Over the Labor Day Weekend my thoughts were with fellow U.S. citizens who are currently unemployed especially those who want to work, but are finding opportunities highly limited right now. This Blog Post is dedicated to all of you who are suffering in these circumstances with no end in sight.
Some want us to believe that all 80+ million of you are lazy and have no interest in finding work ever again. It's a catchy headline but it is so far from reality for those of us on the ground working to connect talented people with employment opportunities. I thought it was important to share some working knowledge on this topic.
I've had the privilege to live employment as a career for most of my adult life - almost 30 years! I've literally managed the hiring of billions of dollars worth of people across all business/functional areas inside market leaders where I learned for a fact that the acquisition of high caliber talent is THE Competitive Advantage inside all industries.
Think about it: No innovation, research, strategy, assessment, action plan, investment, hiring plan, sales or business result can be carried forward without talented people, so how is it possible that millions of fellow citizens have no place to go to work today; no place to take their skills, competencies & credentials; no place to achieve shared goals while propelling their own lives and families forward.
Of course it's possible because when U.S. economic policy (monetary, fiscal, tax, regulatory, etc) lacks 'certainty' and 'sanity' it robs businesses of information that is critical for planning and forecasting. Executives cannot predict wins, losses or the future of their businesses without some level of certainty. That's it.
I have served as a Director & Executive in Human Resources for some of the most successful companies on the planet. I can tell you from experience and 14 years of research that there is no foundation to launch new jobs from if there is only UNCERTAINTY coming from our government leaders in the form of talking points, legislation, public policies and actions.
Without CERTAINTY from our government it's impossible for employers to conduct meaningful impact analysis or project return-on-investment (ROI) on any corporate strategy, so decisions, programs & initiatives - including hiring - are stalled or frozen.
Think about it: What do you think happens when businesses and executive teams…
-cannot predict the future of economic policy?
-cannot predict the behavior of political leaders?
-cannot gain access to the 'full' world-view, geopolitical perspective or global agendas of political leaders?
-have no clue what our health, welfare, and retirement programs - including ObamaCare - will look like or what they will cost families, corporations, unions, government employees, & retired citizens this year or in years that follow?
-cannot predict the costs that will be incurred in the form of taxes in the name of expanding programs like "Affordable Care" and others that follow?
-have no clue who or what industry will be targeted, taxed or fined next under the cover of costly federal programs and/or regulations designed to favor one industry, competitor, player, donor or agenda over another?
-cannot predict whether political leaders will take an action for a noble purpose, a self-serving purpose, or as a means to take all eyes off every uncertainty listed above?
When required margins are not attainable and projected ROI is not 'somewhat' clear companies simply do not and often cannot move forward with certain strategies & hiring plans.
To take it a step further reducing- the-workforce is always a solution on the table in times of massive uncertainty and/or financial distress inside corporations. Reducing headcount, cancelling projects and eliminating the talent tied to it, closing facilities that are more expensive to run than those in other states, and consolidating facilities, operations, and departments which can lead to lay-offs are all cost-containment approaches & risk mitigation strategies out of many that are considered during any challenging economic times.
It doesn't matter who likes the program or not. This is simple: When corporations are handed any expensive mandatory program with a mandatory roll-out date with no costs attached - there is no way to plan for the program's funding & implementation. That's it.
Ask your Chief Financial Officer… All firms have a responsibility to act 'mostly' on information that can be KNOWN. When "Missing or Contrived information" is acted on, the risk to the organization's whole enterprise rises.
As we all know corporations have investors, shareholders, clients, current employees & retirees. Small businesses often have the life savings of families tied into their fiscal decisions. Everyone is relying on the people in-charge to make fiscally sound decisions tied to both short-&-long-term goals that ensure the whole company won't go under.
They must make decisions very slowly & cautiously, and/or 'wait as long as it takes' for information that confirms some level of certainty so they are positioned to forecast results that will leave them with the ability to reinvest in and grow what they have already built.
Allow me to share a post-SuperStorm Sandy challenge to provide clarity: I have friends who don't know if they should rebuild and/or raise their homes in flood zones along the Jersey Shore.
It's almost one year later and it is not crystal clear how high their annual flood insurance premiums or property taxes will rise given the unique challenges SuperStorm Sandy brought to our region.
How can a middle class family invest in a $100K renovation which includes a mandatory 8-foot lift of their home's foundation if they have no clue (no certainty) regarding what they will be responsible for paying next year and the years that follow.
If a $6K annual premium in flood insurance will move to $20 in 2015, guess what? The decision is easy for some. Many people would not or could not make the decision to rebuild because they won't be able to afford it in the long-run. It would be time to move. It's similar to closing a small business and moving on when there is no way or means to keep it solvent.
