is good business. The same is true with immigrants.

Militarizing the border actually has increased the profitability of illegal activities. Enforcement needs to be smartly crafted within a comprehensive regional strategy aimed at supply, trafficking, consumption, and workplace elements. That requires an active and vigilant stance on the border. The Obama Administration has continued to uphold border security but has smartly reviewed some of the more wasteful and ineffective parts of the deportation system.

BKH: What is the balance needed in growing the American workforce base, eliminating illegal immigration costs and gaming of the American taxpayer, a Guest Worker Program, and penalizing companies that hire illegal immigrants?
ML: Much of U.S. immigration policy is political spectacle designed to assure Americans that the U.S. is “in control” of the border. Billions of dollars were paid to contractors to build a wall to keep foreign workers out. They hired undocumented Mexican workers. The billions spent have boosted organized fraud and crime.

Policy needs to take into account economic logic and the rule of law. Undocumented immigrants are by far net contributors but cannot access lawful status. Increasing the volume of visas and the types of work permits for foreign workers would better suit the reality of U.S. involvement in the global economy. A Guest Worker Program could be part of that. Increasing the allowances generates greater worker and firm compliance for workplace as well as border monitoring.

BKH: What is the balance needed in the Environmental Policy Agency energy policy and killing the business and manufacturing optimal environment as well as negating job creation?
ML: A green economy is a huge economic opportunity the U.S. is missing by letting one particular vision veto reform and block off debate. Burning fuel is neither economically virtuous or wasteful – it depends what you do with it – but it does have environmental and political costs that are not priced into the cost.

I believe an energy consumption tax, rather than mandates and bureaucracy, offers efficiency advantages and could channel resources to finance a smart grid, transport upgrades, etc.

The challenge in creating green jobs is to set standards that allow U.S. industry to race ahead into these industry projects. Germany is now leading, and China and India threaten to begin domination.

BKH: What is the balance needed in environmentalist priorities and not destroying an industry or company that supports people’s livelihoods?
ML: Green causes cannot thrive and endure without a sustainable economic basis. It is interesting that bringing the two together remains a challenge for environmentalism in the U.S. Throughout the world, resource conflict is increasingly making them come together.

As an example, the Gulf oil spill had a devastating effect on the Gulf economy. Transforming our economy from an extractive heavy industry-based production to specialized, knowledge-based industries will require investment. The challenge is to make policy that aligns business interests with that direction.

BKH: What is the balance needed in granting ObamaCare waivers to some businesses as an expressed hardship and being honest in what additional costs and regulations will do to the economy and job creation in general?
ML: The complexity of the challenge facing health care regulators following the 2010 reform is precisely what advocates of single payer reform foresaw. We are preserving a private insurance system while seeking to achieve universal coverage and cost reduction through regulation. This will actually result in more regulation than a single payer system where people would be transitioned into government insurance like Medicare.

Either way, coverage expansion can and must bring cost reductions. The 2010 Act has a number of such mechanisms in it. Firms have an interest in keeping their employees healthy, so a wellness agenda and a preventive approach, rather than high-tech profit-driven care, strikes me as one basic opportunity for business to offer contributions in return for waiver or allowance requests.

BKH: What are the main local and regional government policy changes that are needed in general?
ML: States and localities have been innovative in different ways. Beloit, Wisconsin has expanded a successful business opportunity zone that provides up to $5 million in state tax credits annually. The project was originally dedicated to an area by I-90 and resulted in several new warehousing and logistical investments. State Assemblywoman Amy Loudenbeck has expanded the coverage so the tax breaks are available to new investments throughout this diverse city of 37,000.

In Rockford, Illinois, Mayor Larry Morrissey has worked to attract direct investments in the airport and in auto manufacturing. Why these state and local leaders opt for different tools and which work best is something I am investigating.

BKH: What are the main federal government policy changes that are needed in general?
ML: Policy design can improve from new understanding about human behavior and the limits of rationality. One vital area for applying that is in the realm of economic security. Market reforms of recent decades shifted risk from corporations to individuals. As pensions became 401-Ks, there was always the underlying notion that more individual choice and information would make Americans better off. The housing market events offer dramatic evidence that that vision far too rosy.

BKH: What main considerations reflect 21st century manufacturing is similar to manufacturing history?
ML: Manufacturing remains about making stuff. What and how is made evolves and advances over time. The premium on technological innovation endures. America’s long history of innovation has contributed to making it the greatest industrial economy. That leading edge is in question with the rise of China, the recent recession, and a range of internal difficulties that have begun to set in.

To remain a leader, the U.S. needs to do more manufacturing and more innovation, but not necessarily both at the same time. Much of the manufacturing, and many of workers, need not be innovative. Workers must be employed at producing goods and services at a living wage. The U.S. attracts foreign-born technological innovators, but perhaps we need to encourage more home-grown entrepreneurs too.

BKH: What main considerations reflect 21st century manufacturing differs from manufacturing in the past?
ML: I recall a point made by Alan Greenspan during testimony to Congress around 1998. The Fed Chairman noted that the total physical volume of production by the U.S. economy in 1997 was equivalent to the volume in 1945. The real value of the production, meanwhile, had increased something like 500% during that time. Greenspan’s point was that U.S. economy had transformed from industrial production into a post-industrial consumer economy.

Exaggerations about a “new economy” followed then were replaced by the 19th century extractive industry mindset that dominated the last decade. However, Greenspan was right about the basic direction of manufacturing pointed out by the rise of consumer economics, service industries, and information technology.

In the 21st century, the advancement of civilization and human happiness requires a finite amount of raw industrial production but moves forward more dramatically with high-skilled services and knowledge industries that need less and less physical stuff.

BKH: Thank you Professor Lieber for your points of view.

No matter your political leaning, it is evident bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. will be one of the major contributions to stabilizing the American middle class and moving out of a recession economy. U.S. global neighbors and competitors are a factor in 2011. Manufacturing cost include labor, taxes, and regulation. The future of American jobs and the ongoing acceptable “normal” unemployment rate will depend on the balancing competing U.S. internal identities with government policy that incentives business to maintain and expand the U.S. as its production location.

American taxpayer monies being used to invest in manufacturing and/or oil production in Mexico, Brazil, China and other countries by the U.S. government, while denying American companies in the same industry the same support, adds even more pressure to U.S. jobs and the economy.

U.S. manufacturing can not be brought back if there is a deliberate pull-back of global competitiveness in higher tax talk and crushing new regulations for large corporations and several industries that do and can create thousands of U.S. based jobs.

The bottom line is we have an “uncertainty effect” as a direct result of poor political private sector success realities understanding. This has a devastating impact on business investment and job creation in the U.S. for all size business - small, medium, and large companies.

There must be policy certainty to plan expansion within the private sector, reasonable business credit possibility, and an environment where it is prudent and responsible to risk capital expenditure. There must be a pro-business attitude in America to bring manufacturing back. Business and manufacturing investment must also be pro-American workers and job creation.

One constant in success reality is true political leadership starts at taking responsibility and not using demography to demonize those that do choose to lead in the interest of Americans. The U.S. needs the courage of true leadership in both politicians and private sector CEOs to move forward.

See also:
Part 1, Who is Professor Matthew Lieber?
Part 2, Global Neighbors & Competitors
Part 3, U.S. Foreign Policy
Part 4, Competing Internal Identity

Follow Brenda Krueger Huffman on Twitter and join her on her professional Facebook page.

Bringing U.S. Manufacturing Back; Part 4 of 5, Competing Internal Identity

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:11:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Common

President Obama campaigned in 2008 on “transforming America.” Many Americans may not have completely understood what image of America was in Obama’s identity philosophy. In 2011, his vision has been characterized by some as an America more in the model of a European style socialist country.

It is apparent through his actions, Obama believes in a stronger Union presence in America’s labor and increasing taxes paid by the higher earners to support bigger government. Obama’s vision has proved out to be one of bigger and more intrusive federal government into the free enterprise private sector.

American business and the unemployed, as an example of competing ideology, are concerned about what impact the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would have on bringing U.S. manufacturing back if Cap & Trade policy is instituted by the EPA, led by President Obama, and around Congress?

The National Economic Research Associates (NERA) recently “evaluated impacts of EPA’s Clean Air Transport Rule 9CATR) and Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) proposals. The study found under these proposed regulations “electricity sector costs would increase by $184 billion or $17.8 billion per year.” NETA also found, “Net employment in the U.S. would be reduced by more than 1.4 million job-years over the 2013 2020 period, with sector losses outnumbering sector gains by more than 4 to 1.”

More regulation directly impacting industry, and the jobs and livelihoods of those in the specific affected industry, is an extreme competing internal identity already being seen in the U.S. Thousands of San Joaquin Valley farmers have been put out of business to save smelt fish. There are talks currently regarding West Texas oil fields being shut down to save sand dune lizards. These types of examples leave Americans considering the realisms of environmentalist priorities with regard to the necessary economics of people, production, and maintaining jobs and industry.

Numerous other relative factors in a competing U.S. internal identity are also being weighed and debated. Dr. Matthew Lieber shares his thoughts on some of these competing factors in the shaping of the internal identity of the U.S.

BKH: Thinking in terms of the Great Depression history and Hayek versus Keynes, Hayek was eventually proven correct. What are your thoughts on modern day Reaganomics versus Obamanomics in creating jobs and restoring low unemployment?
ML: It is all about communications. Presidents preside over, but do not manage the economy, with economists supplying ideas and policy options. We know what Reaganomics is – tax cuts, military spending, deregulation and monetary tightening. Clarity comes from historical perspective but also from President Reagan’s effective real-time communications.

Obamanomics is a branding triumph of political conservatives over the White House. Conservatives know what they mean by it, while liberals disagree defensively. Mixed results and criticism are less surprising than the President’s ineffectiveness as economic communicator. Guiding public opinion calls for narrative more than analytic messaging. Toughness in support of vision breeds confidence.

In fact, Obama’s policies have mixed continuity with Bush (bailouts, tax cuts extended) and a Clinton-style third way. The stimulus was well conceived and resulted in jobless recovery instead of a Depression. Deficit fixation now will kill the recovery and worsen the debt, but a tougher opposition has exploited existing narrative structures to define today’s austerity agenda.

BKH: All liberals and the majority of Democrats believe taxing the rich, now defined as $250,000 income for couples and $200,000 for an individual, will pay for continued government spending that will result in recovery from the current Great Recession. What are your thoughts on this?
ML: This controversy involves one debate about fiscal multipliers and another about fair tax policy. Technically, you should stimulate by running a deficit not raising tax rates. Then there needs to be an adjustment to balance after recovery.

We were running a deficit throughout a growth cycle due to war and tax cuts. Ideology entered as Democrats viewed Bush tax cuts as temporary and objectionable in a time of shared sacrifice. They fear wealthy lobbies will make a two-year extension permanent. Most of the revenue in question is on income above one million; everyone enjoys the same low rates up to 250,000.

Regressive tax policy has concentrated wealth, boosted unearned income, and deepened national debt. How much concentration is too much? Henry Ford’s wisdom was that capitalism required worker incomes sufficient to fuel consumption. Relying on 2% super-rich consumption in a democracy is questionable - economically, it is just not working.

BKH: Every tax dollar taken from private business is potential capital available for expansion and hiring. Every tax dollar taken from taxpayers is potential personal income to be spent in the economy. What impact does taking money out of the private sector have on private sector job creation and production returning to the U.S.?
ML: The impact of tax policy on investment is a marginal factor, distinct from direct job-creating effects of investment. Fundamentally, states and markets are two different ways to allocate capital. The U.S. model of private sector job creation succeeded in the 1980s and 1990s. In the 2000s, private investment in housing and finance was inefficient, with fewer jobs created pre- and post-recession. This calls into question a tax-cut fixation.

In retrospect, government should have curbed, not subsidized, risky borrowing and lending that fed the housing bubble. What drives business investment decisions are opportunities for profit beginning with market demand. Favorable taxation be supportive on the margin, but beware jurisdiction-shopping. Private firms play one state against another, which relocates but does not raise productivity.

BKH: The U.S. has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. What impact does this have on maintaining existing and creating new U.S. location of private sector business and manufacturing and resulting U.S. job creation?
ML: It would be more efficient and attractive to investment if the U.S. simplified and reduced tax rates for corporations and individuals. Well-funded interests intervene to write industry- and firm-specific loopholes into the tax code, as General Electric shows.

Private interests are motivated to pursue lucrative subsidies, whereas the national interest in a rationalized, pro-investment regime lacks such champions. This environment stalls U.S. action, which requires concerted efforts by reform-minded industry leaders, analysts and lobbyists. Naming GE Chairman Immelt to head the competitiveness panel could yet prove helpful.

BKH: If infrastructure and other work programs set up by the government run over budget and over completion time, which is a majority of projects, costing millions and billions more than originally agreed in funding, what is the impact on the taxpayer investment dollar in practicality and public trust?
ML: Comprehensive analysis of taxpayer-funded projects is complicated by the need to evaluate effectiveness on multiple non-quantifiable policy goals. Beyond financial return on spending, considerations include job creation and moral hazard in relation to a baseline scenario without intervention.

