Neal Asbury opened his nationally syndicated “Neal Asbury’s Made in America” show on Radio America by urging listeners to look at the new job numbers with a jaundiced eye. Although Gallup predicted the new unemployment rate would hit 8.3 percent, the Obama administration once again was able to manipulate the jobless numbers to make it appear that the jobless rate has dropped below eight percent.
“You can’t take these job numbers seriously. They are just cooking the books. What the numbers don’t indicate is the number of people who have simply stopped looking for work. They aren’t even trying anymore so their numbers aren’t tabulated in the unemployment rate,” suggested co-host Dr. Rich Roffman.
Joining the show as a first time guest was Celia Bigelow, representing American Majority Action’s campus program.
“We keep hearing the Obama administration talking about falling unemployment numbers among youth 18-24. But these numbers are bogus. They aren’t going down, they’re going up, because more young people have stopped looking for jobs, so these numbers aren’t calculated in the unemployment numbers,” contended Bigelow.
Bigelow calls this “Fiscal Child Abuse,” because 152,000 young people have dropped out of the workforce during the past month alone.
“Conservative leaders have failed to reach out to college students. During this past election conservative leaders had a perfect opportunity to reach out to young people because the under-30 crowd has fared far worse in the Obama economy than any other demographic. In Obama’s first term students saw tuition increase 25 percent while their average earnings after graduation decrease by 6 percent. 53 percent of recent graduates are either unemployed or underemployed and graduates have about a 30 percent chance of moving home with their parents after graduation.”
She suggested that this is creating a culture of dependency, where college students and other young people see the government as the answer to their problems.
Neal and his co-host Dr. Rich Roffman turned the conversation to the impact that over regulation has on unemployment. “On last week’s show,Angela Logomasini of The Competitive Enterprise Institute discussed the perils of the government second guessing product manufacturers by establishing “hazard” mandates around “green chemistry” that forces manufacturers to reformulate products, and often puts them out of business, leading to job losses,” said Neal.
Neal added that current federal regulations plus those coming under Obamacare will cost American taxpayers and businesses $1.8 trillion annually, which according to experts is enough money for businesses to provide 35 million private sector jobs with an average salary of $50,000.
Dr. Roffman noted that the energy field is particularly vulnerable to over regulation by the EPA. This is especially onerous for refiners that are forced to meet regulation standards for cellulosic ethanol, a fuel source that does not exist in the United States. Yet refiners are fined for not following the regulation and are therefore forced to purchase credits in lieu of a fictitious product. This is government insanity! These costs have become an added gasoline tax passed on to consumers, and have impacted energy employment.
While on the topic of energy and transportation, Neal added that the EPA has demanded that automakers hit a fleet-wide fuel economy average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025–double today’s 27.3 standard—known as CAFÉ STANDARDS in the industry. The government says it would cost automakers $8.5 billion per year to comply, which means a spike in sticker prices of at least $2,000 to $2,800 for the consumer.
“What’s worse is that to meet these fuel standards cars will have to be smaller, be made of lighter materials and will ultimately be less safe to drive,” added Dr. Roffman. Neal’s next guest was first timer Michelle Minton from The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to advancing the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty. She discussed a three tier system for beer manufacturing, distribution and sales that gives the nation’s two largest breweries a 90 percent market share. She suggested that the system is rigged so that smaller breweries have little chance of enticing a distributor to carry their brand, due to agreements they have with the bigger breweries that frown on carrying potential competitors.
The good news, according to Minton, is that among the 3,000 small beer brewers in the U.S. some are finding distributors willing to carry craft beer.
“Even bigger brands like Sam Adams had a hard time initially getting distribution. Ironically, now bigger breweries that exploited the distribution system are trying to get these regulations dropped so they can set up their own distribution system that would cut out the middle man,” added Minton.
Made in America’s final guest was return guest Seton Motley, the president of Less Government, an organization dedicated to less government; including protecting the First Amendment from governmental assault.
Motley described the current court case involving GM and the government bailout they received.
“GM‘s entire case for bailout money was built on a lie. President Obama’s unique GM bailout contribution was effectively to nationalize the company, seeing to it that the federal government violated normal bankruptcy processes and legal precedent to protect the defective element at the heart of GM’s troubles: the financial interests of the UAW,” according to Motley.
Motley noted that in most bankruptcy cases secured bond holders are paid first. In the case of GM, they were moved to the back of the line, and the unions got their money first. In addition, $45.5 in debt was wiped off GM’s books with an agreement that saw GM pay no federal taxes.
“Essentially what happened is that the government created an old GM that carried the debt, and then a new GM, that wasn’t buried by the old debt. But the judge that originally ruled in favor of GM has discovered that he was lied to, and now the case is back in his court — and he’s not happy. At stake could be the entire GM bailout,” concluded Motley.
Taking up the GM fiasco, Neal noted that while Obama took credit for the GM bailout in his campaign stops in Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan to curry favor with labor unions, all three states have subsequently rejected trade unions and voted to become right-to-work states to curb unemployment and encourage more corporate investment.
“It’s obvious that unions don’t help create jobs. That’s why major auto manufacturers are building huge plants in South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee – all right-to-work states,” added Dr. Roffman.
Each week Neal Asbury’s Made in America provides Neal’s insights into the week’s top news stories and their impact on the worlds of entrepreneurship, small business ownership and the overall economy. Neal’s analysis, together with co-host Dr. Richard Roffman, a veteran 30-year publisher with extensive domestic and international experience, takes a non-biased approach based on real life experience in business as an American manufacturer and exporter. Made in America airs nationally each Saturday from 7-8:00 PM on Radio America. Link to Made in America at http://www.nealasbrysmadeinamerica.com.
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