When you lack the financial answers you need to forecast what the future will hold, you are left in the chaotic state of limbo & gridlock. You can't make a single move until data that directly impacts your decisions and bottom line is available.
The same holds true in that relationship between U.S. economic policy and its direct impact on businesses. Did we forget the basic math lessons we learned in class with Mr. Fred Adams (another Tish favorite) at Pt. Pleasant Beach High School - Of course we didn't.
There is a lot of tangible certainty inside the Math. My career taught me that "messing with the numbers" is rarely incompetence - it's usually a thought-out strategy designed to bolster or undermine an end-result that is often executed by professionals who are convinced you and I are too incompetent to notice.
When fake math and technology is used by experts to hide risks, bolster the appearance of some economic condition or is leveraged for competitive advantage you're taking risks that could slow or stall growth inside businesses for years to come. Wasn't that one of the Lessons of Our Time after the 2008 Financial Meltdown. It was.
Just because we don't own or aren't invested in these firms doesn't mean their survival isn't meaningful to the quality of life all around us. You don't have to be a business owner to know a thriving U.S. & local economy is good for all citizens. It creates positive opportunities. It contributes to tax relief, it helps schools, contributes to the quality of all kinds of community-centric issues, and it certainly helps all of us recover more quickly from both natural and man-made disasters.
We are - in fact - killing the dreams of small business people before they get started right now because many firms are afraid to invest, grow, or execute hiring that takes them beyond their 50th employee... that is until they completely understand their actual financial responsibilities tied to ObamaCare.
Only history will be able to report & judge how massive the harm has been to our citizens (and it's bad according to the people looking for jobs across the U.S.) AND how many opportunities and businesses our own economic policies delayed or destroyed on purpose, but none of that information can help us now.
I speak to employment candidates who are your mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, & children every single week across this country. They have terrific attitudes, great credentials, incredible leader behaviors but so many simply can't jump-start or re-start their lives and careers "fast enough" because job creation in America is at a "stand-still" in many markets & regions. It's extremely slow in other areas.
Financial Journalist Terry Keenan has been reporting since the summer of 2011 that 10 Temporary Employees (with zero health, welfare & retirement benefits) are being secured by U.S. firms for every ONE Full-Time hire. OMGosh - Do you know how many years this trend will set back the success & careers of citizens trying to break into our employment market now? How did this happen? Why would we leave terrific employment prospects with new ideas and energized minds out of any market?
You see I believe "UNCERTAINTY" is the intended strategy of the current mission - that is to interrupt "Economic Growth" to achieve "Wealth Re-Distribution." Every leader and decision-maker driving this mission knows it because they planned it that way. Think "no pain, no gain."
Could it be that having as few U.S. citizens as possible working becomes the means that forces millions without corporate-sponsored health benefits (because they have no job) to the Exchanges inside ObamaCare.
Big Data is needed to prevail as well which will arrive in the form of access to all of our private information stored in one place so they can finish their transformation of our nation like they promised.
That would give the U.S. government the level of personal financial & health data needed on enough of us to create the algorithms and formulas (more math) that will be used to ration care and siphon funds for other pet projects -they have been finding ways to do this since the beginning of time = i.e. more government-funded programs using taxpayer money from our health care exchanges, (i.e. there is no health care lock box just like there is no Social Security lock box). Now perhaps that amazing push for a "single-payer system" finally makes some sense to a few people.
Taking over 1/6th of our economy means U.S. government officials can fund programs tied to their special interests. This goal dates back to the Healthcare push by Senator Ted Kennedy in the 1960's & 70's and again in the late 1990's with HillaryCare - a bill which literally died in CEO Hank Greenberg's Board Room @ AIG headquarters @ 70 Pine Street in NYC.
Many believe that Hank Greenberg was targeted and pushed out of his company by AG Eliot Spitzer over political issues which included HillaryCare and that AIG Financial Products execs & others who wanted to use his company to play a more personally rewarding role inside the Subprime Mortgage/CDO Scandal helped shove him out. (I'll blog about that amazing story another day).
Hillary arrived in our AIG offices with the same Healthcare agenda and non-transparent approach President Obama used. In those days however strong & revered business giants successfully repelled her and refused to let her execute her social re-engineering effort off the backs of their companies and hard work.
Many of the companies tied to ObamaCare in 2013 were literally wards of the U.S. Government after the Financial Collapse in 2008, so let's just say the powerhouse companies of yesterday lost all negotiation powers. You don't have to ask me what I think, but I'll ask you: Where do we think the destruction of our markets started? (and I promise you - I mostly don't ask a question until I've exhausted research that give me answers I'm confident in.)