The 1995 bailout of Mexico generated financial gains for the Treasury, and more importantly, prevented a Mexican collapse that could have destabilized world markets.

Stimulus projects confront structural feasibility and micro-level difficulties. Structurally, the U.S. lacks a government apparatus, other than the Pentagon, capable of dispensing outlays on the scale required -- $1 trillion or more – to kick start the US economy. Thus the doubts about the impact scale of Obama’s stimulus: under $1 trillion over 2-3 years amounts has been too little.

In the tradition of Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln, we should create a national infrastructure corporation staffed by elite talent with a Marine Corps ethos . Hard budget constraints, which discipline organizations to control outlays and meet deadlines, are uncommon in public sector enterprise. But excellent leadership, shared spirit, and a bit of autonomy enhances accountability and limits wasteful spending in needed public projects.

BKH: Could the National Mediation Board (NMB) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in fact be killing jobs and U.S. plant location with anti-business attitudes and lawsuits and anti-private sector biases?
ML: Perhaps Boeing claims so, but I see this as a contest over the returns from federally-subsidized aircraft manufacturing. Company moves from high-cost northern states to right-to-work states are rewarding for management and shareholders as firms reduce exposure to benefit liabilities, strikes, and higher wages and taxation. Relocation benefits conservative areas and hurts union employees and surrounding middle-class communities. One person’s efficiency gains are another’s corporate greed.

BKH: Unions tout they are for the workers in America. Considering they are a part of the special interests in Washington receiving special political favor over tapped out non-Union working taxpayers, how can they be seen as of the “powerless and poor” class in America?
ML: There are status quo unions and a smaller number committed to social change. It depends whether activism goes beyond narrow organizational interests. American Federation of Teachers is a professional union, while the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) more aggressively addresses lower income issues. The latter is joining a larger battle for rhetorical and organizational initiative between political actors on left and right within a downwardly mobile society.

Poverty has been increasing in recent years, with Food Stamp rolls growing and expanding into white suburban populations. “Get your hands off my shrinkin’ state” – thus Palin and the Tea Party use populist rhetoric to defend conservative budget priorities, with unions as foil.

On the other hand, should economic grievances form, labor activists may manage to overcome cultural wedge issues and revitalize class politics in America. That is unlikely but not unimaginable. Bringing poor people together is controversial and difficult. By leading issue coalitions, strategic union activism can broaden its impact and counter defensive strategies and membership attrition.

BKH: What is the morality of working Americans funding extraordinary job security, higher pay for equal work, and Cadillac benefit plans and retirement packages for public Union workers that many themselves do not and will never have?
ML: The morality issue depends on what you see unionized labor doing for ordinary Americans in white, blue and pink collar positions. It is about how and where you see a fairness problem. The greater the focus on union privileges, the more it looks like an assault on free enterprise.

On the other hand, pointing out the deeper break between wealthy and ordinary Americans recasts the distinction between haves and have-nots. A broadly frustrated spectrum of working and middle class people would respond to progressive campaigns that communicate common sense truths and crossover aspirational themes. On morality, public sector unions should emphasize competitive accountable service provision. That would build support beyond their membership core.

BKH: Can U.S. manufacturing realistically come back to America and be competitive in product pricing in a global economy with Union cost and control demands, intrusive and costly government regulation demands, and the second highest corporate tax rates compared to manufacturing in other countries?
ML: Absolutely, US manufacturing can come back, but the question is in what form. Recent months have shown export recoveries in Indiana, Wisconsin and Connecticut. A business-friendly environment is one factor, but we should avoid a “race to the bottom.” Reducing our wages and living standards to levels in China and India in order to compete would be absurd.

The greatest resurgence would combine investment- and demand-led manufacturing. High-value manufacturing is popular and obviously desirable, though not a jobs machine. For a U.S. scale workforce, we need mid-level and service activities that employ millions at compensation levels sufficient to support a family. That will take years but is possible by expanding specialized manufacturing, rebalancing trade with China, and gradually reflating the economy via export-led growth.

BKH: May/2011 job figures reflected 83,000 private sector jobs were created, and a closer look reveals 60,000 of those were created by McDonalds. McDonalds received an ObamaCare waiver recently. Could they have created these jobs if they had not? What is the impact ObamaCare additional regulations and cost will have on maintaining existing U.S. jobs and bringing new jobs to the U.S.?
ML: I don’t know about the hypothetical. Employee healthcare burdens should not prohibit McDonald’s hiring. We want business realities, not benefit policies, to drive hiring.

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act allowed multiple ways to boost coverage and enable flexibility. Where should Americans access health insurance? Universal government insurance would have been simpler, but the 2010 Act maintained private insurance with multiple pathways.

Reform aims for more Americans to obtain insurance at work. Transitioning to employer mandate requires flexibility, especially in a recession. Workers under 26 can be covered on parents’ plans. The Act established the individual mandate Romney instituted in Massachusetts. In an interdependent economy, persons inevitably consume healthcare and bear responsibility for paying into the system that provides it, just as drivers are required to purchase auto insurance.

BKH: What is the impact on private sector job creation and bringing U.S. manufacturing back if Wall Street and banking sector jobs and public Union jobs seem to have a favored security in Washington policy over Main Street and private sector jobs?
ML: Actions by Presidents Bush and Obama increased federal direct intervention into U.S. industries. Big banks and the auto firms received massive taxpayer financing. The fall 2008 credit crisis forced an unsavory choice between compromising market principles and a catastrophic Depression.

No one stood up and said let the whole thing go, except Ron Paul. Allowing Citibank and Bank of America to fail would have ripped apart Main Street. Liquidating Big Three automakers would have undone the industrial Midwest.

The bailouts, while ugly, were sound bipartisan decisions. The absence of restructuring has been less sound. When you buy a company, you take over its management. There should have been more aggressive prosecution of fraudulent bankers.

BKH: What is the impact of politicians ignoring or fighting the reality that Right to Work states, states with zero or lower income tax, and states with business friendly regulation attract job growth?
ML: Politicians on the left represent constituencies that lose from labor market deregulation. They oppose policies that benefit shareholders and boost inequality and early retirements.

The opponents’ posture is understandable. Their ability to block pro-business policies is being tested. I suspect they will slow down but not stop the business reform agenda. They would be smart to use messaging that appeal to all the working stiffs, half of whom are not left-wing.

Their messages should be “End privatized profits with socialized losses.” and “Competitive markets, access for all.” Those are perhaps too abstract to rally activists. As political stakes increase, each side is going into campaign mode and seeking red meat messages.

BKH: What would be the overall economic impact of the federal government bailing out high budget deficit states many see as a result of anti-growth policies like higher tax rates, extreme environmental cost and interruption, miles of business red-tape regulations, and huge failing social programs?
ML: This undesirable pathway could further politicize economic policies, since the states in question lean Democratic. Emergency in California, which alone is the seventh largest economy in the world, could spur national interest arguments to justify temporary support. I doubt many Americans want to pay for any one state’s long-run deficits. Establishing a precedent would be controversial, so state leaders would be reckless to expect a bailout.

BKH: Is it possible to maintain existing manufacturing and attract new manufacturing if investors perceive a President or major political party to be anti-business, anti-wealth, pro-Union, pro-over regulation, and pro-tax hikes?
ML: Yes, but a delicate dynamic is involved. Perceptions of the President rank below business factors in determining investment patterns. But, they can become a negative political factor.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s handling of similar epithets of his critics is instructive. He responded with a warm laugh and rhetorical elbows to the ribs. Roosevelt had to include industry after overreaching and during wartime. Roosevelt realized throughout that profits motivate business actors.

Winning the Future is a positive slogan for President Obama to sell the U.S. to investors with trillions on the shelf. He can make that slogan meaningful with a multi-faceted engagement with industry leaders-- behind the scenes, from the bully pulpit, setting incentives and sanctions—to interactively realize a shared vision for industrial resurgence.

Roosevelt’s economic leadership demonstrated a feisty, yet flexible charisma and positive communications. Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton all drew from that. Obama has all the ability and now should emulate Roosevelt’s positive style.

See also:
Part 1, Who is Professor Matthew Lieber?
Part 2, Global Neighbors & Competitors
Part 3, U.S. Foreign Policy
Part 5, Success Realities

Follow Brenda Krueger Huffman on Twitter and join her on her professional Facebook page.

Bringing U.S. Manufacturing Back; Part 3 of 5, U.S. Foreign Policy

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:11:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Creative

When business is booming, the unemployment rate is low, government spending levels are balanced by tax revenue receipts, and the economy is stable, the majority of Americans are not deep in thought about how U.S. foreign policy is affecting their job prospects and income stability.

Manufacturing leaving the U.S. and the recession has resulted in Americans noticing where the products they buy are made.

When productivity levels and wages allow business to remain profitable, and U.S. tax rates allow business to remain globally competitive, U.S. companies are not deep in strategy to compensate for U.S. government intervention into the private sector through foreign or domestic policies. The business strategy lately has resulted in U.S. jobs and production being moved off-shore.

Everyone in the U.S. has come to realize Free Trade Agreements are not always Fair Trade Agreements. Everyone has seen foreign oil prices hold Americans and business, and therefore the entire U.S. economy, hostage and powerless. U.S. foreign policy must support U.S. strategic business planning, good taxpayer benefit money investment, and fair money and trade policy.

Dr. Matthew Lieber shares his thoughts on a few specific U.S. trade and foreign policy questions.

BKH: What is the significance of trade between China and the U.S.?
ML: The U.S.-China trade is at the center of global growth. China’s growth has been a huge positive for the world economy, and the U.S. should continue to play a leading role in integrating China into the world system.

My critique is aimed at the terms and direction of the trade. We should embrace a two-way engagement, but we will be doing the world a service by moving to resolve the imbalances. Presently, third-party competitors such as Japan, Brazil, and South Korea are forced to choose between matching Beijing’s artificial depreciation with the inflation it brings or suffering a competitive disadvantage.

BKH: What should be done by the U.S. regarding China’s currency manipulations against the dollar?
ML: Yuan appreciation would immediately boost U.S. employment, aid U.S. exporters and Chinese consumers, and check a defiant People’s Republic of China (PRC). Efforts under Bush and Obama to persuade China to give up its major competitive advantage have failed.

The U.S. has not exerted a sufficiently forceful economic diplomacy. A “Build China” coalition is bullying U.S. legislators into fear of a trade war and a flawed assessment of the balance of power.

We all love cheap Wal-Mart goods, but massive outsourcing makes us a second-rate economy. The U.S. does have the upper hand. Go ahead China, sell the Treasury Bonds.

Getting tougher would support our long term industrial interests and our principles. There are options from aggressive naming and shaming, multilateral efforts, direct economic steps such as tariffs on Chinese imports or taxes on Chinese assets.

BKH: What is the impact on the U.S. economy, now and in the future, regarding the trade imbalance with China?
ML: In 2010, the US current account deficit from trade in goods and services was $500 billion. This is 3.5% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). A full 60% or $300 billion came from our trade with the PRC. The U.S. borrows and consumes, while China saves and exports.

This deficit has survived the recession and is coming back with a vengeance. A major underpinning lies in the PRC’s managed currency regime. Normally, left to market forces, such an imbalance would cause an appreciation of China’s currency against the dollar. PRC intervenes to hold the Yuan to an artificially low exchange rate against the dollar. PRC’s massive purchases of dollars have amassed some $3 trillion in reserves that it stores in US Treasury bonds.

The deficit speeds the deindustrialization of the U.S. It’s not inevitable, for the present pattern appears unfavorable for society and the national interest. The effects of the managed currency regime are socially and politically regressive. It boosts inequality in the US and China; blocks China’s workers from consuming US products, subsidizes Beijing’s favored exporters; and enriches Communist elites denying workplace rights.

BKH: Is it possible for China and the U.S. to maintain a good relationship with continued Chinese human rights violations and intellectual property (IP) theft?
ML: International relations scholars debate whether the U.S.-China relationship will evolve into one of partnership or one of enmity. In reality, the relationship is extremely multifaceted, with mutual dependence and a range of cooperation, tension and confrontation depending upon the issue.

Human rights are a perpetual source of disagreement, whereas IP appears to offer some hope for improvement. As China continues to grow, the chances increase that its leadership will recognize the need to reduce or at least confine IP theft.

BKH: What is your opinion of the alliance offered to Pakistan and Iran by China?
ML: These moves, while short of an alliance, are part of a great power game on a Eurasian chessboard aimed at countering U.S. influence and perceived threats from India, Russia and Israel – a game that is complicated by nuclear strategy and internal politics.

Diplomatically, China has partnered with Pakistan to balance against India. It shares interests in energy and domestic control with Iran. Nuclear strategy is about acquisition and regime survival. The spaces on the chessboard are not whole but marked by ethnic separatists and other groups committed to asymmetric warfare. Dueling states partner with these non-state actors, but China prefers to work with established states.

BKH: What is your opinion of Russia building pipe lines across Europe?
ML: Since I am not expert on this, I would just ask three questions related to issues of security, leverage and competition. Security: will the flows be reliable and what territories does it pass through? Leverage: what if any are the risks that Russia would stop flows and sacrifice revenues to advance its political ends? Competition: what impact does the pipeline have on the U.S. backed pipeline from Azerbaijan through Turkey to the Mediterranean?

BKH: What impact will the “Arab Spring 2011” have on the U.S. economic outlook?
ML: It’s difficult to know for sure, but we should watch closely the oil markets and the political situation in Saudi Arabia. Consider the sequence of political and economic events: booming Asian growth boosts grain and fuel prices, which help spur youth-led wave of revolt against Middle Eastern governments unable to raise subsidies, which leads to rebellion then intervention in Libya and further pressure on oil prices.

Perhaps at some point a correction to the high oil prices occurs. Generally the Middle Eastern states, other than oil, have not been integrated in the world economy. The fate of the reform movements will affect the future of terrorism and prospects for peace. But it’s hard to pinpoint further market effects.

BKH: What role should U.S. foreign policy be in promoting democracy in authoritarian countries?
ML: Democracy promotion always sounds good, but the more we go ballistic, the less our efforts succeed. It makes sense for the US to provide moral support for those resisting tyranny. We must avoid direct interventions that backfire and discredit us reducing our influence.

It is not our role to decide the form or face of foreign governments. Instead, a strategy of technical support and international partnership is most consistent with our enlightened self-interest. In practice, each case involves distinct prospects and complications.

Least auspiciously, in Libya, an oil-rich dictator terrorized tribal opponents and spurred the ongoing allied effort to topple him. In Pakistan, a divided government stands shakily over a torn society mired in poverty and fundamentalism. In Egypt, a dictatorship cooperated with the U.S. but failed its people and ultimately crumbled - not much of an ally, and the best reform bet of the three.

We should support a process for building the institutions of democracy and law that ensure competitive elections, full participation and economic reform.

BKH: With the U.S., and Europe for that matter, tackling crushing debt, how should liberation from dictators and democracy promotion be funded?
ML: Austerity actually is an opportunity to do so more smartly, not with a heavy hand. The most effective political strategy for democracy promotion will also be the most efficient. Occupying more countries is not an option, fortunately, nor is pouring more money into them. Foreign aid is a miniscule budget item, so it should not be a political target.

In some places like Pakistan and Afghanistan, we will need to reduce our footprint, but it is equally important to maintain smaller-scale programs that have shown the best results. These keep US prestige alive and continue to deliver U.S. intelligence even after big operations are done.

BKH: What is the impact ultimately on the U.S. being favorable to doing business and trade deals with radical Islamic or communists led countries?
ML: Short of total war with a country, trade policy offers a means of engagement as well as a punitive option in the case of sanctions. Domestic politics play a large role in determining whether the U.S. engages with an ideological foe or not, a fact evident in our contrasting treatment of China and Cuba.

Sanctions offer more political appeal as a meaningful symbolic move than direct material power, especially over time as we see with the ineffectiveness in Cuba. The largely ineffective record of economic sanctions has shifted the policy community to targeted sanctions, which can be effective security instruments if U.S. authorities use them carefully and discriminately.

BKH: What is your opinion of Venezuela working with Iran to support missiles securing a U.S. missile launch range?
ML: Venezuela is lamely attempting to bandwagon against the U.S. Presidents Chavez and Ahmedinijad naturally both gain in prestige when they meet bilaterally or stand together at the U.N. in open defiance of their great superpower foe.

We should keep a close eye on the Iran dealings, but not overreact. Mostly it sounds like a far-fledged scenario convenient for military contractors. Venezuela’s greatest weapon is its oil resource, but Chavez’ has misused it and mismanaged the economy. In the international arena, he has not been able to match the political savvy of his role model Fidel.

BKH: Should the U.S. continue financial foreign aid to countries aiding U.S. military enemies or those working for U.S. economic destruction?
ML: This sure sounds like a bad idea. The US needs to review its Pakistan strategy. Foreign aid offers a means of exerting leverage, but that is overrated. Generally, foreign aid should be managed and evaluated in relation to development objectives.

Ultimately at the bilateral and executive level, it is up to the President and the Ambassador to signal how U.S. foreign aid fits into a country strategy. New research is suggesting many receiving country executives do not want U.S. aid due to the stigma factor. This again points us back in the direction of aid policy on the basis of program merits and outcomes.

BKH: What are the global economic blocks and alliances emerging in reality?
ML: The “rise of the rest” refers to the emergence of formerly peripheral economies in the non-western developing areas. In the 1960s, the economic miracle was West Germany. It was Japan in the 1980s. It was Mexico and Russia, then South Korea and Brazil, in the 1990s. In the 2000s, it is India, China, and Indonesia.

The U.S. and fellow Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies must recognize and carefully accommodate new growth. We see such adjustments taking place in the respect accorded to developing country concerns over the selection of the next International Monetary Fund (IMF) Director.

While there are several regional groupings, advances in transport and technology have made trade relations more fluid than the Cold War notion of three blocs. The US must pursue multilateral as well as bilateral strategies, since institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO) provide a rule-based authority for advancing our interests and legitimizing our leadership.

Letting China in without more conditionality now looks questionable. From a U.S. perspective, the story loses appeal with the onset of “decoupling,” in which the non-western spheres fuel growth and the traditional industrial powers stagnate. But this is a concern to raise confidently not defensively.

BKH: Which countries does the U.S. need to watch most closely to verify fair mutual interests?
ML: Russia. China. Pakistan. Saudi Arabia - In that order.

BKH: What are the three most important emerging negative economic realities the U.S. must counter in a global economy?
ML: The single-most important factors threatening US international competitiveness are internal: healthcare costs, the achievement gap, and industrial erosion. Resolving double-digit healthcare cost growth is fundamental to economic competitiveness and long-run fiscal balances. The achievement gap or low test scores by minority students, feeds an underclass and undermines the entire society.

I am concerned with the national debt but critical of the regressive solutions offered. Comprehensive healthcare reform and innovative no-holds-barred education reform would support an investment-led resurgence.

BKH: What are the three most important emerging positive economic realities the U.S. must actualize in a global economy?
ML: With the victory over Bin Laden and al Qaeda in the same year as the Arab Spring, the U.S. can confidently observe as the Islamic world distinguishes between what happens when you kill 3,000 Americans and what happens when you join a political movement with powerful positive ends.

The expansion of capacities to disseminate information, productivity and entertainment (Facebook, Google, Skype, etc) is a resource for every person within reach of a computing device as well as a strategic industry. The US should ensure competitive and accessible markets.

Having an African-American President and consecutive female Secretary of States across Administrations sends a powerful message to the world and our youth about the land of opportunity. Enhancing our merit-based open society should be a foremost priority.

See also:
Part 1, Who is Professor Matthew Lieber?
Part 2, Global Neighbors & Competitors
Part 4, Competiting Internal Identity
Part 5, Success Realties

Follow Brenda Krueger Huffman on Twitter and join her on her professional Facebook page.

Bringing U.S. Manufacturing Back; Part 2 of 5, Global Neighbors & Competitors

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 06:11:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Creative

Financial institutions and banking are interconnected globally. It’s one of the reasons the U.S. taxpayer funded Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout orchestrated by the Federal Reserve was seen as a necessity to avoid a “global” economic meltdown and not just an American collapse.

The U.S. neighborhood includes more than cul-de-sac neighbors Canada and Mexico. In a manufacturing sense, China and India are down the block neighbors. Europe and Japan are the old neighborhoods looking a little frayed around the edges.

The Middle East is an old neighborhood with the tension and instability of reconstruction. Mexico and Latin America in general have their own instability, yet they can be good neighbors. Albeit, some Americans believe good fences make good neighbors in reality especially in hard economic times.

China, India, and Mexico are neighbors some Americans love to hate as they are ardent manufacturing competitors too. China doesn’t always play fair. All three are seen as being a large factor in lowering the American manufacturing wages. Yet, along with African neighbors, China and India belong to the largest emerging markets for U.S. manufactured goods. They are a part of the very strong BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries.

It usually always comes down to money no matter the rhetoric. Capital is still being invested in the U.S. of course, yet developing countries, like China and India, are providing a private investment upside adding pressure to the U.S. capital investment and economy.

American taxpayer monies being used to invest in manufacturing and production in Mexico, Brazil, China and other countries by the U.S. government adds even more pressure to U.S. manufacturing jobs and the economy.

Here are Dr. Mathew Lieber’s thoughts on just a few specific global neighbors and competitor questions.

BKH: What do you see as your student’s attitudes on America in reference to global neighbors and competitors in general?
ML: Overall, the recurring attitudes expressed are concerns about declining U.S. prosperity and prestige. There is also a positive desire to study and travel abroad, participate in a globalized education, and prepare for a career in an integrated world.

Close to 50% of them spend a semester abroad, which raises interest in foreign relations and a grounded sense of reality about what foreign relations means on a human level.

Military veteran and foreign students play a largely positive role on campus, for they directly link our community to foreign lands, demonstrate enormous motivation and introduce viewpoints that lead students to question their stereotypes.

BKH: How is the U.S. exceptional on the global economic stage?
ML: The U.S. remains the largest single national economy even as it recovers from an ugly recession. It is the single largest consumer market and source of business innovation.

The US dollar is the global economy’s reserve currency, and Treasury Bonds its most liquid asset. The U.S. retains the leading position in international economic institutions. It is also the only military superpower, with 766 bases worldwide and more spending than all other countries combined.

Altogether, this has allowed us the “exorbitant privilege” to consume more than we produce and to run enormous fiscal deficits, because others willingly take our dollar credit. The U.S. has less than 30% of its economy in foreign trade whereas China has about 90%.

BKH: How is the U.S. normal on the global economic stage?
ML: For decades, the U.S. has been getting more normal, in the sense of relative decline, but the recent recession and the rise of Asian economies have accelerated that trajectory. Except for military power, the duration of U.S. leadership is being called into question.

China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is on path to exceed the U.S. by 2020. In 2010, China became the number one automobile market.

After the housing crisis, the U.S. model of bank and financial industry led growth no longer looks so good worldwide. In the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), the U.S. faces more difficult scenarios for advancing its positions as more powerful players assert themselves.

The G-8 (most industrialized nations) is now the G-20. With China, the U.S. has experienced a defiant competitor exercising its will and the means to resist U.S. pressure. The most basic rules of power and economics do apply to the U.S. We need to tend our power, assess the landscape, and devise a strategy.

BKH: You were in Mexico recently. What is your opinion of Mexico’s violence and its effect on the shaping of U.S. immigration and economic policy?
ML: It is tough to see Mexico’s drug war having much of a positive effect on U.S. immigration policy. It generates fear with 30,000 deaths in 5 years and accelerating.

Beefing up border security may make us feel safer but will not fundamentally resolve anything. We should look at root causes on both sides of the border. I am a realist. We should anticipate its persistence and possibility for deterioration and spillover into the U.S. At the moment, the conflict is regionalized in Mexico but gradually expanding in their territory.

Fueling it are a combination of huge profit margins, a large U.S. market of users and addicts, an ample supply of impoverished youth, an absence of alternative employment pathways, and an aggressive drug war by a corrupt and under-capacitated Mexican government. It can only change with a comprehensive regional strategy encompassing supply, trafficking and consumption.

Effective border and customs policing is essential as well as steps to stop the flow of assault weapons to traffickers. The U.S. should continue to support Mexico’s efforts to develop better legal and police institutions and to promote alternative industries in its territories. We should consider some decriminalization.

BKH: What are the positive and negative effects of the “Dream Act” passage on U.S. relations with Mexico as a neighbor and a manufacturing competitor?
ML: The Dream Act will create positive incentives for responsible behavior for a generation at risk -- to complete high school and not join a gang, to pursue college studies in return for military service. It would stop thousands of youths from turning to welfare and crime. We would have fewer Mexican-born American-raised delinquents to deport and a greater number of more successfully integrated Mexican-American citizens.

An effectively designed Dream Act could provide broad grounds for mutually beneficial cooperation. But there is also a competitive aspect. Mexico will begin aging as a society too. Soon the need for good workers will be even greater, so the young already here could become an honest rule-playing and well educated human resources fueling the U.S. economy.

BKH: What is the significance of immigration and trade between Mexico and the U.S.?
ML: These are two of the main issues on the U.S.-Mexico agenda along with security, rule of law, energy, and economic development. The 1951 mile U.S. - Mexico land border sees more human and economic traffic than all land borders, but today a growing share of the cross-border flows are via air, sea and cyberspace. Mexico is our third largest trading partner after China and Canada.

In the 1990s, a consensus formed, with elite bipartisan support in Washington and in Mexico, in favor of moving toward more North American integration. The 1994 trade agreement was a breakthrough, though the deal neglected labor mobility consequences.