Hillary's approach was to shut doors during her Healthcare meetings so no one could watch her trying to steam-roll over all of the health care business partners, while herding the American people (all of us) into service & payment categories separated by our ethnicity, gender, class and regional demographics. Now perhaps the constant focus on dividing our nation on the basis of race, economic status, & gender rather than 'uniting us' makes more sense to people today than it did yesterday.
Now let's move to the ridiculous "U.S. Talking Points!" We all know they are created daily to hide real agendas and to blind us from the horrendous lack of leadership on all sides of the U.S. political aisle.
It's time to stop painting over the true meaning of ObamaCare, the unemployment situation, our stock market volatility, the economic chaos ushered in & produced by their policies & all the systemic fraud-for-profit schemes playing out with the blessing of Congress across the nation. Perhaps it's time for all the Fed-In/Fed-Out Folly at the Federal Reserve to be exposed for the smoke & mirrors it is and has been for too long.
When you put it all together what we have are frightening systemic failures everywhere driving the output of bogus business intelligence that is repeatedly used by governments & institutions alike to drive and "justify" economic policy in every corner of the world. In short, they fix the numbers to fit any agenda. But we knew that already.
Reducing all U.S. facts to less than '140 characters' on Twitter could be the death of our nation as we knew her because U.S. citizens will never know enough or have the correct information about the 'root causes' of our challenges & the anguish our people are facing...
Having our heads in the sand may be a less stressful way to live, (not really because it's hard to breath with your head in the sand!) but facts for the love of fellow Americans have to inspire the kind of citizen action and engagement that would help our nation in these desperate times.
These particular facts are very disturbing to me because they confirm my personal experiences on the ground throughout the U.S.: "The employment-to-population ratio is the best measure of labor market conditions and it currently shows that there has been almost no improvement whatsoever over the past three years," according to Paul Ashworth, chief North American economist for Capital Economics, who wrote this fact in a note to clients obtained by CNN.
That figure accounts for the proportion of working Americans compared with the number of adults in the country. You see 58.7% of American adults are working, but when the actual employment-population ratio is taken into consideration, "it leaves about 82 million, or almost 41% of our adult-aged citizens unemployed." according to Mr. Ashworth.
The Senate Budget Committee recently released findings showing that the government spent roughly $1.03 trillion on welfare programs last year, funding 83 separate efforts to provide assistance to Americans.
A separate study out of Capitol Hill revealed that the number of people enrolled to receive federal assistance by way of food stamps has hit a new astonishing record high with roughly 47 million US residents.
And yes - a massive number of under-employed and unemployed citizens had to turn to the Food Stamp Food Chain over the last 3 years. Don't mock them; we should all be helping them by supporting strong U.S. economic policies that promote "Economic Growth" which always includes Job Creation!
How can it be that so many millions of fellow citizens have been sent home to their couches left to fend for themselves inside 83 welfare programs? Are you telling me the United States of America cannot do better than this? I will never believe that.
How can we ignore the fact that since 2010 up to 53% of our college graduates have had no access to a job, benefits or housing options after college for upwards to two years? Oh - that's right I forgot we solved that problem - young competent adults can all stay on mom & dad's health plan until their mid-twenties now. Why are we all just sitting around as if we and our nation have no control over such a disgraceful outcome?
U.S. Unemployment Numbers remain a hot topic in articles published worldwide, but if you're interested in the real numbers, I challenge you to read the research on www.ShadowStats.com by creator & economist John Williams who argues the unemployment rate in the U.S. has often been as high as Spain's & other European countries - that is 22% or higher since 2008.
The reported numbers @ 7% - 8% fail to count too many unemployed people. These stats have been coming from ADP's Employer Service Division for decades - that's the payroll company founded by former NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg and where I worked as a manager & director in the late 80's & early 90's.
Senator Lautenberg who recently died was a great business leader but in my view his company simply left out too many of our valued citizens - the numbers do not tell the real story and the people in charge of those numbers make sure of it. We've used a bogus reporting system to report unemployment to ourselves for two decades and no one blinked? How come?
You see - Gov't Headline Employment #s stopped counting our Long-Term unemployed citizens in 1994. Isn't that convenient? U.S. Headline #s only look at people who looked for jobs in the last 4 weeks! Do we enjoy fooling ourselves about an issue this important to the lives of our citizens?
Are we forgetting the number of children who get stuck in failing schools because many of their unemployed parents can never afford to leave those neighborhoods never mind afford college?
For people in their 40's & 50's who lost their jobs in the last five years and didn't have the funds or support to move to new job markets - we've just introduced a generation of their children to a cycle-of-poverty and reliance on government programs that their own immigrant grandparents fought like hell to get away from 40 to 50 years ago!
Does hiding these facts make us feel better about the head of a family who was laid off from a job 4 years ago or who gave up and stopped looking 2 years ago? Do we care that 8.9 million U.S. citizens are now receiving Disability Benefits from Social Security Insurance with an obscene percentage of these recipients taking this money as "a form of unemployment" because they are not disabled, (Google the stories on the Long Island Railroad and then tell me if you care that healthy fellow citizens are taking money that belong to truly disabled people in our nation).