Since 2001, the U.S. has shifted its focus to security, while lapses in Mexico’s democratization have reduced its ability and promise as a strategic partner. The result has been a stalled agenda held back by a hostile political environment.

Economically, we could all gain tremendously and reap potential huge benefits from more cooperation considering we have such extensive trade and business and societal relations. A realist in Washington would point out the U.S. does not have to cooperate. However, it benefits U.S. firms, workers, and tourists to actively and effectively lead a cooperation agenda.

It’s a two-way street of course, and the Mexican government is not a perfect partner. Powerful interests on both sides of the border make out well from the status quo.

BKH: Some European leaders, including United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have declared multi-culturalism has flailed. What are your thoughts to relation to U.S. policies and political economy?
ML: The European states face similar challenges to the U.S. of balancing a dynamic economy open to foreign labor, capital and entrepreneurship with the need to retain national traditions and identities. The pronouncements by Cameron and Merkel are in line with Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign to ban the use of the traditional Islamic veil in France playing to key conservative segments of their domestic society.

The European countries differ from the U.S., in two aspects driving these negative statements, which I would not expect even the most conservative U.S. President to repeat. First, the European countries lack a traditional ideology and custom of immigrant absorption. Second, they have much more extensive social welfare programs. This provides more generous benefits for Europe’s immigrants and more expansive doctrines of equality, which rankle their conservatives.

This suggests a relative advantage for the U.S. in our shared creed of responsibility, self-help and opportunity—a creed Americans adopt and practice on a widespread basis. It also permeates our policies and institutions. Europe does not have that creed, and its policies have moved further to the left of its cultural conservatives.

BKH: From your travels and research, which countries are the U.S.’ best neighbors and honest competitors?
ML: Surveys reflect Americans’ wisdom of this, and I mostly agree. The United Kingdom, Canada, and Israel are in the first tier. Then there is France, Germany, Japan and the remaining NATO allies in Europe. Mexico is a bit below.

The Caribbean needs us, and the Cuban people are warmly favorable. Brazil is a potential strategic partner we could reach out to and have more interaction. Chile, Colombia, South Korea, and Poland merit mention as do Australia, Singapore and most of the English-speaking world. Throughout Africa, much of the world, there is U.S. goodwill.

A big factor affecting favorability is the rule of law, including enforcement capacity, which varies.

BKH: Is it realistic to have U.S. free trade agreements without exportation of American jobs to developing countries?
ML: Experience shows reducing trade barriers generates more economic efficiency and simultaneously dislocates employment. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the proposed free trade agreements with Colombia and Korea will spur plant closings in U.S. auto manufacturing and other industries.

U.S. trade diplomacy has been generally less effective at ensuring that implementation brings gains in U.S. exports equal to the rise in imports. U.S. consumers benefit from cheaper foreign goods. Well-represented U.S. firms such as Boeing and Cargill and their workers see benefits from exports, but there have been net employment losses.

With the long-run growth opportunities abroad, the US should maintain a free trade strategy involving both bilateral and multilateral avenues. The U.S. must also scrutinize deals more carefully to ensure they generate investment and avoid deindustrialization in the U.S.

One idea is a more proactive effort to bring U.S. and foreign firms into a pre-negotiation phase in order to build a shared expectation among industry and government elites regarding U.S. strategy for opportunity development in the U.S. This would not be a binding or legalistic approach, but one to build a positive long-term vision and determine policy reform areas.

BKH: What U.S. economy impact is there to federal government investing in other countries while hampering U.S. business in those same industries like investing in Brazilian oil exploration while refusing U.S. oil companies new drilling permits?
ML: To my knowledge, Brazil prohibits or strictly regulates foreign investment in its energy sector. Their national champion PetroBras, the dominant player, has a savvy strategy of strategic partnership with foreign state-owned and private multinational enterprises. By contrast, the U.S. has failed to formulate a national energy strategy.

My understanding is the Obama Administration had responded to oil industry demands to open up drilling selectively. It is chastised by the environmental left for such flexibility, while industry complains he has not been flexible enough.

Have we forgotten the BP spill so quickly? We will need to rely on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, but a smart strategy would be to seek to reduce our dependence on imported oil. There is an associated vulnerability to the political fragility of the Saudi kingdom and the voracious Asian demand for fuel.

A gasoline tax would increase efficiency far more than CAFÉ fuel economy standards and generate revenue for financing a more efficient grid and other transport infrastructure. Would you rather pay Uncle Sam or pay the Saudis and then pay again to police the Persian Gulf?

Imagine having a meter at the pump allowing every American to see how much one’s driving behavior fuels Middle Eastern oil kingdoms, along with other despots like Chavez and Qaddafi.

See also:
Part 1, Who is Professor Lieber?
Part 3, U.S. Foreign Policy
Part 4, Competiting Internal Identity
Part 5, Success Realities

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Bringing U.S. Manufacturing Back; Part 1 of 5, Who is Professor Matthew Lieber?

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 06:11:00 +0000

Many believe bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. will be one of the major contributions to stabilizing the American middle class and moving out of a recession economy. It’s a complicated issue.

The U.S. is immersed in a 21st century global economy with global neighbors and competitors as well as U.S. foreign policy, immigration policy, and free trade agreements that combine together to create a complex success reality for reviving U.S. manufacturing.

U.S. students lagging behind in competitive math and science education scores along with the overall effectiveness of universities realistically preparing students for work and careers compared to international counterparts are being questioned and examined.

Unstable governments, and even internal violence, enters into the international world economy concerns of this effect on developing business and manufacturing environments. U.S. and international investment policy, capital and profit tax policy, and international politics overall also add to the mix. Private sector versus public sector solution is also being pitted against each other in various ways.

Add to all of this the competing national internal identity fueled by competing political philosophies currently in the U.S., and it may take a rocket scientist to figure it all out. Or, maybe someone with a PhD with a field of research in global politics actively engaged with economic policy, government, and migration issues at local, regional-transnational and international levels has knowledge worth exploring.

A Visiting Assistant Professor & Research Associate at Beloit College, Matthew A. Lieber received his PhD in 2010 from Brown University. He is presently publishing his research on diaspora voting politics, pursuing a tenure-track and/or research appointment, and advancing a project on foreign investment rules and industrial transformation in the Midwest.

Dr. Lieber aims to stimulate “a more involved engagement for (his) students,” and his teaching experience has convinced him of “the value of tying the social sciences curriculum to biographies and active practitioners.”

Do schools, even higher education, effectively prepare students for the life changes that will come after graduation and into adulthood? Lieber explains, “This question challenges us to think seriously about what expectations we hold of our schools and colleges. My short answer is that too many schools are turning out graduates without the raw tools for success in life – basic literacy and math skills, and a healthy sense of self and purpose in the world. There is no shortage of evidence in the national reading and math test results.”

“This is as much of a failure of parents and communities as it is of the schools. It’s a bit harder to assess the performance of the university system, since we lack agreed-on indicators of critical thinking ability, complex reasoning and problem-solving skills, ethical awareness, and mastery of one’s field of knowledge. Developing that general foundation is the best preparation we can offer our students, immediately and in the long run.”

“They will have to get themselves through the life changes and personal challenges of finding jobs and navigating careers as well as building meaningful relationships and forging positive family ties.”

He continues, “The movement to standardize assessments for higher education now underway is arousing some of the controversy associated with school testing. My own view is that universities should engage this process seriously but carefully. Let’s establish quantification as a potentially useful tool and not as an end goal, and let’s avoid over centralization of procedures that force unity across different fields. In principle, though, more systematic assessments of college learning should be a good thing.”

What is the main delusion students may have about their future while in school that most quickly evolves after graduation? Dr. Lieber offers, “It’s funny the way that it depends on the individual, but there is a polarization. I think university studies in the U.S. seem to push students in two opposite directions. Some have a great deal of faith in one or another ideology, whether liberalism, the United Nations, free markets, or science and technology.”

“A greater and growing number of students are deluded into believing they cannot change the world. They look out at a world of environmental degradation, stolen elections, shallow politics, corporate theft, etc. and conclude the existence of self-interested humans dooms all prospects for cooperation. So there has been a shift from naive liberalism to naïve realism – cynicism – that is a reflection of the times.”

He adds, “What all students need though is more experience. Experience will teach them lessons in how we can and do change the world – one day and one person at time, in incremental and imperfect ways – not always satisfying or always good, but change nonetheless.”

What is Dr. Lieber’s best advice for a graduating college class regarding transferring what they have studied into their future success moving into adulthood realities? “First, bask in your success a bit. Relish your achievement for a moment before you move on to the next chapter in your life. Second, try not to take unsuccessful job searches personally, since you have graduated during a recession out of your control.”

He concludes, “If you have to adjust your immediate plans, maintain your goals and map a strategy to get you there. Specifically, speak to people in the field, build up your resume, and network strategically. Manage your debt and plan for graduate school within a few years. Update your goals and strategy regularly as your experience leads to new insights. But also try out a few different things if you desire – now is the time. Five and certainly ten years from now, it will be harder for you to change and do something new.”

Lieber travels a lot for his research. What was his most interesting recent trip? “I went to Mexico in April to visit two universities, where I was invited to present my research and teach a few special classes. Overall I spent a week between Mexico City, which I know well, and Monterrey, a new city for me -- with my entire senses alert to the politics and economic state of that country. I talked with faculty, political advisors, many students, and a lot of taxi drivers and waiters, too.”

He notes, “What impressed me was the odd combination of persistent drug violence and a remarkably lively economy in Mexico. On an earlier visit in 2009, the streets had been practically empty. Today, incomes, profits and insecurity are all up in Mexico, as all of the most recent news has confirmed.”

What led Lieber to his specific areas of research focus? “My research focuses on the politics of migration, and I can give you a broad reason and couple of more precise ones that led me there. Academia is actually a lot like business in the need to be entrepreneurial and strategic in identifying and developing a market niche with one’s specialty.”

He details, “My field has a lot of good research and theories on why and how people vote or on the relationship between investment flows and security cooperation. But how do individual and group migration experiences affect political leadership, national projects, diplomatic relations and conflicts? In a capitalist system that relies on growing labor flows of both masses and elites, this question matters in many ways. But on the politics of migration, we know far, far less, so that we even lack well developed categories of knowledge.”

“Each biography, each country is studied as a singular case and not cumulated. So this is a big area of opportunity, though it has been tricky for me and others to break in because our work upsets existing ways of organizing and thinking about the field. More precisely, I chose to focus on developing country migrant-sending states, to complement the much greater body of work on immigration in wealthier, receiving states like the U.S. and Germany.”

Lieber concludes, “Lastly, Mexico and the Dominican Republic are two of the countries in our region at pivotal historical moments with massive numbers of their people in our country. Considering the fate of their democratization and quest for economic stability- which will inevitably have an impact for the United States-- is their immigration an opportunity and a resource to work with? Or is it a liability and an obstacle to progress of democracy in the region? I find that interesting and worthwhile to bring up. The question certainly is complicated—migration often cuts both ways-- but I don’t think it will be a non-factor.”

Lieber is a participating author in writing of the book “Foreign Aid and Private Sector Development” published by the Watson Institute for International Studies.

In general terms, as we will explore in detail in this series, how does Dr. Lieber’s research most contribute to the valuable and practical knowledge that is needed today by real world firms and policy makers?

Dr. Lieber shares, “My research is part of a broader body of more systematic analysis that can inform a more enlightened regional approach to migration policy on the part of government, business and civic leaders in the U.S. and the neighboring countries – so we can lead our politicians, rather than vice versa.”

“There is a gulf separating academic political science from policy making in the U.S. – which I find unfortunate. Amidst so many major challenges, the country ought to utilize all sources of serious insight, particularly those capable of helping expand and transform the public debates that are now overly narrow or obstructed.”

He advises, “Political scientists are partly to blame since we have offered long-winded answers when government and business actors need situational intelligence rather than grand theories or elaborate models in order to make good decisions quickly. This interview series is a welcome opportunity to make a small step toward bridging that gulf.”

We will explore the thoughts of Professor Matthew Lieber in our 5-Part series. The series will include:
Part 2, Global Neighbors & Competitors
Part 3, U.S. Foreign Policy
Part 4, Competing Internal Identity
Part 5, Success Realities

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Are Congress and the White House in Denial? Recession Vs. Depression

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 21:52:00 +0000

Photo Credit - Flickr Creative

Reading about the dismal economic figures for May and noticing government figures seemingly always being “revised” down after they originally come out, I got to thinking, “Are Congress and the White House in denial?” Is it easier and/or just more advantageous politically to not admit what’s been done in Washington the past 2 ½ years is not working?

Even without this admission, the majority of Americans have been in agreement for a while now that Washington doesn’t seem to know what it is doing with regards to fostering a better economy. It doesn’t seem they are even realistically focusing on the economy half the time.

Did Washington acknowledge for more than a second the May figures reflected the official unemployment rate rose to 9.1%? What is the “real” rate if those whom have stopped receiving benefits and those whom have just given up looking for non-existent employment are figured in – 15%, 18%, 20%?

Have Congress and the White House yet asked themselves how they are contributing to this or what they are doing wrong? Are they waiting for the Great Recession to officially turn into another Great Depression to look in the mirror?

The recession is moving into its third year, and while some touted it as over in June 2009, Americans know better. The prolonged official high unemployment rate has been setting records since 2009 and continues in 2011. And the official unemployment rate is deliberately skewed downward by the crazy, unrealistic way it is calculated.

Did you know the Labor Department’s payroll employment figures counts people as employed if they receive only one hour of pay for the period? Do you consider yourself employed if you worked one hour in a month? Is the Labor Department in denial too?

Washington sure doesn’t seem to understand escalating government intervention in the private sector and continued no-result big stimulus spending, and general business cost policy uncertainty does not, repeat does not, create an environment for private sector growth and job creation.

On June 1, a Forbes article title asks “Where Have All The Small Businesses Gone?” On June 3, The Business Insider ran an article titled “Out Of Nowhere, The NFIB Just Sent Out This Warning: "Job Creation On Main Street Has Collapsed"

On June 5, Forbes ran an article titled “Chinese Entrepreneurs Are Leaving China” in which they note, “China’s rich, primarily driven by a sense of insecurity, are taking money out of their country. Many are actually preparing to move elsewhere. According to a new study, almost 60% of China’s “high net worth individuals,” defined as those possessing more than 10 million yuan in investable assets, are either considering emigration through investment programs or are completing the emigration process.”

Wow, even those new to wealth creating private sector capitalism take their money out of their country and plan to leave when they feel insecure about the direction their government policies leave them uncertain. I thought Washington seemed to believe only American business does this – those selfish, evil capitalist.

American corporations and small business entrepreneurs are in fact sitting on cash right now as Washington decries. It’s because they are insecure with the uncertainty of U.S. government policy direction just like those noted Chinese business people and investors. Could it be business is in fact prudent to maintain capital and not take risk while waiting to see what the risks to investment will actually be?

President Obama has resurrected the “tax the wealthy” hike promise once again inciting class warfare and demonizing business owners. Private insurance costs from ObamaCare are beginning to hit business bottom line as well as individual health insurance premium payers. The effect of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law is not precisely known yet in the real world. All of these may negatively affect those with capital to invest and jobs to create. These policies are all from a philosophy that realistically does not instill positive economic growth momentum.

The May jobs numbers offered 83,000 private sector jobs had been created. On June 3, a Newsmax article pointed out 60,000 of those job had been created by McDonalds. Didn’t McDonalds receive an ObamaCare waiver recently? Does Washington realize it is easier to create jobs when a company receives a waiver exempting them from higher business costs and over regulation? Is Washington in denial regarding this correlation?

On June 5, the Associated Press reported, “Socialist setback in Portugal polls after bailout” noting voters sought restoration of the nation's fiscal health by giving a win to the center-right Social Democrats and a “strong mandate to enact grinding austerity program.”

Most thought provoking in the Portugal article was, “Though the severe debt-reduction measures are expected to pitch the country into deep recession and bring sharply lower living standards in what already is one of western Europe's poorest countries, parties that support the effort to restore fiscal health collected around 80 percent of the vote.” Is Washington in denial that Americans can handle the truth and are as motivated as the voters in Portugal for restored fiscal health?

Washington is still denial that money taken out of the private sector for government is less money in the economy to affect positive private sector growth. They are in denial that bailouts and stimulus spending transfers private debt to public debt. Who does this really benefit in the long run? Does it benefit overall positive economic growth?

A continued bailout and big spending mindset only delays Washington, some Unions, and some connected corporations from facing their denial that habits and practices enjoyed during boom times must change in lean times.

The problem is the revenue is too low to support the continued wasteful, duplicate, corrupt, and special interest spending in Washington. More revenue via higher tax rates will never fix the problem of spending addicted politicians. Thinking in terms of the Great Depression history and Hayek versus Keynes, Hayek was eventually proven correct.

Washington must get out of the denial of the great policies of FDR bringing the U.S. out of the Great Depression. Taxpayers are owed sound investments not just infrastructure investments to spread the wealth to the favored few or bailouts used by states to insulate the public sector from the recession.

Do the typical over budget and over deadline government run projects, that were not well-thought out to begin with, result in sound taxpayer money investment in the long-run? Wasn’t the $800B+ stimulus sold as for infrastructure spending that was shovel-ready? Your bad Washington.

Washington must get out of denial and get it’s head screwed on straight. American taxpayer monies being used to invest in manufacturing and/or oil production in Mexico, Brazil, China and other countries by the U.S. government, while denying American companies in the same industry the same support, adds even more pressure to U.S. jobs and the economy.

There must be policy certainty to plan expansion within the private sector, reasonable small business credit possibility, and an environment where it is prudent and responsible to risk capital expenditure. It really is that simple in some ways.

Unfortunately, we don't have any of these components with any certainty at this time. We have a deliberate pull-back of global competitiveness in higher tax talk and crushing new regulations for large corporations and several industries that do and can create thousands of U.S. based jobs. The bottom line is we have an “uncertainty effect” on job creation on Main Street for all size business - small, medium, and large companies. I pray Washington gets out of denial soon.

For the record, according to BusinessDictionary.com:

RECESSION:
Period of general economic decline, defined usually as a contraction in the GDP for six months (two consecutive quarters) or longer. Marked by high unemployment, stagnant wages, and fall in retail sales, a recession generally does not last longer than one year and is much milder than a depression. Although recessions are considered a normal part of a capitalist economy, there is no unanimity of economists on its causes.

DEPRESSION:
Lowest point in an economic cycle characterized by (1) reduced purchasing power, (2) mass unemployment, (3) excess of supply over demand, (4) falling prices, or prices rising slower than usual, (5) falling wages, or wages rising slower than usual, and (6) general lack of confidence in the future. Also called a slump, a depression causes a drop in all economic activity. Major depressions may continue for several years, such as the Great Depression (1930-40) that had worldwide impact.

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Can you hear me now Washington? – Part 2, TheVoterEffect Trends

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 04:03:00 +0000

Voters under 30 got involved in the 2008 Presidential election campaign in record numbers. Many became involved in politics for the first time in their lives – many through social media platforms.

Candidate Barack Obama changed politics forever by setting the bar for all future political candidates to strategize and effectively use social media in political campaigns. He proved out the tremendous power of social media if used with a positive, individual interest, networking message strategy.

The greatest impact of Obama’s powerful use of social media is in how social media as a tool is changing the face of politics and policy in general - not just in campaigning. Everyone learned by watching Obama including America’s citizens – the governed – the voters.

Not feeling their values and opinions were being listened to, let along being accurately represented in Congressional voting, American citizens got involved in political discourse in the last two years. Many typically non-political citizens got informed and involved for the first time in their lives. This included citizens of all ages.

Voters are watching politicians closely for action that backs up their words. Voters are organizing and connecting as they gear up for the 2012 elections.

In the post-Obama campaign evolution, the political focus in social media use will not necessarily be on a politician’s campaign message, for no candidate will be able to tightly control their branding and messaging like Obama seemed to successfully do in 2008.

The social media dynamics have evolved and become much more organized by citizens. The citizens are now in reality just as powerful as the politician’s press secretary and media relations today whether politics or the media like it or not.

Even if the media controls the brand and message by only presenting a candidate in a positive light, ignoring any emerging negative factors or a specific voting record, social media does not allow this to go unchallenged as the only message people see or talk about anymore.

Voters are using key social media tactics to overcome the “power of politicians” who ignore their expressed desires in passing unwanted legislation and more taxation. Now social media affords in reality a leveling agent for both political campaigning and debate playing fields in the political realm.

In politics, these leveled playing fields allow for more accessibility, connection, and networking for the everyday, everyman participant; and these leveled fields are much more equal in several ways to a candidate’s political campaign team’s level.

The everyman has the ability to have a political discussion that is person-to-person and person-to-group with an unlimited audience. This is true even if the everyman has no actual access to traditional media or no actual participation in televised candidate debates.

Voters are now more directly engaging politicians by asking specific questions, expressing their opinion on proposed legislation, and tracking Congressional voting records. Voters are now more directly effecting their own futures having seen how public policy and legislation directly affects their economic stability and individual freedoms.

As we introduced in Part 1, TheVoterEffect.com “demonstrates an active presence by voters and connects them to their representatives to work collaboratively as a part of The Effect – the collective voting power creating change.”

We continue our interview with TheVoterEffect CEO Joe Elkjer and United Kingdom based Director of International Impact Kevan Howley:

BKH: What has been the initial reaction of voters overall to TheVoterEffect?
JE: The initial reaction has been very positive. People are very motivated to create change.
KH: On this side of the pond, it has received a very positive reaction from those I have shown and discussed it with. Many want to know when it will be here in Europe. They express it would be great for the European Parliament.

BKH: What has been the initial reaction of politicians overall to TheVoterEffect?
JE: An example of the reaction is this quote by U.S. Senator of Nebraska Ben Nelson, “I like TheVoterEffect, because it uses social media to give citizens a forum to discuss issues and become educated on happenings in Congress. It’s valuable, because it’s innovative and helps constituents give their feedback on issues of importance to them.”

BKH: What political party affiliation seems most engaged on TheVoterEffect?
JE: It really depends on issue to issue and bill to bill. The more people learn the more affiliation is shaped in reality and matters.

BKH: What age group seems most engaged so far on TheVoterEffect?
JE: 25-65

BKH: What states have had the top voter engagement?
JE: Currently they are California, Texas, Ohio, Nebraska, Florida, and Colorado.

BKH: Explain the “Official Scorecard” feature.
JE: The “Official Scorecard” compares how your Congressional representatives have voted on issues compared to how you would vote on the same issue. A percentage of agreement in voting is displayed for you to track.

BKH: Explain the icon links specifically for members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate only.
JE: This is to allow access to our data for Congressional members to have direct feedback from their constituents on TheVoterEffect.

BKH: Do you believe politicians will listen to voters that engage them with TheVoterEffect?
JE: Yes, I believe that 100%. Social media is “the future” of democracy.
KH: I believe many politicians really want to know what the people they represent have to say, but presently there isn’t an efficient means of channeling it directly. They currently have to rely on information from focus groups and opinion polls.

These often miss the mark as they round up issues and don’t allow the voters the chance to express what specifically is important to them. Or politicians must rely on information refracted through biased legacy-media as a benchmark of voter opinion.

BKH: How do you anticipate TheVoterEffect playing into the 2012 elections?
JE: It will have a defining part in the 2012 elections

BKH: Does TheVoterEffect have a direct line to the White House and President Obama?
JE: LOL. I was able to meet with Aneesh Chopra, the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States, to talk about the future of democracy. We discussed the positive impact TheVoterEffect.com. will have.

BKH: What do you hope voters take away from engaging with TheVoterEffect site?
JE: I hope voters realize and understand together we can actively create a positive future for the people and the nation.
KH: I want voters to know they have the ability to feel connected with politicians again. I want voters to know they can have political accountability by being able to compare and track what politicians promise and what they do.

BKH: What are your plans for additional site feature enhancement?
JE: There are many planned enhancements. Of course, I can’t share all the details. TheVoterEffect is a revolution of how the people interact with the government.

BKH: Do you plan on bringing TheVoterEffect to other countries ultimately?
JE: Yes! The next stop is the United Kingdom.
KH: Watch this space!

BKH: How do the needs of other countries differ from the needs in the U.S.?
KH: The UK will be the next country, and I don’t see a whole lot of difference in needs between American voters and elected and those counterparts in Europe. The only difference is in adapting TheVoterEffect engine and presentation to the UK political structures and system.

TheVoterEffect name would remain the same. Beyond that the European Parliament is in our sights. It’s almost totally disconnected from the 500 million European Union population. TheVoterEffect can redress that. Ultimately, I see TheVoterEffect as a global platform within which many different voter constituencies will experience the voter effect.

BKH: Thanks gentlemen. Check out TheVoterEffect.com and follow on Twitter @ TheVoterEffect.

The dynamics have changed, and we are all in a new era in politics. Voters are definitely engaged, and reading proposed legislation isn’t just for some Congressional staffers or Congressional Budget Office employees anymore. Here’s some feedback from a few of TheVoterEffect citizen users:

“Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! I had fun voting and will do more tomorrow.” Dale T. – Wauconda, IL

“I really think TheVoterEffect is a good way to get voters involved, and it sure gives you factual information in order to make a valid decision on issues that concerns us all.” Frank M. – Saratoga, FL

“The Voter Effect is an engaging way to stay on top of everyday political issues, bills, and how legislators are voting. Additionally, it is fun to be able to network with old friends and new friends. TheVoterEffect is a dream for people, like me, who love politics and social networking.” Carol W. - Rapid City, SD

See also: Part 1, What is TheVoterEffect?

Follow Brenda Krueger Huffman on Twitter and join her on Facebook.

Can you hear me now Washington? – Part 1, What is TheVoterEffect?