Okay - Save me from going off topic, but my point here is an important one: The lives and destiny of a staggering number of fellow human beings are now controlled by the U.S. government. Does this remind you of the land of the free or are we talking about the plight of unrecognizable huddled masses in some other country in the world?
Is it time to call the White House Mom & Dad's Place & and Capitol Hill Pop-Pop & Grandma's House or should we break this chain-of-failure called "complete - but too often necessary - dependency" by bringing good economic policies and CERTAINTY back to our markets and communities?
Our Long-Term Discouraged Workers who are no longer looking for work (Google the U-6 Crowd) along with Part-Timers who are praying for full time work are all Under-Employed citizens who ARE NOT counted by our Government anymore. Who decided the struggle of these people mattered so little that they didn't deserve to be accounted for ever again?
Think about it: CPI, GDP and employment numbers rarely match our personal and business experiences, so the other joke on us is that the Consumer Price Rate Index Calculation (Experience vs. Reported) was also changed by the U.S. government in 1996. Do you know why?
Well - John Williams writes, "Under the misused cover of academic theory, the U.S. government used the hedonic quality methodology theory to under-report inflation, so they could cut annual cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security, etc."***
It should be fascinating to see how academic theories, algorithmic models & formulas like these - oh like those also used to hide the systemic risk inside the man-made Subprime Mortgage Meltdown/CDO Scandal - will treat all of us inside the ObamaCare payment systems starting October 1st.
Can we inspire or outrage enough fellow citizens with honest numbers, so the difficult-to-hear real issues 'just might' be addressed as the opportunities they are for our nation? Or would you prefer a Thelma & Louise moment?
Can't we challenge our business schools to prepare our students to take over these issues… let's reward them if they succeed! You don't have to be a Recruitment Subject Matter Expert to know that the people sitting four decades straight in the same chairs in Congress do not have the skills or courage to lead the change needed for the next generation. Congressional Lifers are too personally invested in all this.
Help Wanted: The next generation to replace all of them! Is it you?
Didn't Albert Einstein say something like, "The definition of insanity is executing the same plan and expecting a different result?" Sadly our nation's use of bogus numbers and endless anti-business actions over & over again directly impacts the quality of life for all our under-employed citizens the way it is supposed to. Call it the new modern-day definition of "insanity" at its finest.
Perhaps FACTS will motivate more of us to make a difference before next Labor Day. Maybe we'll involve ourselves in what the change might look like so a maximum number of people can prevail, thrive and get back to work in established businesses and/or in the amazing emerging markets all around us.
Business leaders across the nation have explained in exhaustive detail that some amount of CERTAINTY is exactly what they must have to grow, launch and expand their businesses right now. Few in Washington DC are listening or care because those ideas & requests will threaten both their stated and silent agendas. But hey - at least the global playing field will finally be leveled for those who wish it so leaving the U.S. banished to her new place in the world as a less than exceptional player.
How could this happen to the nation the Greatest Generation handed us?
I've concluded that the RED LINES crossed in our economy have been crossed by design. That is it's all part of the plan.
I disagree with any of you who think all the above has happened to our nation & economy because of "incompetence." No, No, No - they need you to think like that so their plan can work while you are busy focused on the wrong issues.
I have been assessing human behavior and talent worldwide close to 3 decades and it is my professional opinion that there is no incompetence here. All the above is a remarkable competitive strategy & action plan…
This is what we missed while standing on the unemployment lines: Massive & multi-tiered uncertainty is being used, leveraged and applied in the United States as the brilliant strategy that it is to purposely interrupt and destroy the livelihoods of targeted citizens for a "larger good" - a higher cause.
Sadly, this new 'larger good' was defined and created by the agreement of leaders who can't win unless the voice of the people is literally left begging for a job or asking for help from some government program.
History has shown, you must diminish the success of others to achieve transformational social re-engineering for any stated mission that calls for "Wealth Re-Distribution over Economic Growth."
Let's be fair, all along President Obama has been 100% completely honest and upfront about this mission. I don't think enough of us understood what those assertions actually meant a few years ago, so I'm just asking people to take a fresh look, do your own research and consider how all this is working for you, us, your community and our nation.
Try to keep in mind that there is no chance for consistent economic growth or a thriving job market when UNCERTAINTY remains the only key element that is certain. - That's it.
***Check out Mr. Williams complete study on shadowstats.com or @ Forbes.com!!! Walter J. "John" Williams was born in 1949. He received an A.B. in Economics, cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1971, and was awarded a M.B.A. from Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in 1972, where he... (Full story is available).