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 03:08:00 +0000

In past elections, have you blindly voted for candidates knowing nothing about them or their campaign platform? Have you voted for an incumbent on name recognition only or simply because they had an “R” or “D” after their name without knowing their voting record?

Have you relied on the media for your political news? Do you believe everything you hear or read by the media? Do you watch campaign ads believing they can not say it if it is not true? Have you in fact allowed the media and campaign ads to shape your political opinions and votes?

Are you ready to change, to get informed, and to get more involved in the political process with the upcoming 2012 election? Many voters are. Many voters have even become citizen organizers.

The citizen organizer has the ability to identify like-minded individuals; to create political consensus; to establish political allies; to provide information outside of the candidate’s controlled message; and to persuade others in supporting or not supporting a candidate. This is true whether we are talking about political campaigns or existing politicians – whether proposed bills or existing legislation.

Have you ever wanted to ask a politician a direct question, to express your opinion on proposed legislation, and track a politician’s voting record? Would you know how to go about this? Would you consider the time and effort involved a deterrent?

There’s an easy and effective way to accomplish all of this now. TheVoterEffect is new, non-partisan, free, and available now. TheVoterEffect.com “demonstrates an active presence by voters and connects them to their representatives to work collaboratively as a part of The Effect – the collective voting power creating change.”

TheVoterEffect provides voters the ability to “access and view bills on the floor of Congress in real-time, cast virtual votes on bills, and connect with other voters.” It allows voters to “review, rate, and share representatives’ voting history” as well as to “track outcomes for accountability and transparency.”

TheVoterEffect provides voter opinion feedback and reports directly back to U.S. Representatives and Senators also.

Based in Omaha, TheVoterEffect CEO and Co-Founder Joe Elkjer is an entrepreneur/Internet businessman. From very early on, Joe knew that “working for himself would offer the most room for personal growth.” He is an independent and abstract thinker that likes to take ideas and make them a reality.

Prior to founding his own companies, Joe worked in sales and marketing within the music industry. In 2009, Joe founded Nuclear Minds Inc., Idea Creation Company, and Nuclear Minds Racing. In 2010 he co-founded The Voter Effect LLC, a political social network to allow users to be heard and actively involved in creating their future.

Based in Chicago, TheVoterEffect CTO and Chief Programmer Joe Dundas received his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of Illinois in December of 2010. His main area of research was structural bioinformatics, where he developed and implemented an algorithm to computational find structurally conserved concave surface regions across a family of proteins.

During his research career he built several web servers and databases, including CASTp. Dr. Dundas' education and research have given him a strong background in graph theory, statistics, and data mining. Dr. Dundas has been published in several esteemed journals including Nucleic Acids Research, BMC Bioinformatics, and the Journal of Molecular Biology.

TheVoterEffect United Kingdom based Director of International Impact Kevan Howley is also an executive of various companies spanning ICT, Business Services, Technology Innovation, Web 2.0+, and Property Development. Kevan brings global business experience with an exceptional reputation for propelling rapid profitable growth of international technology-enable services. Kevan “loves a challenge”, and he “wants TheVoterEffect to be instrumental in rejuvenating politics by breaking the legacy-media monopoly of voter and elected communications.”

An interview with Joe Elkjer and Kevan Howley:

BKH: What was your “light bulb” moment for TheVoterEffect?
JE: It was a combination of ideas between Dave Stebbins, another Co-Founder, and me. The light bulb for me personally came a couple years ago at the beginning of the “bad economy.” I had a bigger picture understanding that the future of social media is not just about sharing the current moment. The future of social media allows users to be active in creating a more positive future for them.
KH: I found TheVoterEffect in a LinkedIn discussion group. I immediately realized it’s potential and contacted Joe to talk about leveraging it across the pond.

BKH: Is the company or website funded by any Political Action Committee (PAC) or lobbyist money?
JE: Nope.
KH: And it will stay this way, for neutrality of the medium is paramount. It is individuals that count – voters, candidates, and the elected.

BKH: How do you retain party neutrality with TheVoterEffect?
JE: Social media is interesting in that way. Users are both the providers and the consumers. We approach development of TheVoterEffect as a tool. It is a tool for all people to become more active and knowledgeable in creating a positive future.

BKH: Facebook has many people forming political groups. How is TheVoterEffect different?
JE: TheVoterEffect is an unbiased tool.
KH: And it is purpose-built with its central purpose being political engagement. It’s not just an add-on to a general purpose social networking platform, though it’s being quoted and leveraged by such.

BKH: Facebook has had a lot of member data privacy issues come into play in the past few months. How does TheVoterEffect handle member data privacy?
KH: We handle user privacy with the utmost care. We invite people to review our privacy guidelines detailed on the site.

BKH: What needs does TheVoterEffect meet?
JE: We meet the need for the people to become more involved.
KH: And, we meet the need for politicians to know what voters’ issues are as opposed to what big legacy media lobbies for.

BKH: Who is the target market for TheVoterEffect?
JE: The target market I want, are the people who can see the possibility of a positive future for the people of our nation.
KH: I also want the target market to be politicians who want to serve people more than party.

BKH: How do you counter any fraudulent results or hidden lobbying with TheVoterEffect?
JE: We monitor the data, and we would be aware and see patterns of strange activity.
KH: We apply our internal application of highly advanced structural bioinformatics algorithms.

BKH: Is it available for every U.S. Representative and Senator nationally?
JE: Yes.

BKH: Is it available for local and state politicians?
JE: Yes. Right now we don’t pull data from state legislatures, but it is in the works.
KH: Local is vital too, for there are many voters who have lost confidence in central government but still hold faith in their regional or local politicians. Politics can be driven up from local to national with TheVoterEffect. Many believe top-down national dictating to local has gone too far.

BKH: Does it contain information for every U.S. legislation bill or law?
JE: We focus on the current congressional year. That is what shapes our future government

BKH: Does it contain information for every local and statewide legislation bill or law?
JE: Not yet.
KH: Watch this space!

BKH: This would be a great teaching tool in the classroom. Is TheVoterEffect working with schools?
JE: We are in many classrooms across the country. We are currently developing the ability for schools to create their own secure sub networks, and are always willing to help kids learn. They are the future.

BKH: What are your ultimate goals for TheVoterEffect?
JE: I most want people to be involved in actively creating a positive future.
KH: I think its time to cut through the legacy-media monopoly of the communication channels between voters and the elected. It’s time for direct undistorted communications in both directions!

BKH: Thank you gentlemen.

Kevan is right in many ways. In 2008 an often minimized reality was the majority of the U.S. traditional media pushed Obama as their candidate due to their desire for an historic election for the most part. They controlled the brand and messaging for him in the media with limited exception. They endorsed him, and the reality is the objectivity of the media in the U.S. is gone.

The main stream media, most often liberally slanted, has continued to define and control the President Obama message for most Americans. In reality, they have already begun to endorse him for his re-election bid in 2012.

Yet, the media’s position as the definer of what is to be accepted as “good” like Obama or “bad” like the Tea Party movement is severely waning with the evolution of social media and voter engagement in general.

Social media now permits a pointing of people in a direction for news outside of information by the limited and possibly political philosophy controlled traditional news sources and the political candidate’s Internet networking.

We are definitely in the social media political era that allows and encourages voters every day to get connected and network, raise issues, ask politicians questions directly, follow voting records, and decide if they are being represented effectively. Voters will increasingly endorse a politician, or not endorse, based on informed and critical thinking.

Voters want a real seat at the table, and they know social media can easily facilitate this. Voters are more invested, and they feel ownership in the process. The expectation of two-way participation and communication in politics in real-time is an emerging and lasting dynamics with voters.

The days of politicians thinking the dynamic remains I talk, you listen, and you don’t question my message are over. The new dynamic is now you spoke, I listened; now you listen to me as I speak my experience and opinion - a two-way exchange and a more personal individual relationship is expected.

Should a politician ignore the two-way communication that social media fosters and voters expect, they will be viewed as out-of-touch and replaceable no matter how great the initial excitement, the strength of message, or the value of their platform.

In addition, once elected, politicians will have to live up to their campaign rhetoric in their actual voting record to be re-elected. The importance of listening to the people they represent is a growing factor with voters. TheVoterEffect easily and directly facilitates this for voters and politicians.

As Joe likes to say, “The future is bright, and it begins in Middle America.” Check out TheVoterEffect.com and follow on Twitter @TheVoterEffect.

See also: Part 2, TheVoterEffect Trends

Follow Brenda Krueger Huffman on Twitter and join her on Facebook.

5-Part Series, Effecting Change with a “un-Revolution”; Part 5, ATOM Answers “Dream Act” Opposition

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Thu, 26 May 2011 17:19:00 +0000

Many American student groups, and the majority of liberal progressive groups, are working for passage of the Dream Act. Many of these groups often express a desire for an open-arm and open or no border society in American immigration policy.

Many often cite the Dream Act amounts to fairness for young illegal immigrants who are innocent of wrong doing in their plight. Many most often ignore it is policy that is much further reaching than this in reality and can realistically be seen, in many ways, as part of a political game that ultimately only benefits politicians.

They believe the Dream Act is necessary to be good citizens of the world – good citizens of a Utopian one world society. Some even take the militant stand the majority of America’s southwest land was stolen from Mexico; and therefore, it is the only right thing to do even if this results in a revolutionary position against the U.S. This does not follow actual history, yet this is, believe it or not, what is being increasingly taught in many American schools today.

Many of these groups know there is extreme opposition from many American citizens regarding the Dream Act. Most liberal groups are unwilling to honestly and realistically address any opposition coming from legitimate citizen concerns of enforcing existing American immigration law, to local and national fiscal cost of illegal immigration, to national security and U.S. sovereignty. Many pro-Dream Act groups espouse any and all opposition is due only to those that must be labeled racists.

The Chicago based student group Access To Opportunity Movement (ATOM) is a liberal group. ATOM approaches their work with a willingness to engage every one of any political position and with a mission to unite all to make positive changes within the existing system. ATOM is honest and open and works from the premise of respecting all that they engage.

ATOM is willing to advance a dialogue to affect change. They are strategic and measure their effectiveness. They are not looking to rewrite history to fit their position or to name-call those that do not agree with them. ATOM is not demanding a revolution or to take anything by force.

They want to enact change by working within the system to change the system – a “un-Revolution” approach – which is most often how change is in fact successful within entrenched policy.

Unlike most Dream Act proponents, ATOM is willing to answer tough Dream Act opposition as an element of their work. Even if you come from the position “you will never agree with passage of the Dream Act”, this ATOM straight forwardness is in itself worth your attention and consideration.

In Part 4, we met Cindy Agustin. She is ATOM ’s Director for Immigration Reform Initiatives. On behalf of ATOM, she shares her insights on the expressed thoughts from those Americans who believe the Dream Act would in fact be a nightmare for the U.S. You may agree or disagree with passage of the Dream Act, yet ATOM’s position is, at the least, one to hear and consider.

The Dream Act is quite controversial with many Americans. What are ATOM’s thoughts on the following points?

BKH: Many Americans see President Obama using the Dream Act to simply pander for Latino votes for his 2012 re-election?

CA: The Dream Act is a piece of legislation that was first put on the table in 2001, well before President Obama was ever considering even an initial Presidential bid. Rather than speculating about the President’s political tactics, what voters need to focus on are the merits of this bill, which stands to greatly improve the lives and prospects of the thousands students who stand to be affected by it.

BKH: Many Americans are angry about the existing immigration laws not being enforced by the federal government?

CA: Contrary to what many Americans have been led to believe, immigration laws have been heavily enforced under the Obama administration. In fact, the number of deportations has greatly increased under Obama as compared to Bush.

What’s more, this administration has gone so far as to establish a number of federal programs, such as the Secure Communities Program, which are aimed towards arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants who are found to be criminals. Under this program alone, thousands of people are deported every year regardless of whether or not they actually do in fact have a criminal background.

To assume that existing immigration laws are not being enforced at the federal level would clearly be missing the full picture.

BKH: Many Americans believe the U.S. cannot be a sovereign country if its borders are not secure and protected from illegal entry?

CA: The Dream Act is not advocating that our borders should not be secured. This piece of legislation is a measure to deal exclusively with those who are already within this country.

Border security is an entirely separate debate, which legislators will also have to address, but it is important that they realize that this debate over the Dream Act is not the appropriate stage to do it.

BKH: The majority of Americans want the U.S. borders to be secured and illegal immigration stopped prior to any immigration reform being considered including the Dream Act?

CA: What many fail to recognize is how complicated our current immigration system is and the loopholes that many immigrants have to go through to come to the United States. We need to understand the reasons behind the increase in unlawful migration from around the world, especially from countries in Latin America.

It is difficult for people from Latin American countries to acquire visas to the United States due to the quotas that are in place. The situation is much different for European countries. It is also important to note that border enforcement has increased dramatically over the last few years.

BKH: Many Americans believe the Dream Act rewards illegal behavior?

CA: The Dream Act is a piece of legislation that will give undocumented youth a chance at the American Dream. The Dream Act would only apply to undocumented immigrants who arrived to the United States as children before the age of 16 years and who have completed at least two years of college or have enlisted in the military service.

These young people are not being rewarded for any illegal behavior, but rather will be given a chance to fulfill their dreams of attending college, joining the military, and making use of their education and skills by being able to become productive members of American society.

BKH: Many Americans believe the Dream Act will only lead to more illegal immigration incentive?

CA: Again, the Dream Act will only apply to those who arrived before the age of 16 and have been in the U.S. for at least 5 years before the enactment of the Act. Those who come afterwards will not qualify under this Act and therefore will not benefit from gaining U.S. legal permanent residency.

BKH: Many Americans have begun to feel the federal government, and some states, now grant illegal immigrants preferential treatment and benefits over many American citizens and legal residents?

CA: Many Americans are not aware of what type of services undocumented immigrants do and do not have access. Undocumented immigrants do not qualify to receive any social services like Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, or federal and state funding for their education. Undocumented immigrants are not receiving preferential treatment and benefits over American citizens and legal residents.

In fact, undocumented immigrants are among the most vulnerable groups in the U.S. Many undocumented immigrants are exploited in their workplace, have no access to adequate health care, and do not have the resources to attend college or to continue their education.

BKH: Many Americans are angry about the huge financial cost of social programs already being given to illegal immigrants paid for by American taxpayers and adding to state budget problems?

CA: A misconception many Americans have regarding undocumented immigrants is that they do not pay taxes. Yet, a report released by the Immigrant Policy Center shows that undocumented immigrants have paid about $11.2 billion in state and local taxes. That included $1.2 billion in personal income taxes, $1.6 billion in property taxes, and $8.4 billion in sales taxes in 2010.

Undocumented immigrants do not benefit from social programs any more than U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

BKH: Many Americans believe the Dream Act is a ‘camel nose under the tent” attempt to extend amnesty for illegal immigrants?

CA: The Dream Act is not amnesty for any undocumented immigrants. In order for anyone to qualify for conditional permanent residency under the Dream Act, they must have completed at least 2 years of college, or enlisted in the military service, and undergo background checks to show that they are of good moral character.

Undocumented immigrants who would benefit directly from the Dream Act have shown that they want to give back to the only country they know through education and serving their country.

BKH: Many Americans object to the provisions in the Dream Act that would allow those applicants that gain citizenship to then sponsor family members for citizenship?

CA: Under the Dream Act, those who benefit will have to apply for 6 years of conditional permanent residency before being able to apply for U.S. citizenship. The fact that they are Dream Act beneficiaries will not affect how quickly their application goes through the immigration system. It might take up to 10 years for them to become U.S. citizens.

Because only U.S. citizens can petition their family members, those who benefit from the Dream Act will not be able to sponsor their family members for at least 15 years.

BKH: Many Americans believe illegal immigrants protesting for equal rights to American citizens and legal residents do not have a legal or moral standing to do so?

CA: Undocumented immigrants in the United States have become an essential part of our daily lives, and it is important that all members of our society, regardless of immigration status, are treated in a humane and respectful manner.

Undocumented immigrants are not demanding special treatment from the U.S. government but rather for the opportunity to be protected from being exploited in their workplace, for better opportunities for their children who may have limited resources to attend college, and to be treated with dignity.

Undocumented immigrants have contributed to the U.S. economy and society over the last decades and deserve the right to be treated as people and not second-class citizens.

BKH: Many Americans see those already in the U.S. illegally demanding favor over those wanting to come to the U.S. that are following the immigration laws and the legal process to do so?

CA: The United States government cannot ignore the fact there are approximately 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. working, attending schools, and making their lives in the United States.

Current immigration laws and quotas that the U.S. has in place for certain countries limits the number of people who can legally arrive to the U.S. Unfortunately, unless a person has money, family who are U.S. citizens, and are highly skilled, they will not be able to receive a visa and file to stay in the country for long periods of time.

In some cases, family members will attempt to bring in their family from their home country but must wait up to 15 years before the family member can come into the U.S. Undocumented immigrants are not demanding special treatment from the U.S. but rather asking that they be given the opportunity to continue living in U.S. without fear and to be treated with respect.

Our immigration laws need to be fixed. This includes fixing the quotas set for different countries, the process to obtain a visa, and finding a way to fully incorporate the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. into society.

BKH: Many Americans point to illegal immigrants, from Mexico in particular, demanding rights and benefits from the U.S. government that the Mexican government does not grant any non-citizens including Americans in Mexico?

CA: The U.S. has a large immigration problem that must be addressed. Those that leave countries like Mexico and come to the U.S. do it as a last resort in search of a better life for them and their family.

Immigrants come to the U.S., work at low-wage jobs, are exploited at the workplace, and live in fear of being torn apart from their family. They are only asking to be treated with dignity and respect. The number of people who go to countries like Mexico out of necessity is much lower than the numbers that come to the U.S.

BKH: Many Americans oppose granting illegal immigrants the benefit of in-state tuition while maintaining higher out-of-state tuition application to American citizens wanting to go to the same school?

CA: Undocumented students are asking to be given the same right to an education as their peers. Many of these undocumented students arrived to the U.S. as toddlers and consider the U.S. to be the only home they know.

Students are asking to be given the same opportunities to an education as their peers in the states that they live. The 12 states in the U.S. that offer in-state tuition to undocumented students only offer it to students who have attended high school in their state. They are not allowing undocumented students from other states to benefit from these laws.

BKH: How can someone join ATOM’s efforts to affect change in Education, Youth Violence Prevention, and Immigration?

CA: Come check us out at the Access To Opportunity Movement website!

BKH: Thank you Cindy Agustin, ATOM Director for Immigration Reform Initiatives. Thank you also to Bradley Akubuiro, ATOM Chairman, Kaasha Benjamin, TOM Director of Education Strategy, and Jennifer Mahlum, ATOM Director of Youth Violence Prevention for participation in the AXcess News “un-Revolution” series.

Connect with ATOM on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You may also subscribe to the ATOM B log.

5-Part Series, Effecting Change with a "un-Revolution"; Part 4, ATOM “Dream Act” Work

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Wed, 25 May 2011 04:56:00 +0000

Cindy Agustin is Access To Opportunity Movement's (ATOM) Director for Immigration Reform Initiatives. She is from a predominantly immigrant community in the southwest side of Chicago and is a fourth year at the University of Chicago studying Comparative Human Development and minoring in Human Rights.

On campus, Cindy has worked with students and student groups to bring attention to the issue of undocumented students in higher education and advocating for the rights of documented and undocumented immigrants.

Through a new organization, the University of Chicago Coalition for Immigrant Rights, she and has been working with the Immigrant Youth Justice League (IYJL). IYJL is a youth-led group representing undocumented youth in the demand for immigrant rights through education, resource-gathering, and youth mobilization.

Cindy also works with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) organizing students in local universities to advocate for the rights of undocumented students on their campus and pressuring their school president to publicly advocate for the Dream Act.

Ms. Agustin hopes to pursue a doctoral degree in an education related field and work to improve the conditions in the public school system in Chicago, as well as encourage more minorities to continue onto higher education. She provides insight for the ATOM Dream Act platform.

BKH: What led to incorporate the Dream Act into the ATOM platform?
CA: In the U.S., there are approximately 65,000 undocumented students who graduate from U.S. high schools every year who have limited opportunities to continue with their education and to pursue their dreams because of their undocumented status.

These young people have no pathway towards citizenship except through federal legislation like the Dream Act. This fair and simple policy, if enacted, will give these young people the opportunity to earn their citizenship through education or military service. It will be a chance for them to pursue the American dream and achieve their goals.

It is important to remember that many of these students were brought to America at a very young age, with no voice in their family’s decision to move here. We believe that access to opportunity applies to everyone, which means that undocumented youth must be made part of the conversation when discussing policy, especially in the area of education.

BKH: What does ATOM see as the main positives for Americans in passing the Dream Act?
CA: In November of 2010, the North American Integration and Development Center at UCLA released a report showing the economic benefits of the Dream Act. According to their data, the 2.1 million undocumented immigrants who qualify to receive legal status under the Dream Act would generate about $3.6 trillion over a 40-year period.

Not only would these young people be able to contribute to the American economy, but they would be part of a highly educated and skilled population which would now have the resources and the agency to help America to be more competitive in the global economy.

BKH: What does ATOM see as the main negatives for Americans in passing the Dream Act?
CA: Unfortunately, the Dream Act will only apply to a small percentage of undocumented immigrants in the United States and not solve the larger problems with our immigration system. Yet, immigrant youth and advocates for the Dream Act do not consider this bill to be the final goal.

In order to solve the issue of unauthorized immigration, larger pieces of legislation need to be considered and larger conversations need to be had that include all undocumented immigrants, the injustices in our immigration laws, and potential solutions that would create a pathway towards citizenship for all undocumented immigrants.

BKH: What are ATOM’s thoughts on President Obama not pushing for passage of the Dream Act in actuality when the Democrats had a majority in the House and the Senate in 2009 and 2010?
CA: President Obama had the opportunity to push for the Dream Act and Comprehensive Immigration Reform during his first term and make it a reality. For whatever reason, he chose not to. Immigrant youth and allies are now asking him to file an executive order to at least stop the deportations of Dream Act eligible youth, as a temporary compromise.

We believe that President Obama should offer some relief to undocumented youth during his first term as president, and it’s not as if he is against the idea. During his campaign for office, President Obama made a promise to America that he would pass the Dream Act within his first 100 days in office. We still have faith that he will find the strength to make the right choice, but unfortunately, we have yet to see this happen.

BKH: Why does it seem the majority of Americans are opposed to the Dream Act?
CA: Actually, polls show that more Americans are in support of the Dream Act than not. Numbers range from a CNN poll showing that 54% of the American public was behind the Act, to a to a more informal CBS News reader poll reflecting 68% of respondents support it.

First Focus is a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families a priority in federal policy and budget decisions. Their poll conducted in June 2010, showed total public support at 70% with a break out of Republican at 60% and Democrats at 80%. The majority of polls, other than a Pulse Opinion Report commissioned by the group Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR), show at least a slim margin in favor of passing the legislation.

That being said, most Americans are still not properly informed about the Dream Act and all of the social and economic benefits that it would stand to the United States. Many major news sources give the public biased information portraying all undocumented immigrants as “criminals” and dangerous to American society.

Sadly, many Americans believe the propaganda that they see on the news channels. For this reason, personal stories from undocumented youth are crucial in earning even more support for this bill from the general public.

BKH What is being done currently at the local and national level to overcome this opposition?
CA: Over the last year, undocumented youth all over the nation have been sharing their stories with their friends, community, media and politicians as a political tool to change the image of an undocumented person.

Undocumented youth have proclaimed their undocumented status and have publicly come out of the shadows, a tactic borrowed from the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning) movement. Over the last year, undocumented students have shared their stories with the public and changed the image of an undocumented youth.

At the local level, many states have also attempted to create their own version of the federal Dream Act. Some of these states are making education more accessible to undocumented students by pushing for in-state tuition, while other states, like Illinois which has already won in-state tuition for undocumented students, are pushing to create private sources of funding for immigrant students to be able to continue with their education. Local efforts allow the momentum to continue in support of the federal Dream Act and undocumented youth.

BKH: Give an overview of the ATOM immigration advocacy and programs.
CA: ATOM has collaborated with the Immigrant Youth Justice League and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights in advocating for the Dream Act, undocumented youth, and immigrant rights. ATOM also works with campus groups whose aim is to bring awareness to the issue of undocumented students.

Overall, ATOM is committed to working with local and national immigrant rights organizations in advocating for the rights and equal treatment of all immigrants.

BKH: How does ATOM ascertain what stakeholders to target for working with and working against specific to its Dream Act platform focus?
CA: The struggle for passage of the Dream Act is different from any of ATOM’s other platforms, because it is championed by such a cohesive network of other immigrant rights organizations. This is a national movement.

As a collective, our organizations have identified specific targets that range from politicians to university officials and community leaders.

For example, ATOM has been working with students at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago to build actionable support amongst their students and school presidents. We encourage them to meet with legislators from their districts and to support both the Illinois Dream Act and the national Dream Act.

BKH: How does ATOM measure the success of its objectives specific to its Dream Act platform focus?
CA: It’s pretty simple. If we target one legislator who previously has not been for the Dream Act, we can launch initiatives from several different angles to help better inform their decision when it comes down to a vote. At the end of the day, a vote will be cast, and we will either have the numbers we need, or we won’t.

There is also something to be said though about the number of new supporters we bring into the movement, and how many misperceptions we are able to correct as they pertain to undocumented people. Those are a little more nebulous, and definitely harder to track, but nonetheless are very important wins towards our cause.

BKH: How can someone join ATOM’s efforts specifically in its Dream Act mission?
CA: Check out our website and click on “Join the Movement!” We’re always interested in seeing more people get involved!

BKH: Thank you Cindy. Connect with ATOM on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You may also subscribe to the ATOM Blog.

See also:
Part 1, What is ATOM?
Part 2, ATOM Education Mission
Part 3, ATOM Youth Violence Prevention
Part 5, ATOM Answers "Dream Act" Opposition

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5-Part Series, Effecting Change with a “un-Revolution”; Part 3, ATOM Youth Violence Prevention

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:47:00 +0000

Jennifer Mahlum is the Director of Youth Violence Prevention for the Chicago based student group Access To Opportunity Movement (ATOM). She is a junior at Northwestern University majoring in Human Development and Psychology and minoring in Creative Writing.

Jennifer is a sexual health and assault peer educator, a freeform DJ for the Chicago Sound Experiment, and a research assistant in Northwestern’s social psychology lab.

BKH: What falls under the definition of “Youth Violence” in the ATOM prevention mission?
JM: Things that unfortunately happen every day fall under this mission. Think about a kid being beaten to death by his peers with a nine iron. That’s youth violence. A twelve-year old boy being shot in the back outside of his elementary school is youth violence. Youth violence is a thirteen year-old girl being sexually assaulted by her boyfriend of five months.

None of these should fall under the definition of “youth violence,” because none of these stories should exist. In our prevention mission, ATOM defines “youth violence” as acts of violence (whether physical, sexual, emotional, or verbal) committed “by” youth “against” youth.

BKH: What are the statistics of youth violence in the U.S.?
JM: The statistics are staggering. Since the start of the war, more Americans have been killed right here in Chicago than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. To further illustrate this, in the last 18 months alone, 500 Chicago Public School students have been shot. Violence is currently the second leading cause of death in the United States among individuals aged 10-24.

BKH: What led to incorporate youth violence prevention into the ATOM platform?
JM: A lot of our group members have themselves been witnesses to or victims of youth violence. Others, like me, have not. Prior to my involvement with ATOM, my experience with and knowledge of youth violence was limited to what I saw in movies like “Boys in the Hood” and to what I read as I skimmed through newspaper articles (and more honestly, newspaper headlines).

It is a mutual passion for its eradication, despite our different backgrounds, that led ATOM to incorporate youth violence prevention into our platform. It’s a passion to free youth from the fear of attack while walking home from school; from the fear of having to bring a knife or gun to school for self-defense; from the fear of attending a best friend’s funeral - or avoiding his or her own.

BKH: Are there characteristics of youth violence that are different than general violence?
JM: Yes and no. No in terms of the acts and consequences of violence itself, which can and does affect individuals of all ages. Yes in terms of the individuals who are committing these acts, namely youth. And yes in terms of the potential for disruption to an individual’s development.

Adolescence is a mandatory time for identity development. Those who experience violence during these formative years will be at greater risk for threats to their identity development.

BKH: What or whom are the targets of youth violence?
JM: Homicide is the leading cause of death for African Americans aged 10 to 24 and the second leading cause of death for Hispanics aged 10-24. Men are also statistically more likely to be victims of homicide of youth violence than women. There are also trends toward targeting LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning) youth. But anyone can be a target of youth violence.

BKH: How does youth violence ultimately most affect victims?
JM: In the most permanent of affects, youth violence can result in death. However, I feel I would be doing survivors of youth violence a disservice by narrowing their experience into one presumed ultimate affect. Rather, the affect of youth violence is distinctly different for every survivor. Just as acts of youth violence fall along a spectrum of behaviors, affects of violence fall across a spectrum of possible reactions and consequences.

In “extremely” generalized terms, youth violence can affect its survivors in a number of ways: physical well-being, feelings of safety or security, emotional stability, drug and alcohol use, school attendance, participation, and the list goes on.

BKH: What is being done currently to prevent youth violence at the local and national level?
JM: There are a countless number of programs ranging from those put on by small community-based organizations to those that rise out of partnerships between large federal agencies such as the Department of Education and the Office of the U.S. Attorney General.

The problem is, these programs are rarely coordinated with each other and often times don’t include all the necessary stakeholders. All-in-all though, if young people are still getting hurt and dying, we know that these programs have not gone far enough.

BKH: What must be done better for more effective youth violence prevention?
JM: We need a more widespread recognition of the problem and a reprioritization of time and funds toward its prevention. Youth violence is often seen as a problem in “certain areas.” Statistically, these claims have some validity, but it needs not to be seen as one community’s, one individual’s, or one school’s problem.

Not only do community relationships need to be cultivated and given voice, cross-community relationships need to be created and cultivated as well. This is “a” problem, not “their” problem. The prevention of youth violence needs to be shouldered by a larger community.

This would probably demand a cultural shift from the ground-up, emphasizing collective responsibility for the self and others, and individualism within a framework of non-violence. There needs to be a refining of intervention programs and an increase in prevention programs. Intervention programs need to be focused toward alternative policing efforts, neighborhood watch initiatives, education programs, and gun control regulation.

Violence is learned; non-violence needs to be taught.

BKH: What are the main disconnects with what is needed and what is provided in preventing youth violence?
JM: There is a disconnect between the individuals who are affected by youth violence and the policy makers who are designing programs for youth violence prevention. Often the resources that are being provided as prevention tactics are not the solutions that are actually needed. The solutions are fitting neither the scale of the problem nor the source of the problem.

BKH: Does ATOM support the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment – the right for citizens to bear arms?
JM: ATOM supports the U.S. Constitution in its entirety. This includes the Second Amendment and the country’s current firearm registration; registered Americans do deserve the right to hold the right to bear arms. However, illegal firearm distribution needs to be reined in and better regulated by the government.

BKH: Give an overview of the ATOM youth violence prevention advocacy and programs.
JM: This past year, ATOM met with Chicago’s mayoral candidates to discuss their youth violence platforms and offer strategies for more community based approaches to violent prevention in the city.

Something cool we have in the works right now is a cross-community improv group. It will be a place where kids can meet people of different backgrounds and avoid idle time, and the dangers that tend to come with this; a place where they can build communication skills, laugh, and work through issues or stress in an open, casual environment.

BKH: How does ATOM ascertain what stakeholders to target for working with and working against specific to its youth violence prevention platform focus?
JM: By asking, “Who has the power?” In other words, we decide how we want to affect change and then figure out who has the power to make the change we want to see. For instance, we targeted all the mayoral candidates equally with the understanding that one of them has to win - and that, post-election, we would have already met with and built a relationship with this new person of power.

Never be afraid to ask for what you want; you won’t know until you ask.

BKH: How does ATOM measure the success of its objectives specific to its youth violence prevention platform focus?
JM: Youth violence is the hardest area for us to measure. We look at it on an anecdotal level. If we can save or better one person’s life, then we’ve succeeded in that regard. But we also don’t want to stop there. We want to keep influencing individuals and keep bettering lives.

BKH: How can someone join ATOM’s efforts specifically in its youth violence prevention mission?
JM: Come check us out at the ATOM website!

BKH: Thank you Jennifer. Connect with ATOM on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. You may also subscribe to the ATOM Blog.

See also:
Part 1, What is ATOM?
Part 2, ATOM Education Mission
Part 4, ATOM "Dream Act" Work
Part 5, ATOM Answers "Dream Act" Opposition

Follow Brenda Krueger Huffman on Twitter and join her on Facebook.

5-Part Series, Effecting Change with a “un-Revolution”; Part 2, ATOM Education Mission

bsk1@ix.netcom.com (Brenda Krueger Huffman) — Fri, 20 May 2011 22:22:00 +0000

Kaasha Benjamin is the Director of Education Strategy for the Chicago based student group Access To Opportunity Movement (ATOM). From Centralia, Illinois, she is a junior in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University majoring in Political Science and minoring in the Harvey Kapnick Business Institutions Program. Kaasha is also an alumnus of the Alice Kaplan Humanities Scholars Program. She plans to pursue a career in corporate law following graduation.

During her time at Northwestern, she has been involved in working for the Center for Student Involvement Campus Programming Department and participating in the Freshman Emerging Leaders Program, Women in Leadership, Minority Enrollment Committee, and Minorities in Pursuit of Law.

BKH: What led to incorporate education into the ATOM platform?
KB: Education seemed to be an obvious base for the ATOM platform. Regardless of our diverse backgrounds, we are all connected as young adults pursuing an education. It is also education through which we can find agency to tackle the problems that are within the system. If we want to change the world we live in, education is the place we need to start.

BKH: Does the ATOM education platform include all levels of education – K-12, high school, college?
KB: The platform is not catered to one specific population. It ranges from higher education issues for college students to learning more about Chicago Public Schools and issues at the primary and elementary grade levels. Issues at the college level stem from problems beginning as early as the primary years of a child’s education. Seeing that connection is key for solving problems later in the educational process.

BKH: What does ATOM identify as the largest problems leading to education ineffectiveness in the U.S.?
KB: There are two steps to approaching this question - identifying issues in grades K-12 and at the college level. For grades K-12, the inability to properly measure teacher and student performance is the main issue. If we have tests that correctly measure a child’s success, we don’t have the problem of finding effective curriculums for our schools. Removing ineffective teachers can change an unproductive learning environment into a productive one.

For higher education, the issue of college affordability, or un-affordability actually, results in a child not being able to go to college. This is both damaging and ineffective.

BKH: How do these problems ultimately most affect students?
KB: Ineffective teachers are a major problem. Instructors that merely teach a test to students, that doesn’t measure their success, offers no value to a student’s education. Our school system should prepare students for plans after high school, even those not pursuing a college degree.

By putting pressure on students to pass standardized tests that offer no additional value to their education, schools are failing to instill the knowledge and life skills students need for post-high school plans. And with college continuing to increase in costs, even those students wishing to pursue their educations after high school do not have the option to do so.

BKH: What are the main disconnects with what is needed and what is provided?
KB: This is a question of resource effectiveness. Standardized tests do not adequately measure student performance. Also, we need to distinguish effective teachers from ineffective teachers to foster and maintain learning environments. Finally, providing schools that can educate every type of student and not just the ones we label with potential is crucial.

BKH: How does America become more competitive in education scores and practical success globally?
KB: It starts with changing the way that we view education. ATOM Chairman Bradley Akubuiro was telling me about a conversation he had with a Zimbabwean official. The official said that in Zimbabwe, education is valued as a privilege, not a right. He described a school where the teachers taught by carving on wood and students took notes with sticks in the dirt.

Despite their lack of resources, they had a true desire to learn. U.S. competitiveness will require a culture shift. We have to reconstruct our school system around the values of privilege and optimism for where it can take us in our lives. This will lead us to competitive success on a global level.

BKH: Does ATOM embrace using more technology in classrooms as teaching tools and in method?
KB: Technology has dramatically increased teaching capacity. I can remember as far back as elementary, when my school was equipped with smart boards in every classroom.

Teachers were able to convey their lessons to us in an interactive and creative way, while introducing us to new technologies that were taking a major role in society. With almost every part of society having a connection with technology, it is important to put this influence into our teaching tools, and increase capacity any way we can.

BKH: Education cost is rising at a higher percentage rate per year than even health care cost. Why is the high inflation rate of higher education being essentially ignored as a problem?
KB: The truth is that it is not being ignored - it simply cannot be. Every year colleges and universities have to make the hard decisions of what programs to cut, what benefits to students to remove, and evaluate the ways in which they will allocate their resources in the most efficient way and still be able to operate.

Students have to constantly worry about how they are going to pay for their education, and how to replace financial aid that was here this year and gone the next.

BKH: Give an overview of the ATOM education advocacy and programs.
KB: ATOM has been involved in a variety of programs and areas of education advocacy. We have worked with elected officials such as Bob Shireman, former Undersecretary for the Department of Education, to address issues of college affordability and access.

More recently, we engaged with students from Ohio during their Alternative Student Break trip to expose them to the education system in Chicago and provide them with a background on current issues concerning educational opportunities for youth.

Finally, working with Chicago communities to help them identify the problems and solutions for creating effective and productive schools systems in their districts is an example through which ATOM finds agency to advocate for equal education and access for students across the nation.

BKH: How does ATOM ascertain what stakeholders to target for working with and working against specific to its education platform focus?
KB: We first identify the problem and who the stakeholders are. Next we identify what we want to see happen. The targets to work against are those who need to be moved, or what obstacles stand in the way of our goals. The targets to work with are those who can give us what we want.

BKH: How does ATOM measure the success of its objectives specific to its education platform focus?
KB: For our education platform, we identify a goal and set specific targets that we want to achieve. For example, college should be affordable and accessible for all students. This can be achieved through increased financial aid such as federal Pell grants and scholarships, lower tuition, and low interest rates on student loans.

BKH: How can someone join ATOM’s efforts specifically in its education mission?
KB: Log on to our website to learn more about ATOM and how to get involved!

BKH: Thank you Kaasha. Connect with ATOM on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. You may also subscribe to the ATOM Blog.

See also:
Part 1, What is ATOM?
Part 3, ATOM Youth Violence Prevention
Part 4, ATOM "Dream Act" Work
Part 5, ATOM Answers "Dream Act" Opposition

Follow Brenda Krueger Huffman on Twitter and join her on Facebook.